Boston Struggles to Find Takers for Green Roof Grants
Sourced from Commonwealth Beacon
AFTER OPENING A water bill last year, Ruth Solomon saw an advertisement for a novel program that sought to encourage Boston residents to build green roofs.
The 51-year-old mom from Jamaica Plain had been intrigued by the benefits of such roofs, which act like sponges, using a range of plants to absorb stormwater and help reduce electricity costs by improving insulation.
“We thought it would be a good thing to do,” she said.
Last fall, Solomon and her husband, Rob Ditzion, were the first recipients of the new grants from the Boston Water and Sewer Commission, which they used to plant a range of succulents on a specially built roof over their mudroom.
The couple received $8,000 — covering nearly 90 percent of their costs — from a pool of $650,000 the commission has set aside for individual grants to promote green roofs and other ways of reducing stormwater pollution in Boston.
The commission’s goal is to reduce the runoff after storms carry contaminants from roads and other impervious surfaces into storm drains. That stormwater, long a source of pollution in Boston Harbor and other local waterways, can spur toxic algae blooms, fish die-offs, and other environmental damage.
As climate change increases heavy bursts of precipitation in New England, the number of intense two-day storms rose by 74 percent between 1901 and 2016, while the heaviest downpours now dump 55 percent more precipitation than the most intense storms did during the middle of the 1900s, according to a 2023 report by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council. The report added that an additional 40 percent increase in such heavy bursts of precipitation is projected by the end of the century.
From the Living Architecture Monitor
