Gift to help replace BR trees

• By CHANTE DIONNE WARREN
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Nov 12, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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Live oaks, bald cypress trees and elm trees will soon replace empty plots in the Baton Rouge area where casualties of Hurricane Gustav once thrived.

Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center is donating 100 trees to be planted in 10 locations throughout the area, Scott Wester, the hospital’s CEO, said Tuesday.

The gift will help restore Baton Rouge’s tree canopy lost from the hurricane, he said.

The tree contribution is also a “thank you” to Baton Rouge for helping the hospital earn the Consumer Choice Award for 10 consecutive years, Wester said.

The award, given by the National Research Corp., goes to the hospital with the highest overall quality and image in the metro area, he said.

Baton Rouge Green is partnering with the hospital to help plant the trees.

“We’ll be planting once we visit and do site inspections to make sure we plant the right trees at the right locations,” said Diane LoSavio, executive director of Baton Rouge Green. “Hopefully we’ll start planting before the end of the year and finish by March.”

The hurricane is estimated to have knocked down some 3,000 trees from residents’ front yards and rights of way, according to earlier estimates by Steve Shurtz, urban forest manager for the city-parish Department of Public Works.

Thousands more trees were knocked down in backyards and undeveloped land throughout Baton Rouge, he said.

Among the sites receiving 10 trees a piece are the LSU Rural Life Museum off Essen Lane where the storm knocked down some 700 trees, museum director David Floyd said.

Other locations receiving 10 trees are the Capitol Lake area, State Capitol grounds, downtown, East Baton Rouge Parish schools, BREC parks, BREC’s Baton Rouge Zoo, the Bon Carré area and sites in Livingston Parish and Ascension Parish, LoSavio said.

Baton Rouge Green wants to recruit volunteers who will help plant the trees, she said.

Founded in 1988, Baton Rouge Green has planted at least 30,000 trees and maintains 5,000 of them at 23 sites around Baton Rouge.