Achieving Green Community status with help from the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC) is helping Lynn and Saugus reduce air pollution, including in communities of color.
MAPC helped Lynn achieve Green Community this year, resulting in the city receiving a Department of Energy Resources $495,030 grant to support implementation of a variety of energy-efficiency measures across its municipal facilities.
The Energy Reduction Plan developed through this process provides a road map to achieving a 20 percent reduction in municipal energy use over five years, according to MAPC.
Saugus in 2015 received MAPC-supported Green Community designation in part to help the town launch municipal energy-efficiency projects. To date, Saugus has received more than $800,000 in Green Communities.
MAPC, a regional planning agency serving 101 cities and towns in metropolitan Boston, has drawn close connections in its research between pollution and disease.
The greenhouse gas inventory tool recently launched by MAPC is designed to help municipalities like Lynn and Saugus devise greenhouse gas pollution reduction strategies. So far, three communities — Melrose, Arlington, and Natick — have adopted the tool, which is available free of charge to all Massachusetts cities and towns.
“GHG inventories are essential to crafting local climate action plans, providing a baseline to measure the impact of future climate change mitigation efforts,” said MAPC Director of Clean Energy Cammy Peterson.
The inventories can pinpoint emission sources. Roads are readily identifiable sources, but residences with natural gas and oil-burning heating sources also generate emissions.
Reducing emissions is important because studies, including MAPC research, found Greater Boston residents of color are more likely to live near high-polluting roadways where vehicles spew tailpipe pollution strongly linked to heart and respiratory problems.
An agency study found 45 percent of Black residents, 47 percent of Asian residents and 54 percent of Latino residents in the region live in the highest pollution areas, compared with just 29 percent of the region’s white residents.
MAPC Clean Energy Analyst Megan Aki said municipal officials can use greenhouse gas information to map out plans with residents, business owners and other community members to reduce emissions.
Lynn successfully retrofitted all of its streetlights to LEDs in 2019, and Saugus is undertaking streetlight retrofitting.
“Saugus and Lynn are leading by example on emission reduction,” Aki said.
Summer typically sees pollution worsen, according to a Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection report cited by MAPC.
“Weather patterns most often associated with air pollution in Massachusetts are those that draw air up along the northeast corridor, through Washington D.C., Philadelphia, New York City, etc. before reaching Massachusetts. These patterns tend to occur more often, and last longer, in the summer,” said the report.
MAPC anti-pollution public-policy recommendations include empowering more decision-making by communities of color regarding new roadways, modifying buildings to keep pollutants out, locating new affordable housing — as well as parks and playgrounds — in areas away from highways, and encouraging cleaner modes of transportation, such as walking, biking and electrified transit.
Nahant, Salem and Swampscott are among other area Green Communities.
