Not long ago, a 25-acre patch of woods on the Catholic University of America’s West Campus offered a rare pocket of shade—one of the few remaining in Ward 5. Today, it’s gone. 

Rows of solar panels now stand in its place, part of a project that earned the university the title of D.C.’s “greenest campus.” But in pursuing that title, CUA quietly claimed another. It became the city’s top tree remover, taking a chain saw to more healthy, mature trees than any other landowner in the District, according to tree removal permit records.

CUA says it removed more than 300 trees that stood in the way of the solar farm. More than half of those maple, walnut, elm, and others—174 in all—were approved for removal on a single permit issued in 2022 by the District Department of Transportation’s Urban Forestry Division.

Catholic University has been the District’s top deforester since 2020 by every measure: total trees removed, permit fees paid for removing healthy trees, and removing the largest number of trees on one permit. 

Cutting down trees to “go green” may seem contradictory, but sustainability decisions––especially in cities—are often more complicated. CUA, for instance, isn’t the only D.C. school to sacrifice trees in pursuit of new construction and expansion projects that simultaneously aim to reduce polluting emissions and address climate change. 

For this series, Hola Cultura took a closer look at the 50 D.C. addresses that removed the largest number of trees on a single permit. Sidwell Friends, Washington International School, KIPP charter schools, and seven other D.C. schools are among the top 50 addresses for tree loss. Permits on those 50 addresses account for less than 1 percent of all permits, but 29 percent of all healthy trees removed (excluding exempt species and hazardous or diseased trees that are under the legal size limit), as we first reported in May. 

Alex Smith, an architecture undergrad at CUA, says the solar array was unpopular among his friends, who saw it as a missed opportunity to build more dorms or school buildings.

“I thought it was ironic,” Smith says, that the university removed “a forest” to put up a solar farm. “It feels like getting rid of nature,” he says, just to replace it with “a different kind of green.”

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The loss of mature, healthy trees affects more than just shade or scenery—it accelerates the decline of D.C.’s urban forest, which plays a vital role in filtering air, reducing heat and flooding, and shielding the city’s most vulnerable communities from climate impacts. Students face some of the greatest risks. As Hola Cultura has previously reported, students struggle to learn in overheated classrooms, a growing concern in D.C. schools where failing air-conditioning systems and rising temperatures have collided to disrupt learning. And Casey Trees’ 2023 Tree Report Card says D.C. schools, on average, have far less tree canopy coverage than the citywide average of 37 percent as of 2020.

Climate change is expected to make D.C.’s summers significantly hotter. According to the District’s climate projections, the number of heat emergency days, when temperatures reach 95 degrees or higher and the city activates cooling centers, is expected to more than triple by 2050, with nearly the entire summer—as many as 75 days a year—registering such extreme heat by 2080. As more trees fall, experts say those living in already heat-vulnerable parts of the city may face higher risks of heat-related illness, especially where greenery is sparse and heat-trapping concrete and asphalt is plentiful.

Since the tree canopy loss at Catholic University her freshman year, undergrad Carolina Lopez-Vivar says she and her friends have already noticed the campus getting hotter, changing how students navigate it.

“Students dread walking because they think it’s so far, and then it’s hot,” says Lopez-Vivar, who has noticed more students opting for scooters or the campus shuttle when it comes to short walks such as getting to and from the Campus Garden in the middle of the school’s 176-acre grounds. 

“A lot of the AC is breaking down all over the building” over the summer, Lopez-Vivar adds of the school’s Mullen Library, where she also works. In July, she says, “we were having trouble opening the library itself because the door was swelling from the heat.”

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Urban heat islands have been observed by scientists and nonscientists alike for more than two centuries. It’s the scorching heat you feel while crossing a sunbaked parking lot in late summer compared to the sweet relief when stepping under the dappled shade of a big tree. But quantifying it, and what’s at stake, is a scientific work in progress.

“Forest patches are some of the best areas for cooling a parcel of air that’s kind of hanging out over the patch. Then the wind will move it somewhere else,” says Michael Alonzo, an assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Science at American University, who has studied D.C.’s tree canopy and how it affects temperatures.

