Posts about Trees

Neighbors intervened to prevent a complete clear cutting—today one last oak still stands. Councilmember Evans' office has gotten involved along with ANC 2B03 rep Stephanie Maltz. The contractors on site, Andersen Tree Expert Co., said an arborist had certified the need for the trees to come down. Actually, the arborist is an Andersen employee, and Andersen got the job for chopping down the trees and was paid by the tree.

Wennerstrom's detailed explanation about the DGS's and Andersen's stated reasons for taking down the trees (which Wennerstrom finds dubious) are below. Certainly the biggest issue is not communicating about the issue ahead of time. Further, there is the question of whether arborists tend to be overzealous about taking out trees.

I've talked to several arborists, both at DDOT's Urban Forestry Administration and private arborists I've hired to prune the tree on my own property. You might expect someone whose job is caring for trees to want to do everything possible to maximize tree life, but I've found that many arborists would take down a lot more trees, and a lot earlier, than most residents would.

Our block, not far from Ross, has a number of very large oak trees. Some of them have fungus starting to grow near the roots, which will eventually kill the trees. However, they could last many more years before that happens. On the other hand, over time this will weaken the roots, and eventually, one might fall in a large storm, damaging nearby houses.

When we had a private arborist to look at our private tree, I asked him about some of the street trees along the block. He said he would probably recommend taking several of those down (not the one closest to our house, fortunately) sooner rather than later.

The experts would often choose to take trees down as soon as anything seems wrong. Meanwhile, residents love their trees, and want to keep them up. DDOT's Urban Forestry Administration has to balance residents' desire to preserve trees against the profession's predilection for removal.

It's hard to know who is right. The arborist profession might know what we don't. On the other hand, they could fall victim to orthodoxies around an arbitrary "standard." Certainly, DDOT has its standards, like cutting all branches up to 8 feet away from houses, just as the traffic engineering profession has controversial standards for road curvature, clear zones and more. The 8-foot tree standard keeps branches from hitting the houses, but also yields odd-shaped trees and cuts down on the shade that helps keep houses cool.

Here is the rest of Wennerstrom's letter:

On Dec. 31, Andersen reps on site and contacted by telephone offered several reasons for the demolition—including root rot due to excessive ground moisture, the poor health of the trees, the trees were causing basement leaks and, what turns out to be the real reason, trenching needs to be done around the perimeter of the building to remedy the leaks, an action that will endanger the trees.

In fact, on Dec. 26, an Andersen inspection determined there was no root rot yet on Dec. 31 their reps insisted root rot was the cause; the Ward 4 arborist Joel Conlon, who inspected the trees on Dec. 31, and says there's no evidence the trees were in poor health, contradicting what Andersen reps were telling the neighbors; and landscape architect James Urban, one of the nation's leading authorities on design with trees and soils in urban settings, questioned the aggressive trenching/leak remediation plan proposed. Urban says tree and root pruning, along with careful trenching would permit the need leak remediation without destroying the trees.

Attempts to get information from DGS continue to be frustrating. For example, we requested the written evaluation that justified the trees' removal and we only received a cover letter and a crudely drawn schematic diagram. Not included, and crucial to the discussion, were Andersen's eight pages of tree evaluation forms with several questionable observations.

Now DGS has come up with a new reason for the trees' removal. In the Jan. 9 edition of the Dupont Current, DGS spokesperson Kenneth Diggs is quoted as saying the trees are causing the sidewalk to buckle. That's completely untrue—no sidewalks are buckling. Mr. Diggs and DGS made that up.

We enjoy having Ross Elementary as our across-the-street neighbor and recognize the school's need for building improvements—we've already lived through three months of a very noisy and filthy renovation this past summer.

DGS may have done everything "by the book", but they continue to do a really poor job of communicating with the public.

This weekend, Wennerstrom followed up with an update:

On the Ross front, I've heard from another DGS spokesperson. The bottom line is that DGS never considered any basement leak remediation methods that would also have saved the trees—they were doomed from the outset. Their arborist's certification that the trees had to go was a pro forma move.

Nevertheless, in a January 2, 2013 email response to Ward 2 Council Member Jack Evans about the Ross situation, DGS Director Brian Hanlon wrote: "I never take lightly the removal of any tree." (Imagine if DGS were in charge of RGIII's healthcare, rather than microsurgery for his knee, they would have amputated his leg).

