Loftin Park is set to get a foliage face lift after the Bellaire City Council on Monday approved a partnership with CenterPoint Energy for a program called Right Tree; Right Place.
CenterPoint funds the program to educate people about what types of trees are okay to plant near power lines. The company is organizing a community educational event for late March where it will remove “undesirable” trees from Loftin Park and replace them with species that do not grow tall enough to interfere with power lines.
“After Hurricane Ike, we revamped this program because a lot of the outages were because of debris that had fallen on the lines,” CenterPoint Spokeswoman Kellie Mery said to city council members. “We’ve pinpointed an area that needs work, and we want to partner with ya’ll.”
The company wants to use Loftin Park as an example by removing seven trees that grow too tall for power lines: four Hackberry trees, one Mulberry tree, one Chinese Tallow and one large vine. CenterPoint plans to pay for removing the foliage.
The trees will be replaced with more desirable specimens for the location: Dwarf Crepe Myrtles, River Birches, Mexican Plums and Southern Wax Myrtles. The Bellaire/Southwest Houston Rotary Club will donate $2,000 to pay for the new trees.
The park will have a placard describing why those species are good choices for planting near power lines. City leaders and CenterPoint officials hope Bellaire residents will use the lesson next time they visit the plant nursery.
“Instead of planting that five-gallon live oak, that looks so innocuous, under that power line … There might be other desirable trees you can plant,” said City Manager Bernie Satterwhite.
According to city financial records, it cost nearly $838,000 to clean debris from Hurricane Ike, which included picking up fallen trees.
By: Angela Grant on Fri, Jan 22, 2010
City Government, Community, News