2 nearly 200-year-old trees face the ax of ISU growth

There's an unusual serenity created by a pair of giant trees that tower over a shady lawn on the Iowa State University campus. All around them are busy residence halls, fraternity and sorority houses, and new construction tucked into nearly every available space of the growing campus.

The trees were here long before them all, likely planted by a landowner prior to the inception of Iowa State College in 1858. The 192-year-old hackberry and 171-year-old black walnut are Iowa native trees, the oldest of their species on campus, and both are Iowa State Champion trees of excellent health.

They will be cut down this spring to make room for a new college dormitory.

It saddens Mimi Wagner. The associate professor of landscape architecture stood in the shadow of the towering trees adjacent to Buchanan Hall just off Lincoln Way in Ames and explained what the loss will mean.

"All of us love the land, the streams, the trees, on this campus. That's our learning lab," she said. "We have been using these trees for over 100 years."

Students learn much from the old, mature trees as they walk the campus with professors, she said.

Wagner and horticulture professor Bill Graves prepared a report on the trees for the Provost's Committee for Outdoor Teaching and Learning and recommended the university modify its plan to save the trees: "irreplaceable living resources that are monetarily, culturally, historically, and academically valuable."

Here's the reality, university officials say:

ISU has experienced eight consecutive years of enrollment growth, increasing 36 percent during that time, while demand for university housing is at an all-time high. This fall, 12,237 students — the largest number since records began being kept in 1972 — lived in Department of Residence housing.

The site was intended for future growth in student housing, and ISU now needs the space, said Cathy Brown, assistant director of Campus Physical Planning.

"By the time we take an older site like this, there will be an impact to existing trees," she said. "We looked into the possibility (of saving the trees), but we had to look at a variety of land uses and activity spaces for students and try to create an environment they would enjoy. Unfortunately, these trees were in the wrong spot to coordinate all those details."

The hackberry tree sits just 25 feet from Gray Avenue to the east, while the black walnut is 55 feet away and several feet further south.

The branches of the hackberry (48-inch truck diameter) and the black walnut (38-inch diameter) created huge shadows on the grass during a recent sunny spring day as students shuffled past them lugging backpacks.

"I've never seen in my 35 years this beautiful of form," said Wagner of the hackberry. "They just usually don't live that long."

Trees have historically faced peril in Iowa, cleared for the land for agriculture use and development at a rate that still troubles Shannon Ramsey of Trees Forever. Iowa forest land has decreased by 97,300 acres since 2009.

"We have to work harder to preserve our existing trees by designing for low-impact and building around them," Ramsey said.

She also said research shows that students show significant learning improvements in classrooms with a view of trees.

"A gorgeous campus like Iowa State's provides an enticing outdoor environment so that students and teachers walk more and spend more time outdoors," she said. "And what would campus look like without mature trees?"

Kent Davis, a communications specialist with ISU's Department of Residence, said they worked hard to save nearly a dozen trees from the lot, transplanting them to other locations on campus. But the hackberry and black walnut couldn't be moved and will be cut down sometime before May 11 construction begins on the new dormitory adjacent to Buchanan Hall.

Brown said it's not always possible to adjust building projects, and "these two species, we have many of them, more than 100. We have trees that are similar in size on the core of campus available for instruction purposes."

But Graves, the co-author of the report that recommended saving the trees, said in an email that they are the "finest mature specimens of their kind on campus."

Graves and Wagner were successful in stopping the elimination of 50 historic trees along the campus' "Sycamore row" that were threatened by flood-protection plans in 2010. But university officials appear resistant this time, so preliminary discussions are underway to use the trees as part of the Heritage Tree Program at ISU. Valuable trees are propagated for future plantings and to sell to ISU alumni.

The hackberry is valued at $61,240, and the black walnut at $30,571.

Other states such as California have created laws against the removal of trees of significant value, said Wagner.

The greatest value may be to the students. The grassy space often holds students who are de-stressing or playing volleyball on a nearby grass court near an assortment of other trees, such as spruces and pines, some of which will be saved during construction.

"They are important to have. They add beauty to the campus," said Kellen Sentken, a junior who was walking past the trees to class. "But obviously they need decent places to live. Iowa State is way overcrowded."

Wagner said there has been little reaction by students yet because many don't know about it.

"I'm a truth-teller. I'm a professor," she said. "This is a teachable moment."