One of the best ways to expand our tree canopy in places like downtown Silver Spring or White Flint is by planting more street trees next to sidewalks and in medians. Trees can provide significant health benefits and can even be an economic windfall for places with more of them.

A 2001 survey of Wheaton residents found they overwhelmingly preferred streets with trees for downtown Wheaton. According to urban designer Dan Burden, spending between $250 and $600 to plant a tree can yield up to $90,000 in economic benefits for the surrounding area.

For decades, transportation planners saw street trees as a safety hazard because they blocked drivers' vision. For that reason, County Executive Ike Leggett actually recommended removing street trees from busy roads in 2008. However, we know now that trees can "reduce the 'optical width'" of a street, slowing drivers down and making it safer for everybody.

Today, there are multiple efforts to add more street trees in Montgomery County. This fall, the Planning Department introduced a program called Shades of Green that provides free shade trees and two years of care to eligible property owners in downtown Silver Spring, downtown Wheaton and Montgomery Hills. 30 trees have already been planted under the program in those three areas.

Nonprofit group Conservation Montgomery has been organizing tree plantings of their own. Last month, they teamed up with Casey Trees, a forestry organization based in the District, to plant in Montgomery Hills. They've also received grant money in partnership with fellow nonprofits Safe Silver Spring and Uno Granito de Arena to plant trees in Long Branch.

Unfortunately, these efforts are undermined by poor maintenance of our existing tree canopy. After heavy storms last year, Pepco began trimming trees in earnest before falling branches could take down power lines. According to their website, Pepco uses nationally-recognized standards and practices for tree trimming, but residents complain they're being too aggressive, mangling trees and trespassing on private property.

Downtown Silver Spring resident Gull sent us some photos of Pepco workers cutting down trees along 16th Street and Spring Street last month. In an email, he called it a "serious quality of life issue" for him and his neighbors. "It's very easy to see into communities, houses and apartments that were once obscured from view," he wrote. "I see it as a big problem that instead of planting more trees in our urban areas, we're removing them and making above ground utilities the primary thing visible to us."

Last spring, County Councilmembers Roger Berliner and Marc Elrich drafted a bill that would set higher environmental standards for tree trimming and require power companies to ask homeowners' permission before doing any work on their property. However, the bill was deemed unconstitutional and set aside after the derecho storm in July brought down power lines and knocked out power to thousands of residents.

Since then, the council has introduced two new pieces of legislation aimed at protecting trees. Bill 35-12 would require property owners cutting trees down on smaller lots to pay into a fund dedicated to replacing those trees. The county's Forest Conservation Law already requires this on lots over an acre in size. Another, Bill 41-12, would require a permit to do work in a public street that might damage a tree. They've set a public hearing later this month to hear testimony about both bills.

The legislation has support from Conservation Montgomery and the Montgomery Countryside Alliance, but has gotten a lot of pushback from local home builders. Renewing Montgomery, a group of small home builders, argued that the original bill proposed last summer restricts the rights of property owners.

As our urban areas grow, there's an inevitable tension between the built environment and the natural environment. However, protecting our tree canopy has many benefits for people as well. Whether by planting new trees or preserving old ones, we can make our communities healthier, stronger and more prosperous.

The County Council will hold a public hearing on both bills Thursday, January 17 at 7:30pm at the Council Office Building, 100 Maryland Avenue in Rockville. For more information and to sign up to testify, visit their website. You can also sign Conservation Montgomery's petition supporting both bills. And if you'd like to learn more about the tree canopy in your neighborhood, check out the Planning Department's tree canopy explorer.

About 20 volunteers from around the region came out to plant a mix of swamp white oak, sweetgum and redbud trees along Seminary Road, Columbia Boulevard, and in Public Parking Lot 12, located at the corner of the two streets. Volunteers were given a demonstration on tool safety and planting before setting out with saplings and shovels.

Conservation Montgomery drew up plans for where each tree would go, working with a county arborist to avoid underground utilities, overhead wires and other barriers. They also consulted with neighbors. "We moved one [proposed] tree because it would create too much shade in one gentleman's garden," said Arlene Bruhn, who sits on Conservation Montgomery's board of directors.

