Hatchets falling on cedars
In the Faulkner Award winning novel Snow Falling on Cedars, two children meet often to snuggle in a fallen cedar tree. If the dreams of local developers and Express-News columnist Ken Rodriguez come true, there will soon be zillions of such special places for kids.
Last week, the newspaper gave a boost to developers’ anti-cedar campaign with Rodriguez’s Friday column about the horrors of Ashe juniper trees and their pollen. Rodriguez quotes liberally from a misinformed allergist promoting his business.
He also says now is the time to get your shots, your pills, your nasal sprays. “Get started and dont stop until the (pollen) counts go down,” Ratner advises.
Rodriguez goes on to rail about what really ticks him off.
What really ticks me off about the juniper is its origin. Ratner, the allergist, says the tree is not native to Texas.
“One theory is that the railroads planted them here in the 1800s to prevent soil erosion,” Ratner says. “The other theory is that during cattle drives, the pollen got on the hoofs of cattle in Northern Mexico and they tracked it in.”
Of course, none of this is true. In fact, Ashe juniper trees have
… been in the Hill Country for at least 19,600 years and perhaps much longer.
according to Texas A&M researchers.
Forester Mark Peterson, not sneezing, under an Ashe juniper tree
Rodriguez forays deeper into his “erroneous zone” by quoting from the eminently inaccurate website of People Against Cedars.
“The juniper really has no redeeming value,” the People Against Cedars write on their Web site. “It is poor firewood, it is poor landscape plant, it is a poor source of food for native animals and it is poor wood for construction
I’ll leave this one to a better man than I, former regional forester Mark Peterson, who notes in his letter to the editor that:
Cedar is a source of food and shelter to nearly all Hill Country mammals and at least a dozen or so birds. They impede runoff on slopes, increasing percolation of rainfall.
Contrary to the People Against Cedars Web site, Juniperous ashei makes an excellent landscape plant. It never has to be watered, pruned or sprayed.
It is time for one of the foremost newspapers in the country to stop the continuing ignorance and madness.
For more about the war on cedar, see Ashe juniper and land development