On Behalf of Rock Creek Park

Issue #26

August 18, 2024

I begin with gratitude. Trish O’Kane’s story — her advocacy for Warner Park in Madison, Wisconsin — was thoroughly reviewed in the Comments of Issue #25, showing how much this community cares about kinship in nature. For that, I thank you.

Amy Payne of Wondering read it and said she was glad to see another human promoting Birding to Change the World. “I was lucky enough to hear her (Trish O’Kane) read. She began the reading by having us all join in a Woodcock dance. She is beloved by her students and they lead the strut. Magic.”

A little later, I received the following email:

Ms. Winship - This is Jim Carrier, Trish's husband. Amy Payne alerted me to your piece. You really captured the heart of her book, and work. As I type she is headed to Yosemite to do a talk for the NPS. I read parts of your piece to her, and she would love to talk to you.

Trish and I plan to talk soon. In the meantime, she asked me to tell you the story of the trees in Rock Creek Park. In her own words,

Here's the lowdown: The National Park Service is going to cut down over 1200 trees in DC's Rock Creek Park for a golf course renovation. I've been trying for months to get an op-ed published about it and have struck out. Samantha Krause and her group are on the ground in the trenches, trying to save these trees and the birds. The meeting to decide these trees’ fate is fast approaching in early September.

I will be back at work next week. I would love to talk with you, then, and would be HONORED to speak with you. I can see from your work that you are one serious woman warrior. I am really interested in your ideas about "kinning" and would like to learn more about the Swannanoa River. 

But in the meantime, I have an urgent request. Since you are social-media savvy and have serious followers (I am clueless in that respect), I'd like to ask if you could blast this link: 

https://rockcreekparkgolfcourseforall.org/

Then Trish copied in Samantha (Sam) Krause, the young activist advocating for the trees and birds, and we exchanged emails.

Sam Krause birding in Rock Creek Park.

I asked Sam, how did you get involved with the movement to save the trees of Rock Creek Park?

I moved to DC almost three and half years ago and got involved with a local land conservancy, where I met my mentor, a long time resident of Washington and retired Chief of Staff for the National Park Service, while out birding. Fast forward, she took me birding at the Rock Creek Golf Course where I have since spent countless hours birding and photographing wildlife on the course. I fell in love with the landscape, the trees and the wildlife. We've heard and seen Coyotes, Great Horned Owls, Nighthawks, Ravens, Whip-poor-wills, Woodcocks, among many other birds, which are all extremely rare in DC. All of the birds mentioned are rated as species of greatest concern in Washington DC. When I heard that the park was going to be destroyed last fall, I immediately began working on getting my local community and organizations involved to stop the plan. I now serve as the Minister of Birding for the DC Bird Alliance, where I have been active in spreading awareness and working with local and national environmental groups to protect the birds and all of our other kin that call the course home. 

How did you connect with Trish O’Kane?

I was recommended Trish's book, Birding to Change the World by my Aunt Deb. I voraciously read the book, staying up late and picking up the book at every free moment, finding inspiration and hope from Trish and her views on the interconnectedness of everything on this earth. I finished the book two days before the golf course plan was announced for approval. After despairing and ranting to my confidants, aka my aunt and uncle- my aunt recommended that I get in contact with Trish to help stop this environmental atrocity. I did, and Trish responded almost immediately, informing me that I was the first person to contact her requesting advocacy support since she published her book  Fast forward, Trish has become a mentor and immense ally. She has guided me through the ups and downs of being an activist, has connected me with academic and environmental community members who are working tirelessly to stop this plan, and has spread the word every chance she gets. 

There’s more to my interview with Sam, which you will hear about in upcoming issues, along with interviews with Trish O’Kane. But because the tree situation in Rock Creek Park is time-sensitive, I want to share Trish O’Kane’s op-ed, which is more than a powerful plea for help with the Rock Creek situation; it’s a love note to trees as kin.

Trish O’Kane 📷credit: Jim Carrier

                NPS: Please See the Forest Through the Tees by Trish O’Kane

            The good news is we now know that trees--especially large trees--are an effective climate solution. Collectively, large urban trees can lower temperatures in a concrete city by as much as a lifesaving ten degrees. They pump out oxygen. They filter and slow down stormwater.  They remove pollutants from the air, helping millions of children with asthma to breathe. And they provide food and shelter for city wildlife: one bur oak can host 500 species of butterflies and insects which in turn feed birds and small mammals.

             The bad news is that across the country, on public and private lands, citizens are struggling to protect our leafy allies. But as steamy summers turn concrete cities into InstaPots, weak or nonexistent tree protection laws, greed, contradictory government policies, consumptive recreation and ecological ignorance are colliding with climate chaos. Nowhere is this collision more evident than in our nation’s capital where the National Park Service (NPS) is planning to cut down more than 1300 trees in DC's Rock Creek Park for a $25 to $35 million-dollar golf course renovation and expansion.  Approximately 237 of the trees headed for the chipper are towering giants over 100 feet tall and over a century old, a small army of massive air conditioners.

