At least for now, Arlington County Board members are sticking to their story when it comes to the county’s total tree canopy. But cracks in that commitment are appearing.
At a March 19 meeting of the body, County Board member Susan Cunningham presented information on the canopy, using a 2016 study commissioned by the county government that showed Arlington had a tree canopy of 41 percent.
That compares to a more recent study funded by an advocacy group, which concluded the actual rate was more like 33 percent.
County officials have declined to embrace that study, but verbiage in Cunningham’s report acknowledged that the overall canopy may have declined to less than 40 percent in the years since the 2016 study.
(The county’s 2016 survey incorporates the 6,015 acres of Arlington County that are exclusive of the Pentagon and Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. Add those relatively tree-free parcels in, and the 2016 study concluded overall county tree canopy was 38%.)
The recently approved Forestry & Natural Resources Master Plan calls for 40-percent canopy across the county. Recent losses in the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor and urbanizing western and northern parts of Arlington would seem to make that aspirational goal something of a reach.
“It’s hard to put it back once you lose it,” Cunningham said of tree canopy, since “a proper tree takes 10 to 20 years to grow.”
