Tree Disease Hits WSU Forest In Pierce County

POSTED: 1:01 pm PDT May 7, 2006

UPDATED: 1:25 pm PDT May 7, 2006

BONNEY LAKE -- Developers have had their eye on the patch of Washington State University-owned forest in Western Washington, but before homebuilders could fell a single tree, windstorms and disease beat them to it.

Foresters and a specialist discovered this past winter that more than 1,000 trees -- some of the Bonney Lake sites tallest -- were either blown down or infected with root rot. The sick ones will have to be cut down to stop the spread of disease.

The property has been closed to the public since mid-February and that has made some residents suspicious.

Laurie Carter, a Bonney Lake resident who sends out an online newsletter, wrote that people have contacted her and asked questions.

"Will keeping the forest closed indefinitely make people in this area forget about the forest, clearing the way for development?" she asked. "It is public land and our taxes that support WSU and therefore the forest, right?"

People in Bonney Lake are hoping to preserve as much as the forest as possible. Estimates vary on how many trees will be lost, but the number will be less than 10 percent of the forests total, said Mel Taylor of the WSU business affairs office in Pullman.

WSU reports that about 250 trees were blown down or uprooted. Forest pathologist Ken Russell reported that 829 standing trees scattered throughout the forest were infected with root rot or standing too close to a diseased tree.