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THE ASTORIAN • SATURDAY, MAY 22, 2021
Experts scrutinize hazard tree removal project
to look at a representative
sample and confi rm before
the trees come down that it
matches with the expecta-
tions of what our program
is designed around,” Lynde
said. “We hope this will
build more confi dence with
others around our project. At
minimum, I think it will val-
idate some of the work that’s
been going on or it will help
inform additional changes.”
Lynde said the s ecretary
of s tate will also be audit-
ing the project, and that
the state’s monitoring fi rm,
CDR Maguire, has initi-
ated its own internal review
in response to the whis-
tleblower allegations.
“As more information
comes out about what those
reviews identify, we’ll cer-
tainly take swift action,”
Lynde said.
By CASSANDRA
PROFITA
Oregon Public Broadcasting
Gates Mayor Ron Car-
mickle is walking alongside
a grove of burned trees off
Highway 22 near his city in
Oregon’s Santiam Canyon.
“The ones you can see
here are marked,” he said,
pointing to a line of trees
with blue spray paint on
their trunks.
He’s brought two tree
experts with him: arborist
Rick Till and forest health
specialist Dave Shaw with
Oregon State University.
“That one’s got pretty
high scorch,” Shaw said,
pointing to one with black-
ened bark stretching more
than halfway up the trunk
and then moving on to
another tree with less bark
scorch. “This one’s a little
edgy.”
The blue spray paint is
how contractors with the
Oregon Department of
Transportation are marking
what are deemed to be haz-
ardous trees within areas
that were burned in last
year’s wildfi res and need to
be cut down for safety.
ODOT’s goal in the
state’s ongoing hazard tree
removal operation is to pro-
tect people from burned trees
that could fall onto roads
or buildings. But deciding
which trees actually pose
that risk is complicated, and
a growing number of people
say ODOT’s contractors are
hastily marking too many
trees for removal — includ-
ing trees that aren’t actually
hazardous.
The operation faces mul-
tiple allegations of mis-
management and exces-
sive tree-cutting. Gov. Kate
Brown has allowed the
work to continue despite
calls to stop the project and
order an investigation, but
state lawmakers are asking
a lot of questions, and crit-
ics like Carmickle are tak-
ing a closer look at the trees
marked for removal.
He invited Till and Shaw
to come check the state’s
work by examining some of
the trees with blue dots.
Overcutting
Shaw uses an axe to
scrape away a thin layer of
blackened bark on a Doug-
las fi r tree that’s marked with
a blue dot. Just under the
surface, the bark is golden
brown.
“See how limited the
‘Stop the cut!’
Cassandra Profi ta/Oregon Public Broadcasting
Dave Shaw, an Oregon State University professor and forest health specialist, scrapes char off the bark of a burned tree marked
for removal off Oregon Highway 22.
char is?” he said. “That’s not
really severe bark char. It’s
not really deep.”
But the top of the tree
doesn’t look very healthy,
he said, so he wouldn’t chal-
lenge that removal decision.
In contrast, Shaw points
to another tree with a blue
dot that has black bark but
is full of green needles on
top. That’s probably going
to live, he said, so it doesn’t
need to be cut down for
safety.
“The crown is completely
undamaged,” he said. “I
don’t know. I’m suspicious
about this tree. I mean, that
one in particular doesn’t
really look like a high like-
lihood of mortality.”
Carmickle says that kind
of conclusion adds to his
concerns that ODOT con-
tractors are over cutting trees
just to make more money.
And he wants to stop them
before they cut any more of
the blue-dotted trees in his
city.
“I mean, these trees are
60, 80 years old, it’s going to
take that long for this to reju-
venate,” he said. “So that’s
what we’re facing in this
here. When they just clear-
cut all this stuff out, we’re
facing, you know, a whole
generation before this ever
comes back.”
The mayor’s fears are
compounded by fi rsthand
reports from multiple people
who worked on the state’s
hazard tree removal project.
Eric Phillips is one of
several
whistleblowers
who told lawmakers about
that he didn’t see anyone
making sure the rules were
followed.
“There’s no oversight out
there in the fi eld at all,” he
said.
After the hearings, state
Sen. Jeff Golden asked the
governor to stop the project
‘I MEAN, THESE TREES ARE
60, 80 YEARS OLD, IT’S GOING
TO TAKE THAT LONG FOR
THIS TO REJUVENATE.’
— Ron Carmickle, Gates mayor
the problems he saw while
working for an ODOT con-
tractor on Highway 224.
