Call these lawbreakers, tell them to stop harming DC's trees

There are people who live in DC and businesses that operate here who don't care to follow DC law. Some of these individuals have a special disrespect for the trees in our neighborhoods. It's time we tell them, en masse, that we are sick and tired of this disrepect and lawlessness.

Below are a series of signs that I came across this morning on my ride into work. I'm passing this information along to the Department of Public Works as well, in hopes that they will throw the books at these creeps and fine them to the fullest extent possible under the law. Unfortunately, that might just be a couple hundred dollars.

In the meantime, I strongly encourage anyone reading this to call the numbers on these signs and give them a piece of your mind. Maybe, if we can shame these people enough (or at least clog up their voicemail boxes), we can get them to stop dumping their garbage on our city.

DC is a beautiful place. Let's keep it that way.

Juicy J is performing at Ibiza nightclub in NoMa this Friday. There's an opportunity to tell four different groups of people that they need to respect city law and not nail signs to our street trees.

• Juicy J's twitter handle is @therealjuicyj. Send him a tweet and tell him the promoter he's hired is a hack.
• His sign was produced by a company called Gig Signs. Their phone number is (609) 420-4242. Call them and tell them their signs don't belong nailed to our city's trees
• The club where the show is happening is Ibiza. Call them at (888) 424-9232 and tell them you don't appreciate their shows being promoted in a way that harms trees.
• There's a number on the signs for "Social Architects," which appears to be the promoter. Call them at (202) 905-3131, and give them a piece of your mind about nailing signs to trees.

Here's another one of Juicy J's signs. These were nailed to trees on the 800 block of K Street NE.

DC House Max appears to be one of those shady companies that buys houses from people in economic distress, then does a shoddy job and flips the house, leaving the new owner with a mess that'll start falling apart after 8 months. They also like to screw their signs to trees. I didn't have a Phillips head screwdriver with me this morning to remove this sign, but it's still located on the 1100 block of K Street NE.

Here's a close-up of that screw and washer. Call DC House Max at (202) 288-3200 and tell them that you're sick and tired of their ilk and what they do to our trees.

Finally, this sign was one of two that wasn't nailed to a tree, but was tied to lampposts on Florida Avenue NE at the entrance to Gallaudet University. It's not legal to put advertising signs on posts without registering them with the city and affixing a date to the signs noting when they were put up. The latter wasn't done, and I'd bet a princely sum that the former wasn't done either. I took them down and threw them out. But go ahead and call (202) 800-2728 and leave a message. Fill up their inbox so they can't actually do business.

Here's why we can't have nice things, DC

Keeping a large city like DC clean is the responsibility of everyone who lives here, visits here, and works here. Unfortunately, there will always be misanthropes among us who just don't care if they toss a bag of fast food detritus out their car window. Sometimes you see the result of this carelessness, and you think, "Boy, if only I could have caught that jerk in the act!" Well, I did, and here's what happened...

I was standing on the sidewalk in the shade of a tree on the 1700 block of Pennsylvania Avenue NW, having just finished talking to my brother on the phone, when a couple walking their dog approached from the east. It's a sight you see a million times a day in the city, and it hardly registered at first. I did notice that the woman walking the dog was moving towards one of the trees, and I thought, "That's a well-manicured tree box, would be a shame if the dog messes it up." Bright pink flowers shared the space with a young oak tree.

The dog defecated in the tree box. Again, something you see every day. The strange part was that the couple continued their conversation and began to walk away without doing anything about the mess the dog had left behind. Incensed that anyone could do anything so careless, I spoke up and said to the woman, "We're you planning to do anything about that?"

The couple stopped, glanced at me incredulously, then at each other. I spoke again, saying, "That's your responsibility. You can't just leave that mess there."

The woman nervously laughed and said, "Oh, I forgot to bring any bags with me. Do you have one?"

I couldn't believe where this was going. We were standing in front of a cafe, and I recommended that they go inside and see if they could get a carry-out bag to remove the dog waste. That recommendation was met with blank stares. I continued to press the point, but they really didn't want to hear any more of it. The gentleman had nothing to say, and the woman gave a forced smirk and they proceeded to walk away.

At this point, I was angry and not sure what I could do. Scream out, "Hey, those people didn't pick up their dog's shit!"? That would have drawn the attention of perhaps nine other people within earshot, and probably nothing else. I did still have my phone in my hand, so I thought, "I'm going to take a picture of these fools."

I followed behind them and grabbed this shot as a test to make sure the camera was working:

We got to the corner of 18th and Pennsylvania, and I stepped around them and pointed the phone straight at them and snapped the shot at the top of this post. They pretended to ignore me, then kissed and walked in separate directions—he continued west on Pennsylvania Avenue, she went north up 18th Street.

