Cities like Albany are getting more funding to plant trees in underserved areas.
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Interim Commissioner Sean Mahar was joined Friday by Mayor Kathy Sheehan for a tree planting outside Giffen Elementary School in Albany's South End.
Mahar says DEC has an additional $5.4 million in federal Inflation Reduction Act funding to spend in communities to plant more trees, on the way to realizing Governor Kathy Hochul's goal of planting 23 million trees by 2033.
"This is such a critical investment in our urban areas, and in tree planting overall, and especially in our disadvantaged communities in the state, so many times you walk city streets and city blocks that don't have trees on it," Mahar said. "And what we're finding, especially from an extreme heat perspective, you know, the lack of trees really exacerbates those extreme heat conditions. And the more trees that we can put on our landscape here throughout the state, it reduces that heat effect and really helps improve air quality in our urban areas."
The funding comes on top of $7.1 million awarded in July.
"Albany is going to receive an additional $350,000 to help advance their community forestry implementation plan," said Mahar. "The City of Troy is going to be receiving an additional $65,000 for their community forest management plan as well. And the city of Athens is receiving another investment of $237,000 augmenting all the funding that we've already provided them through that initial state investment."
Sheehan says Albany is focusing on meeting the challenges of climate change.
"Back in 2020 the city of Albany launched its 2025 trees by 2025 where we pledged to plant 2025 trees," said Sheehan. "We finished that project two years early, and but we knew that we needed to keep going, and the governor decided to add a few zeros to that number when she announced her tree initiative. And so that is why we are standing here today, because of that commitment and recognition that this is an investment in our communities and in our future."
Sheehan says urban areas pose unique community forest management challenges, and the investments being made are in consideration of the future of children living in once neglected neighborhoods.
"We have a management plan, and we have a goal, and we know what we need to do, the time period with which it's going to take and the resources that are going to be needed in order to execute on that plan, and it's going to allow us to plant a variety of long lived medium and large shade trees here in the South End, in Sheridan Hollow, in West Hill, in neighborhoods that were formally redlined and that really need to ensure that they have that tree canopy. We're also using porous paving and structured soils around these trees. We want to dramatically increase the soil volumes to help the trees grow without creating accessibility barriers along our sidewalks," said Sheehan.
Maher says other major investments include upgrading and modernizing the state-owned Saratoga Tree Nursery.
