Skip to main content
Energy & Environment

Baltimore County Plants Trees in Neighborhoods that Fall Short in ‘Tree Equity’

Baltimore County Executive John A. Olszewski Jr. (D) and community leaders help plant a tree at the Dundalk home of Eva Englebach and her daughter Kristina Cassidy. The planting is part of Operation ReTree in Baltimore County. Photo by Elizabeth Shwe.

Standing outside a red brick home in Dundalk with a newly planted redbud in the front lawn on Monday, Baltimore County Executive John A. Olszewski Jr. (D) announced a planting program that will offer free trees to low-income, densely populated neighborhoods that have little tree canopy. 

“It’s not enough to just put trees throughout the county or within the line — we have to make sure that they are equally distributed among all our communities,” Olszewski said at a press conference. 

Trees can play a significant role in the health of people, as tree covers provide shade and help cool neighborhoods. Lower temperatures also mean lower energy consumption and electricity bills. 

Enough trees can prevent an urban area from becoming a “heat island” — or the phenomenon that urban areas tend to have higher temperatures because they have more buildings, concrete sidewalks and asphalt streets, which absorb sunlight’s heat more than forests and farmland. And more trees help increase the property value of homes, Olszewski said. 

“The outcomes that are associated with this project are critical to a lot of communities in this county, not only from an environmental perspective, [but] from even an economic perspective, moving our young people into job opportunities in the environment and sustainability,” said Troy Williams, the chief diversity and inclusion officer for Baltimore County. 

˃˃ Related: Finding ‘Tree Equity:’ New Analysis Shows Neighborhoods That Need More Trees

Through “Operation ReTree Baltimore County,” a couple dozen trees had already been planted in West Inverness, a neighborhood in Dundalk, by Monday afternoon. These trees mark the first of the 290 that will be planted in the neighborhood for the next two weeks at 139 homes, West Inverness Recreation Center, Lynch Cove Park and Sandy Plains Elementary School. 

One of the trees was planted in front of the home of Eva Englebach and her daughter Kristina Cassidy, who were sitting on their front porch, slightly concealed by a new small tree, during the press conference.

Eva Englebach and her daughter Kristina Cassidy live in West Inverness, a neighborhood in Dundalk, and are among the 139 homes that got a new tree from Baltimore County’s new “Operation ReTree” program. Photo by Elizabeth Shwe.

Cassidy said they had gotten a flyer about Operation ReTree in September and were immediately interested. “I did not think I would like it as much as I do, but I am really excited about it,” Englebach said. “I spend a lot of time out here,” she said.  

Englebach has been living in West Inverness since the neighborhood was built in 1956. When she first moved in at age 12, almost every home had a tree in the yard, but they began disappearing in the 1990s, she said. 

She remembered a huge tree in her front yard when she was growing up, but it was removed 25 years ago because the roots were interfering with her home’s plumbing system and got too expensive to maintain, she said. They recently had to chop two other trees in their backyard because the roots were interfering with the foundation of their home, Cassidy said. 

“We have wanted [another tree] for a long time,” Englebach said. This new tree has a root barrier to prevent its roots from growing into pipes and sewer lines, she said. Her next door neighbor also signed up to get a tree planted in her yard. 

A freshly planted tree stands in front of the home of Eva Englebach and her daughter, Kristina Cassidy. Photo by Elizabeth Shwe.

Olszewski and other community leaders grabbed shovels and scooped the remaining dirt over the root ball of the new tree Monday afternoon. “I didn’t go to the gym this morning, so this is good,” Olszewski said. 

During the winter, Baltimore County’s Department of Environmental Protection and Sustainability will choose additional neighborhoods for Operation ReTree, according to Ellen Kobler, senior advisor of communications for the department. The number of trees planted in those neighborhoods will depend on residents’ preferences, land availability and utility constraints, such as sewer lines. 

To choose which neighborhoods to plant trees in, Baltimore County’s Department of Environmental Protection and Sustainability created an “equity tree priority score” that identifies the 2020 Census block groups where the most people with the least amount of resources would benefit from more tree canopy near their homes. The score depends on income levels, population and tree canopy coverage. 

Baltimore County’s larger goal is to maintain a 50% tree canopy in the county and 40% tree coverage in its urban, more populated areas. The county had set a goal to plant 5,000 new trees for Earth Day this year and doubled the goal by planting 11,000 trees in one year.

Olszewski dedicated $400,000 in the fiscal year 2022 budget for the first year of Operation ReTree. 

“When they put the tree in earlier today, I was coming down the steps, and the first thing I saw was the tree,” Englebach said. “They’re just great to look at, it is. I love nature and I really enjoy this.” 

[email protected]

REPUBLISHING TERMS

Our stories may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. We ask that you edit only for style or to shorten, provide proper attribution and link to our website. Please see our republishing guidelines for use of photos and graphics.

If you have any questions, please email [email protected].

To republish, copy the following text and paste it into your HTML editor.

License

Creative Commons License AttributionCreative Commons Attribution
Baltimore County Plants Trees in Neighborhoods that Fall Short in ‘Tree Equity’