If you’ve driven or walked through Blacksburg or Pulaski recently, you may have seen hundreds of green tubes sticking out of the dirt along creeks and fields. These are trees and shrubs planted by the New River Conservancy.
The saplings are all native species, like elderberry, sourwood, magnolia and serviceberry, and form what are known as riparian buffers. The trees help absorb water and can reduce flooding during heavy rain events, explained Lisa Stansell-Galitz with the New River Conservancy.
“When you think about occurrences like Hurricane Helene that flooded every tributary in the New River watershed,” Stansell-Galitz said. “The more trees we have, the more water they absorb, the less water we have flooding the tributaries, the river, and people’s homes.”…