Atlanta
(2010-03-04)
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Atlanta is losing trees at an unprecedented rate.
Walking through Grant Park with Greg Levine of the group Trees Atlanta, it's easy to find dead and dying trees.
Looking at the red and white oaks, he can identify symptoms of decline.
On one tree, he spots large growths.
"These giant, like, mushrooms are growing on the root systems," Levine said. "They are bigger than a frisbee. It's some kind of root rot."
Stopping at another tree, Levine, the group's program director, ticks off reasons why it's not long for this world.
"On this tree, first of all, you see big branches that have very few smaller branches on them so even in the winter you can see this tree is dead or dying."
Atlanta's trees face threats from all sides, experts say.
"Heavy rains, drought, an aged forest, new pests and an urban situation that is forever changing," according to Levine. "You can't dig in the soil and not damage a tree nearby."
When heavy rains fell last year, Atlanta's drought came to an end after nearly five years, and it seemed like the plague had been lifted.
But the damage isn't over for the city's trees. Experts say Atlanta is losing trees at an unprecedented rate.
Piedmont Park, for example, lost about a dozen large, historic trees last year. Typically, the park may lose two or three trees a year, said Chris Nelson of the Piedmont Park Conservancy.
"I think we will continue to see the impact of the damage from the drought for a fairly long period of time," Nelson said. "Typically trees that are put under a lot of stress don't die right away."
Many of Atlanta's trees are between 80 and 100 years old, and are reaching the end of their normal lifespan, experts say.
The drought, however, has accelerated their demise by shrinking the tree roots. Here's Mark Livingston with the tree service Arborguard.
"Your trees' root systems during the drought cut back considerably to a very small circumference, and then you have an enormous amount of rain, which loosens up the soil and you don't have sufficient root systems to hold them in place," he said.
The heavy precipitation has nourished the soil and helped the trees recover, but Nelson with the Conservancy worries about the spring rains.
"Our concern, once the trees start leafing out in the spring and we start having more of those Spring thunderstorm events, which are often accompanied by high winds, that some of these trees that have been damaged by many, many years of drought could topple over," Nelson said.
Some help is at hand. Levine's group, Trees Atlanta, is a non-profit organization that plants trees around the city most weekends.
And Atlanta's city government will soon award $130,000 in grants to neighborhood groups to plant trees.
But it's not easy to replace the overhead tree canopy, which filters out pollutants and cools sidewalks and buildings.
Back at Grant Park, Levine knows the spots where some of the city's large, historic trees once stood.
"There are large gaps where large trees were," Levine said. "This whole driveway used to be lined with trees and now look at it -- 100 yards and no large trees. You still have a lot of trees, but there's just not as much shade as we had 15 years ago. We just didn't plant fast enough to continue to have these large shaded areas."
Levine and others encourage residents to plant large shade trees, rather than small flowering samples, in the hopes of shoring up one of Atlanta's signature treasures - its precious tree canopy.
For WABE News, I'm Jeanne Bonner.
© Copyright 2011, WABE
