In honor of Earth Day and in anticipation of Arbor Day, the City of Erie announced their sustainability initiatives for 2026.
One of those initiatives is nourishing Erie’s green spaces by planting more trees, and on Wednesday afternoon, city officials got their hands dirty planting an American elm on Briggs Avenue and East 38th Street.
Annual State of the Air report released, how did Erie do?
Trees are a large component of a sustainable environment because they provide habitat for wildlife, filter the air we breathe, and can even help to regulate the weather.
“They help make shade in the summer when it’s hot, trees actually absorb water out of the soil, and they go up through the trunks and limbs and out their leaves, and trees are what help put water vapor in the air and form clouds to help make it rain to water all the things that we need,” said City of Erie Sustainability Coordinator Sarah Peelman…