Connecticut Land Conservation Conference

This workshop will describe some of the vegetation management tools for restoring several types of ROW’s ecological communities, despite unavoidable, high-impact maintenance, like pole replacement and access road construction. Why the ROW ecological communities are unique will be discussed; what harms them and what fosters them. This will enable Land Trust stewards to be articulate and persuasive, and to know they should be asking your utility company to do, and not to do. Recommendations will be described based on the 2020 CBS publication “Protecting the Environment and Ecology in Utility Rights-of-Way: A Land Trust and Landowners Guide.” These include: how to protect wetlands and existing vegetation; inspection of proposed sources of topsoil and fill for an upcoming maintenance project; best practices for restoration, like using native soil types. We will teach attendees how to take a composite soil sample from a healthy naturally vegetated section of the ROW, and submit it for testing at the UConn Soils lab, as baseline information for restoration; alternative ways to manage trees and shrubs; proper native plant selection for restoration.