Money Talks, Lombardy Poplars Fall
In early October 2021 the Leader reported that the Lombardy poplars along Sims Way were to be cut down. Subsequently we have learned that a three-pronged project is underway moving at precipitous speed. It was initiated in August 2021, receiving approval from the Port Townsend City Council, the Port of Port Townsend, and Public Utility District commissioners.
In November these agencies went to the County requesting infrastructure grant money. Their piecemeal plan ignores the visions and intentions adopted and recorded in numerous public documents. Furthermore this fragmentation appears to skirt the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA), which requires public review to avoid vague and ambiguous planning, unknown impacts and consequences.
Known as the Sims Way Project, the plan proposes to cut about 150 poplars along the right of way (ROW), the Port on the south side and Kah Tai on the north; to underground the electric line used as a backup located between the poplars and the Port’s fence line; and to expand the boat yard by placing the fence closer to the highway ROW. The phone line most visible from the road and the madronas close to Haines Street intersection have not yet been mentioned.
In fact, many parts of this project are yet unknown, such as the massive vaults amongst the poplars, the CenturyLink phone lines, the fiber optic vault, the two storm water drains at the Haines Street signal, the two fire hydrants with water lines, and the Port stormwater swales. The proposed plan supplies no options either in expense or design, ignoring any more affordable or common-sense alternatives.
The Leader’s “Guest Viewpoint” printed December 15 opens, “Occasionally we’re forced to walk hastily through a doorway when we’re not ready or willing.” We infer that the City, Port, and PUD managers have launched a proposal they really didn’t want but felt forced to do, not knowing precisely what further steps will be necessary. This “leap before you look” process shows major deficiencies in the system that pushed forth the Sims Way Project.
PUD Concept
Misleading concept from the PUD. The poplars on the left along the Kah Tai Park right of way are to be cut down also.
The proposed project does not operate in isolation. Instead it will alter the entire viewscape in the section of the Gateway Development Plan known as the Flats. Rather than entering a Victorian Seaport and Arts Community (the golden eggs of prosperity announced to tourists at the entrance to town), the PUD concept depicts instead a 21st century vision of streamlined sterility and linear convenience… the same boring monoscape used for strip malls throughout the United States.
The above concept view reflects a paucity of understanding of the essence of this community: its inspiration and investment for architecture, policies, advertising and volunteering, with development guided by years of public process in defense of the historic and cultural legacy and habitat. Numerous plans adopted over the years reflect this effort, founded in pride of place, knowledge of the ecology and stewarding of the beauty and history of this community.
The managers, all new to their jobs, have sketched some steps for the project. The tree cutting will begin soon — no one will say when. At some time ditching will begin, but it will involve all manner of pipes and lines that are already in place. In the future, after the poplars are cut, the managers will choose 10 people as “professional stakeholders” to decide on a new landscape design that precludes replanting Lombardy poplars, justified by mostly bogus information.
These managers are either unaware of or hold little regard for the years of community meetings, committees, and surveys providing the vision and guidance for what we value about this place. They have conceived how Sims Way across the Flats will look in the future — stripped, paved and planted to formula store specifications.
Someone has decided that the park-side poplars, planted and replanted over almost one hundred years, will be taken and not replanted, regardless of the trees’ resiliency, spectrum of ages, and numerous functions unaccounted for. The poplar roots may have caused two slight bumps along the north Kah Tai walkway. How the city decided those two bumps would get priority over all the patched, potholed, and neglected residential streets in town is unknown.
The argument of native and non-native is bogus, the city tree list is all non-native.
It claims poplars take up water and root space from the firs – more likely the poplars act as a windbreak for the fir and pines planted in dredge spoils, needing the sheltering from the salty environment. That their root systems are in the way for ditching and will die if some roots are cut belies the existing southside underground utilities located amongst the poplars and madrones: the trees tower over vaults for electric and fiber optic lines, water and sewer lines, fire hydrants and deep ditching along the foundation of the brew pub — the poplars live.
From the managers’ viewpoint, first, patronizing and then bewildering:
“They have a history, are a majestic statement about who we are to anyone coming into Port Townsend, and are loved by many, us included. For years—decades in fact—those who knew about this fast-growing species embedded the need to find an eventual replacement into planning documents.”
Their confusion is embarrassing. There is no embedded, fixed or implied replacement such as interpreted by the managers. These documents with vision statements took years and broad public support to create. They offer guidance for the future that does not destroy our heritage. And if you doubt that, then bring us into a public process.
The Landscape
The poplars mixed with madrones and needled trees are impressive across the viewscape, once a tidal estuary. From the adopted Gateway Development Plan: “All development should maintain and enhance existing plantings and trees located parallel to, and set back from, Sims Way and provide a backdrop for the buildings along the Gateway Corridor.” And, “Most importantly, the Gateway Development Plan sets out a community-wide vision that the City and Washington State Department of Transportation will use in the design, permitting and funding of new roadside improvements along SR 20.”
The Lombardy poplars along with madrones are a part of our history and have important attributes including a complex relationship with mycorrhizal fungi in the soil. This symbiotic relationship sequesters heavy metals in the trees and fungus filaments keeping heavy metals from the bay waters. These functions must be taken into consideration when designing for the future landscape and the aesthetics of the Gateway corridor.
Photo: Larry Eifert
The View
The view from the top of the S curve, the poplar tunnel, is eye-catching; verticality, seasonal color along with the caprice of light and wind pandering to the leaves is stunning. These trees are able to thrive in poor soils; no need for expensive soil amendments or irrigation. They break up the prevailing on-shore breeze, filtering dust and fumes, and do not fall over in big storms. In fact, they provide extensive natural services as well as beauty unlike the tiny urban clones proposed to replace them.
