{"id":712665,"date":"2026-06-19T02:03:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T02:03:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/712665\/"},"modified":"2026-06-19T02:03:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T02:03:11","slug":"pasadena-teen-sits-in-tree-for-8-hours-to-protest-planned-removal-of-200-trees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/712665\/","title":{"rendered":"Pasadena teen sits in tree for 8 hours to protest planned removal of 200 trees"},"content":{"rendered":"

PASADENA, Calif. (KABC) — Protests are growing over the Pasadena Unified School District’s plan to remove hundreds of trees as part of soil remediation following the Eaton Fire<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Paloma Muniz-Ochoa, 17, took it upon herself to voice her dissent by spending eight hours sitting in an oak tree that is marked for removal.<\/p>\n

She spoke out at a City Council meeting Tuesday night.<\/p>\n

“I don’t think it’s fair that these trees are being taken down. Being in the oak tree, I connected with it and it’s clear that it’s holding a lot of life and that it means alot to the environment and to the animals and plants living in it.”<\/p>\n

She and other residents have been disrupting tree removal work. Muniz-Ochoa’s mother is supportive of her spending hours in a tree for the cause.<\/p>\n

“It’s very scary but I thought it was very necessary. I am a homeowner of Pasadena and a taxpayer and I ask you, please, we are desperate,” Kristen Ochoa told the City Council.<\/p>\n

So why are the trees being removed at all? The school district plans to get rid of toxic soil from the Eaton Fire at 11 affected campuses. That includes cutting down 200 trees.<\/p>\n

The district and the California Department of Public Substances Control released a statement, which says in part: “With more than 5,000 trees districtwide, we do not take the removal of any tree lightly. The trees being removed are only those located within the contaminated soil removal area.”<\/p>\n

The agencies say they’ve met over the past year to do 600 tests, adding the plan removes immediate and long-term health effects and they will re-plant.<\/p>\n

Still, many public commenters from the council meeting aren’t convinced.<\/p>\n

“Because this is simply unnecessary. The science does not back up that… tree removal is required to remediate soil,” said resident Jessica Richards.<\/p>\n

Councilmembers also chimed in during Tuesday’s meeting.<\/p>\n

“PUSD’s communication has been lackluster,” said Councilman Tyron Hampton. “The notifications that they sent out didn’t really give any real explanation and they were cookie cutter so every single school site got the same exact notification with just a new school on top. As far as the trees go, if there’s anything that the city can do to stop this process until we have a better understanding.”<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 KABC Television, LLC. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PASADENA, Calif. (KABC) — Protests are growing over the Pasadena Unified School District’s plan to remove hundreds of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":712666,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[307279,192,79],"class_list":["post-712665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-307279","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=712665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712665\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/712666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=712665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=712665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=712665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}