The slim, leafless sapling sitting in the dirt at Vancouver’s Water Resources Education Center looked like an ordinary tree.
But it was a ginkgo tree, a species that existed more than 200 million years ago when dinosaurs roamed the Earth.
It was special in another way, too. The ginkgo had been chosen as the city of Vancouver’s official Arbor Day tree.
Wednesday, under the gaze of 60 Harney Elementary School children, local and state officials ceremonially planted the tree.
“You really are the reason we care for the environment and our trees,” Vancouver urban forestry commissioner Dawn Freeman told the third-grade students and other audience members. “Our actions today will profoundly affect the quality of life for our children and grandchildren.”
This year’s Arbor Day theme was “Clean Water Starts with a Tree.”
Trees act like sponges to absorb stormwater runoff, and a large tree can drink 700 gallons of water per year, Vancouver stormwater engineer Annette Griffy said. Trees filter out pollutants, hold dirt in place and stabilize riverbanks, she said.
The schoolchildren offered a lesson for the adults about the parts of trees. Wearing signs around their necks depicting the heartwood, sapwood, roots, phloem, cambium, bark and leaves, they gathered in formation to represent their sections of a tree. Then they called out the function their part serves.
“We make food!” chanted the leaves. “Food for the tree!” chanted the phloem.
Awards were doled out. In honor of her late husband, former urban forestry commissioner Gordon MacWilliams, Sylvia MacWilliams presented the annual Mac Awards, which are for people with a strong commitment to tree stewardship. This year’s “tree heroes” were Jonathan and Debora Thomas, who volunteer to plant, prune and maintain the city and region’s trees (Jonathan is a certified arborist); and Louise Angus and her children Murdoch and Nora, who are longtime tree-planting volunteers with Friends of Trees.
Clark Public Utilities received the Treeline USA Award for the 17th consecutive year. Mayor Tim Leavitt accepted the city’s Tree City USA award and the Tree City USA Growth Award.
Vancouver has been a Tree City USA since 1989 under the community improvement program sponsored by the Arbor Day Foundation. Vancouver’s tree canopy covers 18.6 percent of the city, or 5,579 acres, which has the benefit of energy savings from shade, reduction of stormwater runoff and removal of air and sound pollution. The city planted 1,050 trees in 2015.
Leavitt told the children, “You’re going to be our future tree planters. Is everyone OK with that?”
“Yes!” they shouted.