There are multiple poplar-lined corridors, layered from the Port, along the lagoon, and threading the golf course all the way to F Street and beyond, throughout the Quimper Peninsula. Does the City plan to log out all of them?
“Primarily native to North America, the poplar species has been well categorised under different name heads, namely: Aspen, Cottonwood, and the Balsam Poplar species. The name Populus has its foundation derived back to the Roman Times, where there was a predilection to plant the poplar trees around the public meetings areas.”
Photo: Julie Jaman
The Functions
The Flats, once a series of tidal wetlands and ponds, was filled with nutrient-poor dredge spoils in the mid-twentieth century, over 200,000 yards dug from the marina. That’s why the firs and pines are struggling. The poplars and madrones are some of the few tree species that can tolerate and thrive in such soils. They also help buffer the firs and pines from the salty wind. The Gateway Plan states the poplars should be thinned and replanted when they wear out or fall down, an explicit path to why we still have them. But regular maintenance hasn’t happened in years and they sure need a cleaning up. They, like all trees and public landscapes, need tending; a regular inspection and limb pruning as needed every few years along with encouraging young seedlings to replace any trees that must come down.
“Poplars are some of the fastest-growing trees in the world. They can tolerate the worst conditions and are heavily favored by wildlife. In places where land has been degraded or is falling apart, the poplars can rebuild. They produce tremendous amounts of biomass, feed unbelievable numbers of insects, birds, and mammals, and suck tons of carbon out of the sky like gigantic outstretched vacuums.” (source)
Poplars provide good bird habitat; dense and complicated foliage for gleaning insects and nesting sites. This photo shows a poplar with one of 50 American Bushtits flashing through.
Photo: Nancy Cherry Eifert, Oct 2021
Community Input
This very small town brings lots of love and support for both the historic and modern boat culture. Much of the “…marine-related manufacturing, assembly, haul out and repair activities..” and industrial lighting are polluting. But it is the Port’s responsibility to capture pollutants: volatile organic compounds caused by welding, sanding, painting, and varnishing. It is not the community’s responsibility to relinquish its unique landscape to make way for industrial growth.
Further, the Lombardy poplars provide some needed services including the uptake of heavy metals from the road and the Port stormwater. The poplars function as air and chemical filtration as well as carbon capture.
About the yard lighting: LED lights on high poles cast glow and glare into the night sky and across large spaces disrupting creatures’ night habitat and lighting the windows of residents on the hillsides -a “high end” view.
“Uptown was where the merchants, sea captains, and professionals of Port Townsend built their homes… overlooking the port and the buildings of Downtown.” The poplars help to block such intrusive lighting. There should be a thorough review and plan for the lighting: placement, intensity/lumens, color, height, and hooding. Light pollution on land or at sea, can be dealt with in a cost-effective and safe way. Shielding lights with blinds, using warmer lights (more red hues) and installing motion-triggered lights can reduce seabirds’ attraction to their harmful glow.
The trees provide some separation for pedestrians from the toxic fumes and dust of the boat yard and they help to infiltrate stormwater. The trees provide a semi-screened view of the tattered silver and blue tarps and big, white tents in the work yard; tree services to help keep the Port in good stead with the community.
This is what the Port Director promises the people of Quilcene about the Herb Beck Marina Planning. And this is what we want for the Sims Way Project proposal.
“With imagination as our limit, there are a few key principles that must be considered before the plan is recommended to the Commission.”
- The plan must have broad community support and must be aligned with the community’s vision for the future.
- The plan must be consistent with and help to implement the mission and purpose of the Port.
- The plan must meet the Port’s triple-bottom line (a common mantra for organizations). That is: It must balance the economic, environmental and social consequences of the proposed actions.
“A key question is: Does each element have to be profitable? I don’t believe it does. However, the plan as a whole should be financially sustainable for… [the Port]… so the vision imagined in the plan remains viable for future generations.”
Conclusion
This three-in-one plan needs a SEPA process to provide the community an opportunity for in-depth review, confirmation of data, consideration of new information and a selection of alternative solutions including landscape design options not yet considered. Port particulars about chemical fumes, dust, lighting and stormwater are clearly needed. PUD particulars need to include costs for options, i.e. taller poles and other mechanical adjustments that are less expensive than undergrounding. City particulars should include clarity about infrastructure project priorities and scheduling regular tree maintenance. Consider if the trees were not removed, the electric wire was put on higher poles, the Port fence was moved closer to the trees, then what level of service is needed alongside the boatyard and park ROWs?
“The Gateway Corridor includes many of the natural elements that give Port Townsend its character. Because the alteration of the natural environment will continue as more development occurs, it is important to restore a landscape that is in concert with the natural environment. Recognizing topographical opportunities and retaining existing vegetation are beginning points for good design.”
Look in the adopted Gateway Development Plan, the Comprehensive Plan, the Vision 2020, the Non-motorized Trails Plan, The Formula Store Ordinance, the Trees for Port Townsend project, the Kah Tai Park project, Parks, Recreation and Tree Functional Plan. Over the years the community has supplied vision and guidance for our small town aesthetics as we proceed into the future.
These three agencies, managers, council and commissioners, should not ditch years of community involvement in favor of a concept idea that belies the overarching visions and guidelines honed to cradle the legacy worthy of one of the loveliest historic seaports in the country. A course correction is needed before the saws come out.
The following organizations are seeking an open public process to
add essential information about the project and respecting the tradition
of community inclusion:
- Olympic Environmental Council
- Gateway Poplar Alliance
- Friends of Kah Tai
Representatives from these three groups wrote letters to the Port, the City and PUD with documentation and concerns about the project proposal and the absence of meaningful public process.