City’s 13th Ave. cottonwoods fall to RTD chainsaws

Crews clearing the way for FasTracks' light rail line take a tree down.

LAKEWOOD – Another stand of cottonwood trees, one of the few remaining remnants of groves that once stretched for miles along many of the city’s streets and waterways, is falling to the chainsaws.

Crews making way for the Regional Transportation District’s West Corridor light rail line are removing cottonwoods on the south side of west 13th Avenue.

Gerald Lopez

The stands along West 13th are the latest of many that have been removed as streets, bicycle paths and – now – the rail tracks go into place to accommodate growth over city’s four decades.

“Between the city, RTD and Excel, they’re all coming down. It’s very heart-breaking, for me anyway. An there’s a lot of people out there who love trees, at least I hope so” said Gerald Lopez, who for years has been urging the Regional Transportation District to “Save the trees” along the route of the West Corridor light rail line.

Lopez frequently voices that battle cry during Lakewood City Council meetings and lobbies anyone who will listen as he fights for what at times appears to be a solitary cause.

“But they (City Council members) don’t care, RTD doesn’t care,” Lopez said.

He has had limited success in his quest to save the trees: A few years back he persuaded the Xcel Energy to limit tree cutting where possible.

Now the reality of the tree removal has hit home with Lopez, a 45-year resident of the city and a descendant of Native Americans who revered the stands of cottonwoods that dotted the Great Plains and Colorado’s Front Range. Lopez and his son operated a local tree service firm for years.

“When the birds come in, where are they going to land,” Lopez asked as the trees near his Allison Street home began to fall last week.

Pioneers – both Anglo and Spanish – and Native Americans looked on the trees with reverence because cottonwoods, which prefer to set their roots in places where they can get to plenty of water, served as markers on the dry Plains indicating the presence of water to slake the thirst of the pioneers and their animals. The trees also offered wood for campfires and cooking and shade for comfort during the long-hot summers on the prairie.

“Those trees provide fresh air for us to breathe and they are all coming down,” Lopez lamented.

Cottonwoods – the state tree of three Colorado neighbors: Wyoming, Kansas and Nebraska – can live up to 100 years, grow to nearly 100 feet tall and develop 60- to 100-foot canopies under ideal conditions. Cottonwoods are related to poplars and aspens, with which they share the same leaf-shape that “shakes” in the breeze.

The cottony white seeds produced by female cottonwoods in early summer give the tree its name, according to the Great Plains Nature Center in Wichita, Kan.  But the trees, which have a thick, cork-like bark when they mature, have little value as a source of wood and often rot from the inside as they age.

During last summer’s damaging wind and hail storm that left $350 million in damage across the surrounding area – mostly in Lakewood, Wheat Ridge and Arvada – a number of cottonwood trees and limbs fell across homes, garages and vehicles, escalating the damage.

Ward 1 City Councilwoman Vicki Stack, a life-long Lakewood resident who represents the area where much of the storm damages was recorded as well as lengthy stretches along RTD’s light rail line knows first-hand about the risk posed by cottonwood trees.

The cottonwood trees in her yard fell victim to snowstorms, crashing down under the weight of wet, heavy flakes a few years back, but luckily did little damage.

“Fortunately, they fell north,” missing Stack’s house and garage, she said.

But Stack, who grew up under the canopies of Lakewood’s disappearing cottonwoods, empathizes with Lopez.

 “To see the trees come down, especially if they’re part of your culture, it is extremely difficult,” Stack said. “Gerald is getting hit every time. Its where he lives, its his custom. Every thing is just disappearing in front of him.”

“This becomes more than physical,” she said.

Lopez is realistic and knows it is probably too late to save the trees in the path of the light rail tracks.

But he has an alternative, one that will take decades to develop but one that eventually would once again provide a place for birds to land and shade for people on hot summer days.

 “I told them a long time ago for every tree they take down in the City of Lakewood, they need to plant another one  in our community,” Lopez said.