Proposal would create a $30 million fund to plant trees in areas suffering from heat

Two rows of new shade trees along Phoenix’s Baseline Road offer the kind of life-changing and life-saving infrastructure that the nation should emulate, U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego said while visiting the site in the city's Laveen Village on Wednesday.

Planted where they will shade the hot sidewalk between Cesar Chavez High School, a park, a busy bus stop and a library, the trees will reduce heat stress for thousands of people in a neighborhood that experts say has enjoyed less than a third of the shade needed to put in on par with wealthier parts of the city.

Gallego, D-Arizona, visited the site of what the city is calling the first of its “cool corridors” program, and then hosted a listening session with community and public health leaders.

“When we originally built this community, we built it around cars,” said Gallego, who previously lived in Laveen and has since moved to south Phoenix, another area with sparse shade along many streets. Parts of the city that housing discrimination shaped as Latino and Black communities lack the shade of wealthier and whiter historic districts.

Now those areas need the investment, he said.

On Monday, Gallego and Democratic New Jersey Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman introduced a bill that would create a $30 million annual grant fund for mitigating urban heat through 2030. It could help communities and nonprofits plant and water trees, create shade structures, install reflective cool roofs and pavements, cover bus stops and open public cooling centers.

Cooling plans heating up:Volunteers plant trees for a new Phoenix 'cool corridor'

Few places in America need shade more than metro Phoenix, where Maricopa County epidemiologist Jessica White told Gallego at least 339 people died of heat-related causes last year. Her office will present the final count to county officials next week, and is still investigating at more possible deaths. About half of the victims were experiencing homelessness.

Gallego said $30 million a year won’t solve the problem, but could energize partnerships like the one that Phoenix formed with American Forests and corporate contributors to plant the first cool corridor last weekend. The city plans to dedicated its own funds to planting another nine miles of these corridors in shade-challenged parts of the city each year.

“It’s definitely not going to go far enough,” Gallego said of his proposed federal grants. He said he chose a figure he thought he could pass though Congress. “The focus is mainly to create a pathway for government to understand the importance of shade.”

The legislation says low-income census blocks across the United States have 15% less shade than other blocks, that on average are 1.5 degrees hotter, and that people of color in 97% of the largest urban areas experience most intense heating from the urban heat island effect, a name for the heating effect of concrete and pavement without cooling shade or vegetation.

The bill, called the Excess Urban Heat Mitigation Act, would direct at least half of any year’s funding to low-income areas or places considered affected by environmental injustice.

“This type of investment from the federal government would be transformational,” Aimee Esposito, executive director of the nonprofit group Trees Matter, told The Republic in an email. Phoenix is well-positioned to capitalize on the grants because it has created and staffed a unique city office of urban heat mitigation. “Other regions will start to have higher extreme weather and will be learning from our region.”

The trees that Phoenix and partners planted on Baseline will likely last, as they’re on the edge of a park where city groundskeepers already water grass. Elsewhere, investing in shade can mean piping new sources of water, adding to the cost.

“It’s not as simple as saying let’s just put up trees,” Gallego said. In some places, it might make more sense to build shade structures.

The city proposes to use federal funds available from last year’s federal pandemic relief package to support new urban foresters who can help neighbors expand and care for the city’s tree canopy in areas where it’s now lacking. While the city encourages planting desert- and drought-adapted species, heat officer David Hondula said, trees should be seen as a priority for the city’s water supply.

“What are we conserving water for?” Hondula wondered, if not for maintaining a livable city. “It would be hard to imagine many uses of water that are a higher value.”

Metro Phoenix alone will lose nearly $2.5 billion a year in economic production without action to cool the city and mitigate climate change, The Nature Conservancy’s Anna Bettis told Gallego.

She directs TNC’s Healthy Cities Program in Arizona, and it released a study modeling those costs last year. While heat-related deaths would account for much of that cost, others would come from loss of productivity among outdoor workers, or the need to crank up the air conditioner and burn more electricity.

Besides those costs, she said, teachers report that students coming in from the heat are like “wilted flowers” and have difficulty learning.

Brandon Loomis covers environmental and climate issues for The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com. Reach him at brandon.loomis@arizonarepublic.com or follow on Twitter @brandonloomis.

Environmental coverage on azcentral.com and in The Arizona Republic is supported by a grant from the Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust. Follow The Republic environmental reporting team at environment.azcentral.com and @azcenvironment on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

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