Committee Will Work to Replenish Ridgewood's Trees

The Ridgewood Village Council is expected to vote Wednesday night to establish a shade tree commission, a volunteer committee that will be tasked with replenishing a recently decimated population of trees in the village.

According to Councilwoman Bernadette Walsh, the chair of the Ridgewood Environmental Advisory Committee, which has led the push for the commission, more than hundreds of trees were lost to the village in the wake of hurricanes in recent years.

The shade tree commission will be tasked with raising the funds to replenish that supply, she said, providing trees to interested residents and advising on how to locate the plantings safely away from the public right of way and power lines.

The council will decide later on a shade tree policy, including on a controversial proposal to enforce restrictions on the removal of trees.

The Ridgewood Parks and Recreation Department annually purchases trees at wholesale, but Walsh said having an active shade tree commission will open the village up to thousands in additional funds to speed up the process of replacing the downed and dying trees around the municipality.

“By having the shade tree commission, we’re going to be eligible for grant monies you can only get with a shade tree commission,” she said.

Part of the nine-member commission’s responsibilities will also include education, disseminating information on the trees most likely to survive storms and last for the long term.

Walsh said she hopes the commission, long discussed by the environmental advisory committee and combating a severely dwindled tree population, will have an impact reaching decades into the future.

“We’re so backed up that to have an impact this is a 20-year project,” she said. “Everything is for what Ridgewood is going to look like in 50 to 100 years.”