Trees Planted by the City in East Portland Two Years Ago Are Dead Because the City Didn’t Water Them

I truly cannot understand how watering the tree is beyond the capability. They can’t get some water out there???

I live out in the burbs but the loss of trees is why I haven’t pressed harder for my city to improve our road. We really needed sidewalks and bike lanes 20 years ago but our road has some of the last 100+year old Douglas firs in the city and I just know they will all come down with no thought because the “traffic manual” says that’s what’s required.

So instead everyone walks in the road which is absolutely unsafe and has led to one death already.

The really bizarre thing is that the contract covered the watering for the first year, and only then reverted to an ODOT responsibility. Which means that maintenance was definitely discussed at some point during the planning phase. Someone at ODOT really screwed up here.

From Jun. 29, 2022:

In a joint statement, Commissioners Carmen Rubio and Mingus Mapps, who oversee Parks & Recreation and the Bureau of Environmental Services respectively, said the move was meant to streamline what had been a disjointed system.

The two bureaus “have been working together to strategically align disparate tree planting and tree care responsibilities across both bureaus. That fragmentation has led to inefficient and uncoordinated work,” the commissioners said.

“With support and direction from both of our offices, both bureaus have come to an understanding and scoping of work that we believe will not only be more effective, but will ultimately result in more trees, larger tree canopy, and increased greening of our city,” they said.

...in case we wanted someone to point fingers at.

The other notable difference is that the Friends of Trees program was opt-in. You want a tree, you contact them, they bring you a tree. The city program is actually opt-out, and only eligible in certain designated neighborhoods. So you miss a postcard in the mail and the next thing you know, you've got a crew in front of your house digging up your yard.

More likely there are “green space” requirements for projects, but the ongoing maintenance funding isn’t mandatory same problem in lots of places.

Easy to enforce the first part, hard to get funding for the second.

It's probably that the transplanted trees didn't have time to establish a root structure, where a tree from seed would have had deeper roots.