Nevada Week | Why is Tree Equity Important to Southern Nevada? | Season 6 | Episode 10 | PBS

-From education to the environment now.

Behind Reno, Las Vegas is the second fastest warming city in the United States.

That’s according to the nonprofit research group Climate Central which says trees are part of the solution because they can cool the air and hot surface temperatures like pavement.

However, recent research shows trees tend to be sparse in lower-income neighborhoods, prompting nonprofits like Nevada Plants to take action for tree equity.

-This is a city of Las Vegas map.

And this is where we’re going to be planting 250 trees.

-Lisa Ortega, Executive Director of Nevada Plants, knows which Las Vegas neighborhoods lack tree cover.

-Lower income, less canopy.

-And less tree canopy means less shade and hotter temperatures for Las Vegans like Felipe Arellano– (Felipe Arellano) Vegas is being getting really hot, 115 degrees, and we need shade.

– –and Kristyn Dunne and her son.

(Kristyn Dunne) Trees can be a little expensive, and so we were really excited to get a tree that’s going to grow really big and give him shade and eventually, you know, make it so he can play outside all year round.

-Thanks to Nevada Plants, Dunne and Arellano each got a tree and irrigation system for $20.

Their East Las Vegas area codes qualified them.

(Chris David) -We see a lot of communities in Eastern Las Vegas or Sunrise Manor as well as North Las Vegas that have often 1 or 2% tree canopy cover.

Those neighborhoods often have the highest numbers of people in poverty or people of color as well.

On the other side of the coin, the most treed communities, you might not be surprised that those are in those masterplanned communities of Summerlin and Green Valley.

-Chris David oversees map-based visual storytelling at American Forests, a national nonprofit conservation organization which created the Tree Equity Score tool.

-That’s a combination of a measure of need of tree canopy cover that’s based on the existing tree canopy cover for your community and a measure of equity based on demographics and heat.

The lower your score– so the further you are from 100, the higher your priority will be.

[clicking] [buzzing] -We have our drone in an area of Summerlin where the tree equity score is a perfect 100.

You can see the difference in tree canopy here where, according to the Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance, the median household income is about $111,000.

Compare that to this drone footage from Dunne’s neighborhood where the tree equity score is just 59 and the household income, less than $29,000.

(Marco Valotta) It definitely is worth it.

-Marco Valotta is a City Planner for Las Vegas and its Chief Sustainability Officer.

We met with him at the city’s tree nursery.

-Why is it that lower-income areas tend to have fewer trees?

-There’s a couple of different reasons why that might be the case.

You know, a lot of the low-income areas in Las Vegas happened to be in the oldest parts of town.

And those older parts of town, they tend to have the older tree species.

And over time they’ve started to die out, either disease or pests.

The other might be economic.

We have property owners, whether they’re commercial or residential, they sometimes don’t have the money or the ability to make tree or landscaping replacements.

-What is the City of Las Vegas doing to address this issue?

-So within the oldest parts of the city itself, anywhere within our public right of way, like within downtown Las Vegas, we’ve been planting trees.

We also are a Tree City USA, so it also means that we take advantage of Arbor Day.

Every year we do a tree planting event at a public park, and we have a goal of planting 60,000 new trees over the next 30 years.

-However, David says Las Vegas would need 346,000 trees to achieve tree equity.

-This is relevant right now today across the Southwest and across the country.

Heat-related deaths are on the rise, and they’re expected to reach in this country over 100,000 deaths annually within the next decade.

So I keep saying this is a matter of life and death, and it is.

-The severity of the situation is Ortega’s motivation.

-There’s folks that live here.

They have toddlers.

They have kids that are going to school that need shade.

They have elders who walk to the bus stop to get their groceries, and these folks need shade.

They do.

-The Southern Nevada Water Authority is working to increase tree cover as well.

And here to explain why and how is John Entsminger, General Manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority.

John, Welcome.

(John Entsminger) Great to be here again.

-So we are in a decades-long drought.

Trees need water to grow.

Why are you promoting the planting of trees?

-Well, really to combat increasing temperatures.

The urban heat island is a real thing.

If you’ve ever put your hand on the sidewalk, even at seven or eight o’clock at night, you know that thermal energy gets stored in all these hardscapes that we’ve built.

So in order to have a really livable city, we need to really try to increase that tree canopy.

-But you’re doing this at the same time as you’re asking people to remove their lawns and replace them with desert landscaping.

Is the use of water more justified for trees than it is for grass?

-I think both justified and much, much more efficient.

One square foot of grass uses 73 gallons of water per year.

So you’re talking about 10 vertical feet of water for every square foot of grass in the valley; whereas, mature trees use about 17 gallons per square foot.

