A giant sequoia tree in Northeast Portland that is at the center of a clash between property owners and the city of Portland was poisoned last month, and the Portland Audubon is offering $1,000 for information about the incident.
According to a GoFundMe created by Claire Bollinger and Shayan Rohani, who live in a house under the tree near Northeast 12th Avenue and Mason Street, the giant sequoia is about 100 years old and 100 feet tall.
In an update to the GoFundMe from March 7, Rohani had some bad news.
“On February 24th we discovered five holes that are one inch wide, drilled one foot deep on the south side of her trunk,” Rohani wrote. “She is showing a severe burn on the south side of her canopy that is changing day by day.”
The couple has been working to save the tree in the 10 years since they bought their house.
But in April of 2020, the City of Portland issued Bollinger and Rohani a notice that they needed to cut down the tree.
In a video about the tree from May of 2020, Bollinger said the root structure of the tree has damaged the foundation of the house next door.
“It’s been that way for a long time,” she said, “but now that house has been deemed uninhabitable.”
Bollinger said at the time no one had lived in the house for three years.
Since they were issued the notice, Rohani and Bollinger have appealed the city’s order while working to save the tree.
According to Rohani, a deal was almost done to sell the neighboring property to a “tree-friendly developer,” Ethan Beck, who was also involved in a sale to save three sequoias in Southeast Portland.
Now, he said, the contract has been terminated.
“We are absolutely at a loss for words,” he wrote. “We are feeling untold grief. Our beloved tree has been poisoned.”
Bob Sallinger, Director of Conservation at Portland Audobon called the damage to the tree “a crime against the environment” and “a crime against the community.”
“Portland puts tremendous value on its trees,” Sallinger said Saturday. “We’ve been working incredibly hard to restore our urban tree canopy. I think there’s a growing awareness of the role that trees play in community health. Especially in a neighborhood like this, that’s so tree deficient, it’s particularly sad.”
Giant sequoia in Northeast Portland (Corey Arnold)Corey Arnold
According to Sallinger, the tree has suffered significant damage and it isn’t clear that it will survive. Currently, police have no leads, he said.
“The reason we put up the reward is we didn’t feel like we could simply let this go by,” Sallinger said. “We felt that we really needed to send a strong message, that, when somebody does something like this, there will be people looking to find you. We hope that if anybody has any information that they will report it.”
Anyone with information about the incident can contact Portland Audobon at (503) 380-9728, or online at audubonportland.org, or can contact the Portland Police Bureau Detective Division at 503-823-0400.
— Aron Yohannes and Lizzy Acker