Up With Trees Faces Tremendous Challenge
By DAVID JONES
Contributing Editor
PATTERSON HONORED: The Up With Trees movement began 32 years ago with former Tulsa Street Commissioner Sid Patterson leading the charge. Mayor Kathy Taylor announced recently at a Rotary Club of Tulsa meeting that a statue of Patterson and a young boy planting a tree will be erected somewhere in River Parks. Over $100,000 has been donated to create and locate the statue. At the announcement of the project are, from left, Mayor Taylor, Patterson and Leonard Eaton, former River Parks Authority chairman.
JIM WEEMS, Rotary Club of Tulsa
The day after December’s ice storm, Anna America took a tour of Tulsa’s neighborhoods, looking at the damage done to the city’s trees.
“It was awful,” she says. “In south Tulsa I figured somewhere between five and seven percent of the trees were destroyed or heavily damaged. The damage was greater in mid and north Tulsa where the trees were older and the ice was heavier.
“That was just an off-the-cuff assessment. It will take weeks, if not months, to evaluate the city’s total damage.”
America has more than just a passing interest in Tulsa’s tree population. As executive director of Up With Trees, she has been responsible for planting trees in public places in Tulsa County. In the 32 years of its existence, Up With Trees has planted approximately 18,000 trees. This year that rate will accelerate.
She estimates that somewhere around 750 trees planted by the organization were destroyed or heavily damaged.
“That seemed devastating, but once we started looking around deeper we realized that we fared better than a lot of other people. Our trees are younger, spaced farther apart, not around power lines or buildings, so we had a higher percent of trees survive,” she says. Particularly hard-hit were parks, she noted. “In some city parks more than half the trees were either heavily damaged or lost.
“I would expect that because of the number of trees we’ll have to replace, we’ll have to plant in the next two years the same number of trees we planted in the last decade. This will absolutely be our busiest year.”
The first thing, she said, was to clean up the damage.
“That day after the ice storm, I saw people walking in parks under branches that were simply dangling from other branches; they had been torn loose from the trunk and had no direct connection with it. It was a dangerous situation.”
Up With Trees plants in Tulsa’s parks, along city streets and on highway right-of-ways. In its existence it has covered approximately 450 sites. The agency has only one full-time field person on a staff of four or five (the number depends on the season) and exists through the generous donations of its patrons and volunteer labor. Operating on a $350,000 annual budget, the Up With Trees administration is going to have to get creative with its fund-raising efforts.
Donors can “adopt” an area; for $8,000 a person can get 20 trees planted and cared for (watering, mowing, pruning, etc.) for an eight-year period. There are programs for caring for already planted areas. Obviously if a major increase in tree planting and care is in the future, Up With Trees is going to need a major influx of both cash and volunteers.
America says the city government and the Parks Department are very supportive as is the Oklahoma Department of Transportation, but their help can only go so far.
“We hope that in time we can help replace some trees lost on private property, particularly in those parts of the city where homeowners won’t be able to pay for the replacements. There are some cities that have such programs.”
That may have to wait. For the time being Up With Trees will be working with Mayor Kathy Taylor, private donors and other organizations to spearhead a massive citywide re-greening effort. “Trees are one of the things that really make Tulsa special,” says America, “and I think as we look around and see what we have lost we are going to see an impressive commitment from citizens to replant and make the city even better.”
To make a tax-deductible donation to help replant greater Tulsa or to volunteer to help plant trees, contact America at annaamerica@upwithtrees.org.
Updated 01-20-2008
Back to Top
