Quick Way to Kill Trees

What you see is part of a grove of 100-year-old native pecan trees I pass by many times each week. They are adjacent to a flooding stream bank. In fact, you can see the bridge’s load limit sign on the left. In the 29 years we have lived where we are, this stream has flooded and caused the closing of this bridge probably 35 or 40 times.

For whatever the reason, the property owner has brought scores of loads of caliche rock and dumped 2 to 3 feet of fill over the root system of the entire grove. Bulldozers and dump trucks have compacted the dry ground as well. These beautiful trees are completely doomed.

It’s really sad to say goodbye to these beautiful old specimens. It’s really sad to know that there are people so careless in their behavior of nature. Each of these trees will slowly die over the next 1 to 3 years. That’s the concern I have as a lover of nature.

However, the reason I asked our county officials to step in was because this fill is within a floodplain and no steps were made to control erosion of the loose fill into the stream and then into the major lake that is only half a mile downstream. Most of all, however, no provision was made to prevent increased flooding of the creek across the bridge and across this road that is traveled daily by school buses and by my family and hundreds of others.

So, that’s a part of how this week has gone. It’s in the hands of county officials and Corps of Engineers lake administrators. I have asked to see the engineering studies as to the impact of all this fill on the wooden bridge and potential flooding of the road. I have asked for engineering studies of the potential sedimentation into the lake. Our county’s development plan says this is all clearly against the regulations as it stands now.

I’ll keep you updated on how this progresses. I’m not out to shame anyone, but to try to protect the bridge, our road, our public lake–and the trees. Watch here to see how it all unfolds.