10/12/09: ReTree WNY Volunteers Replant ’06 October Surprise Storm Tree Casualties

“I think it really adds to the beauty of the home if a tree is growing in front of it,” said Fred Brace walking down Buffalo’s Pelham Drive in the Niagara Falls Boulevard neighborhood. Brace said his community is really sprucing up just three years after the October Surprise Storm.
Area block clubs joined up with ReTree Western New York to replace the plants damaged in the snow storm. Brace said trees are part of the University District community.
“All you have to do is look out at the suburbs at these two, three four half-million dollar homes plopped down in the middle of an area and there’s no tree around. The area is leveled and there’s no tree around, to me that’s a very sterile and not very warm and friendly environment,” said Brace.
ReTree WNY’s Arthur Traver III said they set out to replace half of the 60,000 street trees destroyed in the storm. Traver said they’re matching the municipalities tree for tree.
“We’ve put in just over 11,000 trees on the ReTree end. And the municipalities at a minimum have put in another 11,000,” said Traver.
The ReTree WNY program has teamed up with 19 municipalities across the region. Those are broken into smaller block clubs. For example, there are 160 groups here in Buffalo.
“Studies have shown, people are healthier and there appears to be less crime in areas with a healthy tree canopy,” said Traver.
“It’s important to plant trees because it’s good for the environment,” said nine year old Natalie Pietro. The Buffalo girl used her Columbus Day Holiday from school to learn more about Mother Earth. Pietro was among dozens of Niagara River Greenway volunteers helping efforts to replant 1,000 trees this year around Buffalo’s Olmsted Parks. Conservancy President Thomas Herrera-Mishler says the parks have lost many of their trees over the years. At its peak the Olmsted Park system had 42,000 trees. Herrera-Mishler said between the ’06 storm and more than 60 years of neglect that number is down to 13,000.
“This is an all out battle to reforest our parks. The reason we want to do it is because we want our city to be the greenest city in America,” said Herrera-Mishler.