Alonzo says the area likely became hotter after removing the 300-plus trees in the vicinity of the solar array. CUA acknowledges that 219 were healthy “special trees,” to use the D.C. government’s terminology for medium-sized trees with trunk circumferences at least 44 inches and less than 100 inches. 

But, Alonzo cautions, it’s an emerging area of study. “I can’t tell you the magnitude of warming, only that tree removal of that amount will probably result in warmer temperatures in that area,” he says, adding that “the available data today is better suited for measuring citywide average temperature changes resulting from changes in the tree canopy.” 

As D.C.’s sweltering summer gives way to hurricane season, Alonzo says the potential for flooding should also be a concern due to tree removal because they play an important role in stormwater management and erosion control. When that management fails and storm drains are overwhelmed, it sends untreated water directly into the area rivers and the Chesapeake Bay.

“Without trees, precipitation is followed quickly by peak stormwater flow, which can overwhelm our ability to treat that water before it enters the rivers,” Alonzo says. “Trees slow down the movement of precipitation to storm drains, effectively ‘flattening the curve,’ to use a pandemic-era analogy. “The same amount of water is reaching the storm drains eventually, but the trees are slowing it down.”

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Catholic University originally planned to clear the trees to build a parking lot, but later shifted course—installing 42 rows of solar panels instead. The West Campus Solar Array now generates 10,000 megawatt-hours of power annually for CUA and the surrounding community.

The solar array also contributes to the city’s Clean Energy DC initiative, which aims for carbon neutrality by 2050. This means the city hopes to balance the carbon it emits with the amount it removes, so its overall climate impact is zero.

The solar array has won the university praise from city officials and environmentalists. But for some students, the tree removals raised a pressing question: Can CUA consider itself the “greenest” campus in D.C. while wiping out a sizable chunk of Ward 5’s tree canopy in the process?

Connor Gill, a graduate student studying architecture at CUA, says he would prefer to see green spaces that include trees. 

“Solar panels can always be put on top of buildings. You don’t need to take however many acres the school used,” he says. “There’s a lot more benefits to having trees: the shade it brings, bringing down temperatures, also for the surrounding ecosystems.”

Gabrielle Choate, director of CUA’s Office of Campus Sustainability, dismissed those concerns and defended the project. 

“We have 5,000 students. Not everyone is going to agree on everything that the university does,” Choate says. “We have already been putting solar on the buildings that are eligible for it on campus, but this was the way to achieve a much bigger bang for your buck.”

Choate says CUA prides itself on its green credentials—LEED-certified buildings, one of the most prominent green building certifications in the world—green roofs, a pollinator garden, and now the solar farm—which establishes it as a leader in renewable energy in the District.

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CUA isn’t the only D.C. school taking chain saws to trees to make space for school environmentally friendly construction projects. 

With the exception of the Community College Preparatory Academy, a public charter school that clear-cut dozens of special trees in the way of a new campus on land hugging Ward 8’s Anacostia First High Reservoir, the schools on the list of the top 50 tree removers we spoke with all say the trees were necessary casualties to advance important efforts addressing climate change.

“This West Campus solar farm project is not just a renewable energy venture; it’s a testament to The Catholic University of America’s dedication to creating a sustainable future for our nation and world,” CUA President Peter Kilpatrick said in a June 2024 press release.

While the university has highlighted the visual appeal of its green energy projects, press releases and public updates have not addressed the environmental impact of removing hundreds of trees from its West Campus—part of a broader loss of hundreds of trees across three Ward 5 Catholic school properties—all tied to recent construction.

Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Washington removed about three dozen trees while rebuilding the Kennedy Institute Child Development Center site on Buchanan Street NE, adding about 80 townhomes alongside a rebuilt school for children and young adults with developmental differences and a child development center. And St. Anselm’s Abbey School on South Dakota Avenue NE removed dozens of trees as part of a library expansion and around the edges of a solar array installed over a parking lot.

