{"id":368993,"date":"2026-06-21T08:17:23","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T08:17:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/368993\/"},"modified":"2026-06-21T08:17:23","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T08:17:23","slug":"pasadena-unifieds-plan-to-cut-down-nearly-200-trees-angers-residents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/368993\/","title":{"rendered":"Pasadena Unified\u2019s plan to cut down nearly 200 trees angers residents"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pasadena Unified\u2019s plan to cut down nearly 200 trees angers residents<\/p>\n

The district\u2019s goal is to finish the work before students return from summer, but one student has protested by spending hours in an oak slated to be removed.<\/p>\n

A plan to remove nearly 200 trees from Pasadena Unified School District campuses has angered some local residents.<\/p>\n

School district officials say 193 trees across 11 campuses need to be removed to clean up soil contaminated by the Eaton Fire.<\/p>\n

Residents say they were not properly notified about the project, and some are pushing for ways to remediate the soil without taking down so many trees.<\/p>\n

Pasadena resident Paloma Mu\u00f1iz Ochoa spent eight hours in an oak tree slated for removal at the district\u2019s headquarters.<\/p>\n

Keep up with LAist.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThere’s been a lot of destruction, and there’s no reason to destroy more,\u201d said the 17-year-old as she sat at the base of the tree on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

At another side of the district\u2019s administrative building, certified arborist Sabine H\u00f6ppner stood guard at the base of two huge sycamore trees, also on the chopping block. She estimated them to be more than 100 years old.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Paloma Mu\u00f1iz Ochoa guards a native oak tree slated for removal at PUSD’s headquarters. <\/p>\n

“These are so important to the whole neighborhood,” she said. “They’re a hub for birds. Raptors land in them, owls perch in them at night. You can find the owl droppings all throughout here.\u201d<\/p>\n

More than a dozen trees have been removed already, mostly at San Rafael and Washington elementary schools. Opponents of the plan say they want the soil cleaned without the removal of so many trees.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe in Altadena lost so much of our tree canopy to the Eaton Fire that the idea of taking additional trees away, especially mature trees, is just so hard to think about,\u201d said Ariane Vielmetter, who lost her home in the Eaton Fire.<\/p>\n

Her son lost his school and now attends a PUSD elementary school, though not one of the ones affected by the tree removal plan.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Certified arborist Sabine H\u00f6ppner guards two sycamores slated for removal at PUSD’s headquarters. <\/p>\n

Officials, however, say they\u2019ve exhausted all other options.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter months of consultation with [the state\u2019s Department of Toxic Substances Control], PUSD determined that removing the selected trees is the safest and most appropriate course of action for schools to complete remediation and reopen as quickly as possible,\u201d the district wrote in a statement.<\/p>\n

PUSD\u2019s superintendent and the Department of Toxic Substances Control declined to be interviewed for this story.<\/p>\n

Where will trees be cut down?<\/p>\n

The following schools are affected by Pasadena Unified’s tree removal and soil remediation plan: <\/p>\n

Blair High SchoolThe former Cleveland Elementary School siteField ElementaryThe Franklin Elementary siteJefferson Dual Language Children’s CenterJohn Muir High School Early College MagnetLongfellow Elementary MagnetOctavia E. Butler MagnetSan Rafael ElementaryWashington Elementary STEM Magnet SchoolThe PUSD Education Center<\/p>\n

You can find the full list of schools, reports on soil contamination and keep up with updates from PUSD here<\/a>. <\/p>\n

How we got here<\/p>\n

Just a few weeks after the fires started, PUSD entered into a \u201cvoluntary cleanup agreement\u201d with the Department of Toxic Substances Control, or DTSC, to address potential contamination at 15 campuses. The state agency oversees removal of such contaminants at places like schools.<\/p>\n

Pasadena Unified then hired environmental consulting firm Verdantas to test soil at those campuses.<\/p>\n

Last May, the school district released the results of those soil tests<\/a>, which found elevated levels of toxic metals, primarily lead, at 13 campuses.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Multiple trees have already been removed at San Rafael Elementary. <\/p>\n

The district said in a statement<\/a> Monday that over the last year, it has \u201cmet extensively with the DTSC\u201d to address the contamination.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese detailed discussions encompassed review of the types of toxins identified, and site-by-site and test by test assessments were performed to evaluate various soil removal approaches,\u201d the district wrote.<\/p>\n

At a Pasadena City Council meeting Monday, several councilmembers and Mayor Victor Gordo said they planned to look into what the city\u2019s role may be in approving the removal of certain protected trees.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs far as the trees go, if there’s anything that the city can do to stop this process until we have a better understanding, if they need to come through us for approval,\u201d Councilmember Tyron Hampton said.<\/p>\n

Pasadena Unified\u2019s goal is to clean up the remaining campuses before students return from summer break. The estimated cost is about $6.6 million.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s next\u00a0<\/p>\n

Some residents and tree advocates are urging the school district to consider other ways to remediate their campuses, without cutting down so many trees. That can include phytoremediation, which uses plants to clean up toxins in the soil.<\/p>\n

Chris Shogren, an environmental horticulture advisor with the University of California cooperative extension, said such natural remediation strategies can be effective, but are more complex to design and can take months to years to complete.<\/p>\n

\u201cRemediation is just a really tough task,\u201d Shogren said. \u201cIf you want something immediate, you really do just have to come in, remove the soil and replace it. Everything else is going to take time for it to actually work.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Tree advocates put up a banner in front of PUSD’s headquarters Tuesday. <\/p>\n

Timing is short. The district said it\u2019s required by the DTSC to carry out the bulk of the removal and remediation when students aren\u2019t on campus \u201cfor safety reasons,\u201d wrote the district\u2019s Superintendent Elizabeth Blanco and facilities director Michael Dunning in a recent statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Shogren said that some trees currently slated for removal may be able to be saved \u2014 for example, there\u2019s less risk of toxic exposure if they\u2019re emerging from concrete rather than bare soil \u2014 but that ultimately it depends on testing.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt really should be based on the soil reports, so you\u2019re going highest exposure risk to lowest exposure risk,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The removal of so many trees would be \u201cunfortunate,\u201d Shogren said, but he hopes that what comes next can better serve future generations of children and wildlife.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to have to rebuild and redo things at some point,\u201d he said, \u201cand the sooner we start, the sooner those trees are going to start maturing and providing all those benefits that we want from them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pasadena Unified\u2019s plan to cut down nearly 200 trees angers residents The district\u2019s goal is to finish the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":368994,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[5759,15929,4300,48,52,51,47,50,49,1977,149601,64152,149602,13795,149603],"class_list":["post-368993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-altadena","tag-dtsc","tag-eaton-fire","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-pasadena","tag-pasadena-unified","tag-pusd","tag-soil-remediation","tag-tree","tag-tree-removals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=368993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368993\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/368994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}