There’s the Rose City, Track Town and now Tree Campus USA. Oregon State University has been named one of nine Tree Campus USA sites by the Arbor Day Foundation. This is the inaugural year for the award that is bestowed based on each school meeting several, tree-related requirements, but Corvallis itself has been designated a Tree City USA site since the turn of the millennium.
Every year, OSU plants about 50 new trees, tacking on to the 5,000 already on campus. The title of Tree Campus USA also comes with 100 new trees to plant. The timing couldn’t be better as staff point out that funding for new foliage on the campus has been declining. There are already plans to go for a repeat; OSU will reapply for the honor in 2009.
The honor comes with a bit of irony, however, as the Oregon State mascot is the beaver . . . sworn mortal enemy of the tree. GoodNewsPDX has been told by one completely ignorant source that one condition of receiving the honor be that the school facilitate a peaceful negotiation between a family of beavers and a grove of mighty oaks.
