Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, December 30, 1993 TAG: 9402250005
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The average tree in Roanoke - on city property only - is a maple more than 30, perhaps even 40, years old. It is lovely still to the layman's eye, but tree experts will tell you it is old and in poor condition. Soon it will be cut down. Then another will have to come down. And another - each loss noted by nearby, individual homeowners. The cumulative effect will be so gradual, though, that one day residents will be shocked to realize their lovely tree-lined street isn't tree-lined anymore.
This is because the trees were planted when the houses were built; once neighborhoods were established, few new trees were put in. As the original trees grow old and die, the city will replace them - if asked. So we have old trees and young trees, but few middle-aged trees, which are the most vigorous, the healthiest, the lowest-maintenance trees. The backbone of tree society.
This phenomenon is hardly peculiar to Roanoke. Who thinks about the need to plant trees when big, healthy specimens are thriving? Yet a lack of foresight two or three decades ago leaves an aging tree population that can't be replaced quickly.
Roanoke is doing better these days. It hired an urban forester a few years ago, and it has planted some trees downtown. Still, the city is losing more trees than it is planting each year, and there is no systematic tree-planting going on in residential neighborhoods.
Maintaining, and one day expanding, the city's tree population is a serious need. Sheltering, majestic trees give natural beauty to a landscape that the most finely designed buildings can never match. And if the sheer pleasure to be derived from them isn't enough to justify spending tax dollars on planting and maintaining trees, there are plenty of bottom-line reasons for doing so.
For one thing, notwithstanding some subdivision developers' myopic tendency to clear acres of all plant life before building, it is a fact that homeowners will pay for trees. Real-estate appraisers long have recognized that buyers are willing to pay more for a treed lot - an average of $9,500 more in Greece, N.Y., one study showed. The livable feel that trees give to urban areas can also figure into decisions about locating businesses in communities.
That livable feel is more than aesthetic. Trees remove pollutants from the air and release oxygen, making the air more breathable. A study by the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory identified three ways to reduce poisonous carbon dioxide in cities: cut auto emissions, improve electrical supply, plant trees. Which of these sounds cheapest?
There are other, less obvious, environmental benefits. Trees reduce stormwater runoff, saving money that otherwise must be spent on "engineered" solutions such as drainage ditches and flood-control projects. Trees counteract the "heat island effect," their shade making urban areas as much as 7 degrees cooler than those with little vegetation. Trees muffle irritating sound pollution, absorbing sound waves with leaves, branches and twigs.
And trees are just plain healthy to have around. A study by a University of Delaware professor found that gall-bladder patients who could see trees outside their hospital windows instead of a blank wall needed fewer painkillers and recovered almost a full day earlier.
Trees are worth an investment for psychological, physical and financial health. Planting one is a gift to the future, a quietly holy act.
Those who agree don't have to wait for the city to come around and plant saplings along the road. They can plant their own - on their own property, of course - once the winter fades into spring. Unlike their country cousins, city trees won't exist unless they are planted and cared for. They don't just, well, grow on trees.
by CNB