Saving what's noble in the Northwest

After the recent windstorms of December and floods of November, I have heard more than one person complaining about the dangers of trees. They want to cut all of them away from their houses and do not understand why such entities as the city of Lynnwood are so vigorous in protecting them.

To those who have become tree wary, it may be difficult to understand that the problem lies not in too many trees, but in the fact that too few have been left to do all the work of holding back the saturating runoff. Developers have not preserved buffers around ravines, nor made the greenbelts wide enough to do an adequate job. That needs to change.

The noble trees of the Northwest have a unique place on our planet. Their capacity to clean and cool the water and air is amazing. However, the rate at which they are being removed here in Snohomish County is frightening, both for our local environment and the effects on global warming.

Their annihilation is also detrimental to the few surviving trees. When a "pineapple express" or similar storm comes through, their root systems are weakened by the degree of runoff that they are expected to absorb. Add wind to that and the problems increase. Fewer trees mean more wind and wind damage. Without enough neighboring trees, even strong trees may be doomed.

More has to be done to convince citizens of the importance of guarding existing trees and improving the plantings of new ones. Our planning for growth needs to build urban centers up vertically and leave wide swaths of green in the suburban residential areas. Our current Growth Management Act does not do enough to protect our critical green spaces.

With development comes additional problems — when citizens landscape. One of the great culprits in existing greenbelts has been the incursion of non-native vegetation. The ivy that looks so lovely climbing up the trunks of the tall firs and cedars is deadly to their health. Other intrusions come from the colorful holly. Such non-natives have adapted well to our area, but they choke out the natives that do a better job of soaking up the rainwater.

After the November snow and Veterans Day storm, my husband and I walked along Picnic Point Beach and were delighted by the sight of chum salmon fighting their way back up the stream. However, all along Picnic Point Creek was evidence of ivy. The forest that cleans that creek's water could stand some cleanup itself. Development is coming far too close to its banks for its health, and more threatens.

Luckily, environmental leadership is beginning to surface. Al Gore has brought global warming before the American public on a large scale with his film, "An Inconvenient Truth."

Gov. Christine Gregoire is targeting what monies she can squeeze out to try to improve the health of Puget Sound. King County Executive Ron Sims is encouraging a major replanting of trees in King County. Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai is asking people to plant 1 billion trees worldwide to try to count-eract the effects of global warming. Local agencies such as Streamkeepers work to clean up along our shorelines and creek beds, to keep those that we still have healthy.

Not everyplace is as conducive to growing trees as the Northwest. In arid New Mexico, many citizens have to "apply" to plant a tree. Although Alaska is still covered with forests, they are scrawny twigs that struggle in the permafrost.

Far better, we should be working with those groups and agencies fighting valiantly to preserve the noble trees of the Northwest. We need them, future generations of the Northwest need them and the world's ever-expanding population needs them.

Joan Smith of Edmonds is a retired educator from the Everett School District. She taught English, history, physical education and special education in Washington, California and Texas for more than 30 years.