Odlin Park Tree-asco

No trees were cut down today. Depending on who you believe, either the County decided to delay the cutting of trees for a couple of days in order to understand the concerns of Lopezians or the contractor who was scheduled to cut the trees told the County that he was taking today and tomorrow off because even he has reservations about cutting the trees, especially given all the public attention.

The situation is still murky, but early this morning, we learned that "the flagging on the trees marks them for inspection and removing dead/failing limbs by the contracted forester/arborist." Right now, it looks like two trees (the large Doug Fir in the photo in the previous post) and a White Fir will be shortened to 60 feet and left as snags for "habitat." Both have rot, but of course, many old growth trees have rot and stand for hundreds of years, but now these trees are hazardous to people because of the placement of the campsite.

In place of the tree(s), we are told "As a part of this project we plan to develop interpretive displays about this forest for visitors" and "If the top of the Douglas fir is in good condition once it’s down we plan to work with a local saw miller to mill and build picnic tables and other lumber for park projects."

There was a comment left on the last blogpost that appears to be speaking with authority when it says:

Work on the group campsites at Odlin is complete. The ribbons on the trees were placed by an arborist hired to check the condition of the trees and remove dead, hanging limbs. There are no plans to cut down any of the marked trees, or any of the other trees in the area. At the arborist's recommendation, one diseased, near-dead tree will be shortened to create a habitat snag, and one Douglas Fir will be shortened below severe rot damage caused by an infestation of borers. The arborist said that the tree should then survive. He said the diseased portion of the fir is threatening to fall on its own and could strike a frequently used portion of the park.

We don't know who left the comment, but it seems to correlate broadly with information from multiple sources. Right now, that's all we know.

As longtime Trojan Heron readers understand, we've been critical of the Odlin Park redesign for months for its cost and poor stakeholder involvement. The whole thing seems surreal, especially considering Lopezians are clamoring for money for their decaying shambles of a school, while they have a "new" $1 million park that no one asked for.

We first posted about Odlin in June 2012. We posted about it again in July 2012 when we showed a clip of the Council contending with a request for a budget increase from Dona Wuthnow (bringing the total Odlin project cost to just shy of $1 million). Of the 300 or so postings on this blog, that post is our most-viewed ever, and many of our readers feel the video associated with that post exemplifies everything that was wrong with the previous Council (and maybe still wrong with local government).

Spend spend spend on questionable priorities, and laugh it off. Don't worry about the cost of new regulations, just press ahead. As we said when we first put up the post originally, it shows what a circus we have become.

Odlin Park Old Growth

As part of the Odlin Park redesign, the County has been removing trees (see photo below). Remember, this is the redesign of the park on Lopez that was originally budgeted for $445,000 which has grown (last we knew) to $992,350.

The motivation to spend $1 million on Odlin Park has always been a bit of a mystery, but it is especially mysterious why we are cutting down trees to put in more campsites. Moreover, concern arose today that the County is going to be cutting down old growth trees tomorrow. We don't know if that's true, but here's what we do know.

Over a dozen old growth trees have been tagged with ribbons at the site (see more photos below). We are not certain whether these are "do not cut" markers or "cut" markers. However, even if they are "do not cut" markers, reports are that at least two old growth trees will be logged tomorrow anyway. The trees in question are about 4.5 feet in diameter (and 14 feet in circumference). They're big ... probably 500 years old by some estimates ... and from at least one stump in the area, it looks like one old growth tree has already been taken down. Admittedly, the removed tree had rot on the interior, but we wouldn't be surprised if all the old growth in this area had some interior rot.

So why are we building more campsites? Why are we building campsites among old growth trees? Why are we building campsites next to trees that have rot and may be a hazard? Why the heck are we doing any of this? If one old growth tree has to come down because of rot, mightn't they all have to come down ... at least eventually ... especially if they're next to a bunch of campers? It seems like every time the County takes down trees, the result is less desirable than if they had just left things alone ... like the resulting odious Eastsound mosquito factory ... or the pathetic wetland mitigation along Fisherman Bay Road resulting from the $2+ million road improvement a couple of years ago.

As mentioned, reports are that at least some of the Odlin old growth trees are scheduled to come down tomorrow (Monday, March 25), and at least one Lopezian was concerned enough to even put up his own sign on one of the vulnerable trees. If you are concerned about this, write your Council person. If you are concerned about this, write to Dona Wuthnow who is the project manager for the Odlin redesign. If you are concerned about this, show up at the park early tomorrow morning. If you are concerned about it, do something ... now!

Word is that the County is eager to get this project completed so they can get paying campers into the new campsites as soon as possible. The County wants revenue (as usual). They want the new campsites ready for this season. We think the County's got its priorities wrong. The County needs to involve Lopezians regarding the decisions about the trees, the park, and about the wisdom of putting more campsites in the selected location in the first place.