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Sussex Tech Plants Trees along Paulins Kill Tributary

Today, 18 students from Mindy Schlereth's and Bryan Allegrino’s science classes at Sussex County Technical School volunteered to help plant trees along a tributary to the Paulins Kill River on land owned by the Sussex County Municipal Utilities Authority.

The planting is a continuation of the 4-mile reforestation corridor project being led by the SCMUA-Wallkill River Watershed Management Group and The Nature Conservancy. Since 2012, over 20,000 trees have been planted by staff and hundreds of volunteers throughout this 4-mile stretch of floodplain.

The purpose of planting trees along rivers is to stabilize the streambanks to reduce erosion, shade and cool the river for fish and aquatic insects, establish a buffer to block pollutant runoff from entering the water, and increase native biodiversity while controlling the predominance of invasive species. Some of the tree species planted were red maple, silver maple, river birch, black willow, American sycamore, and sugar maple.