Links Between City Walkability And Air Pollution Exposure Revealed

Links Between City Walkability And Air Pollution Exposure Revealed


A new study compares neighborhoods' walkability (degree of ease for walking) with local levels of air pollution and finds that some neighborhoods might be good for walking, but have poor air quality. (Credit: iStockphoto/Rene Mansi)

ScienceDaily (Nov. 2, 2009) — A new study compares neighborhoods' walkability (degree of ease for walking) with local levels of air pollution and finds that some neighborhoods might be good for walking, but have poor air quality. Researchers involved in the study include University of Minnesota faculty member Julian Marshall and University of British Columbia faculty Michael Brauer and Lawrence Frank.

The findings highlight the need for urban design to consider both walkability and air pollution, recognizing that neighborhoods with high levels of one pollutant may have low levels of another pollutant.

The study, done for the city of Vancouver, British Columbia, is the first of its kind to compare the two environmental attributes, and suggests potential environmental health effects of neighborhood location, layout and design for cities around the globe.

The research study is published in the November 2009 issue of Environmental Health Perspectives, the peer-reviewed journal of the United States' National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The research team found that, on average, neighborhoods downtown are more walkable and have high levels of some pollutants, while suburban locations are less walkable and have high levels of different pollutants. Neighborhoods that fare well for pollution and walkability tend to be a few miles away from the downtown area. These "win-win" urban residential neighborhoods--which avoid the downtown and the suburban air pollution plus exhibit good walkability--are rare, containing only about two percent of the population studied. Census data indicate that these neighborhoods are relatively high-income, suggesting that they are desirable places to live. Neighborhoods that fare poorly for both pollution and walkability tend to be in the suburbs and are generally middle-income.

"Research has shown that exposure to air pollution adversely affects human health by triggering or exacerbating a number of health issues such as asthma and heart disease," said Marshall, a civil engineering faculty member in the University of Minnesota's Institute of Technology. "Likewise, physical inactivity is linked to an array of negative health effects including heart disease and diabetes. Neighborhood design can influence air pollution and walkability; more walkable neighborhoods may encourage higher daily activity levels."

In the study, researchers evaluated concentrations of nitric oxide, a marker of motor vehicle exhaust, and ozone, a pollutant formed when vehicle exhaust and other pollutants react, for 49,702 postal codes (89 percent of all postal codes) in Vancouver. The researchers assigned a walkability score by analyzing four common attributes of neighborhood design: land-use mixing, intersection density, population density and for retail areas, the relative amount of land area for shopping versus for parking.

More walkable neighborhoods tend to have mixed land uses, with destinations such as stores and shops within walking distance of people's houses. A conventional street grid and other more walkable road networks tend to have a higher intersection density, while less walkable neighborhoods often have circuitous road networks and low intersection density, thereby increasing average travel distances and reducing the likelihood that people will walk. More walkable areas generally have higher population density. Finally, in less walkable areas, stores devote a greater fraction of their land to parking.

"The finding that nitric oxide concentrations are highest downtown, while ozone concentrations are highest in the suburbs, is not surprising," said Marshall. "Motor vehicle exhaust is most concentrated downtown, leading to the high nitric oxide concentrations downtown. In contrast, ozone takes time to form. Air masses have moved away from downtown--often, to suburban areas--by the time ozone concentrations reach their highest levels. Thus, reductions in vehicle emissions can benefit people who live near high-traffic areas and also people living in less dense areas."

Creating neighborhoods that are more walkable and that allow for alternative travel modes such as walking, biking or public transportation is one approach to reducing motor vehicle emissions, the study suggests. Another approach is reducing emissions per vehicle, for example through mandated emission standards. The research did not study conditions for individual people, but points out that high-rise buildings may allow people to live in walkable neighborhoods while being somewhat removed from street-level vehicle emissions.

The study's new findings indicate that neighborhood design is an important consideration for improving pollution levels and providing opportunities for daily physical activity. The study identified neighborhoods that are walkable yet have low levels of pollution, but those neighborhoods encompass a very small percentage of the population. Researchers hope that future investigation of those "win-win" neighborhoods will suggest urban design features that could usefully be applied elsewhere.

In the future, the researchers hope to investigate changes over time in pollution and walkability, and also study other urban areas to see how spatial patterns may differ elsewhere.

Adapted from materials provided by University of Minnesota.
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University of Minnesota (2009, November 2). Links Between City Walkability And Air Pollution Exposure Revealed. ScienceDaily. Retrieved November 3, 2009, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2009/11/091102171728.htm

In New Jersey, Conserving at Ground Level

 

The New York Times
October 11, 2009

In New Jersey, Conserving at Ground Level

By CHARANNA ALEXANDER

When it rains in Hopewell, N.J., the water does not puddle on the pavement. It sinks right through a porous material, preventing runoff and recharging the water supply.

Innovative pavement is just one way that Hopewell, a rural upper-middle-class town of 6,200 in the center of the state, has become more environmentally aware. In 2007, Hopewell, with the assistance of the Rutgers Center for Green Building and a grant from the Association of New Jersey Environmental Commissions, redesigned its land-use ordinances and adopted other beneficial rules.

“They worked with us on creating a package for land-use criteria, like recycling, building design, pedestrian circulation, bike ways and pedestrian ways, ” Paul Pogorzelski, Hopewell’s administrator and engineer, said of the center. “It’s a big deal to change our land-use ordinances.”

Many other towns in the state have become more environmentally friendly. Since March, 227 of New Jersey’s 566 municipalities have taken part in the Sustainable Jersey program, which teaches local leaders how to “go green,” said Matthew Weng at the New Jersey League of Municipalities.

Hopewell has also installed solar panels on its public works building and hopes to do so on more public structures, and it is planning to purchase alternative-fuel vehicles. And, Mr. Pogorzelski said, “We have done energy audits on all our public buildings, where we evaluate how we can use less energy.”

“We want to be sustainable, that’s the bottom line,” he said. “This is a forever commitment and we are very fortunate to have green-minded residents here.”

A Westchester Town Looks to Conserve Its Trees

 

The New York Times

October 11, 2009

A Westchester Town Looks to Conserve Its Trees

By CHRIS HARCUM

Inspired by the nearby towns of Cortlandt, Somers and Bedford, Yorktown will vote next month on a proposal to regulate the removal of trees from private property.

William Kellner, the chairman of the Yorktown Tree Conservation Advisory Commission, wrote in an e-mail message, “Without a tree preservation ordinance, we will continue to see improper cutting of trees that will subject neighboring properties to environmental damage from erosion and other impacts.”

The tree ordinance would require property owners who wish to remove trees to get approval for their plan; approval would hinge on the location of the property, type and number of trees to be cut, and other factors. Permits would not be needed if the trees are dead, hazardous, part of agricultural activity or necessary to maintain public rights-of-way. Penalties include a $250 fine per tree and additional fines determined by the diameter of the stump.

Who would benefit from the ordinance? Mr. Kellner gave an example. “A town resident lamented that a neighbor of hers had cut down a number of large, healthy shade trees that had graced the neighborhood for decades,” he said.

But Con Edison submitted written concerns about the ordinance to Alice E. Roker, the town clerk. The company feels that the proposal might be applied to its activities, like clearing branches from its electric lines, and thus affect its efficiency and effectiveness.

Criticism arose at town meetings, too. “There was a lot of, ‘How dare you tell me I can’t cut down trees on my own property?’ ” said Ron Buehl, a member of the tree commission.

Logging the urban forest 

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N&R This article was printed from the Environment
section of the Sacramento News & Review, originally published December 21, 2000.
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  Printed on 2009-09-29.


Logging the urban forest

Hardwood mills could be key to reviving the city’s canopy of trees


By Cosmo Garvin

 


Micro-mill on loan from the California Department of Forestry.
Photo courtesy of California Department of Forestry

Want to save the urban forest? Try logging it.That’s what urban forest expert Eric Oldar at the California Department of Forestry says. It may sound heretical, especially to Sacramentans known to boast about living in the “city of trees” and who extol the virtues of its majestic old canopy.

But what is less well-known is that the urban forests here and in many California cities are old, riddled with disease and may one day collapse entirely.

“If we just continue to practice geriatric forestry, the situation is never going to get better,” Oldar said. “Inevitably, the bubble is going to pop.”

By geriatric forestry, Oldar means the reluctance to remove trees even when they are diseased or dying. At its extreme, this philosophy can be summed up as “A dead tree is better than no tree.”

What Oldar recommends is removal of troubled trees sooner rather than later. But just as important, he says cities must recognize that many urban trees make for valuable hardwood once they are logged, milled and sold. By milling and marketing diseased or geriatric trees, cities could fund better urban forestry practices.

The key to a sustainable urban forest, most experts agree, is one that is as diverse as possible in terms of the species and age of trees. But most local governments, Sacramento included, are unable to do much more than respond to emergencies, trees downed by storms or those posing an immediate threat to life or property.

