Eugene weekly., November 21, 2007, Page 15, Image 15

you look at the target." Targets include people,
buildings, cars, bike paths, sidewalks and
streets. "I love trees — don’t get me wrong,"
he says. "But the more targets you have, the
closer you get to civilization."
EW was unable to find any reports of
Eugeneans killed by falling trees or limbs
within the city limits. Statewide, there are
records of people being injured or killed by
falling trees or limbs during major storms, and
any number of people are killed each year by
crashing their cars into trees. EW requested
records from the city of Eugene of any people
injured or killed by hazardous trees. However,
the city says such records would only be made
available if EW paid to finance a staffer to
search the city’s records. While the city of
Eugene doesn’t seem to have any death-relat-
ed tree reports on hand, the history of Eugene
is intertwined with its trees.
EUGENE’S TREE HISTORY
W
hen settlers first came to the area that
came to be called Eugene, the Kalapuya
Indians had been burning the area for years to
encourage the growth of the camas plant and
improve game habitat, among other reasons.
As a result, the valley was open grassland with
scattered groups of oaks. Near the Willamette
River, where it was moist, and high on the
hills, where there was little burning, older
trees grew. According to the official city of
Eugene history, which includes great detail on
the trees in the area, bigleaf maples and
Douglas firs joined the oaks in parts of the
area with willows, alders and cottonwoods
near the river.
Eugene was incorporated in 1862, and as
more and more settlers came to the area, the
native peoples left. Key to Eugene’s tree his-
tory was that when the native peoples began to
leave, they stopped the valley burning that
held trees at bay. So it was in the late 1800s
that the majority of Eugene’s trees took root.
As a result, most of Eugene’s oldest trees are a
little more than 100 years old.
The next major event for Eugene’s trees
was the 1962 Columbus Day storm. Wind
gusts blew down 11.2 billion board feet of tim-
ber in Eugene and Washington, including trees
that were 1,000 years old. Eugene had wind
gusts at peaks of 86 miles per hour, according
to the National Weather Service. Sixty-six
trees blew down on the UO campus alone,
with others removed later due to damage.
Many of Eugene’s older street trees still show
the evidence from the damage of that storm,
which can now designate them a hazard.
WHEN THE TREES FALL . . .
T
o assess tree risks, Eugene’s arborists look
at the types and sizes of defects and the
probability of failure and target damage, a tree
risk assessment standard recognized by the
Pacific Northwest Chapter of the International
Society of Arboriculture. Tree defects include,
but are not limited to, root decline, decay, fun-
gal or bacterial diseases and insect infesta-
tions.
The city allows homeowners and develop-
ers, who find trees blocking their view or that
want to build driveways where a tree is in the
way, to apply to the city for a permit to remove
the tree or ask the city to assess whether the
tree is a hazard. Bigleaf maples, which make
up many of Eugene’s street trees, are banned
from being planted in the city of Seattle
because of their aggressive roots that Seattle
says can damage sidewalks.
‘People have emotional attachments to trees.’
— Mark Snyder, city of Eugene urban forester
“There’s a lot of distrust in the community
about how the city removes trees,” Snyder
says, but adds, “We don’t just remove trees
because we don’t like them or because some
rich developers want space to build.”
Snyder says that he’s worked hard to make
the removal process transparent to residents.
The city follows a rigorous tree inspection
process that often involves multiple site visits,
Snyder says. This is followed by a public com-
ment period, indicated with bright orange city
of Eugene Urban Forestry notices of removal
that include contact information and the length
of the comment period. Snyder adds, “I could
not live with myself if I allowed a hazard tree
to stand, and it hurt someone.” The public has
15 days to protest the cutting down of a tree 12
inches in diameter or larger.
In 2006, city contractors cut down an esti-
mated 408 trees. The city designated 361 of
the trees as hazardous or dead, and 47 were
removed by request from private interests. In
the previous decade, contractors removed, on
average, 491 trees — 205 hazard trees per year
and 286 per year through land development
permits.
Six years ago, the Rest-Haven Memorial
Park cemetery development project in west
Eugene removed 1,427 trees. This was by far
the greatest number of trees removed on a sin-
gle permit in the last decade. The Woodleaf
Village development on Fox Hollow Road in
south Eugene followed with 324 trees, and
then Lane County removed 295 trees on
Centennial Loop, off MLK Boulevard.
In addition to street trees removed, Eugene
Water and Electric Board (EWEB) also
removed about 350 trees last year, according
to Lance Robertson, EWEB’s external com-
munications director. “This number includes
trees that were deemed dead or hazardous by
the city,” Robertson says. It also includes
some trees outside the Eugene area up the
McKenzie River where EWEB has transmis-
sion lines, he says.
Robertson says when it comes down to a
conflict between a power line and a tree plant-
ed directly below, “normally the power line
wins.” Since roughly the late 1960s or early
1970s, many new power lines have been
placed underground. However, though bury-
ing power lines reduces tree conflicts, it’s
more expensive to maintain underground
lines. “One advantage is that there are fewer
outages, but it takes longer to locate and fix
problems underground,” Robertson says.
It would cost approximately $700 million
to bury all power lines in the Eugene area,
which “would create a substantial rate
increase,” Robertson says.
Tree hazard reports are available free to
the public from the city if people want to know
more details about what’s going on with a spe-
cific tree. Lists of trees to be removed come
out once or twice a month. “People have emo-
tional attachments to trees,” Snyder says. On
occasion he’s met with concerned residents on
site to discuss a tree’s fate, not unlike the situ-
ation with Lovinger’s redwood.
Residents can negotiate with the contractor
to keep the wood from trees removed on their
property and what remains is hauled away by
the city’s contractors or given to local artists.
Buena Vista Arbor Care, the current contrac-
tor, says much of the wood goes for firewood,
and the remainder is dumped in the contrac-
tor’s 50 acre yard. Hardwoods like bigleaf
maples are quite valuable. Bigleaf maple is
used to make guitar bodies and fine furniture.
When the wood from a bigleaf has distinctive
whorls and ripples, it can be worth thousands
of dollars, according to a Seattle Times article
on bigleaf maple thefts.
The hazard trees removed last year varied
in size and type. According to information
from Snyder, the majority — about 76 percent
— were under a diameter at breast height
(DBH) of 30 inches and were bigleaf maples
and sweetgums. Bigleaf maples are native
Oregon trees, and sweetgums are native to the
eastern U.S. The biggest hazard tree removed
was a tree of heaven with a 55 inch DBH. The
fast-growing tree of heaven is a species native
to China and considered to be invasive,
according to the USDA National Invasive
Species Information Center. It’s “weak wood-
ed,” according to Eugene Public Works.
A bigleaf maple with DBH of 30 inches is
due to be removed in the next two weeks,
according to a memo put out by Public Works
on Nov. 8. In the same memo two western red-
cedars, native to Oregon, with DBH listed of
29 inches, as well as a 39 inch Siberian elm,
were slated to be cut down.
NOVEMBER 21, 2007 15