Tree Equity for Our Neighborhoods

Is Coastal Georgia’s tree cover equitable?

Savannah is celebrated by locals and tourists alike for its tree canopy — but is the city’s tree cover fairly distributed? 

Recent data arrived this month to suggest that, across America, municipal green space mirrors the racist practice of redlining. That practice dates back to the 1930s, when the federal government rated neighborhoods to help mortgage lenders determine areas that might be considered “risky” predominately based on the number of Black and immigrant residents there. 

The pro-tree conservation organization, American Forests, developed a database to track the distribution of trees across the country called the Tree Equity Score. It accounts for tree canopy, race, income, age, population density, health, employment and surface temperature to calculate a score for census blocks across the country. Overall, the data show that majority-minority neighborhoods have 33% fewer trees than majority white neighborhoods, and neighborhoods that are 90% or more low income have 41% fewer trees than neighborhoods where less than 10% of residents live in poverty.

Here in Savannah, areas near Wheat Hill, Clearview, Savannah State University and Oakhurst have some of the lowest tree equity scores, as well as some areas in Richmond Hill and Pooler. In Brunswick, areas near McIntyre Court, Magnolia Park and Greenwood Cemetery have the lowest scores.

Why does this matter? Having fewer trees means higher temperatures, less flood control, more pollution and less resilience to climate change. And planting trees inequitably means already vulnerable communities, which are generally lower income communities of color, will face harsher impacts from climate change. You can see suggestions for trees that can help neighborhoods and some history on the Savannah Tree Foundation website. To explore the whole map and learn more about the score, visit the tree equity score website. 

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BEACH ADVISORIES: There are no current beach advisories or warnings along Georgia’s coast. Before you head to the beach, check the link for updates. 

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U.S. House passes toxic chemical restrictions

Last week the House of Representatives passed the PFAS Action Act of 2021, 241-183, with bipartisan support. PFAS, also known as “forever chemicals,” are a group of nearly 5,000 substances that take hundreds of years to break down in the environment. They are used in products like cosmetics and non-stick cookware. They also are found in the blood of 99% of Americans, and are linked to reproductive, developmental and immune system impacts in lab animals, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. The bill will restrict PFAS pollution and help jumpstart cleanup at toxic sites like military bases in Georgia by designating the chemicals as a hazardous substance. It would also require the EPA to limit industrial discharge of the chemicals and provide $200 million annually to upgrade local water infrastructure to treat PFAS. Our Coastal Georgia representative, Rep. Buddy Carter, missed the vote due to returning to Savannah early last week for a family emergency. In a statement to the Congressional Record, he said he would have voted against the bill if he was present. 

In a Rules Committee Meeting on the bill, Carter said he does think that contamination from PFAS is a serious problem that needs to be addressed but believes the bill would “stunt American innovation.” The act “takes a radical regulatory approach to an entire class of chemicals,” even though “significant research has only been done on two out of the 9,252 chemicals” classified under the bill, he said. 

A 2020 study from 16 global scientists who study PFAS called for regulating the entire class of chemicals due to their toxicological properties, noting that it could spur innovation for PFAS replacements and that managing the chemicals one by one isn’t feasible or cost-efficient. 

The Georgia Recorder reported that utility groups lobbied hard against the bill. While the act designates $200 million to local water utilities to treat PFAS, these facilities would likely need more funding than that to comply with the federal cleanup standards the act would create, says Mike Keegan, a regulatory analyst at the National Rural Water Association, a trade group that represents local water utilities in rural areas across all 50 states. The NRWA has spent $390,000 on lobbying this year. The Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies, which has spent $30,000 on lobbying this year, says the act should exempt water and wastewater utilities from being financially liable for cleanup, and should instead keep liability for PFAS manufacturers.

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Speeding ships violate whale protections off the coast

The environmental group Oceana released new data showing that nearly 90% of ships sailing in the Atlantic from Brunswick, Ga., to Wilmington, N.C., between November 2017 and July 2020 were speeding in violation of limits put in place to protect North Atlantic right whales, a critically endangered species. 

In an effort to prevent death from ship strikes, vessels 65 feet or longer are restricted to 11.5 miles per hour in zones where whales herd. In a story from Georgia Public Broadcasting, Paulita Bennett-Martin, Oceana’s field representative in Georgia, said: “Here in the Southeast, this is incredibly important to us because these whales come here to have their calves every year. If our boats cannot slow down to protect them, where will boats actually do that?”

Fewer than 400 North Atlantic right whales remain, and less than 25% of these mammals are breeding females.

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SHIP WATCH: What’s arriving and when. This week’s lineup includes the COSCO Shipping Alps, arriving on July 31. It’s 1,200 feet long and 168.3 meters wide, and it carries 14,568 TEUs, aka containers, according to VesselTracker.com. It’s en route from Piraeus, Greece.

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