The Woodlands Township board of directors discussed some new difficulties being faced in annual reforestation efforts on March 20, eyeing potential outsourcing initiatives and community partnerships to aid in reforesting.

What you need to know

Township Chief Operating Officer Chris Nunes and Parks and Recreation Director John McGowan said in the last year of reforestation efforts there were 7,098 trees removed due to multiple environmental factors including:

• Extreme weather conditions
• Invasive vines
• Pine Beetle infestations

"Just to put that in perspective, before the droughts and the freezes in 2023 and such, ... the average was about 800 trees a year that we would take down," McGowan said, adding Hurricane Beryl was only responsible for destroying 860 of the trees across the township. "This one storm was equal to what our averages were. Obviously, now that [average] has gone up because of the storms, freezes and such."

Several board members, including Brad Bailey and Shelley Sekula-Gibbs also shared concerns regarding roughly 233 acres of county-owned medians in Harris and Montgomery counties which do not have any trees within them. According to documents provided by the township, the estimated cost to reforest 11 areas within the medians would be roughly $571,206 to purchase and install 2,294 trees. However, the township would likely have to cover additional irrigation costs on top of the installation cost.

"You really have two issues," Nunes said. "One, Chairman Bailey's concern about the strangulation of vines, and areas that actually have no trees like the area south of Flintridge [Drive]."

Nunes also said the township is wrapping up its first official update of the Integrated Forest Management Plan since 2013, and is looking to present the results of the plan to board members at a future meeting. The update will provide additional insights regarding how the township manages its forested areas.

In their words

• "This is a step in the right direction, because these are nude areas that have no trees, and we know that people come into The Woodlands and they deserve to see trees, and they're not there, so it doesn't look like The Woodlands," Sekula-Gibbs said.
• "Let's start having dialog, significant dialog," Bailey said. "What we have to do is get the stakeholders around the table to say 'How can we work on this?' Because it's a problem from the developers, to the county, to us and so on."
• "Possibly, we need to go back to the drawing board, and maybe we did not give enough funding for this reforestation effort, considering what the community has been through over the last few years," board member Cindy Heiser said.

The takeaway

Nunes requested board members create a list of five main areas within the township for staff to begin seeking ways to address with potential assistance from county officials and community partners.

"We need to look at staff resources long term, how many years is [this] essentially going to take," Nunes said. "If I can get those five test areas from the board collectively, we can then do the research, we can then go talk to the county ... and then present, you know, kind of the worst-case scenario from a budget standpoint and are there available funds."