Utility, city plant a shady solution
SRP officials want tree-planting program to spread roots to Tempe
“Some of our parks are deathly old. They were planted in the ’60s and they haven’t had any new trees.”
Richard Adkins Phoenix forestry supervisor
City workers labored under the sun, shovels in hand, and dug holes for two dozen new trees in hopes they will help remedy Phoenix’s increasing heat, higher temperatures and compounding urban heat island effect.
They planted the 24 drought-tolerant trees in west Phoenix’s Cortez Park as part of a partnership with Salt River Project to bring 1,200 new trees by the end of April to a city in need of shade.
The “Right Tree/Right Place” partnership aims to bring Phoenicians relief where it’s most needed — places like parks, public transit stops and schools — while replacing old trees that encroached on SRP power lines.
SRP estimates the program, over time, will reduce enough carbon emissions to match those put out by more
than 1,000 passenger vehicles and enough energy to power more than 500 homes for a year.
Although Cortez Park received just a few of the 1,200 new trees, adding them in small pockets around the city helps grow its urban forest. Increasing the city’s shade canopy is important if officials want to adapt to rising temperatures in the future, Phoenix forestry supervisor Richard Adkins said.
And maintaining old trees is just as important as planting new ones — particularly in an increasingly urban desert.
“If you’re in the Northwest or on the east coast, there are trees that can last 200-300 years,” Adkins said. “Not out here ... especially in an urban setting.”
Phoenix isn’t the only city working on its shade canopy; other cities across the Southwest also use trees to help stymie the urban heat island effect.
The canopy in Phoenix has nearly 93,000 trees, according to the city’s tree inventory. A strong tree canopy can lower temperatures by as much as 9 degrees, raise property values and improve air quality, according to the city.
The effects of climate change, coupled with development, make an already-hot city like Phoenix even hotter and make trees more of a necessity.
“Some of our parks are deathly old,” he said. “They were planted in the ‘60s and they haven’t had any new trees.”
Planting the right species is the first step in keeping them around for the long haul, he said.
On an April morning at Cortez Park, near Dunlap and 35th avenues, city workers were planting four separate species of trees. Keeping the shade canopy full of diverse trees helps protect them against natural threats.
“You need species diversity,” Adkins said. “If you don’t, insects could take them all out.”
Heat often discriminates by neighborhood. Many low-income neighborhoods lack the resources to plant and maintain trees, while more affluent parts of town are verdant in comparison.
A 2017 Republic analysis found Phoenix’s Encanto neighborhood was more than 9 degrees cooler than south Phoenix at certain times of the day.
Residents of low-income neighborhoods are often hit twice by the heat. Their neighborhood is hotter to begin with, and some can’t afford to run airconditioning.
Several of the recent plantings spanned across west Phoenix neighborhoods, from Cortez Park to Cesar Chavez Park on 35th Avenue and Baseline and in Maryvale.
SRP’s partnership with Phoenix was slated to run through April as a pilot program. Company spokeswoman Patty Garcia-Likens said they hope to do a similar program next year in Tempe.
Under the program, SRP foots the bill for the trees themselves, while the city covers the costs and labor of removal and planting.
Although Phoenix’s heat occasionally draws international headlines, the rest of the region is just as hot. Planting new trees and maintaining aging ones across the Valley could help stifle some of the area’s increasing heat.
It isn’t a catch-all solution, but it has been found to help. It won’t eradicate heat, but it could bring much-needed relief to hot areas.
“It’s not rocket science,” Adkins said. “But it is science.”
“You need species diversity. If you don’t, insects could take them all out.”
Richard Adkins Phoenix forestry supervisor
Gabriel Guillen of the city of Phoenix cleans out a hole before planting a tree at Cortez Park on West Dunlap Avenue in Phoenix.
MARK HENLE/THE REPUBLIC