Hundreds, even thousands, of dollars are spent maintaining ancient elms, oaks and other trees that have long surpassed their healthy lives. For the most part, proactive approaches to promoting a diverse and healthy urban forest fall by the wayside.

Yet removing the junk trees is no small task.

For example, in Sacramento County there are some 80,000 Modesto ash trees that dot the yards of the county’s older suburbs. On the whole, this population is unhealthy, dying, riddled with the parasite mistletoe. But removing these “junk trees” and planting anew would most likely be a financial nightmare for the county.

Some of that cost could be offset, however, if the removal operation somehow paid for itself. It turns out that it could. And that’s where Oldar comes in.

While trees such as the Modesto ash are a bane to the health of the urban forest, they are potentially a boon to the market for much-sought-after exotic hardwoods. Once milled, an urban ash tree can fetch more than $3 per board-foot (12 inches by 12 inches by 1 inch).

Some exotic species, such as the Acacia, can go for as much as $7, $8 or $9 per board-foot. Compare that to the forest products from our nearby wild forest. Sugar pines and redwoods typically command $3.20 to $3.50 per board-foot.

The question is whether local governments are savvy enough to turn the problem of declining urban forests into an asset rather than a burden. That’s why Oldar has begun a pilot program through CDF that loans “micro-mills” to communities and organizations that are interested in milling wood that comes from the cities. The 30-foot-long mills are portable and cost around $25,000.

The pilot program includes just a handful of organizations. Palomar Community College is one, where students are using one of Oldar’s micro-mills to earn a professional certificate in wood-milling. A nonprofit organization in San Francisco has applied for a mill to begin making urban wood furniture. And in Sacramento, some of the wood from municipal tree removal is sent to an Auburn company called California Hardwoods Producer and milled for use as hardwood paneling and flooring.

Oldar says the program could be greatly expanded in the Sacramento region and in other cities: “California is sitting on a very rich forest of hardwoods, and they don’t know it.”

Sacramento alone currently removes about 800 of its 150,000 street trees every year. It is estimated that about 28,000 board-feet per year could be harvested, just in the removal of dead or diseased trees. Right now, most of that is recycled as firewood, turned into wood chips for landscaping or turned into mulch.

All of this might lead one to believe that CDF is promoting making a quick buck off our backyard trees.

“The public is skeptical. They think an agency like ours just sees the wood value,” he said. But Oldar isn’t talking about clear-cutting the elms around McKinley Park or taking chainsaws willy-nilly to downtown. Instead, Oldar is advocating the return of age-old forest practices for the trees that line our city streets and hang above our yards.

“A couple of years ago, people told me I was crazy,” Oldar said. “I’m not here just to harvest all of your trees. I’m here to enhance your forest.”

Oldar suggests that by looking at the urban forest as having a real, measurable value, urban forestry will come of age. Part of that value is seeing wood as a resource. But the way people have historically looked at trees has become disconnected in the urban environment.

“The problem is that most people don’t see the real use of an urban tree. A tree is thought of as an aesthetic amenity, no more than the Christmas wrapping on our development,” said Oldar.

Yet Oldar may get some help from community activists such as Kevin Keegan, who has made it his personal mission to rid his boyhood neighborhood of Del Paso Manor of the dreaded Modesto ash.

“We have an immense problem here. A lot of these trees need to be brought down,” said Keegan.

For years, he has been needling county officials to take a proactive approach to getting rid of junk trees and planting new, more appropriate species. He has spent thousands of dollars personally removing trees and replanting new ones for his neighbors. He says he is about halfway done with replanting all of Del Paso Manor.

If the county would underwrite something like Oldar’s program, the benefits could be enormous, Keegan said.

“It’s going to take a very long time to get caught up. This could be a very beautiful place,” Oldar said. “Or it could become a complete nightmare.”

Logging in: Urban Forestry Program offers exotic woods to Palomar students

 

The North County Times - Californian

Logging in: Urban Forestry Program offers exotic woods to Palomar students

By: JIM TRAGESER - Staff WriterWhen you're looking at the various entries in the woodworking competitions at this year's San Diego County Fair at Del Mar, pay attention to the woods used in each project. | Posted: Friday, June 23, 2006 12:00 am

If that award-winning cabinet comes from a Palomar College student, and if it is made from black acacia; or that guitar from Palomar has carob inlays; or perhaps the mantel clock is made from Torrey pine -- there's a good chance the wood you're looking at came from trees that grew locally.

Of the above species, only the Torrey pine is native to our region. But because homeowners and landscapers have planted non-native trees in this area for more than a century, many rare and exotic trees are now growing in neighborhoods throughout San Diego County.

And when they come down -- as all trees must eventually -- many of them end up at Palomar College's Cabinet and Furniture Technology program.

Partnering with the state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, Palomar's woodworking program is able to offer a variety of exotic species to its students at discounted prices for use in their projects -- and to keep trees that are harvested because of disease or

 

safety issues out of already overcrowded landfills.

This coffee table was made by student Peter Sidlauskas, who used walnut and black oak.
Russ Filbeck is one of five full-time faculty in the Cabinet and Furniture Technology program (part of the Trade and Industry Department). He said in the late 1980s, the state began emphasizing the need to lessen the volume of refuse going into landfills.

Filbeck said Eric Oldar of the state forestry department proposed using the Urban Forestry Program to keep as many trees as possible out of landfills. While the program's main thrust is to encourage planting more trees in urban areas, it is also taking the lead in finding innovative uses for the wood of those trees when they have to come down. And though urban trees have not traditionally been seen as a source for lumber, many are well-suited for that purpose. Oldar recognized that a woodworking program would be a good destination for them, Filbeck said.

"Rather than these heavy logs going into the landfill, they would be utilized for products," Filbeck said. "That would save the cities money in not having to pay for the weight those logs accounted for in the landfill."

Filbeck said Oldar contacted Palomar in 2000 to see whether the woodworking program would be interested in receiving urban trees through the state program.

"He provided us with a sawmill and two dehydration kilns for drying the lumber," Filbeck said. "We created a venue to educate the public about conservation and reducing the loss of natural resources, and to be able to create a beautiful product from species that are not commercially available."

With the state's backing, Palomar has gotten the word out to tree removal companies and government agencies.

"We have worked out agreements with the local cities, their park and recreation departments, such as Balboa Park, that when they have to remove a tree and it is a tree of some value -- certain species are not usable, like eucalyptus -- the cities give us the logs, we convert them into lumber, and our students are able to purchase the lumber at a very reasonable price."

Filbeck said trees such as sycamore, magnolia, carob, mulberry, elm, black acacia and black oak have been among those the school has received for its woodworking program. When the Naval Training Center in San Diego was decommissioned and the city began converting part of it to new housing, the program received numerous black acacia trees that had lined the NTC roadways.

"Here we have these unusual species, many beautifully figured, that our students are able to build their furniture pieces from at a very reasonable cost," Filbeck said.

Cam Baher of San Marcos is one of those students. This spring, he took his sixth course in the program. Each semester, he said, he sees what exotic woods are available as he prepares his new project. When he took his first class three years ago, he selected black acacia for a mantel clock.

"The grain, the color -- it takes on a very dark, almost cherry color," Baher said. "It looked very organic -- I just left the knots in place."

Matt Porter of Carlsbad, also on his sixth class, said he used Torrey pine for a mantel clock a few years ago. "It definitely has a nice, rich yellow color, and takes a finish really well," he said. "It's very rare; you can't use it from a tree that wasn't salvaged."

Porter said he made the clock as a gift for his grandfather, and wrote up some background on the Torrey pine to include with the clock. "He lives in Colorado, and giving him a gift with a San Diego connection was special," he said.

Filbeck said the Torrey pine has a special resonance for the students, as it is both endangered and local.

"We have been able to use a lot of Torrey pine," Filbeck said. "The Torrey pine is indigenous to the San Diego and Channel Islands areas, and is somewhat of a protected species, so it's not harvested commercially. Only when there is development or hazards to safety are these trees removed.

"It's very similar in texture to the eastern white pine and the sugar pine of the Northwest -- similar in characteristics," he said.

If homeowners or anyone else has a tree or trees that have to come down, Filbeck said the college is always seeking more wood for its students.

"What we're looking for is logs that are probably 16 to 18 inches in diameter in clear 8-foot lengths; anything less than that is very difficult to process and then store."

But if there's a weakness to the whole urban woods program at Palomar, it's in getting the logs to the college.

"We do not have log-handling trucks, and so we wish we did, but we rely on the cities and the developers in many cases to bring the logs to us," Filbeck said. "We have in the past rented trucks to haul in some logs."

To use the donated trees, they must be cut into lumber -- which is where the sawmill on loan from the state comes in.

"It is a portable sawmill, a band saw on trailer frame," Filbeck said. "It can handle logs up to about 30 inches in diameter, which are a pretty large logs. We also have another sawmill called a Lucasmill that allows us to handle logs up to 48 inches in diameter."

