The maple tree that was cut down July 25 in Kiwanis Ravine was not felled to improve someone's view, as nearby neighbor Bob Clymer suspected. Nor was it whacked to sell the wood to makers of stringed instruments, as K.C. Dietz from the Heron Habitat Helpers suspected.
And the tree-cutters had not been hired by the Army Corps of Engineers to do the job, as one of the men told police after Clymer raised the alarm.
But the job was legitimate, according to Lt. Jim Dermody, who heads up the detective squad at the West Precinct. "We determined there was nothing criminal," he said. That's because the U.S. Coast Guard had ordered the work done to improve navigation on the Ship Canal, the detective explained
But there was some confusion about who owned the land where the tree once stood. The property used to belong to the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad, but that doesn't hold true anymore, Dermody said. "The city purchased it a couple of years ago."
Specifically, Seattle Parks and Recreation bought the land, said Mark Mead, the department's senior urban forester who posted a stop-work order on the tree until things could be sorted out.
The Coast Guard, he went on to say, made an effort to notify the railroad and the neighborhood about the planned cutting, but there was a problem. "They weren't aware it [the tree] was on our property," Mead said of the reason the parks department didn't get word of the plan. The Coast Guard knows that now, he added.
The tree needed to be cleared so one of two navigation range boxes could be seen by boaters making their way through the Ship Canal, Mead explained.
But unlike some cases of arborcide in Queen Anne and Magnolia, the Kiwanis Ravine case was resolved. "It's unusual that we actually solved this one," Mead said.
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