Burning over a lot fewer leaves in Commerce

The graceful old ficus trees that line the streets of Commerce have long sheltered residents of this heavily industrial city from the hot summer sun and the never-ending rumble of big-rigs and trains.

So when lush green ficus canopies started vanishing, alarmed residents started asking questions.

They learned that city officials had approved a plan to cut down nearly 1,000 ficus to reduce the costs of repairing sidewalks cracked by the trees’ powerful roots.

Last year, a local environmental group went to court to save the city’s shade.

In August, a Superior Court judge ruled that the city could not remove the trees without a state-mandated environmental study.

Yet ficus have continued to disappear, one or two or three at a time. In their place, the city is planting young trees with trunks a mere inch or two in diameter that barely cast a shadow.

City officials acknowledge felling 51 ficus trees since the court order in August. They say that they are not violating state law. The ficus were cut down on a case-by-case basis, they say, because broken and raised sidewalks pose a hazard to pedestrians and are a liability risk.

“The court’s order did not preclude the city from taking action with its regular street maintenance,” said City Atty. Eduardo Olivo.

Resident John Serfozo, however, is angry.

“These are beautiful trees. They are year-round. They are evergreen. They are producing oxygen,” said Serfozo, 57, who owns a machine tool repair company.

The city says most residents don’t see things that way. “The majority of people here in Commerce, they want the trees cut down,” said Hector Orozco, tree and street maintenance supervisor. “If it were up to them, it would look like Arizona down here.”

Local activist Angelo Logan bristled when told of the city’s remarks. The removal of 51 trees demanded a state-required review, said Logan, executive director of East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice, which brought the lawsuit last year. He called on Commerce to involve residents in such decisions.

He said it was ironic that for the 20th year, Commerce had been named a “Tree City” by the National Arbor Day Foundation.

“The city,” he said, “is valuing sidewalks more than trees.”

Tree experts say that for a city to consider removing 1,000 trees -- or even a fraction of that -- is unusual.

“That’s a tremendous amount,” said Los Angeles’ chief forester, George Gonzalez, who estimates his city approves the removal of 300 to 500 trees a year because of sidewalk or other structural damage.

Commerce totals 6.6 square miles. Sprawling Los Angeles covers 470 square miles.

Most residents interviewed last week near Bandini Elementary School bemoaned the replacement of ficus with scrawny trees held up by stakes.

“Oh, those little ones, they’re going to take a long time to grow,” said Zoyla Castellanos, 21, who prefers to stroll with her 3-year-old son, Jason, in the shade of ficus trees.

“Trees bring us clean air to breathe,” said Denise Rodriguez, 11, pointing out where a large ficus once stood across the street. “I know it gave a lot of work, but it gave a lot of shade too.”

The glossy-leaved, nonnative ficus became highly popular as a street tree in the 1950s and ‘60s as new suburbs were filling the Los Angeles Basin.

Now, those trees have grown so large that many California cities are cursing their pervasive roots. In Newport Beach, residents went to court to save 25 ficus from the city’s saws, settling in 2002 when all but two had been removed.

In Commerce, a city dominated by two giant rail yards and crisscrossed by two truck-choked freeways, ficus trees mean more than a pretty view.

The leafy canopies help filter air in a city considered among the most polluted in the county. They muffle the sounds of screeching brakes and train whistles. Many of the 14,000 people in the largely Latino community cannot afford central air conditioning, so they count on trees to cool their homes in summer.

TreePeople, a Los Angeles group, reports that an acre of trees can provide enough oxygen in one year for 18 people, and that three well-placed trees can reduce summer air-conditioning needs up to 50%.

The City Council approved the removal of the 990 trees in September 2005, at a cost of up to $405,000. The subsequent lawsuit led to a preliminary injunction from Superior Court Judge James C. Chalfant.

Even though ficus trees “are a menace to sidewalks and curbs,” he wrote, the city must comply with the California Environmental Quality Act. In a ruling in August, Chalfant reiterated that the city must comply with state law before removing more ficus.

Commerce, in turn, said it was canceling the 990-tree project. The total number of trees slated for removal was actually fewer, Orozco said, explaining that he erred by including the 200 to 300 trees in the city’s five parks.

Now, some residents are calling on the city to makes its ficus decisions in public.

“A tree isn’t a flavor of the month,” Serfozo said. “You plant these trees for your children and your grandchildren.”

In Los Angeles, no tree is cut down because of its roots unless an inspector makes a recommendation to the Board of Public Works and a commissioner signs off on it, Gonzalez said.

If three or more trees close together are candidates for cutting, the trees are posted for 30 days and the city holds a hearing. Crews can save trees with root cutting, ramps over roots and other steps, he said.

“We’ve been able to preserve 90% of the trees that were damaging sidewalks,” he said.

Some cities have turned to rubberized sidewalks that flex and bend as tree roots grow. The idea originated with Richard Valeriano, a sidewalk inspector in Santa Monica. In response, Lindsay Smith founded Rubbersidewalks Inc. in Gardena and began production in 2004.

Today, 70 cities nationwide have installed the sidewalks, including 40 in California, Smith said.

But in Commerce, Orozco isn’t convinced.

“It’s really expensive to do that, first of all, and it’s still in its infancy stage,” he said.

Andy Lipkis, TreePeople’s founder, acknowledges that ficus trees aren’t ideal for city streets. But he wonders about the wisdom of removing them all at once.

“The question is, what is the impact going to be on the community? There are very real issues in Commerce with air quality, and there are issues all over with increased skin cancer rates,” he said. “That massive canopy being reduced quickly could have measurable effects.”

The ficus near Bandini Elementary have been replaced with young pink trumpet trees, Tabebuia impetiginosa, a deciduous Brazilian native that grows to 25 feet and produces showy pink blossoms.

The pink trumpet comes with its own problems. It grows in abundance at the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden, shedding blossoms even more extravagantly than the jacaranda, whose June blossoms stick to cars and turn lawns and pavement blue-purple.

Arboretum Supt. Timothy Phillips wonders if pink trumpets pair well with sidewalks.

“They drop so many flowers at once that if you don’t have someone cleaning it up, it can become a problem,” he said. “It’s a full-on rainfall of flowers.”

deborah.schoch@latimes.com