Flowing Freely in Forest Reserve 27
It’s Saturday morning and I am swooping down a single-track trail in Lusaka’s Forest Reserve 27 though a green canopy that wasn’t here just two months ago. Recent rains have transformed these 1,8000 hectares from a dust bowl into a stunning green mountain biker paradise in just a few weeks. Now I do my best […]
Read MoreHow to Get a Free River Birch Tree in Washington DC
My new river birch tree
I’ve always wanted a tree in my back yard. While my neighbourhood, Petworth, has beautiful old trees, all I have is a tree stump in my garden. The previous owners of my house cut down the tree that was in my yard, and now my west-facing back yard gets hot! in the summer.
A tree in my yard would provide shade, visual interest, a place for birds, and be one small contribution to cooling the District of Columbia, replacing its tree cover, and reducing rain runoff. That last reason, runoff, is where the District Department of Environment comes in.
Petworth, like much of old Washington, DC, is on a single sewer line system, which means that when it rains, the rain water goes into the sewer system and overwhelms the Blue Plains water treatment plant. In the past, they just dumped raw sewage into the Potomac. Now the city is trying to stop this practice at its source – the hundreds of thousands of downspouts across DC.
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