When strong winds blow, the large trees in South Kitsap that are valued for their contribution to our area’s natural beauty and rural character become a source of worry if not disaster.
In the worst case, apparently healthy and sturdy trees can be blown down, causing loss of life, injury, and damage to property.
Even when homes and residents are not immediately harmed, falling limbs and trees can break electrical transmission lines and plunge thousands of us into darkness and cold.
The danger that results from maintaining large trees doesn’t always cause us to remove them, just as the dangers associated with many of life’s activities don’t cause us to withdraw into protective cocoons.
We accept the risks in most cases rather than eliminate the activities and objects from our lives that are otherwise necessary or enjoyable.
This winter’s storms have already made plain the risks that we run by keeping rather than cutting down large trees.
Our everyday experience of living with these large trees makes plain during calmer weather the desirability of having them around.
Individuals can make their own risk-benefit analysis and make up their own minds whether to keep or eliminate their trees, taking everything into consideration.
That is, they can do so if local governments don’t get in the way by imposing laws that make it difficult to eliminate trees that have grown to substantial size over the years.
When a property owner comes to the conclusion that a tree’s size and location makes the risk outweigh the benefit of keeping it, why should there be any law that requires government permission merely to cut down the tree?
Laws intended to preserve trees on private property simply because of their size or location seem to consider mainly one side of the risk-benefit analysis.
Laws protecting “significant” trees or requiring greenbelts create a presumption that the benefit outweighs the risk.
Rather than placing the burden on the government to demonstrate that the benefit outweighs the risk, the tree’s owner is required to show that the risk is too great to justify keeping the tree.
If the tree appears to be healthy and sturdy, it isn’t obvious that government will grant permission for its removal when such local laws are in effect.
One might argue that, of course, government officials who enforce such laws will give great deference to the wishes of the owner; but if the owner is really in control, why is permission required at all?
It seems clear that the owner of the tree is not in control of the decision to keep or remove it.
Even if government permission is granted in all cases to remove trees, the owners still have to go through the process to get permission.
If permitted in all cases, the law is an inappropriate intrusion on the right of the tree’s owner to determine whether the risk is too great, since it is a waste of everyone’s time to seek and obtain permission.
If denied in some cases, the law makes the owner and perhaps neighbors bear the risk for the benefit of those who value the tree for its size or location — the same attribute that causes the risk.
It would be small consolation to be able to point back to the government’s denial of permission as the reason why the toppled tree caused a disaster.
A desire to maintain large trees for their beauty and environmental effects is appropriate, but the intrusion of government into what ought to be a private individual’s decision seems just plain wrong.
When the worrisome nature of a tree eliminates the joy in having it, the owner should be able to eliminate the tree without asking anyone’s permission.
Humans have a natural right to modify their immediate environment to remove dangers on their own property that are unacceptable to them.
This right seems to be given too little consideration when the desire to preserve the character of our area leads to laws that take the decision away from the people most affected.
Bob Meadows is a Port Orchard resident.
