The Woodlands Township board of directors on April 17 discussed opportunities to partner with county and private entities to reforest five medians throughout The Woodlands.

What's happening?

Following concerns regarding a lack of tree coverage along county medians and right of ways within The Woodlands, township Chief Operating Officer Chris Nunes presented a collection of five county-owned medians to be part of a pilot program to partner with community and county entities to fund reforestation efforts.

The identified areas, and the estimated costs to reforest them, include:

• Gosling Road at Flintridge Drive: $319,467
• Woodlands Parkway between east and west Panther Creek: $104,733
• Research Forest Drive at Technology Boulevard: $23,220
• Six Pines Drive between Lake Robbins Drive and Mall Ring Road: $18,900
• Lake Woodlands Drive in Town Center: no estimate available

"What we see here in this pilot program is somewhat of a combination of just critical areas and trying addressing some of those sites that will require more intensive vine removal as well as overall reforestation," Nunes said. "We have to go through and inspect these areas to really understand what are our limitations."

Why now?

Since 2023, the township has invested $1 million annually into reforestation efforts while also spending $2 million annually in the same time period on tree and invasive vine removals in areas such as Grogans Mill Road.

Board chair Brad Bailey said he wanted to see the township focus on planting trees in medians which have not previously been forested, but he also wanted to bring the cost of reforesting medians owned by Harris and Montgomery counties before respective commissioners to find a way to share the cost of the project.

"This is a research project that we need to work on with the county," Bailey said. "[Montgomery County] doesn't have a lot of money to spend, but they're willing to help the traffic, which is a huge deal ... but I don't think it's government's responsibility to do all of this. I think we need to really, really look and we've got such a philanthropic community ... how we can get areas sponsored by companies or corporations or people to plant trees, and it's not on the taxpayer dollar."

The action taken

While the board took no action on whether to internally fund the program during the meeting, the board did provide direction to staff to work on discussions with local private and public entities for potential funding opportunities.