PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society showed off one of its most ambitious efforts on Wednesday. Environmental Protection Agency officials toured PHS’ Love Where You Live Greening Plan to make Nicetown-Tioga cleaner and safer.
Nicetown-Tioga is one of the most environmentally compromised communities in the city, with more particulate matter and diesel exhaust than most other neighborhoods and the smallest tree canopy. Only about 3% of the neighborhood had tree coverup until two years ago when the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society started working with the Nicetown Community Development Corporation and Tioga United.
In the last two years, PHS has added pollinator gardens, transformed front yards, cleared lots, planted 300 trees, and created Hope Park on Tioga Street. PHS staff showed the results to EPA Mid-Atlantic Regional Administrator Adam Ortiz as an example of how the EPA’s new grants can work.
The EPA is set to announce $2 billion of environmental justice grants for community cleanup projects. Ortiz said the Biden administration will provide $50 million to underserved communities in the Mid-Atlantic region, just for such projects, beginning in August.
“The EPA has been focused on enforcement and compliance and that’s really important, but it doesn’t solve every problem,” Ortiz said. “So we’re showing up and providing grant funding to local organizations like we’re seeing here in Nicetown-Tioga to clean up litter and illegal dumping and improve air quality.”
PHS President Matt Rader hopes EPA funding can help bring the formula to other communities.
“We think it’s an exciting vision for how you can bring leadership through collaboration to make neighborhoods healthier, more wonderful places to live,” he said.