“It was a very ‘Hurry up.
Let’s get trees cut and cut
as many trees as we can,’”
Phillips said in a recent leg-
islative hearing. “There’s so
much mismanagement. So
much lack of accountability.
It’s like people just want to
get paid.”
He said workers with no
arborist experience were
marking trees for removal,
that he saw contractors fall-
ing trees into wetlands and
cutting trees that weren’t
marked as hazardous, and
and order an investigation.
“We’d better get real
clear on what’s going on
out there now, soon,” the
Ashland Democrat said. “If
we’ve gone astray, if this
project has gone astray, let’s
fi nd out and correct it right
now.”
He worries the state could
lose federal disaster funding.
So far, ODOT and its
contractors say they’ve
fi xed many of the reported
problems.
ODOT manager Mac
Lynde told lawmakers his
agency has hired an inde-
pendent arborist to review
the tree-cutting operation
in response to the litany of
complaints.
In a hearing Monday,
Lynde told the Senate Com-
mittee on Natural Resources
and Wildfi re Recovery that
the state hired Galen Wright,
president of Washington
Forest Consultants Inc. and
an arborist with 30 years of
experience in hazard tree
identifi cation.
“We’re up to 1,200 peo-
ple on this project,” Lynde
told lawmakers. “I have a
high degree of confi dence
that it’s going well, but let’s
face it. That’s a lot of people
and a lot of moving parts.
So, we’re asking him to
come on and, quite quickly,
review the operation in sev-
eral fi re corridors.”
Over the next three
weeks, Lynde said, Wright
will be reviewing the qual-
ifi cations of the arborists
and foresters working on
the state project, the crite-
ria being used to mark trees
for removal and the over-
all process the state is using
to mark and remove hazard
trees.
“He won’t be looking
at every single tree again
or really every fi re corri-
dor, every mile we’ve cov-
ered, but we’re asking him
But environmental groups
are still calling on the gover-
nor to stop the tree-cutting
and activists recently forced
the work to stop by occu-
pying a tree-removal site
east of Eugene. ODOT has
also reported some activists
spray-painting over the blue
dots on marked trees to pre-
vent falling crews from cut-
ting them down.
At a rally in Salem this
month , protesters dressed
up in various costumes and
chanted: “Gov. Brown, stop
the cut!”
ODOT and the gover-
nor say wildfi re recovery
is too important to stop the
removal of hazardous trees.
They want to make sure
roads can reopen and home-
owners can rebuild on their
burned properties, and they
say the state can continue to
address the reported prob-
lems without stopping the
project altogether.
Right now, the state is
about a quarter of the way
through marking and remov-
ing an estimated 140,000
hazard trees left by last
year’s wildfi res.
“Certainly our emer-
gency response operation is
an adaptive operation, and
it looks a lot diff erent today
than when we started,”
Lynde told lawmakers on
Monday. “This is something
that has never happened
before in Oregon. Never
has a program this size been
launched. As we recover
from these wildfi res, we’re
constantly refi ning our oper-
ation and learning from our
experiences.”
Stepson addicted to methamphetamine VISIT US
Dear Annie: I started dat-
ing my husband 11 years
ago, married six years ago.
Our biggest problem is his
29-year-old son. This man
has never held a job because
he has been addicted to drugs
including meth and heroin
and is still using. Also, he has
warrants out for his arrest. I
have made it clear he can not
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not want him over if my hus-
band is not home. I know his
son hates me and the com-
bination of hate and drugs
does not always end
to support a grown
DEAR
well. Needless to
29-year-old man! —
ANNIE
say, he always slips
Tired of the Coaster
his way back in, and
Dear
Tired:
then I blow my top,
Addiction is indeed
and my husband
a roller coaster, but
runs him off again.
you need not go
It is a never-ending
along for the ride.
rollercoaster. How
Let your husband
do I get my hus- ANNIE LANE know — empathet-
Creators
band to understand
ically but fi rmly —
Syndicate Inc.
I am done with it?
that you are not com-
I wouldn’t allow
fortable with your
my grown daughters to live stepson staying with you any
in my home, jobless and longer. If he continues to let
sleep on my couch, I refuse him into the house anyway,
tell your husband that you
will need to insulate your-
self from the dysfunction
and make a plan to do so,
fi nding your own place tem-
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friend. I encourage you to
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Families Anonymous, which
might aff ord you some peace
and in turn clarity in the sit-
uation. And if ever you feel
you are in danger, call 911.
I’m sorry your family is
dealing with this.
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