A mayoral forum about the environment did not include the mayor on Wednesday night.

Mayor Brandon Scott was originally part of a panel hosted by a coalition of environmental groups to chat about climate policies alongside his stiffest competition in the Democratic primary: including Sheila Dixon and Thiru Vignarajah. The mayor canceled his attendance at the last minute to speak to the White House about the city’s efforts to tackle gun crime. A video sent in by the mayor was met by shouting and jeers from a handful of audience members.

Wednesday’s panel, held at the Mount Lebanon Baptist Church in West Baltimore, focused on issues of climate resiliency and environmental justice. Around 200 people attended the event moderated by Lisa Snowden of The Baltimore Beat and WYPR’s Tom Hall. All candidates, regardless of political party, were invited to present and questions were asked via a lottery system so not every candidate answered every question.

“We are the number one dirtiest city in America, that’s embarrassing,” said former Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon, a Democrat, citing a statistic she has used in campaign emails. That statistic comes from House Fresh, a consumer site for home appliance reviews, who did a survey that relied solely on sanitation 311 request information. That survey has also been cited by WBFF-Fox45.

A super PAC that supports Dixon is funded with $100,000 from David Smith, the owner of Sinclair Broadcasting (including its flagship station Fox45) and more recently, The Baltimore Sun.

Dixon outlined priorities that included working with the state to fulfill the environmental consent decrees for pollution at the Back River and Patapsco wastewater treatment facilities and covering the city’s drinking reservoirs (both Lake Ashburton and Druid Lake reservoirs are now fully covered as of December). The former mayor also expressed a desire to work with community groups to create more urban gardens.

Questions from the moderators to Dixon included one centered on expanding the city’s tree canopy; the goal is to reach a 40% canopy while the city currently stands at 27%. Environmental activists and advocates have long pointed out that redlining, a discriminatory practice of denying resources to predominantly Black neighborhoods, has created a Baltimore where some of the city’s most disenfranchised neighborhoods can be 11 degrees hotter than their wealthier counterparts not even one-mile away. Much of that can be attributed to a lack of green space and tree-planting.

Dixon said she wanted to plant more trees in a way that was, “strategic but not taxing on the residents.”

“We also have to educate the community because when trees are planted, we need the community to buy in and help take care of those trees.”

Vignarajah, also running as a Democrat, proposed matching $50 million in city funding to federal money in order to end the consent decree with the federal government for the city’s sewer sanitary system — an agreement with the Department of Public Works that began in 2002. Vignarajah also promised that within the first 60 days of his campaign he would drop the city’s contract with Wheelabrator Baltimore, a waste to energy incinerator in South Baltimore that is considered the city’s largest single source of pollution.

“Asthma rates are too high and a lot of it has to do with the Incinerator,” said Vignarajah, noting as almost all of the candidates did, that Baltimore youth have higher rates of asthma than anywhere else in the state.

The city signed a 10-year extension with BRESCO, Baltimore Refuse Energy Systems Co., or BRESCO, in 2020 that is in effect until 2031.

For candidate Bob Wallace, also a Democrat, who grew up in Cherry Hill the issue was personal.

“When I was kid in Cherry Hill, I was playing baseball down by the landfill and the incinerator would burn and the rats would take over the baseball diamond. That is environmental racism.”

Wallace wants to see water management separated out from the Department of Public Works and put into its own department.

“I plan to increase funding to the Baltimore City Health Department for childhood blood poisoning prevention programs to reduce lead poisoning,” said Wendy Boezel, a Baltimore city school teacher running also as a Democrat. She would go for “aggressive” enforcement of the city’s lead laws.

The primary election will be held on May 14th.