Ashburn Park looked like a grassland with blue pickup sticks scattered about Friday as 42 county employees dug and planted more than 300 trees.
The four-foot blue tubes the employees placed over the trees are supporting the one to one-and-a-half-foot saplings until they grow tall enough to forego their wooden stakes, which were taped to the tubes. The saplings will take one to four years before they gain their independence and about 20 years overall to provide a forested area on the 16-acre park, half of which is already covered with trees.
In celebration of Arbor Day, the employees gathered at the park bridge at about 1 p.m. to learn the basics of tree planting, then divided into teams of two for the three hours of work ahead. The spade crews cut holes into the ground, while the dibble bar crews did the planting of seven native species of trees, including sycamore, sweet gum, green ash, black walnut, silky dogwoods and two types of oak, all from the Department of Forestry nursery.
"Even at this size, they are still doing their job," said Mark Moszak, program administrator for the Environmental and Historic Resources Program.
The trees formed the beginning of two riparian buffers along an unnamed tributary of the Beaverdam Run that flows through the park into Broad Run, which in turn moves into the Potomac River next to Broad Run Farms. One of the buffers was set 50 foot from one of three streams that converge within the park, while the second buffer set 100 feet back along another of the streams, which are in the Broad Run watershed. Each of the urban forest buffers extended about 200 feet.
"We need to restore buffers to our streams, and where we can do that in combination with a public park makes common sense," said Supervisor Charles Harris (D-Broad Run), who helped plant the trees.
THE BUFFERS will be able to filter out pollutants from nearby impervious surfaces, including rooftops, parking lots and sidewalks, resulting in improved water quality. Tree roots absorb surface and sub-surface nutrient runoff and filter out other pollutants, such as lawn chemicals and salt. The roots stabilize stream banks, while the foliage catches rainwater and cools off the water in streams, providing a healthier environment for micro and macro-organisms.
The trees in an urban forest form a protection from floods by providing water storage and, with other vegetation, by helping slow down the rapid flow of floodwaters, which can erode stream banks and dump excess sediment into the water.
"Other benefits would be wildlife. There are no wildlife habitats in grass," said Dana Malone, county urban forester with the Department of Building and Development.
The two tree buffers will provide connect an existing forested area in the park to the new urban forest, which will provide a food source and habitat for wildlife and food for aquatic life.
"Then you have aesthetics, that’s another asset … a mixture of great color," said Malone, who helped Moszak design the tree-planting program, held for the first time this year through the Environmental and Historic Resources Program. In February 2002, the county established the Environmental and Historic Resources Program to coordinate and oversee programs and practices that impact the environment and historic resources, along with facilitating cooperation and coordination with state and federal agencies and post-secondary institutions.
"We are able to spend a very little amount of money and actually generate a huge return on investment related to pollution filtration," Moszak said.
THAT RETURN is something John Cochran, Comprehensive Services Act coordinator, mentioned.
"I have lived in Loudoun County since 1972, and I watched a lot of trees that were here make way for apartments and houses. It’s nice to put some of it back," said the Purcellville resident as he took a break from shoveling holes into the grass.
Jennifer Franconeri, teen services specialist, agreed. "[With] so many trees coming down because of construction and building new houses, it’s nice to see some go up," she said.
The tree-planting program aimed to teach county employees about watersheds and stream corridors and to explain the county’s restoration objectives outlined in the Revised Comprehensive Plan, adopted in July 2001, Moszak said.
"This is an opportunity to get a hands-on opportunity to see what that means. It’s resource awareness and an education effort," Moszak said. "I would like to see programmatically we provide a spring and fall event. … Can the county provide facilitation for other stream restoration efforts, a spring and fall employee-driven effort to educate [about] and improve local streams?"
Ashburn Park is located at 43645 Partlow Road in Ashburn and sits next to Ashburn Farm.