I always know when the Cache Valley air is particularly bad because my husband starts wheezing and coughing and asking where the tissues are. The winter inversions in the northern half of the state are known to be bad. Ask anyone who has lived in a valley area for a few years — Cache Valley and Salt Lake Valley have that in common.
On the issue of saving 100 year old trees, that’s where the similarities of the two cities and valleys end. Many of us who have moved here are continuing to stay because of the beauty that can’t be found in the concrete jungles of Ogden or Salt Lake, and that’s despite the dirty air in the winter.
While attending a Dec. 5 Logan City meeting with the engineering group selected by the city to help improve water distribution in Logan, I couldn’t help notice the irony. The general consensus of the meeting, in my mind, is that the citizens of Logan are supposed to be OK with bulldozing over 100-year-old trees because our city government tell us it’s the only way — or “the least expensive option,” according to several people at that meeting — to solve a city water issue.
The Logan City Council Chamber was filled on Dec. 5 with city residents from 18-year-old to 80-year-old. It was an amazing patchwork quilt of citizens all gathered to express their opinions on the impending construction project that involves the potential death of 16 of the most beautiful 100-year-old ash trees. I’m pretty sure most were there to express their concern about potential loss of the trees. In the 90 minutes I was in the room, I didn’t see anyone raise a fist and shout, “Let’s do this!”
During the meeting, engineers spoke for almost an hour about how several project plans came about, the costs involved and how they themselves love trees. Then why are we removing them? Oh, but they extolled the virtues of replacing them with six-inch-diameter trees, not saplings, because saplings won’t last. What a kind offer.
Meanwhile in the same valley and a smaller town not far from here, Providence citizens are fighting to save a similar set of trees just as old.
Tree killing in northern Utah is spreading.
In an interview on KVNU on Nov. 21, Paul Lindhardt, Logan City Public Works Director, touted the love for “old growth” in town. He even explained how they “saved” a larger older tree in a previous roundabout construction project. I’m very proud of you and your team, Paul. So why can’t something be figured out to save these trees?
After 90 minutes of discourse where by only a few questions had been answered, I had to leave. After an hour and a half, I could feel the congestion in my head increasing and had to leave to go find a tissue.
Salt Lake City’s air quality was recently ranked next to Los Angeles as the 24th worst in the nation. Cache Valley’s didn’t feel far behind. I can see I’m going to have to go to Sam’s Club and pick up an enormous amount of tissue. Just the thought of it is now causing my nose to drip.
But I am still determined. No matter how many tissues my household goes through, I am going to be advocating for saving any and all the old growth trees in this valley. Every tree that we have here not only adds aesthetic value, they literally help to clean the air that every one of those citizens gathered in the city chambers breathes. That group of citizens includes the mayor, city council and all the engineers and their families that live here.
(Shauna Hart) Shauna Hart lives in Logan and is a wildlife conservation photographer.
Shauna Hart lives in Logan and is a wildlife conservation photographer.
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