Repairing the riparian

The Blanco River is usually is a beautiful thing, framed by cypress and other trees with green vegetation on both sides of the banks. The clear flowing water shows the unique beauty of the river’s porous limestone bed. Birds, deer, and other creatures are abundant and enjoy the river, probably as much as people do, vacationers and locals. Laughter, and smiles are the order of the day.

Then you wake up one rainy morning, the clear water is gone from the river, replaced by a fast moving brown sludge. As the river rises, debris beings to float by. Occasionally, half broken trees followed by the destruction of the riverbank - sometimes more.

Although six years have passed since the year of holiday floods, Memorial Day and Halloween, there are still scars of that time remaining. That’s when TreeFolks, a nonprofit intent on repairing the damage mother nature sometimes receives in the midst of disasters, kicked into action and tried to lessen the riparian damage of a wall of water that was higher than 40 feet when it tore through the Blanco River Valley.

The Central Texas Floodplain Reforestation Program is now underway by TreeFolks a 501(c) 3 nonprofit. Their mission “is to empower Central Texans to build stronger communities through planting and caring for trees.” Their program helped to restock the damage done by the 2015 floods. Now, they are taking it one step further.

“This program, our Central Texas Floodplain Reforestation Program, works to restore degraded creeks and streams and rivers. The riparian areas and forest are a buffer along the waterways. So we’re looking for landowners to do reforestation services for that missing forest buffer along their waterways,” Tree Folks Reforestation Coordinator, Valerie Tamburri said

An ongoing project of restoring riverbanks started in Eastern Travis County. It is now progressing to the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization area that includes Bastrop, Burnet, Caldwell, Hays, Travis, and Williamson counties.

While the project is similar to the previous idea of restoring the riverbank that occurred following the 2015 floods, it has a few new twists.

“We did the trees for the Blanco, which was funded mostly by Hays County. We don’t really have county funding for it at the moment so the purpose of (this project) is to generate carbon credits to help fund the trees. This one does require landowners to do a 25 year protection on their planting area similar to an easement.”

They are also hoping the new project will lead to more lasting success.

“This project ensures that the landowners don’t mow down the trees before we generate the carbon credits in the twenty-five years. We found that about 11% of the people (who previously received work from TreeFolks) mowed the areas down, because I guess they got tired of the overgrown areas.”

TreeFolks is partnering with the non-profit City Forest Credits to collect the carbon credits. The paperwork and filing fees are forwarded and they are given the credits, which can be used internationally

A carbon credit is a permit that allows the company that holds it to emit a certain amount of carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases. A credit is an offset that allows a country or organization to produce a certain amount of carbon emissions. They can also be traded if the full allowance is not used.

One credit permits the emission of a mass equal to one ton of carbon dioxide. Credits are based on the amount of carbon that will be sequestered from the atmosphere.

“We cover all the filing fees and do all the paperwork on that end and they forward us credits based on the amount of carbon that will be sequestered from the atmosphere for twenty-five years.

“If somebody cuts down the trees we have to pay back that difference to the carbon credit registry. So that kind of protects us, as well as helping fund the program.”

TreeFolks is funded by grants and helped by the Arbor Day Foundation in order to connect with business sponsors. In order to apply, the land must be within the one hundred year flood plain.

“If they have a creek or stream, it does not have to be on the Blanco River this time. Another important part, if it’s already forest, we can’t add trees because we have to actually be creating canopies, to put it into the carbon credit protocol.”

They hope to keep restoring areas, preserving wildlife habitats, water filtration and most importantly, helping to remedy climate change.

The Central Texas Floodplain Reforestation Program is for public and private landowners in Travis, Bastrop, Hays, Williamson, Caldwell, and Burnet counties interested in protecting their land while creating a positive impact on the environment. The program is currently taking applications for the upcoming planting season, which runs from October 2021 to March 2022.

For more information on TreeFolks or the project see their website at treefolks.org.