What is Happening with the Trees in San Fernando?

Maintaining the health of trees is vital in the fight against climate change, lowering the temperature of the streets and creating an urban tree canopy that helps the local community handle summer months that can soar over 100 degrees in the city of San Fernando and throughout the Northeast Valley. Despite a rainy season, there are trees that appear to be pushing forward and at risk for falling and trees that aren’t viable – they have no foliage and are standing sticks. 

Residents have taken photos of trees that are withering and soon to be a dried trunk and branches to be later cut down.

In some areas, that appears to have been the case, as the trees have been removed entirely. On San Fernando Road, right by the Pep Boys, city workers have poured concrete over tree wells. Only one tree remains in the spaces where tree wells were set up for the tree to grow and flourish. Now residents are told they are trip hazards and have to be filled with concrete.

Residents in the city of San Fernando are becoming more and more concerned for the safety and well-being of these trees, including Julian Ruelas. Over the years, he said he has seen many trees die from a lack of care. He thinks that the city has no functional plan to replace trees that die or are cut down, and when the city gets new trees it isn’t prepared to tend to them.

By his estimation from driving and walking around the city, Ruelas claims that around 50% of the trees that the nonprofit TreePeople has planted over the past two years are either dead or gone.

“Look at Glenoaks [Boulevard]. That street was completely lined with new trees. All [of them are] gone or dead, even with the rain,” Ruelas said. “The city does not maintain its forestry correctly.”

San Fernando City Manager Nick Kimball called the estimation “ridiculously high.” He said that TreePeople is responsible for the watering and upkeep of the trees.

The San Fernando Valley Sun/el Sol reached out to TreePeople, which said that they have a contract with the city to take care of the trees they plant for three to five years. The nonprofit also has a map of every tree they’ve planted in the city. “We just finished our grant report, and our survivability rate is over 90%. We’ve been thrilled with our success in San Fernando,” a statement read.

Ruelas lives on the 600 block of Huntington Street. He described the tree canopy as being so dense, the light wouldn’t reach the asphalt. Now, he estimates that 80% of those trees are now gone.

“I started seeing really mass removal of trees starting probably about 2012, 2013 and it has picked up,” Ruelas said. “One whole side of the street on the 700 block has just been deforested over the past year. The trees have died, and the city came in and cut them down and then they removed the stumps probably about two months ago.”

The city of San Fernando has an ordinance on when it’s appropriate to remove a tree – including if it’s deemed to be dead, diseased, or has created a potential health and safety hazard – but Ruelas believes that no one is following it. He recounted how a neighbor cut down a healthy tree when they were repairing their driveway. Ruelas and other neighbors asked the city why it allowed this, but they were told “well, they wanted to do that.”

Kimball said that in some areas, in addition to being dead or a safety risk, trees can be removed by Southern California Edison if they’re interfering with power lines and are not required to provide any notice. He added that homeowners have sometimes requested trees in front of their property to be removed, either because they’re causing damage or some environmental issue.

“We have thousands of trees in the city, so there definitely will be a few that have been removed over any number of years … certainly not 50% of our tree canopy has been removed,” Kimball said. “We plant more trees than we take out.” It‘s unclear which trees planted by Tree People or the city are referenced.

The city also trims its mature trees on an annual basis through West Coast Arborists beginning mid-summer to early fall to ensure the trees live longer and don’t become too big or unwieldy, and to promote the overall health of the tree by allowing more sunlight and air circulation. The city avoids trimming in the spring so as not to disrupt the animals’ nesting season.

The city is divided into seven grids and each year, one grid is selected for tree trimming – this year the designated area is between the train tracks and Fourth Street, from Hubbard Avenue to Parkside Drive.

Ruelas, on the other hand, said he’s spoken with an arborist who told him that they’re hurting the trees by trimming during that part of the year.

“You don’t trim trees in the summer,” Ruelas said. “It’s bad for them. The city has done that repeatedly. … During the last drought, they did that. You’re stressing a tree at the worst time when no water is available.”

Generally, late winter to early spring is considered the best time for tree trimming, during the dormant season, to minimize stress. However, there are benefits to trimming during the summer, including pest control, eliminating dead branches and encouraging growth.

“There’s not really any evidence that our trimming of trees is killing them,” Kimball said.

This isn’t the first time this year residents have expressed concern over the well-being of trees. In February, neighbors on the 400 block of Macneil Street were perturbed when they learned of a supposed plan to cut down six trees on their street that have been around for decades. They spoke out at a City Council meeting in March in support of the trees, although Public Works Director Wendell Johnson said there was no current plan to cut them down.

Ironically, the City of San Fernando has been given the distinction of being a “Tree City,” with the late councilmember Cindy Montañez at the helm of tree plantings also holding the job as CEO of Tree People. 

The San Fernando Valley Sun/el Sol will continue to cover this story.