Once the logs are cut into lumber by the sawyer (Palomar students can work with the sawyer to learn how to cut logs), they must be dried before they are ready for use. Experienced students are also involved with the drying process, Filbeck said.

How long will the sawmill and kilns be on campus? It is an open-ended arrangement with the state, Filbeck said.

"We view it as, so long as our program is vibrant and productive and we're continuing to support the communities and provide education with the equipment, the Forestry Department will continue to provide the equipment for us.

"We view this as educating the public about conservation, and they're able to see a value in these products," Filbeck said.

Contact staff writer Jim Trageser at (760) 631-6628 or jtrageser@nctimes.com.

Clear cutting Austin

HOME: SEPTEMBER 21, 2007: NEWS

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Clear-Cutting Austin

Rapid growth laying waste to city's urban forest


"I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues." – Dr. Seuss, The Lorax

Tom Penn knows the meaning of "rude awakening." He endured a couple this spring – both of the literal and metaphorical sort.

In the weeks leading up to his epiphany, the lot next door to his house in the Deep Eddy neighborhood had been cleared of its previous, modestly sized house and several of its trees. The clearing was prep work for a new house – a huge new house, three stories tall and easily fitting, if not the city's legal terms, the common-sense definition of "McMansion." The tree-cutting had unnerved Penn a bit, but he assumed that everything was legit, and the worst was over. But there was more to come.

"About 6:30 one morning, a crew shows up, and they're pulling a chipper behind them," Penn says. "So I thought, 'Gee, the lot's clean; what is there left to do? Oh my God!' So I went out in front and said, 'What are you guys doing?' and the guy said, 'Oh, we're here to take this tree.' Well, there's a tree right next to my property, on [that neighboring] property, that was a beautiful red oak that was about 24 inches at 4 feet high. Perfect specimen, a huge crown, just a gorgeous tree. Shaded half of my house and half of that lot. I said, 'No-no-no, no you're not.'"

Penn implored the crew to stop. He called up the home builder, Jack Dabney, who temporarily pulled the crew off the job. He called the city arborist, but Dabney had the proper permits to cut down the tree. Penn then made an appeal to the new property owner. He offered $15,000 of his own money to underwrite the costs of redesigning the new house and some of his own driveway to accommodate such a change. He got nowhere – Dabney insisted he had taken other trees into consideration, and between that and the city's setback requirements, he was building on what little footprint was left.

In the end, "I filmed it," Penn says. "It was gone in an hour."

That was Tom Penn's literal rude awakening. The more metaphorical one has come in the aftermath, as he has learned the complexities of trying to protect trees in Austin.

Waiting for the Call

This is not yet another story about "evil devel­opers." Not necessarily. Some of the developers in this story are possibly just ignorant of the law. Some would argue that they are simply trying to save money for their clients. And in many cases, although the neighbors may find them odious, they are in fact operating within the law – and their property rights. To a greater degree, this is a story about the problem with the law itself: a city ordinance with no teeth that relies heavily on the honesty (or awareness) of the very people it is supposed to regulate. Mostly, this is a story about multiple threats to our urban forest and the challenges of protecting it from the inevitable pressures of a rapidly growing population.



This project on West Eighth Street, which allowed a house within less than three feet of this large tree, also had approval from the city – but definitely not its neighbors.
Photo by John Anderson

Austinites love their trees; this is a city where citizens will gladly be branded "tree huggers" and wear the epithet as a badge of honor. We've taken this love so far as to declare certain trees legally protected: Under the city's Tree and Natural Area Preservation Ordinance, removal of a tree with a circumference of 60 inches or greater, measured 4½ feet above natural grade (equal to a 19-inch diameter), requires a permit from the Watershed Protection and Devel­op­ment Review Department, with certain exceptions (such as removal of a damaged tree that poses a hazard to life or property). "Removal" can mean more than just cutting a tree down – it covers "an act that causes or may be reasonably expected to cause a tree to die," including uprooting, severing the main trunk, damaging the root system, and excessive pruning. Illegal tree removal can net a fine of up to $2,000 per tree.

Any construction firm that reads the fine print on its Residential Permit Application will see this plain text: "I also understand that if there are any trees greater tha[n] 19 inches in diameter located on the property and immediately adjacent to the proposed construction, I am to schedule a Tree Ordinance review by contacting 512/974-1876 and receive approval to proceed."

That's the phone number for city of Austin arborist Michael Embesi. He would love to get that call. But whether the developer places it is another story.

The Cost of Doing Business

"What seems to be happening, at least in my neighborhood, and I imagine it's happening all over, [is] the developers come in and do things before they even go through the permit process," charges Penn. His theory – one shared by some of his neighbors – is that for home builders, ignoring the Tree Preservation Ordinance is just a cost of doing business, at $2,000 per cut. It's a suspicion hard to prove, however – as noted above, although the trees Dabney downed were of protected size, he consulted with Embesi and acquired the permits he needed. In fact, in all of the cases discussed in this story, although trees may have been removed, no documented violations of the law occurred.

But does that mean that the ordinance is being obeyed or that the ordinance is easily sidestepped without detection? The city doesn't have sufficient staff to do on-site inspection of every application, so city-code enforcement is almost entirely a complaint-driven process – meaning inspectors probably aren't coming around unless they get a call. That creates a loophole where developers can simply cut down a tree and hope no one reports them. And if they do get caught? "The fines are meaningless," complains Penn. "On a half-million-dollar project, a builder will spend more than $2,000 just buying lunch for his workers."

Chris Alguire, another Deep Eddy resident who has been collecting information on what she sees as abuse of the ordinance, agrees: "Some developers flout the law and just don't care. Others are just ignorant of the requirements. ... The Development Review Department has no way to know if a Tree Ordinance Review is required or was undertaken by the developer." And if it's not, the consequence is obvious: "There's no mechanism to catch people after the tree has been cut down." More than one resident who complained of this problem said it occurs "all the time."

Embesi and his supervisor, Chief Envi­ron­ment­al Officer Pat Murphy, do acknowledge the weakness of the law, but they disagree that abuse is rampant. "I think one of the things about our regulations is that if someone chooses to violate them, they can do that," says Murphy, who has been with the city for 22 years and himself was once the city arborist. "Yes, people can go out there and do violate the tree ordinance. Some of them do it out of ignorance. Most tree companies that are reputable in any way really, I think, are doing a good job of making sure there is a permit issued before a tree of that size is removed. There are still – and always will be, until there's some sort of required registration or certification by the state – there will always be people that buy a chain saw and pronounce that they're in the tree business and do work like that and say it's the property owner's responsibility.

"And yes, I do think there are some people out there that knowingly take the tree out because they just want it out and are willing to deal with the repercussions. And we have seen that happen, certainly. I don't think that in any way that is the norm. I think that's the exception to the rule, because first of all, for developers, they know that they're going to need to get approval for site plans and all these sorts of things, and they don't want to complicate that process or get the neighborhood and citizens against them if they need to have approval that require[s] public hearings."

But when someone does flout the law, Murphy says, "Unfortunately, we are limited under [state] law as to how much of a penalty we can assess. And the fine is nominal. Two thousand bucks is as much as we can get through the municipal courts per violation for this sort of thing. And yes, I think some people may go out there and say, 'Well, 2,000 bucks – I'm going to either lose the ability to build my development the way I want to build it or pay a $2,000 fine; I'll just take it out and pay the fine if they come after us.'"

Asked if there were any builders who have been repeatedly cited as a problem, Murphy said, "Not that I'm aware of."

City Buzz ... Saw

If there is any neighborhood in Austin that clearly demonstrates the changing face of the city due to growth, it is Deep Eddy. Driving into the area bounded by MoPac, Lake Austin Boulevard, Exposition, and Enfield, one might still expect quaint cottages with a vintage of 70 years or more, shaded by big, twisting live oaks. But today, that character is fading – seemingly half the original housing stock has been replaced by McMansions, the scale of which has clearly cost the area much of its mature tree canopy.



Neighbor Marsha Fatino is angered by utility trenching that occurred between these two trees – the one on the left is hers – but builder Jack Dabney says he kept root damage to a minimum.
Photo by John Anderson

That's not escaping the notice of residents active in neighborhood politics. The neighborhood planning process has just begun for the Central West Austin Combined Neighborhood Planning Area (which includes Deep Eddy), and in a survey of stakeholders – mostly home-owners – 73% of 273 respondents listed "mature trees" in their top five responses when asked, "What aspects of your neighborhood do you like the most?" The next closest response? "Neighborhood character," at 58%.

Deep Eddy isn't unique – Statesman columnist John Kelso recently reported on a tree-cutting dustup in Bouldin Creek; as this story was being written, neighborhood sources alleged another incident in Tarrytown, and the Allan­dale Neighborhood Association is currently compiling an inventory of protected-size trees to better keep a watchful eye. And Allandale residents already have some familiarity with the Tree Ordinance, as it factors in to the current lawsuit trying to stop the construction of a Wal-Mart at the former Northcross Mall. (See "Trees Protecting the Neighbors?.")

