‘It’s an investment in our youth’: More than 10,000 trees to be planted in Spokane County over the next five years

As the Spokane area’s first scorching weather looms, a new program to help local neighborhoods beat the heat with extra tree canopy kicked off in Airway Heights Wednesday.

The Spokane Conservation District received almost $7 million in grant funding through the Inflation Reduction Act, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Forest Service to develop the apprenticeship program and a tree equity planting program, said district operations director Cori Turntine.

The district and other organizations planted three trees Wednesday at the Airway Heights Recreation Center to help with canopy coverage. The organization identified the district as one of the most underserved in terms of tree canopy, and the plan is to plant over 10,000 trees in other underserved communities throughout the county by 2029, Turntine said.

Other communities include a portion in the city of Spokane, a neighborhood in Deer Park and in the Rockford and Freeman areas, she said.

“We’ll plant trees for residents, homeowners, business owners, community organizations, whoever needs them and wants to fit within those communities,” she said.

One of the trees planted on Wednesday is a honey locust, which will have golden-colored leaves in the fall. The tree will be at its full height of 50 feet in the next 40 to 50 years.

Turntine said there is a direct correlation between income levels and shade in certain neighborhoods, and with extreme heat in the summers, there is not as much opportunity to keep residents in those neighborhoods cool.

“Trees purify the air ; they control temperatures,” she said. “Trees act as flood mitigators. There’s lots of really cool environmental impacts to planting trees.”

EPA Regional Administrator Casey Sixkiller said with the funding, homeowners and business owners can contact the district to have new trees planted on their properties free of charge as summers get hotter and longer.

The apprenticeship program, which received $877,000 of the funding, will span three years and bring in young adults to work with the conservation district during summers, Sixkiller said. The apprentices will have the opportunity to network and develop relationships with natural resource professionals.

The first cohort is still being finalized, but the group will also receive stipends to attend Spokane Community College for a two-year associate’s degree in either the Natural Resource program or the Arboriculture Urban Forestry program, Turntine said.

Sixkiller said Pacific Education Institute, one of the organizations partnering with the conservation district on the project, is developing a K-12 curriculum focused on urban and community forestry. The curriculum based on environmental justice principles will eventually be available for educators across the nation.

Michelle Townshend, the institute’s state project specialist, said the nonprofit provides teaching resources and training for K-12 teachers to get outside for outdoor-based education.

The curriculum will be available as early as the spring of 2025, she said.

PEI will then implement a YESS program in summer 2025. Townshend said the Youth Engaged and Sustainable Systems preapprentice program will last for six weeks and allow students to earn high school credit in either science or math.

The students will receive hands-on experience with a number of community partners and gain work experience, she said. The students will receive a stipend for the six weeks as well.

“Tree planting and environmental ed – it’s important work. It helps move our mission forward; it brings immediate benefits to the communities that we reside in for our neighbors,” Sixkiller said. “I think, importantly, it’s an investment in our youth.”