At Sidwell Friends, a Quaker school known for its sustainability mission, installing an energy-efficient geothermal heating and cooling system required removing dozens of trees. Among other things, the school also made room for installing stormwater bioretention areas that help control stormwater. In all, the school cut down nearly 100 trees, about half the number standing on the leafy 6-acre site when Sidwell purchased it in 2017, Bill Burger, Sidwell’s chief communications officer, says in a statement. 

KIPP Public Charter Schools, a national network that has expanded its D.C. presence in recent years, took out dozens of healthy “special trees” at its Wheeler Campus and Legacy College Preparatory school in Southeast. Both campuses, according to KIPP DC, are environmental showpieces.

“Our goal is to balance the practical needs of school facilities with long-term investments in sustainability and green space,” Aaron Hampton, KIPP DC Public Schools’ director of communications and media relations, says in a statement. The Legacy campus boasts a green roof, electric vehicle chargers, and a community garden, among other green attributes; the Wheeler Campus, the school says, has “solar panels, a new LEED Gold–certified addition, green roofs, and biohabitat landscaping that serves as an outdoor classroom.”

A similar scenario just wrapped up at the Washington International School’s Tregaron Campus, where its new Le Centre Brown received LEED Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. Suzanna Jemsby, head of the tony private school, says 45 trees were removed to make space for a new building housing new much-needed science labs.

“Some of them were in the construction site, so they had to go,” says Jemsby, referring to the trees on the school’s Tregaron Campus for grades six to 12, which is nestled next to the Tregaron Conservancy that features acres of grass and woodland between the Woodley Park and Cleveland Park neighborhoods.

It may seem counterintuitive that LEED, which dubs itself “the most widely used green building rating system,” doesn’t take a harder line on removing existing trees. But “LEED and other programs really don’t focus on the outside infrastructure that surrounds the building,” says Robert Mayer, director of public policy and advocacy at Kaboom!, a national nonprofit that describes its mission as working to end playspace inequity.

Alejandra Chiesa, a vice president at the advocacy organization Green Schoolyards America, agrees “there is still room for growth.” Chiesa muses that even so-called “green” architects and engineers may see trees as expendable instead of valuable resources that manage stormwater and create shade. Unlike engineered products, trees don’t come with warranties or operating manuals.

“Trees are more complex,” she says.

Douglas Smith, a former urban planner who now works on USGBC’s LEED Technical Development staff, declined to comment on individual projects, but says there is only so much USGBC can do when complaints roll in. LEED is a voluntary standard that’s widely used around the world for a variety of different sustainability goals. 

“It’s our job to provide those pathways to support that good decision making, but we can’t make all of their decisions for them,” he says. 

He thinks the new version of the standard launched earlier this year, known as LEED v5, and next year’s planned overhaul of the Sustainable Sites landscaping-focused certification could provide more protection for trees. “LEED, version 5, sets up project teams to be better rewarded for tree preservation and additional plantings,” he says.

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In the rush to meet carbon-reduction goals, experts say, it’s not uncommon for institutions to make choices that unintentionally chip away at other environmental priorities—like preserving the tree canopy. The CUA’s case is a striking example: By razing trees for solar panels, the university advanced one sustainability objective while potentially compromising another—specifically the D.C. government’s goal of expanding the city’s tree canopy to 40 percent by 2032.

Hola Cultura’s analysis of tree removal permits issued since Jan. 1, 2020, found schools accounted for more than one in every 10 healthy medium-sized “special trees” removed, according to D.C. Urban Forestry online records. 

Jemsby acknowledges in an interview that she had never heard of D.C.’s tree canopy expansion goal, despite serving as a Tregaron Conservancy board member, where, she says, “we talk about tree canopy all the time.”

“We needed to do this building project,” and worked with D.C. officials on the approval process, she says. 

Every school contacted for this story stressed that they had planted many more trees than they had removed. If those trees survive to maturity, they will eventually contribute to D.C.’s tree canopy. Most officials, however, glossed over or declined to address how their campuses and the surrounding areas will fare over the coming decades while those trees grow.

