Editor:

Just as airplane crashes on the news make us more sensitive to the perils of flying, a tragedy such as that of two years ago makes us more cognizant in our daily lives of the dangers inherent in the very trees that make our campus so beautiful and livable.

With regard to these dangers, I agree with the editors of TSL that it is more important to talk about the future than to rehash the past.

As the relatively new Director of Campus Planning and Maintenance at Pomona, I am part of a staff that is working very hard to make responsible decisions about all of the trees on our campus–to find the right balance between safety and aesthetics and to make sure that if we err, we err on the side of safety.

It is important to be clear about this. Any tree poses a potential threat, however minute. Short of cutting down all of our trees–a solution that no one seriously proposes–we are faced with the ongoing task of assessing the potential hazard posed by each tree and deciding when it is acceptable and when it ceases to be so. I wish that were an exact science, but it is not.

So here is what we can do–and what we are doing as aggressively as we can.

First, we want to be able to make a well informed judgment about the level of danger each tree presents. As part of our tree management program, the College has compiled a comprehensive database, chronicling in detail our entire inventory of trees. Each tree is inspected regularly to ascertain its overall health, structural form, and need for trimming or maintenance. To make these inspections as reliable as possible, members of the Grounds Department staff are receiving continued training to strengthen their ability to assess accurately the health of campus trees.

Trees that are considered a signficant hazard are removed. A number of factors enter into that decision. One, of course, is the health of the tree. But we also consider the characteristics of the species. For instance, several species of eucalpytus, oak, and elm can be susceptible to limb drop. We must also consider the size of the tree and its location, and the potential for catastrophic damage should a portion of that tree fall.

For trees near high-traffic areas, we are being particularly aggressive in our evaluation of potential hazards. Since December, we have removed seven trees, all eucalyptus. We’ve also identified a number of other trees, mostly eucalpytus, that we plan to remove this summer, when it is safer to do so, and replace with a different species better suited to that specific location.

A lot of this type of trimming and removal, by the way, is done when students are not around for the simple reason that it is safer to do so when traffic is low. So if you don’t see a lot of activity of this kind, please bear in mind that we are making an effort to do it when it won’t inconvenience or endanger our students.

Most of the largest and potentially most hazardous trees on the campus belong to the City of Claremont and are located adjacent to College Avenue. In November, Pomona’s Board of Trustees demanded that the City undertake a comprehensive assessment of these trees. A city task force, of which I am an active member, is now studying the problem and will be making its recommendations soon. Part of that risk mitigation is likely to include a systematic removal of unsound specimens and their replacement with other trees.

Pomona’s tree management program is probably one of the most thorough and aggressive that you could find on any college campus in America. At Pomona, we are able to enjoy a mature and historically signficant landscape. We are making every effort to ensure that it is also a particularly safe one.

Sincerely,

Jim Hansen

Director of Campus Planning and Maintenance