Twenty-Six Years and Counting: Arbor Day Foundation Recognizing SRP as a 2022 Tree Line USA Utility for Its Commitment to Urban Forestry in Its Community
The community is invited to participate in the sesquicentennial or 150-year anniversary of Arbor Day. The Arbor Day Foundation will plant a tree for every social media post that uses the hashtag #ArborDay between April 22 to 29 on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. More information about Tree Line USA can be found at www.arborday.org/TreeLineUSA.
Salt River Project received the 2022 Tree Line USA Award given by the Arbor Day Foundation, which recognizes utilities nationwide for their dedication to proper urban forest management in their service area.
“Trees are great assets within our communities. When the right tree is planted in the right place, trees provide beneficial shade, oxygen, and wildlife habitat,” said Colleen Spakowski SRP senior business analyst of Vegetation Management. “SRP has been recognized for 26 years as a Tree Line USA utility because of our commitment to the management of trees and vegetation in our rights-of-way. SRP has a strong commitment to sustainability. One example is our Energy Saving Trees Program, where we have removed more 1,100 non-powerline-friendly trees and planted more than 3,500 powerline-friendly trees.”
Salt River Project achieved the Tree Line USA recognition by meeting five program standards: quality tree care, annual worker training, tree planting and public education, a formal tree-based energy conservation, and a sponsorship of or participation Arbor Day celebration.
Tree Line USA, a partnership between the Arbor Day Foundation and the National Association of State Foresters, recognizes public and private utilities for pursuing best practices that protect and cultivate America's urban tree canopy. In addition, Tree Line USA promotes delivering safe and reliable electricity while maintaining healthy community forests.
"Trees are essential to creating more urban green spaces in communities across the United States,” said Dan Lambe, chief executive of the Arbor Day Foundation. “In addition, they provide important benefits to residents, including clean air, clean water, and vital tree shade. Service providers like Salt River Project demonstrate how easily trees and utilities can co-exist for the benefit of communities and residents."
By joining the Tree Line USA program, service providers benefit from lowering line clearance costs due to proper pruning. As a result of those properly pruned and maintained trees, the people benefit from increased reliability of service because those trees will have healthy root systems that decay less, have less structural weakness, and ultimately result in fewer downed lines during storms.
About the Arbor Day Foundation
Founded in 1972, the Arbor Day Foundation has grown to become the largest nonprofit membership organization dedicated to planting trees, with more than one million members, supporters and valued partners. Since 1972, almost 500 million Arbor Day Foundation trees have been planted in neighborhoods, communities, cities and forests throughout the world. Our vision is to lead toward a world where trees are used to solve issues critical to survival.
As one of the world's largest operating conservation foundations, the Arbor Day Foundation, through its members, partners and programs, educates and engages stakeholders and communities across the globe to involve themselves in its mission of planting, nurturing and celebrating trees. More information is available at arborday.org.
SRP is a community-based, not-for-profit public power utility and the largest electricity provider in the greater Phoenix metropolitan area, serving approximately 1.1 million customers. SRP provides water to about half of the Valley’s residents, delivering more than 244 billion gallons of water (750,000 acre-feet) each year, and manages a 13,000-square-mile watershed that includes an extensive system of reservoirs, wells, canals and irrigation laterals.