Jim Woodworth, director of tree planting for Casey Trees, noted the "traffic calming benefits" of street trees, which will not only look good and provide shade but encourage drivers to slow down. The planting site is less than half a mile from the Georgia Avenue/Capital Beltway interchange, one of the state's busiest intersections. Studies also show that one street tree can result in over $90,000 in direct benefits, ranging from increased property values to less air pollution.

Visiting Casey Trees and Conservation Montgomery's tree planting in Montgomery Hills reminded me of a tree I planted myself a few blocks away. As a first-grader on the Woodlin Elementary School student council, I participated in the planting of this tree on the school grounds in 1993. I was surprised to find it's still there, though it could probably use a little pruning, as it's gotten very scraggly.

Casey Trees will hold additional community tree plantings through December, though there aren't any more scheduled in Montgomery County. You can learn more about them and their volunteer opportunities by visiting their website. You can also visit Conservation Montgomery's website to learn more about their organization as well.

The project area encompasses 9th Street NW from U Street to Florida Avenue, and Florida Avenue NW to just past Sherman Avenue. The project also includes the southern­most block of Sherman Avenue and the northernmost block of Vermont Avenue.

More crosswalks and better sidewalks

Increasing the share of trips taken by means other than an automobile is an important goal for the District and especially for the U Street area, which is already at its car-carrying capacity. Making walking safer and more enjoyable is a good way to encourage people to shift from driving to walking for more of their trips.

The agency's designs call for widening the sidewalks and installing a planting strip buffer between the sidewalk and the roadway. Separating pedestrians from high-speed traffic with a row of parked cars or a planting strip improves pedestrian comfort. Few people want to walk within 2 feet of speeding traffic.

Crossing Florida Avenue today is a daunting task. The road's width encourages speeding and provides no median refuge for pedestrians. The new design resolves this problem with a median, a few bulb-outs, a narrowed roadway, striped crosswalks, and a new traffic light.

One of the more notable changes is that DDOT intends to turn the intersection of 9th Street, V Street, and Florida Avenue into a signalized intersection. Regular concertgoers know this intersection as the location of the 9:30 Club. The intersection's current form requires concertgoers to cross a wide section of Florida Avenue while hoping that motorists will stop for them at the crosswalks. The new signal will provide more order to this process.

DDOT plans to reconfigure the intersection of Florida Avenue and Vermont Avenue to slow traffic turning from southbound Florida Avenue to Vermont Avenue. Currently, the intersection is designed like a highway ramp for southbound traffic. The new design will force motorists to make a sharper right turn, which will cause them to slow down. This reduces the chance that a pedestrian will suffer severe injury or death if struck while crossing the street.

New bike lanes, bike boxes, and sharrows

The new street will receive bike lanes in some stretches and sharrows in others. DDOT will also implement some of its new bike practices here. The agency will place bike boxes on Florida Avenue at Vermont Avenue to aid turning and merging movements. A new southbound bike lane on Vermont Avenue will connect the Florida Avenue bike lanes with the V Street lane, which stretches to the foot of Adams Morgan 10 blocks west.

The District is now starting to paint green bike lanes to help differentiate the lanes from regular street lanes. The agency will apply the same treatment to assist cyclists who wish to continue on Florida Avenue beyond Sherman Avenue.

More trees, less impervious pavement

The proposal calls for adding 57 street trees, one of the most notable visual and environmental changes. At the first community meeting a year ago, DDOT planner Gabriela Vega noted that her agency was under a mandate to increase the District's tree canopy.

Trees reduce the urban heat island effect, raise property values, and reduce stormwater flow into the sewers. Converting some of the asphalt pavement into grassy planting strips and medians will help the soil absorb rainwater and reduce the pressure on the combined sewer system.

Reducing stormwater volume is especially important in light of recent storms that caused minor flooding in one of the condo buildings on Florida Avenue. This section of Florida Avenue drains to the Northeast Boundary Tunnel, the massive century-old combined sewer that has backed up and caused flooding several times this summer in the LeDroit Park and Bloomingdale neighborhoods.

In their conversations with DDOT, residents suggested adding a median with street trees and planting strips along the curbs. In response, DDOT plans to widen the sidewalks, many of which are too narrow for wheelchairs today, and add planting strips to both sides of the street. A tree-studded median will stretch from Vermont Avenue to W Street.

Missed opportunities

Though DDOT added nearly all of the ANC's requested improvements, the agency was unable to add two important features. First, the ANC requested striped crosswalks for the intersection of Florida Avenue and W Street to aid people crossing Florida Avenue.

