While talk of baseball stadiums, Science Museums or other projects still dominate, the real seeds of restoration for Saint Paul's Mississippi River valley have already been planted--literally. The Great River Park Project kicked off this year at the Harriet Island/Lilydale Regional Park entrance with a celebration and an Arbor Day day planting of 150 trees, 700 shrubs and 400 sq. ft. of wildflowers.
But that was only the warmup for an ambitious plan to recreate a 50 percent forest canopy throughout the river valley between the High Bridge and Holman Field Airport.
"It's exciting. It's never really been done before on this scale in an urban area," said Robb Buffler, asst. manager of the $1.1 million Saint Paul Foundation-sponsored project. "We hope this can develop into a model for all of Saint Paul, and also that other cities can use." Beginning on the West Side with plantings this spring and fall, and then jumping across the river, the "greening" of the Mississippi Valley will require a public and private partnership that includes area businesses and residents, said Buffler.
Approximately 80 percent of the replanting sites are located on private land held by some 93 different owners. Benefits from the project will go beyond the obvious aesthetic value of creating a green forest cover over a largely bare, industrial park area. Improving air quality, attracting more migratory birds and providing energy cost savings through trees' natural buffering of wind and sun, are other gains that Buffler expects the plantings to provide over the next 20 to 25 years.
"The idea of these plantings is to model them after the native (tree) communities of the area," he said, describing a master plan being developed with the help of the University of Minnesota's Landscape Studies Center. Preliminary plans call creating representative areas, such as an oak/savannah tree community near the western end of the riverfront and a low prairie-type growth area near the airport. Intermixed might be other trees such as maples, elms, and basswoods along with other plant species meant to fit alongside existing buildings, businesses, and parking areas.
"We're not going to try to return the whole river valley back. That's impossible at this point unless we want the Army Corps of Engineers to tear down the damns and turn it back into a floodplain," Buffler said. "The key is to bring people with interest in natural resources together with people representing the concerns of the business community," he said. "We want the whole community involved." To that end, Buffler described the project's plans to an April 18 meeting of the West Side Citizen Organization's Environmental Committee. Several West Siders are also members of the Greening's board of advisors.
"I think it's going to make us feel very good about that part of the neighborhood," said David Boyce. "It really adds to any of the interpretative activities that the Science Museum and Park Service do down there. . . And it'll be nice to have a green connection from Concord St. to the river."
The project's potential benefit to area businesses interested Maria Silva, co-owner of El Burrito Mercado. "I think it's going to be very good for our area because it should eventually attract even more people to the riverfront," she said. "All of us small business people should be interested because in the long run it will bring more people into our community. And it should also be a project that will bring together everybody that's already here."
In contrast to other riverfront projects which have garnered mixed responses, the Greening the Great River Park project appears to getting almost unanimous initial support, including from most of the land owners that project staff has been visiting door-to-door.
"It's going well. The community seems to be responding and supportive to what we're doing," said Buffler, joking that the only opponents at this point to tree nurturing plans may be some overly-active beavers on newly-renamed Raspberry Island.
"They seem to be very responsive and trying to take everyone's interests into account," said Boyce of the tree planting plans. "Our kids will be the ones that get to see much of this. . .It's just a real neat vision."