“We’re smart people. We know it would take decades,” Jemsby says when asked if decision-makers at WIS had discussed how removing so many trees would impact their campus and the city’s tree canopy. 

While Sidwell also demurred when asked directly whether school officials considered D.C.’s tree canopy or on-campus shade concerns, Burger’s statement says once the school unification project is complete, the new campus will have a smaller physical footprint and more green space.

Of the schools that we contacted, only St. Anselm’s, a Catholic boys school in Ward 5, articulated an approach to maintaining tree canopy on the 22 acres of woodlands that the school is constantly managing.

“Where we know a tree is getting near the end of its life cycle, we plant trees around it,” so younger trees can replace older trees when they need to be removed, John Corrigan, the headmaster at St. Anselm’s, explains. “We look 10 years, 15 years ahead.”

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Despite the many ways trees make life better, they don’t generate energy, which is part of the reason they are sometimes seen as expendable in discussions of how to transition away from fossil fuels and build a new clean energy economy. Experts say, for example, that solar panels outpace the carbon sequestration of trees.

“To be clear, forests offer immense benefits that have nothing to do with carbon sequestration, including by serving as critical habitat for native flora and fauna, filtering drinking water, preventing erosion, and providing scenic and recreational benefits,” according to Matthew Eisenson, a senior fellow at the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. “However, on the narrow but important issue of carbon dioxide emissions, an acre of solar panels appears to offset more emissions each year than an acre planted with trees can sequester.” 

“Sustainability is a nuanced conversation,” says Choate, the CUA sustainability director. “There are so many goals, some of them are competing. You have to choose which one is going to be most effective for the local community.” She says the solar array is projected to avoid 7,087 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions annually—equivalent to one year of driving 1,541 gasoline-powered cars, making the farm “a major contributor to the District’s renewable energy goals.”

The school opted to preserve about 40 percent of the woodland, and develop just over 60 percent of the 41-acre parcel that had been partially cleared in the past and had the fewest, least valuable trees, she says. 

“I do know that everyone involved decided that this was the best use of land and in terms of sustainability, as well as renewable energy,” Choate says, adding that the school worked closely with the D.C. government on the project and obtained letters of support from Advisory Neighborhood Commission 5A and Casey Trees.

The November 2021 letter from Mark Buscaino, Casey Trees then-executive director, described the nonprofit tree planting organization’s decade-old “close partnership” with the university. Casey Trees has planted hundreds of trees on CUA’s campus and temporarily stores thousands of trees there each year before planting them around the District. The letter goes on to characterize the site as “relatively devoid of trees” even before the university cleared more than 300, about a third of the total number of trees in the woodland according to CUA, to make way for its solar farm.

In D.C., where tree canopy is disappearing fastest in already overheated, underserved neighborhoods, those sacrifices carry more than just environmental weight—they raise real equity concerns.

Kelly Collins Choi, director of policy and land conservation at Casey Trees, says conflicts pitting trees against other types of “green” typically arise because “trees provide other benefits … and in some areas of the city, those are needed more than others.” 

For example, she says “that area along North Capitol is one of the highest heat islands, and there’s a lot of air quality impairment in Ward 5. So it does raise concerns to remove trees or any type of development (like a solar farm) that can be sited elsewhere,” other than an undeveloped forest remnant. “You often have asthma rates and other vulnerabilities that these tree removals unfortunately exacerbate.”

While debates rage about the best and highest uses of finite resources, such as undeveloped land, advocates and policymakers increasingly say it’s possible to preserve trees and transition to clean energy at the same time. 

In Massachusetts, for instance, Mass Audubon worked with Harvard University to study how to expand solar energy installations in the state without fueling more tree loss. Their recommendations include eliminating the state’s solar incentives on “valuable natural and working lands” and increasing incentives for solar on rooftops and developed land.

