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Small steps toward making the community
a greener place to live

by Joel Weickgenant
Special Correspondent

NORWALK - Gaps have formed in the rows of elm trees that once lined Elmwood Avenue in Golden Hill, and Michael Mushak is determined to turn the neighborhood green again.

Mushak, a member of the Golden Hill Neighborhood Association and liaison for the city's free tree program, helped plant about a dozen Zelkova trees this spring.

"I just went and knocked on doors and talked to people about planting trees," he said.

The program helps residents plant trees on their properties and is the centerpiece of Norwalk's Urban Forest Improvement Project.

This week, the project won the Award of Excellence for Community Trees and Urban Forestry. The award was presented by the Home Depot Foundation at the U.S. Mayors Conference meeting in Las Vegas.

Norwalk won the award for cities of less than 100,000 people and will receive $75,000. It was one of 116 cities that submitted applications.

The project is overseen by the city's Tree Advisory Committee.

"We didn't have a clue" that the city would win the award, said Harold Alvord, director of the Department of Public Works.

Some of the money likely will be used to plant new trees, and the Tree Advisory Committee would like to supplement the treasury of the Norwalk Tree Alliance, a nonprofit group that works with the public works department on the urban forest effort, Alvord said.

"We're invested in advancing all aspects of the urban forest," alliance President David Tracy said. "This award encompassed all the efforts by the city and by us... to reverse the decline of street trees."

The alliance works with liaisons from 22 neighborhood organizations to determine which streets would benefit most from the free tree program.

Norwalk's urban forest needs improvement, Tracy said.

"There are a lot of areas, particularly older, industrial areas, where we're in really bad shape," he said.

Tracy bemoaned the loss of species native to the region.

"By the far the largest of the street trees in Norwalk are Norway maples, which are considered invasive" among urban foresters, he said. "They tend to push out the sugar maples, the other native trees, the red maples."