Comments At Arlington County Board Meeting, February 22, 2025.
The staff report recommending that County Board adopt a climate action resolution opines:
On what planet is this community located? According to a 2023 report by the Green Infrastructure Center, Arlington tree canopy coverage is only 33 percent. (p. 12), down from a 2017 County estimate of 41 percent. This should come as no surprise to county officials, who have clearcut more than 1,000 trees from public property in the last two decades, despite the fact that tree canopy coverage is the first line of defense against flooding.
In 2021 Arlington Public Schools (APS) clearcut a grove of hardwoods behind Cardinal Elementary School in Westover to make way for the construction of a stormwater retention vault following a flash flood in July 2019.
Underscoring the perverseness of this decision, in 2023 the County purchased for demolition a $1.5 million house at 5840 18th Street N. across the street from Cardinal Elementary School to provide overland flood relief at the site.The County evidently never considered that preservation of the hardwoods behind the school could have achieved the same objective at no cost to the taxpayers.
Casting further doubt on the County’s commitment to climate mitigation was the testimony of plaintiffs challenging the EHO upzoning ordinance adopted in 2023 and overturned in 2024 on environmental grounds.
The County is appealing the ruling that it violated state law in failing to study the environmental impacts of upzoning. All the climate action resolution does is underscore the County’s commitment to greenwashing.