Tree removals begin at Pasadena Unified’s Longfellow Elementary School

Crews began cutting down protected trees at Longfellow Elementary School Monday morning, Sept. 28, despite opposition from local environmental advocates and weeks of protests.

On Friday, Sept. 25, Pasadena Unified School District announced that the trees would be coming down after releasing multiple statements in September about pausing any removals as more analysis was conducted.

District officials said they looked at other alternative before moving forward with felling, but local advocates including Jessica Richards said the district’s fresh look relied on the same data and ignored other ways of remediating soil around the trees without taking them down.

“I am just devastated to hear this news about the iconic trees at Longfellow,” Richards said upon learning of the district’s decision. “Because a second attempt with a qualified arborist experienced in doing this work was never pursued, I don’t accept the claim that there is no possible other solution but a chainsaw.”

Over the summer break, PUSD cut down more than 100 trees across several sites as part of a soil remediation project started after post-Eaton fire soil testing revealed contamination. The district could only conduct tree removals while students were off campus, so when students returned in August, the work halted.

However, at Longfellow students will be at a temporary school site this year to allow for campus modernization work. This allowed PUSD to move forward with removals. Since the Aug. 31 announcement about Longfellow tree removals, a group of protesters has shown up on campus and at Board of Education meeting attempting to save the trees.

Protesters gathered at the campus Monday morning to witness the start of the removals. They hung up a sign in front of the school facing Washington Boulevard that read, “Tree Killers.”