Tree-planting effort focuses on midstate counties
Photo courtesy: Commonwealth Media Services
(Harrisburg) — An effort to plant millions of trees in Pennsylvania by 2025 is putting special focus on the midstate.
The Keystone 10 Million Trees Partnership is coordinated by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. The goal is to improve the health of the bay by cleaning up waterways.
It kicked off with a tree-planting on a farm near Mount Joy, Lancaster County.
Agriculture Secretary Russell Redding said it was the perfect place, because a safe, abundant food supply depends on clean water.
“The relationship is about the environment,” Redding said. “And the relationship is about what we’re doing in Pennsylvania to make sure that the water is clean right here on this farm in Lancaster County, but also through this bay watershed.”
Trees will be planted in 43 counties in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. They will help prevent farm run-off, decreasing pollution from sediment and fertilizers.
Efforts will get extra attention in Lancaster, Dauphin, Cumberland, York, and Franklin counties. Heavy agricultural use in those counties collectively puts more than 30 million pounds of nitrogen pollution into streams, creeks, and rivers each year.
Other areas of the midstate are working on their own tree-planting efforts. The City of Lancaster plans to plant a record high 115 trees this Friday.
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