By Erica C. Barnett

The Muckleshoot Tribe came out strongly this week against a proposal from City Councilmember Alex Pedersen that would require state approval for the removal of any tree larger than 12 inches in diameter. The new regulation is necessary, according to Pedersen, to ensure housing developers aren’t destroying trees that were culturally modified by indigenous people before Seattle was developed.

“Most trees will become more than 12 inches in diameter in 20 to 30 years,” the letter, signed by Muckleshoot Tribal Council chair Jaison Elkins, says. “This not a standard to determine whether a tree was a tree that was historically modified by native people in the Seattle area.”

Pedersen, who has frequently used “tree protection” to justify proposals that limit housing density in single-family neighborhoods, said this latest proposal was necessary to protect culturally modified trees, or CMTs, which include trees whose branches were bent to mark important locations. Earlier this year, the developer agreed to reduce the number of units in a housing project in northeast Seattle in order to preserve a large Western red cedar tree the state designated as a CMT after consultation with the Snoqualmie Tribe.

Noting that Pedersen’s proposal was limited to trees, Elkins said it “does not deal with the fundamental problem of the City’s failure to meaningfully deal with potentially impacted cultural resources of all types. The bill also seeks to prevent the City from carrying its duties by, instead, relying on a state agency that has no obligation to do the City’s work.” As we reported last week, the state Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation (DAHP) says it does not have the capacity to examine every medium- and large-diameter tree slated for removal in Seattle to see if it was culturally modified in the past.

“Rather than enacting this proposed bill, the City Council instead, should fund and the City hire professional archaeological staff as the other major cities in the State of Washington have done,” Elkins wrote. “This would be a better, and more effective and efficient way of assuring that cultural resources in the City are not adversely impacted.”

DAHP director Allyson Brooks told PubliCola last week that reviewing potentially thousands of trees in Seattle for cultural significance “doesn’t seem realistic—what I told [the city] was, you need a city archaeologist,” not a law passing the responsibility on to a state agency, she said.

A memo from City Council central staff notes that the new requirement “is likely to be administratively burdensome for [the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections], DAHP, and affected Tribes. It could also lengthen permit processing times and increase costs for applicants.”

During the city council’s meeting on Tuesday, Pedersen said he had seen the letter from the Muckleshoot Tribe and that the city’s Office of Intergovernmental Relations “was engaged” with the tribe.

Elkins did not respond to a request for an interview, and Pedersen did not respond to questions about his proposal, which he will have to formally introduce next week for the council to consider it before the end of the year.