Progress bows before champion tree

A Douglas fir in Fountain City, recognized by the state as the most outstanding example of its species in Tennessee, seems to have barely escaped the chain saw.The tree on the grounds of Gentry-Griffey Funeral Chapel was in the way of a drainage improvement project on Cedar Lane, but engineers have reworked their plans so as to avoid taking it down, said Tom Clabo, civil engineer with the city of Knoxville.

Leigh Chagnon, manager and embalmer at the funeral home, said the change in route is great news.

"I think it is a marvelous thing that they are going to spare the tree. Lord knows there are enough trees being chopped down to put up homes and shopping centers," he said.

State recognition of the tree came after Jim Cortese, of Cortese Tree Specialists Inc. visited the Gentry-Griffey grounds at 5301 Fountain Road to examine dogwoods for possible inclusion in the Dogwood Arts Festival's Granddaddy Dogwood Tour, and noticed the Douglas fir.

Cortese, who said his hobby is finding large trees, said the Douglas fir is a Western United States tree and can grow up to 150 tall in the wild but is not so common in Tennessee and grows much smaller here. Still, this one was comparatively large, appearing to be nearly 50 feet tall. He estimated its age at 60-80 years.

"It was the biggest Douglas fir I have seen east of the Mississippi," he said.

Cortese submitted the tree's data to the Tennessee Department of Agriculture Division of Forestry, which administers the Champion Tree list. This recognizes the largest specimens of trees that are either native to or common in Tennessee.

The list includes 263 species of trees that are placed on it based on their height, circumference and crown spread. According to a Department of Agriculture Web site, Knox leads other Tennessee counties in the number of champion trees, at 32. There are actually 33 Knox County trees on the list, but two of them share one of the championships.

The nearest contenders to Knox County are Fayette and Giles counties, each with 26 champion trees.

In October, the funeral home received a letter and certificate from Kay Fermann, coordinator of the Champion Tree program, saying that at a height of 47 feet, circumference of 72 inches and spread of 31 feet, the tree was deemed the largest Douglas fir in the state.

At the time the state had the tree under consideration, the city of Knoxville and the Knoxville Utilities Board had a drainage improvement project under way to relieve storm water problems in the Knox Road area. Parts of the plan involved putting a box culvert under Knox Road and relocating some sanitary sewer lines along Cedar Lane. Clabo said construction should start soon.

The Douglas fir stood close enough to the road that it would have had to come down, Clabo said.

"The line was going to go into the root ball of the tree," he said.

Chagnon found out about the project when surveying flags started sprouting up near the tree. He notified the city of the tree's state designation, and that changed things, Clabo said.

"We try to be sensitive to things like this," he said. "The initial layout was going to affect the tree, but since then, we have gone back and redone the plan, and the line will slide more into Cedar Lane now," Clabo said.

This will mean breaking up and redoing some pavement on Cedar Lane to route the sewer line under the road to miss the root ball of the tree, he said.

"Typically, we try to keep utilities outside the pavement as much as possible, but in this case we will have to locate them just to the north of the center of the road," he said.

Chagnon said that with so many trees being replaced by asphalt, a little busted pavement is a small cost to save a notable tree. Cortese said the Champion Tree listing is an honorary title only, but sometimes the recognition is enough to make people think twice about taking down a tree. He said he is glad that seems to have happened on Cedar Lane.

"I would say that Knoxville is getting pretty progressive by doing things like that," he said.

Information on the Tennessee Champion Tree program can be found at www.Tennessee.gov/agriculture/forestry/champions/index.

Ed Marcum may be reached at 865-342-6267.

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