But it's arguable that Tom Penn's house, on West Ninth Street, is at the eye of the storm. There's his next-door-neighbor-to-be and then another project about 100 yards south, on Eighth Street, where another old tree wasn't removed but certainly looks bad after some major cutting (a candidate for illustration of "excessive pruning") and a foundation laid within about 3 feet of its trunk. And right across the street from Penn, another crisis arose when an enormous oak tree appeared threatened – but the builder and property owner worked with the city to save it. In all three cases, Embesi had to intervene to some degree, although he eventually obtained design changes that he considered acceptable.

Alguire found another development on Norwalk Lane that showed no trees on its original site plan, although several are clearly visible now around the almost-completed house. Penn and nearby resident Lesley Airth say that three or four years ago, another home builder on Eighth cleared a heavily wooded yard of almost all its trees early on a Christmas Eve, although there's no longer any way to know if any were in the protected class.

"Our neighborhood is full of trees. That's why a lot of people move here," says an exasperated Penn over breakfast at the Lake Austin Boulevard Magnolia Cafe, as much a fixture in the neighborhood as its namesake swimming pool. "The problem, as I see it, is that these developers come in, and their bottom line is how many square feet can I put on this lot that cost me X number of dollars per square foot. ... They have no investment in the neighborhood, other than that it's a deal – it's business."

The Ninth Street property across from Penn where the tree was saved illustrates what can happen when the Tree Ordinance works properly (and when property owners and developers care). Yet it also shows how hard it is to protect trees even with good intentions. Builder Jason Williams actually never planned to cut the tree down – his clients "bought the lot specifically because they love the tree." But Williams didn't realize the damage that putting a slab right up near a tree, over its critical root zone, can cause. When neighbors saw a slab being framed almost to the trunk, they hurriedly notified the city (and the Chronicle, which published a photo of the threatened tree). Suspicions were aroused further when Alguire investigated and found that no trees were shown in Williams' original site plan submitted to the city, despite the requirement to report any thicker than 19 inches.

What appeared to be deceit turned out to be just a mistake: No trees were shown "because we had no intention of harming the tree," Williams says. "I thought the ordinance only applied to removal of trees. I didn't think we came under it."

After a complaint to Embesi triggered a Tree Ordinance review, "We shut down the job, and we talked," says Williams. "We sat down with the city arborist and a master arborist and made sure we were okay." Under their guidance, Williams agreed to make changes – costly ones – to the house design. "I haven't done a tabulation, but it was expensive. We changed from slab to pier-and-beam, which required re-engineering. And we also had a false start, which we took down and redid. It probably cost $10,000 extra."

"We were very pleased with how that turned out," said Embesi.

Not all interactions go so well. Both Penn and Marsha Fatino, who lives on the opposite side of the new house from Penn, describe their relations with Dabney as awful, a sentiment returned in kind by Dabney. Aside from complaints about the scale of the new house, which towers over her modest home, Fatino is particularly aggrieved because Embesi instructed Dabney to engage in "no utility trenching within 12 feet of tree trunks" – and his workers then dug a trench within about 6 feet of one of the trees on her property, as well as the last major tree in the front yard of the new house. One verbal confrontation between Fatino and Dabney resulted in the police showing up, although each claims to have been the one who called the cops. Fatino said she placed the call because Dabney's foreman threatened to cut down one of her trees for a better view of the city; Dabney says the comment was meant in jest and that he actually called the cops because Fatino yelled profanities at him in the presence of his sons. At press time, the Austin Police Department had not returned a call about the incident.)



Any proposal to remove a protected-size tree in Austin must be reviewed by city arborist Michael Embesi.
Photo by John Anderson

Dabney also insists that he deserves the same "good-guy developer" tag as Williams. He says he tried to save as many trees as he could, but there's only so much that can be done on small central-city lots that will allow a project to remain financially viable – especially in this case, he says, because he had to stay a certain distance not only from protected trees on his lot, but from ones in the neighboring yards, as well.

"On that property and on the two properties on either side of me, there's seven protected trees, and you have to stay 15 feet away from every tree," Dabney says. "Basically what happened was, the footprint that was left that you could build upon was not big enough to build a brand-new house there, because you have to stay 25 feet back from the curb. You can't back your house and start it at 50 feet, it has be in the same 10%-plus-or-minus distance as the home on either side of you, and those homes were at [about] 26½ feet. ... To back the home up, I would have been backing it into two more protected trees that were in the back yard that were even bigger, plus the city of Austin would never have let me build back there."

Dabney says he pointed out to Embesi the problems with the Williams property across the street because he was concerned about that tree. Concerning the trenching, Dabney says he was limited by the position of the tap location into the city's sewer line; he says he dug trenches shallow enough so that only minor roots were cut and that Embesi responded that Dabney had not followed his recommendation and the area should be inspected by Dabney's own arborist for further treatment; however, Embesi did agree that some of the other options Dabney might have considered in the limited work space would have been even more damaging.

Dabney says he has never cut down a tree hoping to skirt the law. "In fact, I've got another lot over on Daniel Drive that had two elm trees in the front yard, and there was a neat old house on the [lot] ... and I literally had to cut that existing home in half in order to get it out of the lot without hurting either one of those trees. Neither one of those trees were protected size, but to me, those trees add intrinsic value to the property. I've never cut down a protected tree or anything like that."

Dabney does say that compliance with the law can restrict a builder's options. "Just from a builder's standpoint, it really makes a difference now when I go to look at a piece of property. Not only do you have to look at the property's location and the surrounding area, but you also have to look at the protected-size trees on that property, and there's been a couple of really nice properties that I would have loved to have purchased, but because there's that great big, protected-size tree growing maybe four or five feet away from the house in the back yard, it ends up being pretty much in the center of the lot, and you have to stay so many feet from the curb, so you end up with no building footprint left to build on. ... That protected tree is really limiting what that lot can be used for in the future. It's kind of a double-edged sword."

A Green Shade

Sitting in the kitchen of her small bungalow on Pruett, Alguire outlines suggestions she and her allies have for strengthening the Tree Preservation Ordinance, which they eventually plan to bring to the Zoning and Platting Com­mis­sion. They want a direct yes-or-no question about whether any 19-inch trees are on a building site, and they want it to appear on demolition and relocation permits as well as building permits. They also want increased fines, a public notice requirement when a Tree Ordinance Review is under way, utilization of other city inspectors already on-site for protected tree reporting, and a handout to explain recommended practices for construction near trees. (See "Tweaking the Tree Ordinance.")

Keith Babberney is chair of the city's Urban Forestry Board. Speaking only for himself, he said those ideas all sounded fine to him and noted another suggestion that is already working its way through the city's boards and commissions system is a new protected class: the "heritage tree," one of special note, perhaps larger than 24 inches, that could only be cut down after special scrutiny, such as public input at the commission level.

Even these proposals won't do enough, says Alguire. She has a McMansion also going up next to her place. She's happier with those builders, describing them as "responsible," but: "Even doing things legally, about half the tree canopy came down. We're losing a lot of 100-year-old trees that aren't quite 19 inches. And it's beneficial to have these around our houses to deal with the urban heat island effect, especially this close to Downtown."

Babberney added: "There are financial ramifications to losing trees in the city limits – it's not just about we have to individually pay more for electricity because our house gets hotter because our trees are gone; it's reaching a point now where electricity is going to be an issue: Can we provide enough energy to meet all the needs of all our customers? The city's going to have to deal with that in the form of extra power supplies."

Murphy doesn't disagree with Alguire, but his professional perspective gives him a different take on mature trees: "We can't really rely long-term on those trees," he says. "Relying solely on those big trees for the future of the urban forest doesn't work. ... The way I think about it all the time is that it's important to preserve our biggest and best trees in Austin, and it certainly is an important part of maintaining our character, but we also really need to focus strongly on the future generation and planting trees for them. So I think reforestation and replanting is as big or maybe even a bigger issue in some cases than just preserving existing trees. So it really is a holistic approach you have to take to deal with it."

That causes him to de-emphasize the punitive aspect of the ordinance. He wishes stiffer fines were possible, "But typically we have a long history that, when we have that situation, what we want to do rather than get $2,000 – that goes into the general fund, and who knows what it gets spent on – is we usually want them to plant more trees back so that we can have new trees planted and they can grow for the future.

"I know it really is tragic when a large tree gets removed," Murphy concludes. "It's such a passionate thing for people, and I fully understand that it changes people's lives and their quality of life when a tree near them or in their neighborhood gets removed."

It's a passion painfully comprehended by Tom Penn and his neighbors. "We need mature trees," Penn laments. "We can't just line everything with crepe myrtles."

