Anchorage Daily News

Dear National Arbor Day Foundation,

Earlier this month, you recognized Anchorage as a Tree City USA. Our mayor's office says this means we set "an outstanding example for other communities by taking care of the urban forest resource."

Apparently you guys grade on the curve, or something. Because here at the Daily News, we have watched over the years how Anchorage's tree "resource" gets treated, and the picture is not pretty.

With private development, standard operating procedure is to bulldoze every speck of vegetation, from lot line to lot line. Trees are treated as nothing more than big weeds that just get in the way.

Oh, we have an ordinance that's supposed to stop this kind of thing. Funny how it works, though.

In 2005, developer Lee Baker clear-cut 10 acres in the heart of Eagle River and he didn't violate our land clearing ordinance. That's how weak it is.

The law was watered down to the point of irrelevance after an outcry on right-wing talk radio. Jocks and callers lambasted the original proposal as a sign that Communists were taking over City Hall.

After bulldozing everything, our local developers are allowed to plant a sprinkling of spindly saplings that take decades to grow into anything significant. (Trees grow slowly here in the subarctic.)

So, along with the Tree City proclamation, maybe you could send our local politicians and developers a few of your publications.

On your Web site, you note there are some "communities where the common practice is simply to bulldoze everything in sight before construction begins." That's us! We need lots of copies of your Tree City USA Bulletin, No. 7, How to Save Trees During Construction.

Your bulletin No. 20 would help too. Its purpose is "to point the way toward making trees and development compatible." Folks here just don't get your point that "Where trees exist on land that is to be developed, it makes good sense both economically and environmentally to preserve these assets. ... The result is higher property values and a more pleasant place to live or work."

Please send lots of Bulletin No. 31. We definitely need help trying to "prevent woodlands from disappearing as shopping malls and housing tracts spread across the land." (We have two new malls under way that are good examples of what you're talking about.) We need politicians and developers to see that "Used correctly, ordinances can help provide a high quality environment -- without causing undue hardship on developers."

But there's one of your publications we definitely don't need. It's No. 14, titled "How to Kill a Tree."

Our developers already do a great job of that.

Sincerely,

Anchorage Daily News

BOTTOM LINE: Anchorage may take good care of some trees, but less wholesale clear-cutting for new development would be nice.

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