After the Eaton and Palisades Fires destroyed thousands of trees that helped protect the air, a Southern California conservation group is urging caution when removing damaged trees.
Altadena Green, a grassroots organization run by volunteer arborists, says some trees are being prematurely removed by the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers during phase 2 of the cleanup process.
“The oaks are one of the most resilient trees,” said Wynne Wilson, a member of Altadena Green. “They are going to come back, and we have seen many oaks marked for removal.”
The group’s efforts, however, have been met with mixed results.
“We’ve had two people so far. In spite of extensive waivers, their trees were removed. And they were marked and tagged by our team of arborists,” Wilson said. “We’re marking the health of a tree, how large it is, also that we expect it to live.”
At a recent community meeting, the Army Corp discussed how its arborists use their best professional judgment to determine if a tree is hazardous or poses a danger.
“If they are in the way of our crews being able to conduct debris removal, that’s a conversation that we do have with those homeowners prior to us doing the debris removal itself,” said Army Corp Col. Sonny.
Wilson added the Corps means well but it may not be familiar with trees that are native to Southern California.
Starting this week, homeowners using the Army Corp cleanup service can fill out a waiver with a small diagram of their property, indicating if they want to keep their trees.
New research now shows those trees could be absorbing more carbon than initially expected.
“During the daytime, trees are taking up something like 60% of the fossil fuel CO2 that’s being emitted,” said USC professor William Berelson.
Recent data from air quality sensors placed around Los Angeles is giving USC researchers insight into the canopy lost in the fire burned zones.
“With how many trees we’ve lost, and how much, what potential uptake of CO2 we lost because we lost so many trees, and then what trees we could plant to start taking up CO2 and start to capture that CO2 back up again,” said Berelson.
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