The Austin Chronicle

 

 

Entrepreneurs log the unwanted urban forest

from the December 21, 2005 edition

(Photograph) FUTURE FURNITURE: Citilogs removes unwanted urban trees and recycles them. They work with Amish craftsmen, who turn lumber like this into tables and chairs.
COURTESY OF CITILOGS

Entrepreneurs log the unwanted urban forest

By Aaron Clark | Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor
NEW YORK – Donald "Stubby" Warmbold remembers the day he saw a 100-year-old oak tree cut into 12-inch lengths of firewood. A new homeowner in suburban Mercer County, N.J., wanted to expand a driveway, so the tree had to go.

"It was a beautiful, beautiful red oak," says Mr. Warmbold, who had recently lost a lucrative telephone polemaking business because new environmental laws had reduced his lumber supply.

 

"That's a waste," he recalls thinking. "That's when the little light bulb went on."

Warmbold realized the tree could have been put to better use. Such high-quality wood could be turned into furniture or flooring or, at the very least, park benches.

Traditionally, urban trees chopped down because of disease, age, or development have been sent to the dump. But increasingly, entrepreneurs and small businesses are identifying ways to more constructively use the estimated 3.8 billion board feet of timber - about 25 percent of the annual hardwood lumber production in the United States every year - that is removed from cities and suburbs annually. That's roughly enough wood to build about 275,000 new homes, and only a small fraction is now recycled.

More arborists and city officials are using the timber from these trees for firewood or wood chips. Warmbold and a handful of others are trying to take that a step further, turning unwanted oaks, pines, and ash trees into flooring, cabinetry, custom molding, and high-end furniture.

"We're about repairing things and not throwing them away," Warmbold says.

Warmbold and his wife, Maria, started Citilogs, six years ago in Pittstown, N.J. They salvage trees from urban parks and suburban homes and have clients all along the East Coast and in Chicago.

Warmbold typically hauls away trees that have fallen down due to weather or disease for clients who want them made into customized tables, desks, cabinetry, or other woodworks. After removing them, he usually ships the wood to Amish craftsmen in Pennsylvania, who create custom pieces made with nontoxic glues and finishes. Sometimes he turns the trees into lumber his clients will use in construction projects. He charges for overseeing the removal of trees, the milling, and furniture production, which he subcontracts to the Amish craftsmen.

Though his fees vary widely, a table typically costs about $1,500, he says, and that covers all expenses.

Warmbold was asked by Willow School, a private primary school in Gladstone, N.J., to remove about a dozen ash trees and turn them into chairs, desks, and tables. While the new school was being constructed, Warmbold organized the tree removal and furniture production. The furniture was ready a few months later, when the school's doors opened.

Recycling city trees slated to be chopped down remains a mostly unregulated cottage industry, where business is generated primarily through word of mouth and a few websites.

"When we try to sell the idea to policymakers, that's when we hit the wall," says Stephen Bratkovich, a forest products specialist with the USDA Forest Service.

Dr. Bratkovich is trying to encourage more municipalities to recycle unwanted timber and perhaps turn it into park benches, stakes for new trees, or school desks.

(Photograph)
RECYCLED: Citilogs built this trellis for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Falmouth, Mass., out of unwanted trees.
COURTESY OF CITILOGS

He acknowledges that two of the biggest problems is a lack of information and too few timber recycling programs.

Some cities don't allow businesses like Citilogs to bid on municipal projects because, by law, they must have a competing bid from another company, Bratkovich says. There aren't enough timber recycling companies out there to get that second bid.

For homeowners, the costs of disposing of a tree can be exorbitant. Depending on the size and weight of a tree, arborists may charge between $500 and $1,500 to cart away what is often useable, or even high-quality wood.

Urban Hardwoods, a high-end furniture design company based in Seattle, often saves homeowners disposal and cutting costs if they can salvage long vertical sections of a large tree.

The company reclaims between 150 and 200 trees a year from the Seattle area, mostly from independent arborists and property owners who don't want them.

The company was founded in 2002 by Jim Newsom, a self-taught woodworker and master craftsman who began making furniture out of driftwood in the late 1990s.

The company employs two designers and makes a wide range of commercial and residential furniture. The key to the company's success, says designer John Wells, lies in the type of wood they can recover.

"The beauty of the material is really what sells the product," says Mr. Wells.

Most urban trees are larger, older, and of better quality than younger, rurally logged trees, which are often cut down when they are just six years old, he says.

The trees that Urban Hardwoods collects are usually several decades old and include Douglas firs, bigleaf maples, madrona, and oak trees. They make striking tabletops, mantelpieces, and beds that sell for thousands of dollars in upscale showrooms across the country.

"That's our business advantage right there," Wells says. "The scale of the trees that we get is what determines their value - the scale and the quality of the grain of the wood."

Another company in Michigan has also found a way to successfully recycle unwanted timber.

Brothers Dan and Charlie LaMont are helping nearly a dozen counties dispose of ash trees that are being cut down by the millions in an attempt to stop a growing infestation of an exotic beetle from Asia. The brothers are taking the rough logs, milling them, and selling them primarily as railroad ties.

Citilogs's business is driven by a niche market, a savvy "green" marketing plan, and Warmbold's forestry and resource expertise. Lately he has also been focusing on restoration projects at historical sites, saving wood flooring or furnishings inside buildings.

"Some people say what we're doing is revolutionary. Well it isn't, it's just common sense," Warmbold says. "If a guy's got logs, if he's got to get rid of them, why not use them?"

Urban logging (Spokane, WA)

Urban Forest Council

Urban Logging

The Urban Forest Council (UFC) has learned from several arborists working in the Spokane region that Ponderosa pines are being logged from backyards in our town. Loggers from the region come to the cities during the dry, summer off-season to remove trees from city residential lots. Stories about this urban logging practice have come to the UFC from Republic to Oakesdale.

We have also learned that some landscaping companies and tree services are earning a large portion of their revenue by removing native conifers from urban lots. Since the “logging” is on private property, no governmental agency can interfere.

People decide to have their trees removed for many reasons: the tree may be dead or dying, they may be expanding their home or garage, or they may be unable or unwilling to rake the pine needles and remove the cones that fall from these magnificent native trees.

Sometimes the homeowner is approached and told that their tree is diseased and may fall on their house (which may or may not be true). One new marketing technique is to hire people to walk up and down streets doorbelling and leaving flyers about a “great deal” or unique opportunity to have their trees removed and earn some cash if the tree is large enough. Often a new house buyer lives in the neighborhood for 3 to 5 years only to sell out and move on, leaving a void in the community forest canopy.

 

Please consider the long-term effects of tree removal before allowing someone to remove any trees from your yard.


These 60-to-200 year old trees are being logged throughout our community one tree at a time, and will have a devastating cumulative effect if we are not more diligent in understanding the benefits these trees provide for all of us, and try to maintain our urban forest. This is everyone’s responsibility.

 

 
     
Urban Forest Council
423 West 1st Suite 240 • Spokane, WA 99201
(509) 838-4912 • info@saveourpines.org

 

Urban Is Good

 

The New York Times
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September 13, 2009

Urban Is Good

By ELIZABETH ROYTE
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GREEN METROPOLIS

Why Living Smaller, Living Closer, and Driving Less Are the Keys to Sustainability

By David Owen

357 pp. Riverhead Books. $25.95

Monty Python used to do a sketch in which the host of a children’s television show taught such broad lessons as “how to play the flute.” Breezily, the host would suggest blowing through one end of the instrument and wiggling one’s fingers over the holes. In “Green Metropolis,” David Owen sets out in similar vein to show how people can “permanently reduce energy use, water consumption, carbon output and many other environmental ills.” The answer, in short, is to live in densely populated cities. Would that it were so easy.

Owen, a staff writer for The New Yorker, makes a convincing case that Manhattan, Hong Kong and large, old European cities are inherently greener than less densely populated places because a higher percentage of their inhabitants walk, bike and use mass transit than drive; they share infrastructure and civic services more efficiently; they live in smaller spaces and use less energy to heat their homes (because those homes tend to share walls); and they’re less likely to accumulate a lot of large, energy-sucking appliances. People in cities use about half as much electricity as people who don’t, Owen reports, and the average New Yorker generates fewer greenhouse gases annually than “residents of any other American city, and less than 30 percent of the national average.”

And the carbon footprint of the hybrid-driving country dweller with her triple-paned windows, backyard composter and geothermal heat pump? Fuhgeddaboudit, Owen practically shouts: she’s still driving to work, to school, to shops and the post office. He doesn’t care if she’s powered by French fry grease or the juice of photovoltaic panels: “Wasted energy is wasted energy no matter how it’s generated.”

Even worse than the car itself is the sprawl and the energy-inefficient lifestyle that it enables — the duplication of infrastructure, larger houses with fertilized, irrigated yards, two-hour commutes. Spreading people thinly across the countryside may seem to decrease environmental impact (it certainly looks and smells better), but in fact it substantially increases that impact “while also making the problems . . . harder to see and to address.”

