TOLEDO, Ohio — Toledo City Council will vote Wednesday on a $6 million federal grant that aims to increase the city's tree coverage.
The city has a low tree canopy of only 17% coverage when it should be at 35-40%, according to city officials.
This is where RE-TREE Toledo comes in, with the goal of planting more trees in the urban city to hopefully benefit more than 83,000 people.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Forest Service awarded Toledo the grant in September.
"We are going to use that money to plant over 10,000 trees throughout the city of Toledo, all in communities that the federal government considers disadvantaged," said Simon Nyi, city grants commissioner.
Alan Hall, the owner of Arbor Tech of Toledo, says tree coverage is important.
"You're going to see a significant temperature increase without mature trees around to give the shade off that they need, and then the obvious is we need trees like trees need us, to keep us healthy," he said.
Hall said the cooling impact of trees can help alleviate the urban heat island effect and ultimately reduce electric bills.
The city wants to put trees along public streets, in public parks, and on publicly-owned vacant lots, among other places.
"This program is being paid for 100% by the federal government, so it's not costing the city of Toledo anything to do this, and I think it's a really exciting program that's going to have a lot of great impact," Nyi said.
Nyi says the next step is to formally sign a grant agreement with the U.S. Forest Service on what Toledo's specific plan with the funding is.
He said the actual planting of the trees should begin next year and will take place for the next four, if city council approves it.
The city also plans to have a youth program where Toledo Public Schools students would be paid to learn urban forestry skills and have an opportunity for city forestry employment after they graduate from the program.