Permanently protected seedlings planted at Windsor Knolls Middle School

In September 2009 Frederick County Public Schools (FCPS) requested and received approximately $37,500 from the Frederick County Fee-in-Lieu Program (a subset of the County’s Forest Resource Ordinance (FRO) Requirements) to plant and maintain trees at Urbana High, Urbana Middle, and Windsor Knolls Middle Schools. Background: In certain cases, a developer may meet forest-planting requirements by paying a per-square-foot-fee of required forest mitigation into the Fee-in-Lieu Program. This funding may then be approved for use in tree planting projects on public land.

As described in a prior article, Frederick County Public Schools used a portion of this funding to hire Greenskeeper Environmental, LLC to plant ~70 large caliper trees at Urbana High and Middle Schools. This spring Frederick County Public Schools used the funding to hire Conservation Services Incorporated to hand-plant 22,000 hardwood and evergreen seedlings on 5-acres of land at Windsor Knolls Middle School. These trees will be permanently protected by an easement being placed on the steeply-sloped and hydrologically-sensitive 5-acres of land. An additional acre of trees was also planted at Windsor Knolls Middle School using EPA 319 grant funding.

New seedlings planted at Windsor Knolls Middle School

A view of the new seedling planting on the far hill. Seedlings in foreground planted in 2006.