“Green Metropolis” challenges many cherished assumptions about easy-on-the-earth country living, though many of its revelations may not be revelatory to hardcore carbon counters, or to anyone who read Owen’s 2004 New Yorker article from which this book sprouted. Still, it contains some surprises (for example: it takes less energy and infrastructure to move people vertically, in counterweighted elevators, than horizontally). Pugnacious and contrarian, the book has a lot of fun at the expense of sentimental pastoralists, high-minded environmentalists and rich people trying to buy their way into higher green consciousness with expensive “eco-­friendly” add-ons (photovoltaic panels on their suburban McMansions, say).

More generally, Owen attacks the anti-urban bias of the American environmental movement, from Thomas Jefferson through John Muir to the modern Sierra Club. He delineates how the movement has encouraged sprawl — by demonizing cities and exalting open space — and argues that they need to shift emphasis toward making urban living more “appealing and life enhancing.” According to Owen, the most critical environmental issues in dense urban cores aren’t carbon footprints but “old-fashioned quality of life concerns”: crime rates, bad smells, education. The more pleasant the city, the more people will stay in it, rather than fleeing to car-dependent suburbs — as Owen and his wife did when they left Manhattan for a leafy Connecticut town more than 20 years ago.

Of course, many environmental groups do work on building livable and affordable cities, even while others embrace a “buy it to preserve it” strategy (condemned by Owen as “Nature Conservancy brain”). Environmental groups, the author writes, should focus on “intelligently organizing the places where people are,” instead of where they aren’t. I would argue that if no one defends the places people are not, they won’t be people-free for long. Not only will we lose the idea of wilderness — which some consider essential to our human identity — but we’ll lose its invaluable services, like the protection of drinking water and the sequestration of carbon. (In general, concerns about clean water and air get scant shrift here, and New Yorkers are told they needn’t fret about conserving electricity, since they already use far less per capita than the national average. This reviewer, who is always looking for something new to unplug, is shocked. And doubtful.)

Waxing crankier, Owen takes some digs at solar power, net metering (which gives people credit for wind or solar power they deliver back to the grid) and distributed generation: he claims they spur growth and consumption in the ’burbs, though he doesn’t give their proponents a chance to rebut his charges, and many of his assertions have a “just so” flavor. He briefly disses locavorism as “arithmetical sleight of hand.” Yes, fruit trucked from California to Connecticut has a much lower “fuel per berry” expenditure than fruit Owen buys after making a special trip to a farm 20 miles away, but he ignores the value of supporting farmers so they don’t sell out to developers — not to mention common-sense route planning. Owen applauds the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program for raising awareness of environmentally responsible construction but condemns it for encouraging high-priced, high-visibility add-ons (argon-filled windows) instead of non-sexy, lower cost, simpler measures (hand-cranked awnings and better insulation). He correctly notes the perversity of a system that rewards points for “maximizing open space” to companies that build on the corners of large lots in auto-dependent exurbs. Erecting a tower near a downtown bus stop would do significantly less environmental harm.

After laying out what’s wrong with the car-dependent lifestyle, Owen offers some nifty but politically challenging prescriptions. For mass transit to work, he writes, cities must not only achieve a threshold of mixed-use density, but driving must become an exceedingly unpleasant alternative. Bring on the double-­parked Fed-Ex trucks, the jaywalkers, potholes and scaffolding; reduce road capacity, banish free parking and raise bridge and road tolls. Traffic jams, he writes, “actually generate environmental benefits, because they urge drivers (and cab riders) either into the subways or onto the sidewalks.”

And don’t get Owen started on high-­occupancy-vehicle (H.O.V.) lanes: they mostly just ease traffic! (The author considers anything that makes driving more agreeable, whether hands-free cellphones or recorded books or drive-through Starbucks, an environmental negative.) The real way to make an H.O.V. lane work, he says, is to eliminate regular lanes, increase the number of occupants required to enter the H.O.V. lane, and then charge those single-occupant cars, forced into slow-moving lanes, tolls. Then pray they’ll give up and join a carpool.

Manhattan may be able to teach the country about true sustainability, but where will those lessons assume bricks-and-mortar shape? We aren’t about to tear down our suburbs and force their inhabitants into dense urban areas. Owen admits that “how to apply that template remains a frustrating mystery.” Before giving up entirely, however, he hops in a jet to see if rapidly urbanizing China or India is doing any better (nope).

Ultimately, almost all of Owen’s potential solutions for treading more lightly on the planet rely on economics (“Environmental solutions that depend solely on will power are doomed to fail,” he notes). Raise the price of doing bad, while making good more attractive. Tax energy consumption and emissions. Enact policy measures that lead consumers to feel they have no choice but to find or create alternatives to solo automobile use.

It sounds good on paper, but there’s always going to be a sticking point: human nature. We all yearn for our own personal space, a little fresh air and elbow room. Owen doesn’t want to give up his charming but energy-inefficient house in rural Connecticut any more than I would (if I had one). And so he does what anyone with some extra cash and a conscience must: he buys and installs more insulation.

Elizabeth Royte is a frequent contributor to the Book Review. Her most recent book is “Bottlemania: Big Business, Local Springs, and the Battle Over America’s Drinking Water.”

******************************************************

A Wooded Prairie Springs From a Site Once Piled High With Garbage

September 7, 2009
Saplings grow amid shrubs and grasses planted at the Fountain Avenue Landfill, one of two adjacent former garbage dumps the city is rehabilitating in Brooklyn

A Wooded Prairie Springs From a Site Once Piled High With Garbage

By KENNETH CHANG

South of the Belt Parkway near Exit 15 in Brooklyn, approaching Kennedy International Airport, an unassuming hill slopes upward, dotted with small, scraggly trees and bushes.

A quarter-century ago, the hill was a more memorable sight. It was the Fountain Avenue Landfill.

“It was an ugly old dump,” said Lee Shelley, a longtime resident of the Starrett City neighborhood who heads a citizens’ committee that, for nearly two decades, pestered the city, then cooperated with it, to clean up and transform the pile of garbage.

Today, someone at the top of the hill stands 130 feet above the sea in a field of prairie grasses. It is some of the highest ground in the city, its panoramic views taking in the Empire State Building to the northwest, the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge and New York Harbor to the west, Jamaica Bay to the south.

In a $200 million project, the city’s Department of Environmental Protection covered the Fountain Avenue Landfill and the neighboring Pennsylvania Avenue Landfill with a layer of plastic, then put down clean soil and planted 33,000 trees and shrubs at the two sites. The result is 400 acres of nature preserve, restoring native habitats that disappeared from New York City long ago.

The site is not yet open to the public. Indeed, it is still listed by the state as a toxic waste site. But the air is clear and fresh.

“You can probably compare it with a day in the Alps,” Mr. Shelley said during a tour given to local residents by the city this summer. “We had hoped we would have a park. It’s turned out to be better than a park.”

The Fountain Avenue Landfill opened in 1961, filling up with residential trash, construction debris, asbestos incinerator ash and, notoriously, the bodies of mob victims. In its last year of operation, 1985, an average of 8,200 tons of trash arrived there each day — some 40 percent of the city’s refuse. The Pennsylvania Avenue Landfill was open from 1956 to 1980. In its later years, it was primarily a dump for debris from construction and demolition.

Once closed, the landfills were deemed by the city to be ecologically “sanitary,” meaning they caused no significant harm or health problems, but still offended the senses. Fires often smoldered, emitting putrid odors. Runoff containing heavy metals, oil, pesticides and PCBs flowed into Jamaica Bay. Residents complained about health concerns, and finally, in 1995, hammered out an agreement with the city to rehabilitate the dumps.

During that era, the thinking about what to do with closed landfills was evolving, too. The piles were “capped” with a layer of clay and plastic to keep water out, and covered with a few inches of soil. The usual practice was to plant grass and mow it as if it were a big lawn.

In the 1980s, Leslie Sauer, a founder of Andropogon Associates, a landscape architect firm in Philadelphia, was one of the first to think landfills had more potential. “The idea of mowing landfills is lunacy,” she said.

While working as a consultant for Fresh Kills, a former city garbage dump on Staten Island, she surveyed the fate of other closed landfills. “We could not find one landfill that was being maintained,” she said. Instead of a manicured lawn, the landfill grass inevitably turned into “a weedy junk pile,” she said.

Three feet of soil on top of the landfill cap would hold more moisture, Ms. Sauer surmised, allowing a wider array of plants to grow. Even trees. The common wisdom was never to put trees on a landfill because the roots would push down and puncture the cap.

But in her surveys, Ms. Sauer found that trees inevitably started growing on top of landfills anyway, and that roots typically spread out in a wide but fairly shallow pattern. The network of roots would also do a better job of holding the soil together against erosion than plain grass, and the result might be a sustainable ecology instead of a monotonous grassy hill that required continuous lawn care.

John McLaughlin, who directs the ecological rehabilitation of the Brooklyn landfills for the Department of Environmental Protection and worked with Ms. Sauer at Fresh Kills, carved up the landscape into a series of “islands,” assigning a different mix of plants to reflect a different ecological niche in the region. Some resemble the Pine Barrens of New Jersey. Others drew inspiration from Sandy Hook, N.J., and Fire Island.

