I-10/12 Split Replanting Begins

Baton Rouge, LA – It’s been 10 years since Baton Rouge Green was alert­ed to the fact that the Louisiana Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion & Devel­op­ment (DOTD) would be widen­ing the I‑10 cor­ri­dor through the heart of Baton Rouge, affect­ing thou­sands of trees that the non-prof­it had plant­ed and cared for over the past 35 years.

In 2021, 256 mature Live Oaks (Quer­cus vir­gini­ana) were removed from the cen­tral por­tion of the inter­change. Those trees had been plant­ed by Baton Rouge Green in 2000.

Tomor­row, the replant­i­ng is final­ly beginning.

This week Baton Rouge Green arborists, staff and con­trac­tors will be installing Phase I of the replant­i­ng plan which will include 76 trees in three species: Live Oak (Quer­cus vir­gini­ana), Bald Cypress (Tax­odi­um ascen­dens), and Over­cup Oak (Quer­cus lyra­ta).

The full design for the entire inter­change, cre­at­ed by CAR­BO Land­scape Archi­tec­ture, calls for over 400 trees in a sprawl­ing arrange­ment using six native species. The addi­tion­al trees will be plant­ed in two more phas­es over the next two winters.

Fund­ing for the green infra­struc­ture was pro­vid­ed in a land­mark agree­ment made between DOTD, Boh Broth­ers (the lead con­trac­tor on the project), and Baton Rouge Green. Dur­ing the project devel­op­ment, DOTD and Boh Broth­ers agreed to reim­burse Baton Rouge Green for each tree removed. Under then-Sec­re­tary Shawn Wil­son, DOTD com­mit­ted to a reim­burse­ment of 2:1 for the 256 trees lost, mak­ing it pos­si­ble for Baton Rouge Green to plant over 500 new trees after project completion.

“One of the ini­tia­tives in our effort to trans­form trans­porta­tion in Louisiana is team­work,” said DOTD Sec­re­tary Glenn Ledet. ​“This is a great exam­ple of team­work. Work­ing with orga­ni­za­tions that are striv­ing to make a dif­fer­ence and improve our great state is ben­e­fi­cial for every­one. I’m proud DOTD played a part in the improve­ments and thank Baton Rouge Green for all they do and for the pas­sion they have for the region.”

Shan­non Blake­man, part­ner at CAR­BO and Baton Rouge Green board mem­ber, reflect­ed on the project, say­ing, ​“Work­ing along­side Baton Rouge Green allowed us to approach the inter­change design with a focus on mar­ry­ing envi­ron­men­tal stew­ard­ship with bold, inten­tion­al design. We want­ed to move beyond tra­di­tion­al high­way land­scap­ing to cre­ate a high-per­form­ing ecosys­tem that man­ages the site’s chal­lenges while offer­ing a lush, wel­com­ing ​‘Green’ gate­way to every­one enter­ing the Cap­i­tal Region. It’s an hon­or to con­tribute to a project that brings design and long-term eco­log­i­cal health together.”

“We’re thrilled about the oppor­tu­ni­ty to com­plete­ly trans­form one of the most impor­tant cross­roads in the state. This is a 100% native species plant palette specif­i­cal­ly curat­ed to com­ple­ment the bot­tom­land hard­wood for­est of the adja­cent Ward Creek,” added Christo­pher Coop­er, Baton Rouge Green’s Direc­tor of Oper­a­tions and lead arborist.

In the fol­low­ing phas­es Baton Rouge Green will install Black Tupe­lo (Nys­sa syl­vat­i­ca), Swamp Titi (Cyril­la racemi­flo­ra), and Sweet­bay Mag­no­lia (Mag­no­lia vir­gini­ana).

“Over the next three years, we will see over 400 trees plant­ed across 6 indi­vid­ual sites. With a large-scale plant­i­ng such as this, we are tak­ing it slow and learn­ing from the site as we go in order to achieve max­i­mum suc­cess. Phase I, hap­pen­ing this week, will estab­lish the 76 largest grow­ing trees (Live Oak, Over­cup Oak, and Bald­cy­press) and will lay the ground­work for the small and medi­um trees com­ing in Phas­es II and III,” added Cooper.

As for the dif­fer­ence between the 400 cur­rent­ly planned for the I‑10/I‑12 split and the 500+ intend­ed, Baton Rouge Green will plant an addi­tion­al 100 trees on oth­er sites along I‑10 in com­ing years.