Forests and urban forest remnants like the one CUA developed with D.C. government’s blessing are expected to continue to fall as the renewable energy industry grows and more cities and states set goals to reduce their carbon footprints, according to a rapid assessment by the organization Resources for the Future.

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On paper, the balance may satisfy sustainability checklists. But in practice, trading away tree canopy and natural shade for renewable energy projects and bigger building footprints presents a deeper problem: When the tree canopy is gone, it’s usually gone for good. Take D.C.’s public schools, for example: 

Of the 10 schools on the list of the top 50 deforesters in D.C., only one is a public school: Ward 5’s Spingarn High School. But many other D.C. public schools removed trees on their campus over the four-plus-year period we examined, despite having few trees in the first place.

According to Casey Trees’ 2023 report, D.C. public schools, on average, have about 10 percent tree canopy cover compared to nearly 24 percent at the District’s private schools, which is still well below the 2020 citywide average, 37 percent.

Failing air-conditioning and rising temperatures are growing concerns in D.C., where many public schools struggle with HVAC systems that regularly fail during the warmest parts of the academic year. Students across the city have endured sweltering conditions in classrooms during heat waves—especially in aging school buildings with no functional air-conditioning.

According to an online DGS database, more than 30 work orders submitted since July 1 for malfunctioning HVAC systems remained open as of this week, about a third of those are marked as “emergency.” The work orders range in scope from a single classroom or office to an entire floor. A 2021 report from the Government Accountability Office indicates that HVAC system upgrades are needed in school districts throughout the country.

HVAC failures can have real consequences—especially in schools. According to a recent PLOS Climate study, prolonged exposure to heat significantly impairs students’ cognitive abilities.

Melinda Peters, director of education at Casey Trees, says there’s a growing national movement in the U.S. pushing in the opposite direction around green schoolyards. She points to Green Schoolyards America and the proposed Living Schoolyards Act as foundational efforts. 

“There are states that are starting to enact laws around how much green space is needed for schools,” Peters says. “California has signed on, and Maryland is thinking about it. But for D.C., there’s no law or particular goal for canopy. It all just scoops into the overall city goal of 40 percent by 2032.”

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In the rush to meet emissions targets, institutions may sacrifice other climate protections, like shade and air quality. Even as building footprints grow and trees and natural greenery shrink, there’s a growing movement to green the country’s schoolyards and playgrounds. There is also growing scientific evidence that schoolchildren without sufficient access to nature and outdoor play face a range of developmental issues.

Mayer, with the Kaboom! playground maker, says shade is increasingly a key factor in whether children play outdoors. “Tree canopy is a really critical aspect of that. It not only cools the surface area, but if you do it right, you can incorporate the trees into kids’ imaginative play.” 

It will take a sea change in how society and school leaders think about the schoolyard, Chiesa says. “School districts have been managing properties the same way for many, many decades,” she says. “We’re kind of stuck with that system where pavement was thought to be the solution for maintenance.”

Getting administrators and groundskeepers to think beyond the school building and rethink the outdoor space is difficult, says Chiesa, who pins most of the blame on building codes and physical education’s bias toward flat and open fields. She’d like to see outdoor school spaces considered “part of that academic infrastructure.”

In fact, that is starting to happen, and the pandemic has played a key role.

Chiesa, Mayer, and Peters all say the pandemic caused a rethink of outdoor spaces generally and most particularly at schools where classroom learning disruptions led to robust experimentations with outdoor classrooms. Those have only gained steam ever since, they say.

“There’s so much research out there about how getting kids outside in a different environment can help with learning,” Peters says. “We do try to tie that to a lot of that social emotional learning that has become a hotter or more recognized framework.” 

But she notes that any changes to the District’s public schoolyards would require buy-in from both the city’s Department of General Services and DC Public Schools since they jointly manage school modernization projects.

Chiesa adds that she’s seen a growing awareness of climate change and how it’s leading to more and longer heat waves is another factor over the past decade.

“I’ve been seeing a huge change in how people perceive the need for having nature and the impacts of extreme heat and health,” Chiesa says. “The issue now is how to make the change.”