Hundreds of communities around the country, including Hutchinson, will share more than $1 billion in federal money to help them plant and maintain trees under a federal program intending to reduce extreme heat, benefit health, and improve access to nature.
Grant recipients include some of the nation's largest cities, such as New York, Houston and Los Angeles, and much smaller communities, such as Hutchinson, Kansas, and Tarpon Springs, Florida.
Hutchinson will be receiving $250,000 for dead tree removal on right of ways; the project will include removing dead or severely-declined trees in the underserved southern half of Hutchinson.
U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced the $1.13 billion in funding for 385 projects at an event Thursday morning in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The tree plantings will focus on marginalized areas in all 50 states as well as Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and some tribal nations.
“We believe we can create more resilient communities in terms of the impacts of climate,” Vilsack told reporters in previewing his announcement. “We think we can mitigate extreme heat incidents and events in many of the cities.”
In Cedar Rapids, Vilsack put a spotlight on the eastern Iowa city of 135,000 people that lost thousands of trees during an extreme windstorm during the summer of 2020. Cedar Rapids has made the restoration of its tree canopy a priority since that storm, called a derecho, and will receive $6 million in funding through the new grants.
Brenda Mallory, chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, says many communities have lacked access to nature and that all the tree grants would benefit marginalized and underrepresented communities.
“Everyone should have access to nature,” Mallory said. “Urban forests can really play a key role in ensuring both that access but also increasing the climate resilience of communities, helping reduce extreme heat and making communities more livable.”
The federal money comes from the Inflation Reduction Act.