Law’s aim is green cities — literally

Washington’s motto can be misleading.

The state is, in theory at least, Evergreen. But suburbia is rarely green at all — unless the light has changed. Instead, our cities are all roads and roofs and asphalt.

Trees can seem forgotten, critics charge. City governments rarely deal with them.

Only 10 percent of communities in Washington have inventoried their urban forests. Only 12 percent of communities have urban forestry plans.

“Forests — at any level, at the natural or the urban — provide a ton of advantages to both people and to wildlife,” said Heath Packard, the policy director for Audubon, and one of the primary advocates for an urban forestry bill passed by the Legislature this year and signed by Gov. Christine Gregoire in April. “We are not doing a good job recognizing or planning for those benefits.”

Forests provide clean water, clean air and oases of calm – for wildlife and for people.

There is some hope that they could also provide money. The new bill aims to open up carbon markets for local communities, allowing cities and counties to monetize their collective tree power.

“There is a unique opportunity within our cities to expand the forest canopy for many benefits — and one of those benefits is the carbon benefit,” Packard said.

The definition of an urban forest is loose. They don’t have to be 20 acre plots. They can be, according to the law, “occupied or potentially occupied by trees and associated vegetation.”

Plots can be small.

Still, most local cities can claim a series of forested lands. Edmonds, for instance, has multiple parks like Yost Park where the chirping of birds can drown out the distant hum of traffic.

But the legislation coming out of Olympia asks more.

House Bill 2844 puts into motion a process that could end in all communities counting their trees and their forests, and planning for a greener, cleaner future.

The state budgeted $400,000 for the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to study possible inventory methods, and the state’s Community, Trade and Economic Development department to examine best practices and programs.

Because so few communities in Washington count their trees, Washington isn’t exactly sure how to proceed with the inventory process.

The only local city to have done any inventory process is Shoreline, which spent $50,000 from its general fund studying the urban forests in its 380 acres of city parks.

“It is a baseline,” said Maureen Colaizzi, who coordinated the urban forestry assessment.

In Shoreline, the results of the assessment will be presented at the end of May. Recommendations will include how better to manage invasive species and trail erosion, Colaizzi said.

In Edmonds, though, no such assessment has been done.

Unlike neighboring Lynnwood, which has been a member of the Tree City USA program for eight years, Edmonds doesn’t even have a tree fund.

Lynnwood’s tree fund forces developers to pay money to remove trees from their properties. That money goes into an account, which is used to fund new tree plantings in the city, said Jared Bond, Lynnwood’s environmental program manager.

“The program goal is to have no net loss of trees in Lynnwood,” Bond said.

While the long-term solutions are still being studied, there are short-term possibilities for local communities to capitalize on state money.

Sometime before June 2010, the state aims to complete a pilot urban forestry inventory program with two counties — one east of the Cascades, and one west.

Snohomish County is just finishing an urban forestry study, said Terri Strandberg, a principal planner with the county. It is assuming oversight from DNR for forested parcels under 20 acres inside urban growth areas, she said.

As with many efforts from Olympia, the inventory sounds like a good — but expensive —process , Strandberg said.

“The county has a large land base, obviously,” she said. “Any type of inventory process would have to be well funded.”

There is no doubt that is true, the Audobon’s Packard agreed.

His group is planning to ask for more money from Olympia in 2009, he said.

“There are a lot of communities paying attention to this,” he said. “We aim to keep raising the bar.”