Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski Jr. yesterday announced a new tree planting initiative that will provide free trees to densely populated, low-income neighborhoods.
“Operation ReTree Baltimore County” began yesterday with the planting of dozens of trees in West Inverness, a neighborhood in Dundalk.
The county will plant 290 trees in the neighborhood over the next two weeks at 139 homes, Lynch Cove Park, West Inverness Recreation Center, Sandy Plains Elementary School, and Eastfield Townhomes.
Trees play an important role in supporting people’s health and improving air quality.
Trees also contribute to “raising property values, cooling streets and homes, reducing flooding and absorbing greenhouse gasses,” Olszewski said in a statement yesterday.
Urban areas tend to have higher temperatures because they have less trees and more structures like buildings, roads, and concrete sidewalks that absorb and re-emit the sun’s heat.
This phenomenon – the “heat island” effect – disproportionately impacts low-income and minority neighborhoods.
A study published this year in Earth’s Future used census data and measured land surface temperature with satellite imaging to examine how differences in heat extremes break down along racial and socioeconomic lines.
The researchers analyzed 1,056 counties that are home to roughly 300 million Americans. The study found that in more than 70 percent of those counties, neighborhoods with lower-income people and more people of color “experience significantly more extreme surface urban heat than their wealthier, whiter counterparts.”
Recent studies have suggested that the heat disparities may be attributed to decades of racist housing policies.
A study published in January 2020 shows how a history of redlining – the practice of marking neighborhoods with minority occupants as high-risk for mortgage lenders – helps explain why poorer U.S. neighborhoods experience more extreme heat.
The study found that in 94 percent of the 108 urban areas examined – including areas in Baltimore – historically redlined neighborhoods were roughly 5 degrees Fahrenheit warmer on average.
Operation ReTree will focus on planting trees in high-density neighborhoods with lower-income residents.
Over the next few months, the Baltimore County Department of Environmental Protection will designate additional neighborhoods to receive trees based on “tree equity priority scores.”
The priority scores rank 2020 Census blocks to identify areas where the most people with limited resources would benefit from increased tree canopy near their homes.
Olszewski dedicated $400,00 for the first year of Operation ReTree in the fiscal year 2022 budget.
Baltimore County aims to achieve and maintain a 50 percent tree canopy countywide and 40 percent tree coverage in densely populated urban areas by 2025.
