Stop tree slaughter in West Palm Beach!!

West Palm Beach and Palm Beach County need strong ordinances and enforcement to prevent wholesale murder of our sparse tree canopy coverage! It is common knowledge that TREES are the best urban infrastructure investment! They filter and store stormwater, saving waterways from pollution, and reducing stress on stormdrains. They clean the air, cool our streets and sidewalks and absorb huge amounts of carbon emissions form our buildings and vehicles. The City of West Palm Beach needs 45% canopy coverage to carry out these functions, a tall order, as the coverage now stands at 14% according to a Department of Agriculture Study.

Two recent fellings of canopy trees precipitated this petition. The trees summarily hatcheted in a few minutes were over two decades old, with extensive canopies. The trees destroyed were, in one case to widen Australian Avenue in front of single family homes (endangering these homes, as wide streets encourage speeding often leading to running into houses too close to the road), and in the other to facilitate installation of utilities for a private developer. Almost 20 full canopy, mature trees were destroyed.

Neither the city of West Palm Beach, nor Palm Beach County has an ordinance that prevents this wholesale slaughter of full canopy trees.

We, the undersigned demand that strong ordinances be drafted to rectify this situation, namely prevent felling of mature trees under most circumstances, and requiring detalied reasons why other approaches to development, transportation improvements, or other public purposes are not possible and removal of the trees is imperative. Such an ordinance should also set up an citizen Tree Board similar to the one in Lake Worth to encourage tree and native Florida vegetation planting and maintenance on all urban streets and on private property.