The first seeds were laid down in 2004 on the Pennsylvania Avenue Landfill, followed a year later by the first plantings of shrubs and trees, at a density of 800 to 1,000 per acre, about double what typically grow in a natural setting. The final plantings went in last year. All told, the ecological portion of the landfill project cost about $20 million.

More than 93 percent of the trees and shrubs have survived.

“We call this the birth of a forest,” Mr. McLaughlin said. In a decade, the trees might be 20 to 25 feet tall.

Once the plants take hold, nature will be allowed to take its course, evolving the land into microclimates. In some areas that turned out to be damper than had been foreseen, sassafras and black oak, which prefer dry soil, are not doing as well as expected, but other plants should prosper, Mr. McLaughlin said.

Birds including ospreys, egrets and snowy owls are spotted and counted at the former landfills.

“My friends were all like, ‘You’re going where to work with wildlife?’ ” said Lee Humberg, one of the United States Department of Agriculture biologists keeping watch over the site. “One wouldn’t expect to find a prairie setting in New York City.”

A spokeswoman for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation said the Fountain Avenue and Pennsylvania Avenue Landfills, currently listed as a “significant threat to the public health or environment,” could be reclassified by next spring as safe for public access, requiring only continued monitoring of their conditions.

Then the final steps for opening them to the public would start. Mr. Shelley, the Starrett City resident, envisions an amphitheater for concerts, bicycle paths and fishing areas, perhaps within a handful of years. “What they’re doing here,” he said, “was an absolute miracle.”

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What wood you use

MY VIEW: 
Published: May 20, 2009 12:30 AM
Modified: May 19, 2009 04:04 PM
 

What wood you use

Blair Pollock, Correspondent
The journey from standing tree to finished piece of furniture, lumber or toothpicks seems straightforward enough. Making the connection locally seems like it should be simple. Man chops down tree, drags it to a sawmill, then another buys that and makes the finished product that I buy -- house, table or pencil. The locavore theme wants to extend past just food production and around here, local wood products seem like a natural fit. Until you try to make it fit.

Take the circuitous journey of four beautiful, striking and strong tables and a desk that local designer, urban activist and craftsman James Carnahan recently created out of the first oak tree grown on Oak Street in Carrboro. The willow oak in his side yard was already compromised, and it died during Carnahan's 2002 renovation of his newly acquired Carrboro residence. As the tree was being taken down, the sad-faced elderly couple living next door who had been present at its 1950 planting, came over and asked him, "You're a furniture maker. Can't you make something from this tree?"

They inspired Carnahan. He had the tree trunk hauled down to Jim Vanderbeck's band saw mill in Chatham County where it first had to be halved with a chain saw to even fit through the mill. After sawing, the planks came home and rested at Carnahan's Carrboro shop for six years. Then he brought them over to Fitch Lumber in Carrboro for planing. It turned out that highly destructive powder post beetles had invaded the wood. They had to be eliminated before he could make and sell the furniture or even use it at home. The wood went on a trip to an industrial fumigator near RDU Airport. Then back for final goings-over and gluing of boards -- some at Hill Country Woodworks and others at the Gibsonville mill gave him the finished boards he needed earlier this year.

Another month of work yielded four tables and the desk, complete with beetle-damaged boards adding a new level of texture and visual interest to the edges of one piece. A neighbor bught one table. Another graces the dining room of James and his wife, Caroline Butler. The other three pieces of golden, beautifully grained, and joined willow oak await buyers. Not easy, not cheap, not efficient and not straightforward. Creating beauty rarely is.

Louis and Dan Graham, the father and son who make those beautiful red cedar chests they sell at the Carrboro Farmer's market every Saturday, also saw cedar for others. From them I learned about the long, convoluted journey eastern red cedar can take from forest to house. Louis told me, that last year he sawed 10,000 feet of the red cedar for the floor, ceiling, posts and beams for a house that a guy wanted to build in Burlington. The guy had timbered the cedar and trucked it out to the Graham family mill in Chatham County. A year later it was back at his warehouse in Burlington to air dry, then he moved it again to a kiln for final drying. Next it was off to High Point where they specialize in producing tongue-and-groove material. With his smooth, finished wood, the man built a highly aromatic house in Burlington.

The supply of quality local red cedar is diminishing because it is not being replanted Louis told me. It is slow-growing tree and neither pulp nor lumber mills want it. Now the Grahams take material as small as 8 inches whereas they never used to use anything smaller than 18 inches.

Local green builder, Tom O'Dwyer, specializes in using as much local wood as he can. His own home features several thousand feet of fencing, siding and trim from very local pines -- those off his own lot. O'Dwyer his trees milled in Hillsborough where sawyer Ray Hecht quarter-saws the trees for strength, stability and a showier grain. Back at his Chapel Hill shop Tom then planes each board but can use them only for trim and flooring, not structurally. Despite that limitation, he estimates thousands of potential local lumber dollars could be built into each house just from the wood that could be gleaned from clearing of rights-of-way and roadsides.

Now, each time I see a massive old tree taken down or even 10 of them as I saw recently, because they were too near the owner's house, I ask myself, "What could be done to recover those for local lumber instead of just sawing them into firewood lengths?" Then I think of the complex multi-part journey these local trees have to make and wonder how to make it worthwhile.

This column marks Blair's 15th anniversary of writing for the Chapel Hilll News. Contact him at blairlpollock@gmail.com

 

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Some worry road will harm preserve

Published: Jun 08, 2009 02:00 AM
Modified: Jun 07, 2009 09:38 PM
 

Some worry road will harm preserve

Route would lead to Guard HQ

BY ROB CHRISTENSEN, Staff writer
RALEIGH - A proposed road to the National Guard/emergency nerve center in West Raleigh has drawn concern from some environmentalists who fear that it would detract from a nearby state-run nature preserve.

Gov. Beverly Perdue recently turned a shovel for a $57 million facility that will serve as headquarters for the National Guard, as the state's Emergency Management center, and as a communications nerve center for the state Highway Patrol, Department of Transportation and other agencies.

Plans call for the road to the National Guard facility to be cut through woodlands that skirt the Prairie Ridge Ecostation for Wildlife and Learning, which is used primarily to teach children and families about nature.

"Right now Prairie Ridge is a beautiful and calming place, which for many is a huge boon when living surrounded by city noises," said Ben Pearlstine, an environmental activist with Croatan Earth First. "This is likely to change with the addition of this road."

The road is one of the continuing tensions in West Raleigh, a rapidly urbanizing area that is encroaching on Umstead State Park, the Depression-era reserve that serves as the main outdoor recreational area for the Triangle.

Prairie Ridge, a 38-acre nature area, was created in December 2004 to serve as a teaching site about various plants and animals from across North Carolina. It is an outdoor extension of the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences now being expanded in downtown Raleigh. Plans call for building an overnight facility at Prairie Ridge for schoolchildren visiting the capital.

About 3,000 people used the nature preserve last year.

"It is a very important resource in this area," said Mary Ann Brittain, Prairie Ridge's director. "It is part of a wildlife corridor in West Raleigh that is in danger. We are trying to stem the tide to preserve a natural area for the public and for schools across North Carolina."

Prairie Ridge is not a pristine site.

It shares an entrance with the existing National Guard headquarters. Edwards Mill Road can be seen from some vantage points. National Guard helicopters can be heard overhead.

As part of the new National Guard/emergency center, the state Department of Transportation proposed to build a $1.7 million, two-lane road that is eight-tenths of a mile from District Road to the site of the new facility. Construction of the road is expected to begin in January.

The proposed road would be visible from Reedy Creek and from some of the trails, an outdoor amphitheater and an education building.

Officials with DOT and Prairie Ridge have been meeting to determine how to mitigate the impact of the road. DOT has agreed to plant trees to hide the road. Prairie Ridge officials are also seeking a 25-mph speed limit to restrict noise.

"Sure, we are concerned," Brittain said. "Obviously, it's changing a forested area and replacing that with a road. But we are pleased with the kind of cooperation that DOT is doing, trying to mitigate the impact."

Jon Nance, DOT's chief engineer of operations, said his agency has been working to reduce the impact of the road.

"We have minimized our project by steeping slopes and putting in guardrails," Nance said. "There are wetlands we will mitigate."

But environmentalists would like to see the road moved to a less sensitive area.

 

rob.christensen@newsobserver.com or 919-829-4532

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Canopy of conifers

Published: Jul 18, 2009 02:00 AM
Modified: Jul 16, 2009 06:12 PM
 

Canopy of conifers

Deciduous trees with needlelike leaves flourish in the Piedmont

BY CATHERINE BOLLINGER, Correspondent
The trees have needlelike leaves and produce cones -- like the evergreen pines, firs, hemlocks and junipers. But these needles, unlike those on evergreens, turn shades of gold to orange-brown before they fall to the ground to mix with the discarded leaves of broad-leafed deciduous trees.

