Roots Run Deep in Effort to Save Trees

Bill Elmendorf studied the specimen before him, a large Aleppo pine with a graceful, westward-sweeping trunk and a crown lush with needles. Beautiful? Yes. But as Elmendorf will gladly tell you, there’s a dark side to trees that extends beyond their shade.

“Here’s an example of a problem that’s been developing since the tree was planted,” said Elmendorf, urban forester for the city of Thousand Oaks and a self-described “tree hugger.” “It’s a large tree in a small planter. We want big trees, but we want trees in the right growing area.”

“See those little heaves?” he continued, pointing to where the constrained roots are breaking through the asphalt of a parking lot. Not a big problem now, he explained, “but sooner or later it’s going to damage the hardscape--the pavement, the curbs, the sewers. That’s what we must decide, whether this tree is worth more than its damage.”

As the city’s name suggests, trees are a big deal in Thousand Oaks, and “cruisin’ timber,” as Elmendorf refers to his job, is not taken lightly.

So valued are trees in the pricey eastern Ventura County bedroom community--where an estimated 150,000 trees outnumber the 106,000 human denizens--that the City Council in mid-December adopted an ambitious master plan designed to preserve and expand the city’s tree stock. Since its completion, it has been hailed by conservationists as a model of its kind.

The goal is to avoid the problems posed by Elmendorf’s parking-lot pine by planting the right tree in the right space. If Thousand Oaks follows the plan’s guidelines, about 5,000 trees--an average of one tree for every 25 linear feet of the city’s 375 miles of public streets--will be added each year, indefinitely. To start, the city has received a total of $74,000 in equal grants from the state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and the Chevrolet division of General Motors to buy new trees, which cost about $100 each.

The first phase of the master plan, a citywide tree inventory, is expected to begin within the next two months to document not only types of trees but their age, size, condition and surroundings. That way, Elmendorf said, public works employees will be able to check a computer for advice on when to prune, when to remove and where to plant.

Instead of hiring workers to carry out the inventory, the city hopes to use volunteers from homeowners associations and civic and environmental groups--not only to save money, but to arouse community interest.

“This isn’t just a city maintenance or a public works program,” said Councilman Frank Schillo, who was instrumental in initiating the master plan. “Our idea is to involve citizens in making the city a more beautiful place to live.”

In addition, the city’s tree-protecting ordinances will be updated. Forestry goals, which city officials say are the first of their type in California, will eventually be added to the general plan. An advisory board, including a landscape architect and at least one citizen representative, will be set up to mediate what Elmendorf calls “tree conflicts,” or disputes between homeowners and city officials over whether trees should be removed or preserved.

“We’re trying to set up due process for the trees, where trees have almost a legal standing with the city,” said Elmendorf, an effervescent advocate with curly, blond hair and blue eyes.

Experts say the plan--a two-volume, $100,000 document complete with detailed diagrams showing the correct way to plant an urban tree--could serve as a model for cities nationwide.

“It’s really state of the art,” said Isabel Wade, director of urban forestry at the Trust for Public Land, a national conservation group based in San Francisco.

“They’ve really looked at their urban forest and thought about how to manage it over a long-term period,” Wade said. “Lots of cities have cut back their tree and park programs and are in an entrenchment mold. In fact, many of them think of the urban forests as liabilities. This is a really progressive, positive approach which recognizes the real value of trees to the city.”

Trees not only add shade and beauty to a city but pump oxygen back into the environment, prevent soil erosion and enhance property values, said Gary Mason, a partner in Wolfe Mason Associates, the landscape architecture firm that prepared the master plan. Studies have shown that hospital patients who can see trees through their room windows recover faster, he said.

But city trees suffer too, to the point where their average life span is only 32 years, which Mason called incredible considering that most trees don’t reach maturity until they are 30 to 60 years old.

“We were hired to stabilize the natural system and introduce species that can survive all the development going on,” Mason said.

Besides planting trees, the plan involves Elmendorf’s specialty--reducing tree removals by weighing a tree’s benefits against its dangers.

“I hate removing trees. I don’t remove them unless we have to,” said Elmendorf. Thousand Oaks trees are so thoroughly evaluated, he said, that by the time one is actually removed his conscience is pretty much clear.

“If it’s a really beautiful tree I’ll go up and pat it and say I’m sorry and stuff. Maybe I’ll take a picture of it,” he said. “But it would’ve gone through the process at that point.”

On a recent morning, Elmendorf cruised timber in his truck, pointing out healthy and problem trees, losses and victories in the struggle with urbanization. Here, the city managed to save three native sycamores in what would become a street median. There, 104 mature eucalyptus were bulldozed into stumps. Here, dozens of live oaks were carefully boxed for replanting. There, it was a matter of time before a pine would become firewood.

The Doobie Brothers wafted over the truck’s tape player, and Elmendorf rambled on, summing up his philosophy of tree management.

“Trees grow up. Trees start to decline. Trees get sick, and trees fall down. And that’s what we’re trying to do, help them through their prosperity, allow them to live through their non-declining years, then remove them before they become a problem, and replant them.”

Like a prescription for good living, it’s a formula that should keep Thousand Oaks in trees and out of courts. Elmendorf knew of no one killed or seriously hurt by a tree in the city, and said that if the new master plan is followed no one ever should be.

“Knock on wood,” the tree hugger said, smiling. Rapping on a hefty eucalyptus, he did just that.