Richard Kenney of DDOT explained that the two lanes of southbound traffic make a crosswalk at W Street difficult. If a motorist in one lane stops for a pedestrian in the crosswalk, it would be too likely for a motorist in the second lane to continue moving.

Though a traffic signal at W Street could bring all traffic to a stop, DDOT's engineers worried that traffic would back up along Florida Avenue and block the intersection at Sherman Avenue.

The ANC also requested the addition of a striped crosswalk across Florida Avenue on the south side of the intersection with Sherman Avenue. The agency rejected this request, fearing that the left-turning traffic volumes from Sherman Avenue would be too high and cause drivers to block the intersection while waiting for pedestrians to cross.

Vega, DDOT's planner, was sympathetic to the ANC's desire to add every pedestrian accommodation possible, but said that the design process is a negotiation to balance numerous interests.

Even without these ANC-suggested changes, the project will widen sidewalks, add street trees, reduce the size of intersection corners, add bike lanes and bike boxes, remove curb cuts, and add a new traffic signal. It will create a street that is vastly better for residents on foot and on bikes.

Policy matters in the creation of complete streets

The ANC was instrumental in adding these complete street elements to the design. I volunteer as chair of the ANC's Transportation Committee and was happy to see residents, including a road engineer, mark up the original designs to add complete street elements I had not even considered.

The elected commissioners passed the list of requests and DDOT incorporated the vast majority of the requests into its design. The ANC did not get everything it wanted, but it got the majority.

Adding street trees and improving the quality of the walking experience are explicit District policy objectives that both Mayors Fenty and Gray have embraced. Though skeptics may dismiss these policy statements as electioneering, these official guidelines are critical in advocating improvements in new public projects. They provide political force for planners and citizens as they advocate for complete streets.

A team of 12 arborists, including Supervisory Forester Earl Eutsler, monitors the approximately 145,000 available open spots for trees. The available space fluctuates for many reasons. For example, redesigned sidewalks or roads can eliminate tree boxes, or a large tree imposing on power lines may be removed and replaced with a number of smaller trees.

Eutsler encourages residents to use online service requests to provide information and feedback to the arborists. Alternatively, residents can request plantings by calling 311 or using the SeeClickFix mobile application. UFA staff are also available at 202-671-5133 to speak with residents about tree concerns.

Eutsler says:

Ideally, each customer would go through 311.dc.gov, where they can enter the comments for themselves, as opposed to relaying a message to a call taker where an abridgement may occasionally occur. Also, people who start with 311.dc.gov will enjoy a virtual file cabinet of every request they have put in, for reference. So customers should start with 311 and be as specific as possible. If they would like to move from the formal request into an actual dialogue with one of our arborists they should leave their email address in the contact information window and add a comment requesting a follow up message from the inspecting arborist.

Of course, our findings are entered into each service request, so the customer could also log back in to see our findings. Please convey that every official service request is reviewed by this office. Our arborists take each request with them into the field (virtually), and update the service request while on site at the tree in question. At the end of each day, our inspection results are pushed back into the main request system where they may be reviewed by the customer.

Residents can also track plans to plant and remove trees through a set of Google Documents spreadsheets. An ArcGIS map shows the locations of existing trees. UFA is moving toward only using ArcGIS to track the tree inventory, planting, and removal in the future.

An open data set of street trees lists the location, tree species, size, condition, and date of last inspection. By plotting the DC GIS data, residents can even analyze the ratio of open to planted spaces in their neighborhoods.

The arborists are limited in the amount of time they can spend caring for every street tree. Residents can adopt and care for newly planted trees through DDOT's Canopy Keeper program.

The non-profit company Casey Trees recently released a comprehensive online reference page about the District's street trees. There are other Casey Trees programs that complement UFA's efforts, such as a tree purchase rebate program for trees on private property.

Residents periodically notice newly planted trees that are not thriving because they haven't gotten enough water or care. UFA tries to avoid these problems by requiring its planting contractors to guarantee the tree for one year, and sets a demanding standard for what constitutes a properly established tree.

If you see newly planted or established trees that need trimming, maintenance, or removal, enter a service request to notify the UFA. Likewise, if you have an empty tree space near your home, enter a service request before June 15th for UFA to plant a new tree during the next planting season.

