LFP Stewardship Foundation funds intern to gather data about tree removals and replacement in LFP

Maple in Animal Acres
Photo by Dan Short

By Jim Halliday, Stewardship Foundation Board member 

There’s a new intern in the City of Lake Forest Park (LFP), thanks again to funding made available from King County Councilmember Rod Dembowski, and Elizabeth Louden, Grant Manager at the King County WaterWorks Grant Program.

The grant recipient, the Lake Forest Park Stewardship Foundation, is partnering with Steve Bennett, the City of LFP’s Planning Department Director, and UW Bothell’s Dr. Rob Turner, Senior Lecturer in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, with coordination provided by Tyson Greer, of the LFP Tree Board, to provide a UWB student intern to gather data about tree removals and replacement.

This tree data will be useful to the City Council, City Arborist, the Tree Board, and the public in evaluating the effectiveness of the Tree Preservation and Enhancement Ordinance, including enforcement.

As communities at the north end of Lake Washington such as Lake Forest Park move forward with the implementation of the Return Kokanee to Our Streams Project, the data gathered will be critical for long term planning, and making decisions concerning trees in land use development and avoiding salmon habitat loss.

Other cities in the region, such as Seattle, are spending heavily to replace their tree canopies so they can also benefit from the tree services an urban forest provides.

The entire region looks to Lake Forest Park for leadership in urban forest enhancement and preservation.

Learn more about the Lake Forest Park Stewardship Foundation and its good works.