LAS VEGAS (FOX5) — North Las Vegas is on a mission to be heat-resilient.
The city’s first municipal forester, Eddie Rodriguez, who was hired nearly two years ago, says several solutions include tree preservation and more heat-tolerant plants and trees, such as Desert Horizon Park.
“You’re actually cooling the environment with these trees. You’re cleaning the air,” he said. “City of North Las Vegas only had a 3% canopy cover, which means basically we don’t have a whole lot of trees here.”
So far, the city has planted over 1,400 trees. The area can be up to 11 degrees hotter than other regions due to its built environment and lower elevation, according to Southern Nevada’s Urban Heat Mapping Project. NLV needs 55,000 trees to be on par with the rest of the valley.
“We are planting about 700 to 1,000 trees a year, and we’re well ahead of where our goal is right now,” Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez says the city is not using more water because the trees are being planted on existing turf with mulch, which acts as a shield. But there are challenges.
“We have 33 parks, so we only have so much right-of-way and green space that we can plant in. We really need our residential community to come on board to make up that difference,” he added. To help cover costs, the city has several tree giveaways every year.
“They’re highly successful in getting trees planted and actually see them grow because there is an investment made on the homeowner side to come out, stand in a line for an hour, two hours, and then we educate them,” he said.
The city was also just awarded a $1 million grant from the U.S. Forest Service. It will use the money for a tree inventory, canopy study, and tree management plan.
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