Keeping DC's many trees alive, especially with small tree boxes, periodic utility work, the occasional drought, and assault from fungus, is a tough job. And regular maintenance and pruning is indeed important.

People I know and trust at DDOT tell me that they consider John Thomas, head of the Urban Forestry Administration (UFA) to be one of the best division heads in the agency. But for the typical homeowner, or even the homeowner who's very involved in civic affairs like myself, we don't get to see the excellent side of UFA.

Instead, an arborist comes by each block at some point, looks at the trees, and makes a decision that some need to be pruned. A work order goes into a system which homeowners probably won't know anything about, and No Parking signs go up which don't say anything about tree pruning.

Then, suddenly, some guys show up with chainsaws and start cutting off pieces of trees. If a homeowner isn't home, they'll come back and find potentially very unwelcome gaps in the trees; if a homeowner is around and tries to talk to the tree crew, they'll rudely refuse and try to push the pesky questioner out of the way.

Some tree pruning just involves taking away a few dead branches, but at least some DDOT arborists and tree crews go much farther. The last time a crew was on my block, for instance, they cut every branch of a tree within 8 feet of a house, which creates odd-looking one-sided trees like the one above in Logan Circle. I know a homeowner who lives in that area, and they were decidedly unhappy upon returning home one day to find half of this tree suddenly lopped off.

Other homeowners have found numerous trees completely removed without warning, even when experts can disagree about whether the tree is a hazard or not. Sometimes trees do need to go, no matter how beloved. But it's not unreasonable for homeowners to want some warning to prepare themselves and get educated on the necessity first.

A crew from "Adirondack Tree Experts," on contract to DDOT, showed up this yesterday on my block. I wanted to better understand what they were doing, but when I went out to speak to them, they pointedly ignored me until I stood too close to the area they were working. Then, they loudly insisted I move to avoid falling branches, but still refused to talk to me, only saying they were "under contract."

I made a bunch of calls and sent some concerned tweets, after which DDOT finally sent an arborist who spoke to me. I appreciated this gesture, but would DDOT do that for everyone who doesn't have a well-known blog? Should they? It shouldn't take such measures to get information about tree pruning, and informing homeowners shouldn't require a personal visit by an arborist every time.

8 feet from each house is DDOT's "standard" for tree pruning. The arborist who came out yesterday said that just because that's the standard, they don't necessarily take off all branches to 8 feet. He doesn't, he said, but that depends on the arborist. Apparently whichever arborist or tree crew handled the tree above has a different view. The same goes for the last pruning on my block.

In this case, it appears Adirondack was only removing branches that actually had some disease. Doing that keeps the tree alive, because the disease can spread to the main trunk of the tree if not nipped in the bud. A simple assurance from the tree crew that they were just going to remove a few branches, not truncate half the tree because of the 8-foot "standard," would have meant a lot.

Sure, it's easier for the arborists and the contractors not to talk to any homeowners. Most homeowners don't understand trees and probably want to ask the contractor to do the wrong thing. But that doesn't mean chainsawing people's trees without giving them any opportunity for involvement is the right policy.

UFA does have an online spreadsheet listing upcoming work orders, except in Wards 2 (my ward) and 6, where it lists no work orders and has a last updated date from June.

It would be great if DDOT could set up an online system which lets people subscribe to alerts about tree actions on their block. Naturally, that would require some money, and DC has cut budgets, not expanded them.

UFA could also create a nice booklet explaining the issues around trees, and how to spot the signs of disease. The crews could hand those booklets out. More importantly, they could bring flyers explaining what is on the work order, what's not and why the work needs to be done, or direct curious residents to a better Web site that also shows the details that the arborists can see.

After all, some knowledgeable arborist at UFA has synthesized data and observations, and ordered the work to be done. Chances are they had good reasons in doing so. Why not share those reasons openly with citizens?

Most of all, the crews shouldn't treat residents who want to make sure their trees remain healthy, full and strong as annoyances. Residents who care about the trees are an asset to DC, not an obstacle. UFA could enlist them to spot problems, keep trees watered, or keep an eye out for work crews from utilities who inadvertently take actions which can damage the trees.

There's already Canopy Keepers, which enlists residents to water young trees in their area. Unfortunately, that requires printing out and mailing or scanning a paper form. But it's a start.

The District's tree canopy is one of its greatest treasures. In order to maintain and expand our city's tree coverage, we need to find ways to make residents active partners of UFA.