On Thursday, Aug. 11, City of San Diego alerted community members that a failing Torrey pine tree would be removed from 4652 Saratoga Ave. in Ocean Beach on Friday, Aug. 12, starting at 7 a.m. But Ocean Beach residents had other ideas. Activists joined forces to call, cajole and cutoff the city before any chainsaws ever arrived on Saratoga Avenue. By Friday morning, the tree removal had been postponed again – maybe permanently. The City and residents will now work on a plan to move forward. The Torrey pine is 73 feet tall, more than 90 years old, and adjacent to where two other large Torrey pine trees were removed after one of this winter’s El Niño storms caused them to uplift and actively fail. “Public safety is of the utmost importance, and while our goal is to maximize the environmental benefits of trees, we must balance the risk of trees with the preservation of trees,” said Jeremy Barrick, a board-certified master arborist and the city’s Urban Forester Program Manager. Barrick inspected the subject tree multiple times since then, as did another board-certified master arborist. Their reports, along with one from a biologist confirming no active nesting sites in the tree exist, can be found on the City’s website.
Also, as part of its Climate Action Plan, the City is completing an assessment of its current tree inventory, and will embark on an aggressive tree planting program to increase the tree canopy in all communities.
“We have monitored and reviewed this tree for several months and consensus among multiple arborists is that this tree must be removed to entirely eliminate the risk of catastrophic failure,” Barrick said.