So much more efficient use of water and a much bigger return on our water investment in terms of the livability of our city.

-And as we showed in the previous piece, Las Vegas doesn’t have enough trees as it is, but the Southern Nevada Water Authority is worried about the trees that Vegas currently has.

Why?

-Yeah.

You’re really talking about kind of a two-front war, because a lot of the trees that have been planted here aren’t going to survive.

As we get warmer temperatures, as early as 2035, we think there’s about 100,000 trees in the valley that no amount of water is going to save.

Those trees are going to reach their heat limits, and they’re gonna die.

So we need to be replacing those trees but also planting new trees throughout the valley, as you mentioned, especially on the east side of town where the temperatures and the equity issues are a real thing.

-So how does this Tree Enhancement program work?

-So the Board of Directors of the Southern Nevada Water Authority has already appropriated $10 million with the goal of planting 100,000 new trees.

It’s part of our Water Smart Landscape program.

So participants in the Water Smart Landscape program are now being incentivized that for every tree they plant as part of their project, there’ll be paid an additional $100.

-Wow!

Hey, not too shabby.

-Exactly.

-I want to move on to other work that you are a part of.

You are a General Manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, but you also lead negotiations for the State of Nevada in terms of the Colorado River and operating guidelines, which are set to expire in 2026.

Right now as it’s set up, Nevada gets the least amount of water out of all the seven states that utilize the Colorado River, and Mexico as well.

What do you want out of those negotiations?

-Well, I think first and foremost, I want to continue the process that has kept the seven states together and out of litigation.

I think it’s imperative that we continue to cooperate with our neighbors while also making sure that we have a safe and secure water supply for the residents here in Southern Nevada.

-What would prompt litigation?

-I think one state refusing to share in mutual sacrifice.

I mean, the reality of the situation is the Colorado River in the 21st century is going to have a lot less water than it had in the 20th century.

And every state, two countries, every water user throughout the basin is going to have to contribute to having a sustainable river going into the future.

-There is an idea being circulated right now about decommissioning Glen Canyon Dam to increase storage in Lake Mead.

What do you think of that?

-I think it would be really shortsighted to take that infrastructure out.

If you listen to the best climate scientists in the world, yes, we’re going to experience megadroughts as the climate changes, but there will also be periods of potential megafloods.

And when those occur, we want the infrastructure in place to be able to store that water.

If Glen Canyon Dam hadn’t existed in the year 2000, Lake Mead would be empty right now.

So we have really good infrastructure on the river.

There will be periods when we get more water, and we should be able to capture that water and save it for future years when those occur.

-Talking about the existing guidelines and the guidelines that are to come that you’re working on right now, if you had your way, how would they impact farmers?

-Well, I think everybody’s got to contribute, right?

So I think there should be standards to make agriculture more efficient.

But also I think we need to make sure we allocate enough water for winter fruits and vegetables.

The Colorado River is one of the most productive agricultural areas in the world, certainly in the United States, but we have to be more efficient with how we grow those crops.

-Would that come via federal regulation?

-Well, I think there’s multiple avenues.

I think you can negotiate for more efficiency standards.

Certainly the agricultural areas in Arizona and California are participating in the Lower Basin Plan to conserve 3 million acre feet of water by the end of 2026.

So my preference is always to negotiate, not regulate.

But in the absence of being able to reach conclusion at the negotiating table, that possibility of regulation is always out there.

-And the current operating guidelines, how far off are they from what is practical in your opinion?

-I think they’re probably 80% practical.

And we’ve learned about 20% of them aren’t great.

I mean, the whole intent of interim guidelines in 2007 was to learn lessons.

And we’ve learned we were probably releasing too much water from Lake Powell to Lake Mead in the last 20 years.

Those balancing operations caused a lot of strife between the Upper and Lower Basin.

So there’s some tweaks that need to be made.

-And are there implementations in conservation in Southern Nevada that you would like to see utilized in other states?

-Well, I would try not to be the person who’s telling other localities what to do, but I certainly think we provide an example of what can be done.

We’re on pace this year to use less water as a community than we used in 1992, during which time the population of this community has tripled.

So we have shown that you can grow your community, have a vibrant economy, and simultaneously use a lot less water.

I think there are lessons to be learned by the communities there.

-So could you pick one?

I mean, perhaps the turf removal?

-Well, there’s a pending proposal in the California State Legislature right now to ban non-functional turf exactly as we’ve done here.

So our neighbors are looking at us and learning some lessons.

Yeah, I think, you know, grass that only gets walked on by the person who mows it doesn’t have a place in the Western United States anymore.

-John Entsminger, General Manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, thank you for your time.

And thank you for watching.