Fairfield, Washington receive tree-planting grant

Fairfield and Washington were among the 37 towns to receive Branching Out grants to plant trees.

Maharishi International University in Fairfield received $5,000, while the city of Washington received $4,300 to plant trees around municipal buildings, three schools and along city streets. The money comes courtesy of Alliant Energy, and is administered by Trees Forever.

In a news release, Alliant Energy stated that the money will go to replanting trees that were lost to the derecho windstorm last August.

'The first thing you notice when you drive into a town that was hit by the derecho are the spaces where the trees used to be,” said Terry Kouba, president of Alliant Energy's Iowa energy company. 'As we work to build stronger communities, we're proud to provide larger grants this year to plant more trees to help rebuild the tree canopy.”

Tom Brooks, vice president of operations at Maharishi International University, said the grant will allow the university to plant 59 trees around campus that have not survived their planting during the past four years. The university has received a Trees Forever grant almost every year for the past five years, and during that time has used the money to plant 650 trees.

Brooks said trees have been lost for a variety of reasons, such as being eaten by deer, getting too dry, and a few that were destroyed when a vehicle veered off the road and crashed into them while traveling on Highway 1. Other areas where trees have been lost on campus include near the Punj tennis courts, the women's dome and the swimming pool.

The grant covers the cost of buying the trees, but the receiving institutions are expected to pay for costs associated with planting, like trunk protectors, and to find the labor to plant the trees. Planting at the university is scheduled for April 24. Brooks said students and staff at the university and at Maharishi School are expected to help, though volunteers are welcome. Those interested in helping may contact Brooks at tbrooks@mum.edu.

Alliant Energy first partnered with Trees Forever to offer the Branching Out program in 1990. Together, they've helped award nearly $7.5 million dollars in grants to Iowa communities to plant more than a million trees.