THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, January 30, 1997 TAG: 9701300012
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: 43 lines
Instead of hugging trees, Virginia politicians seem to be disposed of late to chop them.
Gov. George F. Allen gets credit for starting the trend. Last November, Capitol grounds workers axed a 40-foot red cedar and dragged it up the hill to serve as the state Christmas tree.
Garden clubbers were appalled. Officials belatedly suggested that the tree was diseased and needed to be removed.
Now comes another proposal that would greatly expand tree chopping.
A bill making its way through the House of Delegates would allow trees that are on public rights-of-way to be cut if they are up to nine inches in diameter and are blocking the view of a billboard.
Currently, trees chopped for such purposes can't be more than two inches in diameter. The height difference, environmentalists say, is between a 6- to 8-foot tree and a 30-foot tree.
The bill would make several other changes. Currently, land owners or billboard operators can cut only those trees that are blocking signs which conform to local, state and federal regulations.
But the amended law would also apply to some 1,300 older billboards that were in place before guidelines took effect.
And the bill opens the way for even larger trees to be cut if they are ``unsightly.'' Beauty, in trees as in people, may be in the eye of the beholder. But if this provision becomes law, it might well be in the eye of billboard owners.
There's some indication that lawmakers are rethinking the measure. The bill was introduced with 48 sponsors in the House and 26 in the Senate, creating an aura of inevitability. But after hearing complaints that the bill was far from innocuous, the House Transportation Committee passed it to the floor by a narrow majority, 12-10.
Four of the original sponsors voted against the bill in committee.
Others, including more than a half-dozen co-sponsors from South Hampton Roads, should change their minds as well.
You don't have to be a tree-hugger to realize that most 30-foot trees have more aesthetic value to tourists and travelers than most billboards.