I don't know where they live, or even if they are DC residents. The badge hanging from the gentleman's belt leads me to believe he works somewhere nearby, but I didn't see it clearly and my photograph isn't sharp enough to ascertain that information. The woman had an accent that I couldn't nail down. Was it French? Eastern European? Clearly, I'm no linguist, but I could tell that English wasn't her first language, and I also am certain that there was no misunderstanding due to language that would lead them to leave the dog poop in the tree box.

So, what do I want from this? I'd like to see these people positively identified and publicly shamed. Some unfortunate worker from the Golden Triangle BID has probably already cleaned up the mess left by these anti-social jerks, but it would be nice to make sure they know that what they did was noticed, and that the people of this city don't approve of people who think it's okay to crap on DC and try to get away with it.

Sign Blight - Help us shame these lawbreakers

Rule 24-108 in the District of Columbia Municipal Regulations gives guidance on the placement of signs, posters, and placards in the city's public space. Subsection 2 reads, "The placing of any advertisement on any tree in public space is prohibited." That means the signs below are not legal. Period.

In addition, these signs are nailed to the trees. The first sign (apologies for the quality) is nailed to a willow oak near the corner of Neal Street and Montello Avenue NE, and the second and third signs are nailed to a sycamore tree at West Virginia Avenue and Penn Street NE. Putting holes in our mature, beautiful street trees causes them harm; creating wounds such as this give insects and fungi access to the heart of the trees.

These signs are placed in low-income neighborhoods by people who try to use the lure of cash to get people who might be down on their luck to sell their homes for pennies on the dollar. Beside the fact that these signs are illegal, ugly, and harmful, they're also exploitative.

I'm proposing that we call them and register our displeasure and disgust. The number on these signs is 703-910-5173. Call them and tell them to take the signs down because they're damaging trees. Call them and tell them to take the signs down because they're illegal. And call them and tell them to take the signs down because we don't need their kind trying to drive the working poor from their homes in order for a short-term infusion of cash, while they get rich off of this exploitation.

Please take a minute of your day, it's not much, but if enough people do, maybe we can make our voices heard.

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If you want to take it one further, call 202-455-6129. That's not the number on the signs below, but it is the direct line to the company that put the signs up. I've documented many signs here around Trinidad. Some I was able to remove myself because they were only 6 or 7 feet off the ground. Some of these signs are 13 to 15 feet off the ground, though - out of reach without a ladder. Give them the same hell you'd give to the jerks who nailed the signs to the trees.

Update about street trees

Back on August 10th, we posted an article about street trees, which included opinions about what we feel needs to be done to ensure that taxpayer money is being spent effectively when planting and maintaining these trees. The article was cross-posted on Greater Greater Washington as well.

On Thursday, DDOT replied. Karyn LeBlanc wrote that the "US Environmental Protection Agency’s MS4 Permit requires the District government to plant at least 4,150 trees every year." (MS4 stands for "Municipal Separate Storm Sewer Systems.")

The big news was that the Urban Forestry Administration will be rebranded "d.Trees" in the near future.

It's always reassuring to see a government agency paying attention to the concerns of the taxpayers. Hopefully this rebranding will lead to even more focus on outreach with the residents of the city.

Street tree care—How can it improve?

The appropriateness of the nickname "City of Trees" is at risk here in Washington, DC, but there is hope that change to the way our city's trees are cared for will make this nickname relevant again, and soon.

In the August 4th edition of the Dupont Current (I wish I could link directly to the story, but the Current has a strong dislike of Internet publishing), there is a story about the DC "Tree Fund." The fund is partially filled by fees levied as part of the Urban Forest Preservation Act of 2002, and is legally required to be kept separate from the city's general fund. The Current says that the 2011 budget, proposed by the mayor and approved by the council, removes money from the fund and places it in the city's general fund. I'm no expert regarding the execution of DC law, but this appears to be in direct opposition to the spirit, if not the letter, of the Urban Forest Preservation Act.

In the article, Councilmember Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3) states she wasn't aware that the money was being diverted from the Tree Fund into the general fund when she voted for the budget. [Personal aside: I think this is a dereliction of duty—if your job is to legislate, and if you're voting in favor of legislation that you're not familiar with, you have no right to complain about what was in it later. If there isn't enough time to read and understand everything in the legislation, don't cast a vote.]

The government agency tasked with planting and maintaining street trees in DC is the Urban Forestry Administration (UFA), which is part of the District Department of Transportation (DDOT). I recently had the opportunity to speak with John P. Thomas, the Urban Forestry Administration's Chief Forester, about some details of the city's street tree planting and maintenance program.

DDOT's yearly street tree budget is $7.5 million. As John Kelly noted on Sunday, the city is not responsible for watering trees once they are planted (contractors plant most of the street trees in the city). Mr. Thomas told me that watering will be a line item in the planting contract this coming year. It will most likely mean that the city will not be able to plant as many trees as they have in years past, but I see that as a net-positive for the DC.