That's the magic of the deciduous conifer.

The trees will flourish in any landscape, especially if the soil is slightly acidic as our native Piedmont soils tend to be. They will provide light shade in summer, dramatic color in autumn, snow-catching, rough-textured bark in winter, and magic all year long.

Most deciduous conifers that grow well in the Southeastern Piedmont will attain mature heights similar to those of our native oaks and hickories. Some cultivars remain smaller. Besides elegant forms, these pollution- and drought-resistant trees also adapt well to urban and suburban environments.

Triangle gardeners have a number of options for deciduous conifers -- from the standard species to an array of interesting cultivars.

Our Natives: Bald cypress and pond cypress

Bald cypress ( Taxodium distichum) has dominated Southeastern swamps for centuries. In swampy areas, protruding woody growths that emerge from the ground away from the trunks add to the mystique of these trees. Scientists aren't sure of the function of cypress knees, which seem to form most often in areas where the trees are flooded at least part of the year. In city landscapes, knees are less common, but the trees thrive as well as they do in their native swamps.

In autumn, the needles turn a warm orange-brown. The color persists most years for weeks, blending with the autumn colors of maples, oaks, tulip poplars and sweet gums. The spring and summer green needles are arranged like feathers, inviting gentle stroking.

I planted three small bald cypress trees in a low spot near my creek about 15 years ago. Now about 30 feet tall, their fluted trunks anchor them through droughts and floods.

Horticulturists have developed smaller forms of this species. "Cody's Feathers, " also known as "Wooster Broom," is a dwarf form that reaches only about 5 feet. "Pendulum" is a weeping form that tops out at about 15 feet, but it requires attentive pruning to retain its form. "Peve Minaret" matures to about 20 feet and has a very narrow, dense form even when young. David Parks, owner of Camellia Forest Nursery in Chapel Hill, says this cultivar is quite tough.

Bald cypress has a less-well-known cousin, pond cypress ( Taxodium ascendens), that is also native to the Southeastern U.S. As its name implies, it naturally occurs near ponds on sandy soils, but like its better-known cousin, pond cypress is quite adaptable. A mature pond cypress is usually a bit shorter than a bald cypress, and its form is more columnar. Instead of feathery needles that hang down, pond cypress needles form upright rows along the branches when the tree is young. A pond cypress doesn't produce knees as often, and its columnar form permits uses in narrow spaces.

Dawn redwood

Dawn redwoods were known only as fossils to Western botanists until early in the 20th century, when the scientists learned of living forests of Metasequoia glyptostroboides in China. Today, dawn redwoods can be purchased in seedling and grafted form.

This tree's feathery needles resemble those of bald cypress, and it's thought by many botanists to be related to our North American swamp giants. Dawn redwood is an adaptable grower. The Duke Gardens in Durham contain a mighty specimen. This 60-year-old tree was one of the first seedlings germinated by Harvard's Arnold Arboretum in the late 1940s. The trunk flutes out broadly at its base, and its exposed roots create a universe of nooks and crannies that I loved to climb in my childhood. Unfortunately, too many children must have had the same idea because today Duke Gardens has roped off the tree from foot traffic.

I planted a foot-tall seedling on a moist north-facing hill about 15 years ago. Today, that tree towers 40 feet straight up, its horizontally arranged branches decorated with feathery needles. Dawn redwood's bark is reddish brown and exfoliates in long strips, giving it a shaggy appearance that is especially noticeable in the winter landscape. Fall color is similar to that of bald cypress. Dawn redwoods don't produce knees, making them excellent specimen trees in lawns. And there's a cultivar suitable for most landscapes.

"Ogon" reaches nearly the same height at maturity as the regular species, but its spring and summer needles are golden yellow until they turn rusty brown in autumn. The golden color makes this cultivar a standout in any summer Piedmont landscape. It is the favorite cultivar of nursery owner David Parks. A dwarf form, "Bonsai," is also available. It grows very slowly and is so new that its mature height isn't known. However, in 10 years, the cultivar is reported to be only 4 to 5 feet tall. "Emerald Feathers" has a more compact growth form than the species, giving it a fuller appearance while attaining a similar height.

Golden larch

Pseudolarix amabilis is native to coastal mountain areas of China, but like the dawn redwood, golden larch grows happily for Triangle gardeners. Pollution-resistant and adaptable regarding soils, this tree adds architectural interest to any landscape. The longish green needles emerge from centers, looking like starbursts. Autumn color doesn't persist as long as with bald cypress or dawn redwood, but the golden color is so breathtaking that its transience can be forgiven. It is a potential canopy giant at maturity, but it grows so slowly that the gardener who plants it will likely never see it attain its full size. I planted a 2-foot specimen 10 years ago. It is now 9 feet tall. The widely spaced horizontal branches adorned with narrow needles don't produce much shade. I grow it for its strong structural presence and its transformation to gold every fall.

The next time you want to add enchantment to your yard, consider one of the deciduous conifers.

 

Catherine Bollinger has been gardening in this region for 35 years. She writes and lectures about her passion for Piedmont gardening as often as possible.

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Urban tree awards honor two local efforts

Published: Aug 06, 2009 05:48 AM
Modified: Aug 05, 2009 08:56 PM
 

Urban tree awards honor two local efforts

FROM STAFF REPORTS
RALEIGH - A woman from Apex and a tree program run by the city of Raleigh were among the six winners of the 2009 N.C. Urban Forestry Awards announced Tuesday.

Raleigh's Neighbor Woods Program won the outstanding project merit award, and Mary Silliman of Apex won the outstanding individual grand award. The annual program of the N.C. Division of Forest Resources recognizes cities, towns, organizations, businesses and individuals for work to protect and enhance community forests and raise awareness about the importance of urban forestry projects.

Winners were selected by a panel that included urban forestry staff members of the N.C. Division of Forest Resources and members of the N.C. Urban Forest Council. Entries were judged for effect, quality, innovation and the degree to which the work serves as an example for others to follow. The winners also may be nominated for the National Arbor Day Awards program.

Award recipients will be recognized at the N.C. Urban Forest Council's 2009 Annual Conference Awards Banquet on Sept. 15 at the Marriott Hotel in Winston-Salem.

 

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Tree cuts a perennial issue

Published: Aug 22, 2009 02:00 AM
Modified: Aug 20, 2009 07:22 PM
 

Tree cuts a perennial issue

BY JIM WISE, Staff Writer
We've heard and read of a considerable distress lately about tree-trimming of the overzealous kind -- to wit, the way our local electric utility clears the way for its overhead power lines.

Over in the Lakewood area particularly, we are told, the homefolks are upset about Duke Power's pruning to the point they're afraid the trees are doomed.

No surprise. These complaints come out every pruning season, wherever the Bull City's sylvan canopy is violated in the name of power -- or anything else, for that matter. In Durham, trees are serious business.

Neighborhoods carry a lot of weight in Durham's civic life these days. That started out with trees, back in 1972, when residents of pre-gentrified Trinity Park awoke one morning to the hum of buzzsaws. Consternated citizens soon found that the stately oaks along Buchanan Boulevard, Trinity Avenue and other streets were in the way of a thoroughfare City Hall, in its inscrutable wisdom, had decreed to connect Hillsborough Road with the downtown then being revitalized with the Loop and other Urban Renewal amenities.

Further consternated, the citizens arose, organized and marched on the City Council one memorable evening with figurative scythes and pitchforks and a literal lawyer. Despite one councilman's whine that Durham couldn't just stay "a sleepy little college town," the powers that were backed off, the trees were spared and Trinity Park became a prototype for the neighborhood politicking that Durham enjoys, so to speak, to this day.

As far back as 1884, the town's first historian, Hiram Paul, after acknowledging Durham's deserved reputation as "the hottest place this side of His Satanic Majestie's realm," remarked with civic pride upon the "green lines of aspens and elms" that graced the fledgling city's fledgling streets.

By 1932, Durham had an official Tree Commission and a law protecting trees on or adjoining public property. More than a year before President Franklin D. Roosevelt brought forth his Depression-relief "New Deal," Durham's own relief agency and public-works director H.W. Kueffner had unemployed men of the town setting out oak saplings in city parks, and along Club Boulevard from the reservoir to Broad Street. The Durham Garden Club supplied the boulevard trees, and itself created Oval Drive Park and planted shrubbery along the railroad near East Campus.

When Markham Avenue was extended between Buchanan and Watts Street in 1937, the city split it in two - curving traffic around an island of soil where stood a 200-year-old white oak, and even installing an irrigation system just to keep the tree well watered. The old oak succumbed to age in the '40s, but the island remains, testimony to our town's green roots.

Even back then, citizens worried that the little street trees might grow tall enough to interfere with overhead electric wires. Duke forester C.F. Korstian - one of Durham's original tree commissioners - said not to fret.

By the time they got that big, he was sure, all the power lines would have been moved underground.

 

jim.wise@nando.com or 932-2004

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