Town council is looking to make Smithers greener by applying for funding to help plant trees in certain areas.
Application deadline for the BC Hydro Community ReGreening program is January 31st, but before they can apply for the grant they need to have an outlined plan on how many, and where, trees are going to planted.
Mayor Taylor Bachrach says he wants to leave it up for the staff to decide if they want to put something together to apply for the funding.
“Our staff is familiar with the grant program, and if there are town projects that meet the criteria and have adequate plans in place, then I think they’ll be looking at those grants and try to get some funds for tree purchases.”
This came to light after a request was made in 2016 for the town to plant a new tree near St. Joseph’s Elementary School to replace the large cottonwood tree that was removed for safety reason.
The ReGreening program has helped the province by planting more than 300,000 trees, and there are a number of projects around town that could benefit from the grant.
“We’ve had to remove a number of trees along main street and right now we are engaged in a pretty significant landscape redesign for our downtown, so, implementing that plan is going to involve new trees.”