            A scrappy coalition of tree advocates, birders, bat-lovers and dark-sky defenders are desperately trying to stop this proposal. They not only love the trees, they fear increasing urban heat due to climate change. Like many cities, DC has urban heat islands caused by concrete that soaks up the sun and boosts temperatures by up to ten degrees; concrete is why cities are hotter than rural areas. Rock Creek Park, which includes the contested golf course, is a 1,754-acre green lung that is a whopping 16 degrees cooler than DC's hottest neighborhoods. The NPS plans to cut the trees to reduce shade and improve golf turf conditions on a neglected public course. The agency's subcontractor also wants to improve public access and host children's programs.

            The NPS golf course proposal shows how the government is failing to protect trees. At the federal level, while the USDA distributes more than $1 billion nationwide to plant trees--a laudable Biden initiative to slow climate change and address environmental injustice--just nine miles from the USDA, the National Park Service prepares to chop down over 1300 urban trees. 

            The NPS proposes to replace mature trees with saplings at a 3:1 ratio, which is the prevailing wisdom: chop down a mature tree, replace it with young or baby trees. But trees are not replaceable widgets, although historically we've viewed them as such. And as climate chaos ramps up, there is no guarantee young trees will survive. Stronger hurricanes and storms are felling mature urban and rural trees. In a rapidly-heating environment, drought, new plant diseases, invasive insects and wildfires are killing hundreds of millions of trees.

            "The NPS is talking about removing large canopy trees. Once you lose them, you can never get them back. It takes over 60 years for a 40-inch tree to reach that size," explained DC's Delores Bushong, a 77-year-old award-winning "Real-Life Lorax."  

            Washington has some of the strongest tree protection in the nation because advocates in organizations like Casey Trees worked for two decades to craft the laws; DC is one of the only cities that protects trees on both public and private property. It is illegal for DC developers and homeowners to cut down large "Heritage Trees," over 100 inches in circumference, unless a city arborist declares that Heritage tree "hazardous" or "invasive." Homeowners and developers must also apply for a permit from the mayor (violators pay hefty fines). A developer can pay to move a Heritage tree but this is an expensive anti-ecological loophole that can kill the tree. The district also protects smaller "Special Trees," of 44 to 99 inches.

            Since Rock Creek Park is a national park on federal land, legally the National Park Service does not have to respect DC's hard-fought tree laws. Federal law also protects trees over 100 inches in diameter but the NPS is utilizing loopholes in federal law to justify this project.

            The NPS "Forest Stand Clearing Plan" came as a shock to DC residents because during months of community meetings to publicize the golf course renovation, subcontractors did not mention tree removal. But when the news got out--residents were not happy. Over 90% of the 3,212 responses to the NPS' own public survey opposed the tree chopping. And the omission during public presentations riled at least two DC neighborhood commissioners whose wards border the golf course. One of these wards has some of the highest heat exposure scores in the city; in June that ward passed a resolution asking the NPS to reopen the planning process and comply with DC's tree laws.

            The highly criticized NPS public process culminated with nearly three hours of blistering testimony at a May meeting of the National Capital Planning Commission. Citizens spoke two to one against the tree cutting with one young DC ecologist furiously yelling: "Keep selling out our community--black and brown folks--You always do." Another testified, "Trees on federal land receive less protection? That's outrageous." Commissioners agreed to "preliminary approval," but postponed final approval until the fall (full disclosure: I also testified). 

            This is why DC tree defenders have launched a vigorous campaign of summer love to save the 1300+ trees, themselves. Citizen scientists are photographing, videoing and recording animals that raise their families on the course, including owls, and endangered and federally-protected species like the Long-eared Bat. They are leading Thursday night nature walks. And they are consulting with golfers--many of them fellow nature-lovers--to create an alternative proposal that protects the trees.

            It's time for Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland to intervene and listen to these tree advocates. If we keep cutting down mature trees, the only people playing golf outside will be wearing air-conditioned spacesuits.                                                                                                             

 🌱

My dear readers, let’s be kin.

Let’s kin! Here's the easy link to ask Deb Haaland, Secretary of the Interior, to allow Rock Creek Park trees and their creatures to live. Final approval of the project is at the top of the agenda for the National Capital Planning Commission on September 5th at 10AM EST. As Sam reminded me, this is public land thus there is no residency requirement to sign or speak up. It’s our right as citizens to object to the destruction of nature, especially on public land. If you have signed the letter to Deb Haaland, and you want to do more, the link to testify, in writing or by video, is:

https://www.ncpc.gov/participate/guidelines/

So many thanks! See you in the Comments.

in kinship,

Katharine Winship

Resources:

Birding to Change the World by Trish O’Kane, Ecco Books, 2024

Author’s Note:

I was introduced to Trish O’Kane’s Birding to Change the World through a sisterhood of kinship. I bow to my editor, Lauren Graeber, for being my first friend to introduce me to Trish’s work because she fell in love with it.

Then I did.

We hope you do. 🌱