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IUPUI SCIENTISTS PLANT HUNDREDS OF TREES ALONG WHITE RIVER

A team of IUPUI environmental scientists resumed planting hundreds of trees along White River in Indianapolis on Arbor Day (April 27).

A total of 1,400 trees will be planted in a kilometer long strip of land between 10th Street and New York Avenue, turning the crescent shaped piece of riverbank into a massive outdoor experiment that will test for the first time the best way to restore river banks to their natural state.

It's a question communities and local, state and federal agencies up and down flood prone areas such as the Mississippi River Valley want answered because properly functioning, tree-lined river banks help curb flooding as well as help clean river water, said Dr. Lenore Tedesco, who as director of IUPUI's Center for Earth and Environmental Science, is leading the Lilly ARBOR Project.

Eli Lilly and Company is the primary sponsor of the Lilly ARBOR (Answers for Restoring the Bank of the River) project, reflecting the company's ongoing commitment to the environment and the community. The Center for Earth and Environmental Science at IUPUI is an interdisciplinary academic center that promotes environmental research, education and public service.

Some 480 trees were planted along the riverbank April 27. Another 480 trees will be planted May 3. Some 400 trees were planted last October. The three most common methods for planting trees to restore riverbanks are being tested, with each group of trees being planted in a different fashion.

Restoring riverbanks isn't new, Tedesco said. Proving which method works the best is, she added. Each tree will be numbered and carefully monitored for at least five years, showing which of the three riverbank restoration methods is most successful.

In the end, the Lilly ARBOR Project will produce a forest, Tedesco said. "It will produce a stretch of riverbank that will match the best quality riverbank forest for 150 miles along the White River."

The IUPUI team, assisted by Eli Lilly and Company volunteers, students, and staff, is planting 12 species of trees native to the site in the 1820s, which will return the riverbank to the way it looked 180 years ago, with the branches of tall cottonwoods, sycamores, green ash and other trees stretching out above wild flowers and flowering plants.

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