(Washington, DC) The District Department of Transportation (DDOT) today issued a final report on the progress made to enhance the urban tree canopy and reduce stormwater runoff in three grant projects under the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA).

The three coordinated projects—Impervious Surface Reduction, Green Median Renovation, and Tree Canopy Renovation—were all funded by ARRA via the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), through the Clean Water State Revolving Fund (CWSRF), and were administered by the District Department of the Environment (DDOE). DDOT also worked in partnership with the Office of Planning (OP) to select appropriate sites for the projects.

With total funding of $4.25 million, DDOT’s Urban Forestry Administration (UFA):

• Removed 124,505 square feet of impervious surface,
• Removed 2,209 dead or hazardous trees, and
• Planted 2,632 new trees

UFA estimates the removal of imperious surfaces, at 33 locations across the District, will intercept 60,000 gallons of stormwater during every 1.2” rain event. Using Rutgers Cooperative Research and Extension Fact Sheet FS513 formula to extrapolate, the annual benefit will be 2 million gallons of stormwater retained, preventing it from flowing into the District’s combined sewer system.

The impervious surface removal projects included the creation and expansion of tree boxes, the creation of continuous planting strips, green median renovation, and large area greening as demonstrated in the pictures below.

P and North Capitol Streets, NE — Before		P and North Capitol Streets, NE — After

More “before” and “after” examples can be viewed at http://ddotdish.com/2012/02/17/impervious-surface-removal .

Total funding for the 3 projects was $4.25 million. UFA was able to hire 5 full-time employees with benefits who have been able to gain valuable experience in urban forestry, customer service skills and engineering. In addition, the projects put 6 people to work for tree service contractors and 6 for paving contractors.

To read the full report ^[PDF], please visit the DDOT website at ddot.dc.gov/trees.

The mission of the Urban Forestry Administration (UFA) is to establish a full population of street trees in the right of way and to ensure that those street trees are maintained in a healthy and safe condition. UFA has 16 certified arborists on staff maintaining approximately 148,000 trees throughout the city. For more information about UFA visit ddot.dc.gov/trees.