Federal funding used to plant chestnut trees on senator's land

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- Sen. Kit Bond has helped get federal dollars for a University of Missouri research center, and officials there have helped plant chestnut trees on Bond's Mexico, Mo., property.

Under the arrangement with the university, the senator was to keep the trees when the research was completed.

But after the Columbia Daily Tribune asked about the agreement, agroforestry director Gene Garrett said he will remove the trees when the research is over, because of the perception associated with the senator's involvement.

"I had not even thought about it, to be honest with you, until then," said Garrett, who suggested the project to Bond.

Garrett, a longtime friend of Bond's, said it is standard procedure to plant trees on private property and leave them when the research work is done, because landowners are "giving me free use of their land."

Bond spokesman Ernie Blazar said the senator is contributing to the science of nut-bearing trees in Missouri.

"This ain't Chestnut-gate," Blazar said. "This is Kit Bond volunteering his time and his land for free to the university as a public service."

The value of Bond's grove is not clear. Bond's 2000 financial disclosure report claimed the six-acre tree farm was worth between $1,001 and $15,000. The annual reports assign value in broad ranges.

According to information obtained through an open records request, researchers have spent about $1,839 on the project, including $263.15 for the trees. The majority of that money, $1,448, paid for travel by a postdoctoral associate to and from the site at Bond's home in Mexico.

The center planted 25 of Bond's 145 trees for research project, the Tribune reported Wednesday. Garrett said Bond's property is valuable because he already had young chestnut trees planted there, and the high-clay, poor-drainage soil found on Bond's property is the same type that exists across most of the state.

Bond, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, has helped the university get $3 million in federal research dollars since 1994, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department's Agricultural Research Service.