Property owners in Harford County with streams or creeks on their land are eligible to receive a free package of seedling trees through a new program designed to improve water quality in the Chesapeake Bay.Not being in Harford County I'm not qualified to receive this, and yet as a Maryland taxpayer, I am paying for it. It's not that I don't think the program is useful in protecting streams and the Bay, but we have a small stream down the side of our back lots, and if the government is going to buy someone trees to protect the Chesapeake Bay, that I have a fair chance at that benefit as well (it really isn't necessary as our back lot is already heavily wooded). I have a sneaking suspicion that somewhere special interest politics were involved in getting this program for just a single county.
Known as the Backyard Buffers Program, it seeks to increase the number of soil-penetrating trees along bay tributaries on small properties.
For years, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources Forest Service has organized the planting of trees on large properties as a way to establish forested areas with root systems capable of holding soil in place and preventing erosion, but many properties where erosion is a problem are relatively small and don't lend themselves to large-scale tree plantings.
The Backyard Buffers Program seeks to fill this gap by giving free to landowners what is being called a "buffer in a bag," a package containing each of five species of trees: river birch, swamp white oak, American plum, silky dogwood and red osier dogwood.
One day you wash up on the beach, wet and naked. Another day you wash back out. In between, the scenery changes constantly.
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