Remove Dead and Dying Trees, Leave The Healthy Ones

January 15, 2015 - By Roger Pugliese, Chair TASC

The TASC Board of Directors is generally inclined to resist removal of perfectly healthy trees in Topanga, but enthusiastically supports the North Topanga Canyon Fire Safe Council (NTCFSC) in its efforts to cut dead or certifiable dying trees.

TASC, however, feels that the upside of slightly increasing safety on the Boulevard is not compelling enough to justify the killing of healthy trees. Tree culling impacts water runoff, erosion, carbon dioxide, pollution control, animal habitats, temperature control and the general green scenic beauty of Topanga.

Removing live, healthy trees when the entire Boulevard is lined with creosote-soaked telephone poles that can burn, fall and drop live electric wires to the street is unreasonable. The killing of mature healthy trees will not even minimally insure that the Canyon will not be blocked by the poles. Trees that can impact the wires should be trimmed, not killed.

Additionally, TASC is aware that the removal of non-natives from the Canyon is a regional issue that requires a focused discussion. A gradual, natural replacement of dead and dying non-native trees with native trees makes much more sense then culling healthy non-native trees along Topanga Canyon Boulevard or elsewhere. Gradual replacement keeps the Canyon green as the process evolves and minimizes impacting the environmental issues mentioned above.

It is questionable to focus on fire safety programs to promote non-native tree removal. If so, one can argue that every plant, non-oak tree, flower, shrub, rose or garden vegetable in the canyon is a non-native. Indeed, we are ourselves non-natives. As previously stated, this is a complex issue that warrants community discussion and agreement.

An argument can be made that pine and pepper trees are not the main threat. Pines are not seeding themselves here. They do not multiply and invade like arundo, nor do they clog the streambed or threaten the riparian environment like certain invasive vines.

Fire Science literature recommendations and analysis changes all the time. It is now widely held that the cutting back of chaparral around homes is a bad thing. It leads to very flammable non-native grass invasions.

Yet, we, for decades, were forced to cut the chaparral to meet California Fair Plan insurance requirements. To kill living trees as a reaction to the latest popular hypothesis seems rash and counter-productive. Trees take many decades, not seasons, to mature and grow.

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Remove Dead and Dying Trees, Leave The Healthy Ones