The city is moving forward with its first urban forestry program, working with local partners to improve air quality and the quality of life for Chelsea residents.
“The city, under the leadership of the Chelsea City Council, has been striving to mitigate urban heat, beautify our neighborhoods, as well as promote environmental improvements throughout the city,” said Alex Train, the Director of Housing and Community Development. “This is the first time we have established a formal urban forestry program. The city secured a $100,000 grant through the Greening the Gateway Cities program in order to facilitate tree plantings and the installation of stormwater tree pits.”
On top of the grant, the city council also earmarked an additional $25,000 toward the program.
In addition, Train said the city is working with GreenRoots on a program that will provide compensation for residents who adopt a stormwater tree pit, water the trees, and make sure that they are properly maintained.
“We’re also going to be bringing in some outside resources to provide hands-on training around tree stewardship and maintenance for our DPW, so we’re excited to begin to build that in-house capacity,” said Train.
The city has completed all of the planning efforts for the urban forestry program, according to Train.
“We are identifying priority planting areas based on our urban heat mitigation plan, so through that plan, we discerned hotspots throughout local neighborhoods, primarily areas that have a lot of impervious surfaces, minimal green space, and poor air quality,” said Train.
One of the first sections of the city identified for planting is Addison Street, with the planting of street trees and some ancillary infrastructure already underway. After that, Train said the city will move on to plantings at some additional locations in the Shurtleff/Bellingham and Addison/Orange neighborhoods.
The densely packed city of Chelsea is susceptible to heat islands, which can lead to public health issues, Train said.
“The large amounts of buildings and impervious surfaces absorb heat, and as a result of that, during periods of extreme heat it is hotter for longer and our temperatures are higher by the fact that all the surrounding pavement and buildings are absorbing heat during the daytime hours,” said Train. “Heat has serious impacts on public health. It is correlated with higher instances of respiratory illnesses and cardiovascular disease as well as a lot of public health issues that affect children.”
One of the best ways to reduce extreme heat and mitigate heat islands is through expanding green spaces and planting street trees that will be able to serve generations.
“This round of the program will be throughout the course of 2023,” said Train. “We are right now queuing up a proposal for additional funding, so our plan is to apply for $100,000 annually through the state to continue this program.”
The city will be working with its partners at GreenRoots and the Boston University School of Public Health to use heat sensors to collect data to see if the tree plantings have had an impact on the heat islands.
“Now that we have launched this effort, as well as allocated significant resources to it, the city was notified recently that we were awarded the Tree City USA award by the Arbor Day Foundation, so we plan on working closely with the Arbor Day Foundation to continue this program and build off of it,” said Train.