What is behind the war on nature?

After attending the last Sandpoint City Council meeting, it would be very optimistic to think that the city actually cares about the environment as we approach Earth Day and Arbor Day. Despite several agenda items being discussed and voted on that evening: Pesticides used at the summer outdoor Festival of Sandpoint; sick and dying trees at Farmin Park due to public overuse during Farmers Market; and unanimous approval of new definitions brought forward by the Urban Forestry Commission for what constitutes heritage trees. Two of the newer definitions included “Significant Grove: Outstanding or significant groups of trees that impact the City’s landscape” and “Ecological: A tree that provides a unique ecological benefit or service to the urban environment.”  

These definitions gave those of us attending this meeting as well as prior meetings some hope that the City’s Public Works Department would consider using the spirit of the Commission’s intent while the process of actually implementing it begins, despite the project’s 11th hour.  It was essential to preserve and protect this grove of a dozen native cottonwood trees slated for removal during the upcoming reconstruction of Cedar St. between Division St. and Lincoln St. and adjacent to Avista’s field. If not only for their intrinsic ecological value, but also for the important role the three large mature trees play in the breeding success of the nearby long-standing osprey nest.  

According to raptor biologist Janie Veltkamp of Birds of Prey Northwest, these largest trees serve as essential perch trees for the adult ospreys to watch and ward off predators like eagles. They also serve as nearby perch trees for juvenile osprey taking short flights once they fledge. There are no other trees available to fledglings nearby. Additionally, these trees are the home of bees, butterflies and moths as well as the songbirds returning from winter migration to feed on those insects. The many snowberry bushes below the canopy were already leafing out and buzzing with life.  

But as Mayor Jeremy Grimm voiced aloud and signed a proclamation to honor Arbor Day celebrating the invaluable nature of trees in our city and our lives, 12 hours later contractors for the City’s Public Works Department completely obliterated that very same cottonwood and snowberry ecosystem as if it never existed. Previous meetings we had asked for a compromise that if the largest trees had to be removed, that the smaller diameter ones would be left for future perch trees for the osprey. Everything was destroyed including the trees that belonged to Avista.

This is not what the public wanted to see happen, and no one at that meeting, or the three others I had spoken at, during the three-minute limited public comment period, had any idea that Public Works would ignore citizens, biological information from Mrs. Veltkamp, as well as the law overseen by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service — the Migratory Bird Treaty Act — as the agency responsible for protecting osprey. Nothing the public did to speak out mattered. Construction has begun and even though Avista relocated the nesting pole and platform for the birds farther away from Cedar St. than they were — USFWS recommends at least 600 feet during the nesting period from May through September — the birds, now that the adult pair have returned, are still vulnerable without perching trees and closer to live-wire poles where they could be electrocuted. All we osprey advocates can do is watch and pray.  

This shocking destruction is now the legacy of Mayor Grimm and Holly Ellis, director of Public Works, who seem to have no meaningful regard for the natural world in the concrete and asphalt projects they put forth and support. The grove was cut to install a sidewalk, even though there will be a sidewalk across on the north side of Cedar which would have sufficed.

This betrayal of citizen activism strikes me as all too familiar. We all remember the summer of 2023 when the former mayor and his cohort (city administrator Jennifer Stapleton) secretly had 177 Canada geese — adults, juveniles and goslings — rounded up at City Beach, gassed to death, and disposed of in a landfill — a devastating conclusion to a totally inane five-year Parks & Recreation plan.  I had learned about that death action six hours before it occurred, powerless to do anything to prevent it. As a citizen, living in the city or not, you can bring the strongest arguments before the City Council, or phone or email the Mayor, but they have no power. With both administrations cut from the same cloth, there’s little hope for Arbor Day or the natural world.

JANE FRITZ

Sandpoint