Over three days in late March, a colonnade of 29 Lombardy poplar trees along the Fremont cut that for the last century lined the northern border of Queen Anne, were cut down because they posed a hazard to the community.
Few have felt their removal more than Queen Anne resident Jim Fielder. Fielder, his mother and his grandmother grew up in Queen Anne. His mother bought his home adjacent to Seattle Pacific University back in the 1950s for a mere $1,800. Fielder stayed with her at the home as she convalesced. He regularly wheeled her out to the West Ewing Mini Park and along the South Ship Canal Path. In all his years in the area, he has never witnessed or heard of a tree branch falling from one of those poplars and was dismayed to discover they were being cut.
"I've never heard anybody walking or jogging down here and saying, "Oh my God, that's a scary tree," Fielder said. "I heard the saws going on the other side of the canal and I watched them take them down."
Staff at The Army Corps of Engineers (ACE), which operates and maintains the scenic stretch of land and water, had determined more than 12 years ago, that the aging poplars would have to come down, the result of age and natural hazards such as beavers, disease or compaction.
ACE conducted a study in 1998 on the trees. The study recommended the trees be removed. In 2000, ACE held neighborhood hearings then asking for feedback on how to go about the removal. The feed back ACE received was that it remove them in stages.
ACE would remove the trees in four stages. The first was in 2001 when it removed 22 poplars and replaced them with 53 Ghost poplars.
"The reason the phase approach worked was because that way we could take them down and allow new ones to grow," said ACE spokesperson, Andrea Takash. As part of Phase 2 of the plan, ACE hired Surirat Development Inc. of Colton, Calif. to remove 29 trees, 16 on the Queen Anne side and 13 on the Fremont side, and replace them with 40 Ghost poplars. Phase 3 is in 2018 and ACE will remove 19 trees and plant 23. In 2030, in the final phase, ACE will remove 22 trees and plant 21.
"The public has made a difference on this one," Takash said. "We have done it exactly as they asked us to do it."
The cost of Phase 2 was $79,070. The cross sections of some of the tree trunks removed were as big as picnic tables. Fielder took some of the smaller pieces and lined them in his front yard as keepsakes. Surirat had given most of the lumber away.
The cut is still lined with dozens of poplars, many of the older and bigger ones have chicken wire around the trunks to protect them from beavers. Once a date is set, ACE wants to invite neighbors to a public planting of the 40 Ghost poplars and 440 under-story shrubs.
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