“We absolute­ly want­ed to get 500+ trees replant­ed at this crit­i­cal junc­ture in our city, but space and safe­ty restric­tions didn’t allow for it. Which just means we get to spread that good work a lit­tle fur­ther down the road,” said Sage Foley, Baton Rouge Green’s Exec­u­tive Director.

Those plans are still in the works, said Foley.

THE 1,000 TREE CHALLENGE

After the agree­ment with LA DOTD and Boh Broth­ers was set, Baton Rouge Green decid­ed to use that planned work and fund­ing as a launch point for even more new road­way trees, and the 1,000 Tree Chal­lenge was launched in 2022.

The 1,000 Tree Chal­lenge is the urban forestry group’s effort to install not only the 500 trees along I‑10 fund­ed by the reim­burse­ment agree­ment with LA DOTD, but to raise fund­ing to match that for an addi­tion­al 500 trees to be plant­ed on oth­er major cor­ri­dors across the city by 2032. The Chal­lenge will require rais­ing anoth­er $500,000+ for a total goal of at least $1 Mil­lion. That fund­ing cov­ers the cost of the plant­i­ngs and the first year of estab­lish­ment care over­seen by Baton Rouge Green’s pro­fes­sion­al arborists. So far, the group has raised about $750,000 and installed about 350 towards the Chal­lenge goals.

Oth­er roads on the group’s tar­get list for their 1,000 Tree Chal­lenge include por­tions of Air­line High­way, Flori­da Boule­vard, Gov­ern­ment Street, Perkins Road and Bur­bank Dri­ve. Baton Rouge Green will con­tin­ue to seek pri­vate gifts and grants to com­plete the Challenge.

A key fac­tor in this effort: Baton Rouge Green intends to wrap all these new­ly plant­ed pub­lic trees into their Liv­ing Road­ways pro­gram. Liv­ing Road­ways cur­rent­ly boasts 26 roads or inter­change sites with over 4,300 trees that the non-prof­it active­ly cares for with entire­ly pri­vate and cor­po­rate sup­port. The group receives no local, state or fed­er­al fund­ing for the ongo­ing care of these com­mu­ni­ty trees.

WHY PLANT TREES ON ROADWAYS?

Plant­i­ng trees pro­duces myr­i­ad ben­e­fits for humans, the envi­ron­ment, and the local econ­o­my, such as car­bon seques­tra­tion, pol­lu­tion cap­ture, and low­er tem­per­a­tures, to name a few. Baton Rouge Green’s focus on road­way plant­i­ngs is intend­ed to help accom­plish the fol­low­ing major goals:

• Improve Stormwa­ter Man­age­ment: large canopy trees are the first defense against flood­ing, pre­vent­ing stormwa­ter runoff into cost­ly built infra­struc­ture. A sin­gle mature oak tree can reduce flood­ing by 20,000 gal­lons of stormwa­ter each year. Trees help mit­i­gate the neg­a­tive effects of con­crete urbanization.

• Inter­cept harm­ful green­house gas­es & scrub pol­lu­tants at the source: by plant­i­ng direct­ly next to road­ways, the trees help trap car­bon diox­ide and sequester car­bon in their trunks right where vehi­cle emis­sions hap­pen. The trees’ leaves remove air­borne pol­lu­tants, espe­cial­ly par­tic­u­late mat­ter, i.e. PM-10, mak­ing the air cleaner.

• Inspire improve­ment, civic pride and deter lit­ter­ing: data shows that when land­scapes are improved and trees are plant­ed, area prop­er­ty own­ers are more like­ly to make improve­ments as well. Well-main­tained green infra­struc­ture improves phys­i­cal and men­tal health, inspires pride of place, and can lead to cit­i­zens being more invest­ed in car­ing for their community.

• Adapt to the effects of cli­mate change: trees low­er sur­face and air tem­per­a­tures around them, reduc­ing heat island effects. A rec­og­nized result of cli­mate change, extreme heat dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly affects the elder­ly and dis­ad­van­taged mem­bers of a community.

About Baton Rouge Green: Since its found­ing in 1987, Baton Rouge Green has been lead­ing and inspir­ing the plant­i­ng and sus­tain­ing of our com­mu­ni­ty trees and green spaces. Baton Rouge Green’s Liv­ing Road­ways pro­gram began in 1991 and now encom­pass­es over 4,300 trees along I‑10, I‑110, I‑12 and oth­er major thor­ough­fares. The 1,000 Tree Chal­lenge is an ini­tia­tive to improve the com­mu­ni­ty canopy and expand the Liv­ing Road­ways pro­gram foot­print. Learn more at baton​rouge​green​.com.