A few years ago, the city planted trees in the median of North Capitol Street, from Michigan Avenue to Hawaii Avenue, while the street was undergoing a complete reconstruction. The trees all died within the year, due to a lack of water. Casey Trees recommends that a newly-planted street tree receive twenty-five gallons of water per week for the first three years while establishing a healthy root system. [In the interest of full disclosure, I am a Casey Trees Citizen Forester.]

Over the last year, the city reconstructed Brentwood Road NE from Rhode Island Avenue south to T Street. That reconstruction included the planting of approximately 64 new trees in the treeboxes lining the street. The photographs at the top of this article and to the right show the condition of the trees on this stretch of road now—namely, they've nearly all died. On a recent weekend, I counted only four trees, or 6% of the total from this project, that remain alive. Weeds choke the treeboxes that line the street (save two in front of the Lowest Price Gas Station, where the trees are still dead), all of them neglected. That's unacceptable.

A new section of the Metropolitan Branch Trail recently opened between the New York Avenue Metro Station and Franklin Street NE. Trees were planted along the trail at many points, including the pocket park pictured at 4th and S Streets NE. Many of the trees are already dead due to the extremely dry spell we had in June and early July.

All of that is unfortunate, and easily could have been prevented, had the property owners and neighbors along the Met Branch Trail and Brentwood Road taken the time to water the nearby trees, or if the city had planned to water the trees in the North Capitol Street median, as the road there is practically a freeway where watering would be difficult. But there is hope ahead!

The city is actively working on a streetscape plan for the entire length of Sherman Avenue NW, between New Hampshire and Florida Avenues. One of the elements of this reconstruction will be a planted median. After seeing what happened on roads like North Capitol Street, it's reasonable to see why residents might be skeptical that trees could survive without a dedicated source of water to keep them alive. Thankfully, Sherman Avenue resident Craig Sallinger was able to get a guarantee from a DDOT employee that an irrigation system will be included in the construction of the road, so it will be easy to get water to those trees while they're trying to establish roots. Hopefully this will be a consideration DDOT makes in all of their future streetscape programs.

Spending money on in-ground watering systems and paying more individuals (be they UFA contractors or students employed during the summer) will inevitably take money away from actual tree planting. I think that's a good thing.

I'm not saying I want less trees—I want more! But I want them to be mature and healthy, not first-year seedlings, struggling to stay alive.

DDOT's current planting process doesn't work, through no fault of their own. Mr. Thomas noted that 95% of what they plant comes from citizen requests for trees in front of their house. A program called "Canopy Keepers" exists to encourage citizens to water the young trees on their street. Some of my friends here in Trinidad are participating in this program. Walking around the city, though, you can easily see that many citizens are not holding up their end of the bargain. The UFA staff does an admirable job with limited resources, but I believe it would be better to help young trees mature instead of wasting those resources replacing trees year after year.

You can only count on the kindness of strangers to a certain point. Eventually, money talks, and it can also water trees.

Cross-posted at Greater Greater Washington.

UPDATED: Oates Street's transitory trees

(This post has been updated. See below the jump.)

The 1200 block of Oates Street NE, unlike many other blocks in Trinidad, lacks a large tree canopy. There are some small- and medium-sized trees, but nothing like the full-grown oaks that line the 1200 blocks of Owen Place, Neal Street, and Morse Street nearby.

It takes decades for trees to grow to that size, but everything has to start sometime. That sometime appeared to be last month, as the city's Urban Forestry Administration (UFA) planted at least a half-dozen young london plane/sycamore trees on the western end of the block.

Here are a few of those young trees.

The trees were kind of spindly, with some branches that weren't leafing out, but they seemed healthy enough, and I thought that, with enough time and TLC, they would provide shade and enjoyment for our block for years to come.

Incidentally, I've been a citizen forester for Casey Trees for a few years, and one of the things that we do when planting trees that are "balled and burlapped" is to remove the twine, metal, and burlap that surrounds the tree's root ball so that the roots have a chance to grow and get established in the surrounding soil. After these trees were planted, I noticed that there was still twine and burlap wrapped around the base of these trees where they meet the ground.

 Example of the twine and burlap still visible at the young tree's base.

I was assured by the Ward 5 arborist not to worry:

UFA changed its planting specs last year. Leaving the burlap and rope on allows for the staking to be omitted, which can be problematic in many instances. The nursery uses a new highly degradable burlap and twine, so the traditional negative impacts are mitigated.

All of this discussion is temporarily for naught, though, as UFA removed most of the trees shortly after planting them. The Ward 5 arborist said that the trees were being removed to be replaced with higher quality trees. He said it would take a few weeks, so we sit waiting—a dream deferred. Below is the only one of the trees that was left on our end of the block. Hopefully it won't be the only one much longer!