Re: “City Hall must take action on protecting Seattle’s trees” [Jan. 13, Opinion]:
Thank you, Seattle Times editorial board, for your recent editorial urging the city of Seattle to move on long-delayed expansion of tree protecting legislation. Each year this is batted around and dropped. And each year we lose rather than protect or grow our vital tree canopy.
Every elected official can spout off the benefits of trees to a city: carbon conversion, oxygen-production, cooling and shading in a heating-up world, calming and healing human psyches.
And every year greater and more effective protections are tabled. Neighborhoods fight vainly to save an exceptional tree or grove in the headlights of development.
We can’t just pay lip service to fighting global warming or increasing our tree canopy. We have to enact strong laws that protect trees, including on private property. As our city densifies, we cannot leave tree protection to luck. Infrastructure like roads and our water and sewage systems must be strengthened with development. So must tree protection.
Susan Ward, Seattle