State steps up drive to add trees
About $180K allocated to reforest several urban neighborhoods
Looking to curb asthma rates, ease the impact of summer heat waves and perhaps reduce neighborhood stress, Connecticut will be planting trees in some decidedly non-green neighborhoods of Windsor, Greenwich, Stratford, Bridgeport and New Haven.
The state recently announced that it will spend about $180,000 this year to encourage small urban forests. It’s part of a bigger campaign to get more and bigger trees into cities and towns with abundant blacktop but little tree cover.
Planners say adding trees will reduce the “urban heat island effect” that can make mid-summer heat waves especially dangerous in neighborhoods where sidewalks, blacktop and buildings cover too much of the ground.
Beyond that, benefits range from reducing local impacts of climate change to addressing social justice, they said.
“We’re trying to integrate more of the benefits of trees — the health benefits, the ecological benefit. And people are happier amongst trees, whether they know it or not,” said Heather Dionne, chair of the Connecticut Urban Forest Council. “Humans have no idea the connection to trees that they share.”
Conservation organizations and local tree conservancies for decades have worked to encourage more plantings on both public and private land, but in recent years climate change concerns have added urgency to that work. At the same time, disease and drought have been weakening many of Connecticut’s trees, putting on more pressure.
The council is targeting neighborhoods in five communities for its first round of Urban Forestry
Climate Change grants, awarding $34,000 to $37,000 apiece for planting trees. Another set of grants will be given out next year.
The neighborhoods were chosen because of relatively low tree canopy cover, but also because adding trees there could promote social equity and environmental justice, help clean the air and encourage residents to be outside more often, the council said.
The environmental organization American Forests recently launched a “tree equity” mapping system that identifies areas with a serious deficiency of tree cover, but also includes overlay maps showing census tracts of poverty.
“With few exceptions, trees are sparse in socioeconomically disadvantaged and neighborhoods of color and more prominent in wealthier, whiter neighborhoods,” the organization said. “American Forests is focused on addressing this inequity by focusing resources in neighborhoods of highest need. It’s our moral imperative to do so, given how many life-saving and quality of life benefits trees provide people.”
Bridgeport, a coastal city with a diverse population and plenty of abandoned industrial land, is getting $33,000 to add trees at Seaside Park, Beardsley Park and the Old Mill Green to replace part of the canopy that the emerald ash borer destroyed.
Those parks are essential recreation spots for the nearby neighborhoods, and the surrounding neighborhoods have been hurt by industrial pollution and heavy
development leaving little room for vegetation, the council noted.
But the council emphasized that very different places also meet the standards.
“Even in some of the state’s presumably wealthiest communities, pockets of poverty and social disadvantage exist, including along interstate highways and in older industrial zones,” it said.
So the council is funding planting in the neighborhoods of Byram, Chickahominy and Pemberwicktown — the three parts of Greenwich with few trees, the highest minority population and the highest proportion of residents in poverty, it reported.
“We assume Greenwich is a wealthier community, but there are neighborhoods everywhere that are struggling with canopy cover and environmental justice,” Dionne said.
Windsor is getting money to put in 91 trees and shrubs at public parks in the Deerfield and Wilson neighborhoods; those sections have poor health indicators, are close to I-91, contain large amounts of impervious surface and are home to minority populations ranging from 66% to 89%, the council said.
Stratford will get $37,000 to bring trees to two neighborhoods recommended by Environmental Conservation Superintendent Kelly Kerrigan.
“The areas we’re focusing on have very dense housing, some with maybe one-tenth of an acre lots. The houses are so close that a lot of folks are leery about planting trees,” Kerrigan said.
“In some places the tree-planting strips (along sidewalks) aren’t wide enough for larger trees, so we have to plant smaller species,” she said.
Kerrigan plans community meetings in the first half of 2022 to talk with residents about where trees would fit best and what species should be used. She’s hoping those conversations will be a springboard for encouraging homeowners to plant trees on property, a key part of any largescale reforestation effort.
“We want to talk about stormwater runoff, air pollution — the list goes on and on,” she said. “Many residents don’t want to deal with leaf cleanup, but we want to tell them about the advantages (of trees), including the cooling and heating costs.”
The council is looking for many of those same conversations to be held around the state. Dionne noted that a few studies have shown the urban areas with plenty of tree coverage are less prone to crime than those with just concrete and asphalt, and many reforestation experts suggest that shade and natural beauty contribute to improved mental health — and reduce stress.
Dionne is also the city forester in Hartford, which has been working on a plan to get its tree canopy coverage on par with New Haven’s.
“To do that we need to plant about 3,000 trees a year,” she said.
“Honestly we don’t have room for all those trees on city property. We have to think outside the box. We need to get residents and business owners to want trees on their property because it’s going to make an impact for everybody.”