The Stormwater Coalition of Albany County is sponsoring a live, free Center for Watershed Protection (CWP) webcast titled “Making Urban Trees Count”. The webcast will take place on Wednesday, June 21, from 1pm to 2:30pm at the Town of Colonie, Public Operations Center, 347 Old Niskayuna Road. If you’d like to attend, please e-mail or call to reserve a seat: swcoalition@albanycounty.com or 447-5645. All welcome!

The water quality benefits of forests are widely accepted, yet very few studies have successfully quantified the runoff and pollutant-reducing impacts of trees in the urban landscape. Using everything from individual street trees up to small patches of forest as a stormwater best management practice (BMP) is hampered by this uncertainty of how to “credit” urban trees for runoff and pollutant load reduction. This webcast will review the available stormwater crediting systems for urban tree planting and will present a new crediting system that includes a design specification for urban tree planting that can be integrated into state and local compliance systems for stormwater management, TMDLs and other water quality requirements.

Since many ask, the Coalition purchased this webcast for viewing by the interested public as part of their stormwater education and outreach program. While we track attendance, have people sign in, and send participants a certificate of completion, we cannot extend PDH credits. You may however be able to receive PDH credits by registering directly with the Center for Watershed Protection. To learn more, contact the Center for Watershed Protection (http://www.cwp.org/webcasts/).