The days are numbered for this massive banyan tree at the Delray Beach municipal golf course, despite the city's desire to save it. The Lake Worth Drainage District Board rejected the city's request and said the city must remove the tree by June 1 because of the flooding danger it poses were it to fall into the adjacent canal during a hurricane. John Pacenti/The Coastal Star
By John Pacenti
It’s all over but the chain sawing.
The Lake Worth Drainage District Board expressed bewilderment at a plan Delray Beach proffered to save a massive 50-foot banyan tree that only recently came to the city’s attention as being a single tree during the renovation of its municipal golf course. The district ordered that the tree, which poses a safety hazard to businesses and homes, be chopped down by June 1.
The drainage district board said at its April 15 meeting that the flood risk and slope instability on the tree’s neighboring canal outweighed the city’s mitigation plan.
Say what you want about the Delray Beach government, it stays on brand when championing lost causes. First, it was the valiant, albeit unsuccessful, fight to save its rainbow-colored LGBTQ+ intersection in the face of state demands that the colors be removed. And now, the city’s outsized effort to save the golf course tree, with an emergency plan the city outlined for the drainage district.
The plan stations a tree-cutting crew at the Delray Beach Golf Club during hurricanes of Category 3 or greater, ready to kick into action to fight winds, rain and raging currents.
It could be a sequel to The Perfect Storm.
City Manager Terrence Moore told the board Delray Beach had assembled technical studies to support keeping the tree, noting a geotechnical engineering report, a certified arborist risk assessment and a debris-removal plan had been completed.
Mayor Tom Carney implored the board to give the city a chance to save the 70-year-old tree.
“The city has taken such efforts these last few months, to ensure that all the worries that everyone was going to have about this tree have been mitigated,” Carney said.
The city outlined active measures: structural pruning, trunk reduction on the canal side, root removal where roots extended into the canal bank, installation of a proposed root barrier, multiyear crown management, and pre-staged emergency equipment including a 60-ton crane and a grapple barge.
“This tree has developed into its own ecosystem,” Greg Snyder of the Delray Beach Preservation Trust said. “It provides support for wildlife.”
But district engineers and supervisors remained unconvinced. Tommy B. Strowd, executive director and district engineer, warned that the combination of shallow ficus roots, steep sandy banks and hurricane conditions creates an “inherently unstable” situation.
He described how high winds, heavy rain, saturated ground and canal drawdown could reduce slope safety and allow a large tree to topple into the canal. Just recently to the north, a ficus tree on private property toppled over during rains into the E-4 canal.
If the banyan toppled and blocked the canal, it could cause significant flooding to nearby businesses and residents.
Drainage board member John I. Whitworth III noted past storms and slow recovery times, saying he could not rely on a contractor’s ability to remove a massive tree in severe conditions. “I could never vote for this,” he said.
Board member Carrie Parker Hill questioned the city’s plans. “You can’t leave people on site in the middle of a hurricane without a hurricane shelter.”
Moore countered that the clubhouse on the golf course will meet the requirements of a hurricane shelter.
But board member James M. Alderman said keeping contractors on call during a hurricane didn’t make sense, saying it would take a few days to remove the tree if it fell.
“They’re not gonna come out and get the tree out. They don’t work the way we’re trained to do. We work in the middle of the night,” he said. “A contractor is not going to come out there in 60-, 80-mph winds and things blocked up, the water’s backing up and flooding somebody. We all know that’s not going to happen.”
Faced with the technical findings and public safety concerns, the board voted to uphold its prior denial and require the tree’s removal from the drainage district right of way by June 1, ahead of hurricane season.
State Rep. Rob Long, D-Delray Beach, a former Delray Beach city commissioner, has said the tree should be removed and replanted elsewhere, but that would cost the taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars.
Moore said the city would prepare for removal. He also disclosed that the city spent about $9,500 on the geotechnical assessment. Of course, if the plan were approved, it would cost taxpayers much more.
“Which made it somewhat palatable, because it wasn’t terribly expensive to know about the consideration process, conduct the engineering assessment, and the geotechnical support together,” he said.
At the commission’s April 21 meeting, Price Patton — president of the Delray Beach Preservation Trust and part owner of The Coastal Star — asked the city to declare an emergency and relocate the tree. He said the tree fund — $67,000, according to Town Manager Moore — is paid by local developers and can be used.
“I know you are leery about taxpayer money,” he said. “Think of it another way: The tree has grown there for 80 years for free.”
Carney put a fork in that idea, saying the tree fund is for the whole city, not just one banyan that is not even guaranteed to live if it is moved. “As much as I would like to save that tree — I fought hard for it, I wrote letters and gave interviews — but at some point we lost. “
Commissioner Tom Markert added, “I think it’s going to cost way more than $150,000 to move the tree. and I don’t think it’s feasible.”
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