“Hug a logger. You’ll never go back to trees.”
But they just don’t listen.
The battle for Seattle’s trees is beginning
The Emerald City isn’t so green after all.
Since 1972 Seattle has lost nearly 1.7 million trees — more than half of all the trees standing then, according to a new city report.
Homeowners ax them for a better view. Developers cut them to make way for houses and condos. Diseases and pests claim their share, aided by neglect from landowners and city managers alike.
Ivy and blackberry vines choke city parkland. Aging maples nearing the end of their lives make up much of the city’s forests.
“Does something to destroy the myth of a green Seattle, doesn’t it?” said John Healy, spokesman for the city’s Office of Sustainability and Environment.
It also has deprived the city of the benefits of trees, which filter water, soak up pollution and act as heat shields on sunny days. The city estimates the trees lost in the last three decades would have done air cleaning and water storage worth more than $25 million a year.
Now, to help reverse the loss, the city wants to add roughly 650,000 more trees over the next 30 years. That goal and the basic outlines of how to get there are in a draft plan being announced today by Mayor Greg Nickels. The plan lays out a broad strategy for managing Seattle trees on both public and private property.
Nearly 1.2 trees per person in the city is the Mayor’s goal. So of course, I want to know how much the regreening is going to cost.
It would cost $114 million in tree-plantings plus $7 million more a year in maintenance to achieve the 30-year goals spelled out in the plan, according to the city.
Any competent math teacher would ask to see their work on the “air cleaning and water storage” numbers. My guess is that it is what I like to call a “Wild-Ass Guess” at best.
But the scariest part of the whole proposal is the “broad strategy for managing Seattle trees on both public and private property”.
The Heartless Libertarian had an out of the ordinary good experience when he needed to cut down a tree on his property recently, but the city he lives in, while less than 60 miles from Seattle, is a world apart for the mecca of tree-huggerdom.
Having lived and still work deep in the belly of the beast, I can tell you that if other departments in the city are any indicator, I can predict long wait times for the inspection (more likely “inspections”) and a very limited permit for anything going further than a pruning.
It isn’t like the infrastructure of the city isn’t falling apart and it isn’t like they haven’t had to recently close schools and it isn’t like you can be safe in downtown on a Friday night.
But dammit, they’re gonna add trees!
I live in the King County northeast hinterlands– Duvall. I had to cut some trees down on my property, so I did it. City utilities and maintenance manager, who lives a block from me and is friends with my neighbor (and I have good relations with all of my neighbors) stopped by while I was cutting the thick branches of a pine that had grown between the power lines in our front yard and said “You’re doing a damn good job!”
I shudder to think how much it would have cost, and how long it would have taken to get the permits for it, in my old home in Seattle. Poop on ’em.