Nature | A Picture's Worth

Yesterday, on the corner of Salem and 8th Sts., I witnessed the removal of an ancient Valley Oak that had occupied and shaded that corner for at least 200 years. Just hours before, it stood straight and tall, its branches reaching into the sky. But soon, one by one, its lateral branches and then its trunk were chain-sawed off until all that was left of it was nothing but a pathetic decapitated stump of its former self.

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Before

After

The tree had been condemned at a public meeting. It was said that it had to come down because it was a danger to people and because it stood in the way of two proposed duplexes. The developers apparently assumed that the oak was incompatible with their construction design – either you get a tree or you get the duplexes, with no alternatives in between. As for the tree’s danger, I’m not a tree expert, but it looked perfectly healthy to me. The cut pieces of its trunk that I saw showed no evidence of disease. I still think that, somehow, the tree could have been included in the architectural plans for the duplexes. But it was more convenient for the developers to get rid of the tree than take the time to accommodate it in their plans. What a shame, what a loss.

The tree doesn’t appear to have been diseased.

Pieces of the oak’s limbs don’t appear to be diseased.

Forty new trees are to be planted around town to make up for this loss. I just hope the young, little trees survive the current drought.

Pieces of the oak’s trunk.

The oak is hauled away.

[This is a message I sent to our Mayor of Chico and the other City Councilors. It was my submission as part of the City’s Goal Setting meeting on Monday, January 6, 2014.]

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Dear Mayor and City Councilors,

I’m writing to you because I’m greatly concerned about the severe drought that’s occurring. Do we have a drought plan? Shouldn’t we start conserving the water we have? Other towns in the state have already made it mandatory that their citizens conserve water, for example, by only watering lawns on certain days.

I didn’t fully comprehend how bad the drought is until last Sunday when I visited Paradise Lake. I know Paradise Lake isn’t a direct Chico water source but its current condition is symptomatic of the present volume of available water storage throughout Northern California. Seeing it this year in comparison to prior years measured the severity of the drought for me. If Paradise Lake is this low now what will it be like in August or September? If our state is experiencing fires this December (as in the Big Sur fire) and this January (as in the Campbell fire) what will the fire danger be like in August or September?

On February 13, 2011 Lin and I went up to Lake Paradise for our usual hike along the lake’s perimeter. When I took this photo (the first one below), the setting sun lit up the trees and shrubs along the water’s edge. I titled this photo “Lakeside.”

The second photo is what I saw this year, on January 5th, 2014. The lake level is so far down it’s hardly recognizable as the same site. The subsequent photos show how much the lake has shrunk at other sites.

The last two photos are of our yard. Last fall we decided to get rid of our lawn and just plant plants.