Board to hear appeal on olive trees

Beth Slovic

Thursday, Aug. 12, 2004 | 11:11 a.m.

Nearly 50 olive trees facing the chopping block because they appear to be an illegal, pollinating variety may live to see at least another spring, following an appeal by the agencies responsible for the trees to the Clark County Department of Air Quality Management, which in May ordered the trees removed.

Representatives of the Clark County School District and Las Vegas' Public Works Department are asking the Clark County Air Pollution Control Hearing Board for more time to determine just how much pollen the 27 olive trees around Leavitt Middle School and the 22 trees along Alta Drive produce at their April peak.

The air quality board was to hear the appeal this afternoon. Officials of the board declined to comment on the issue before the hearing.

Only non-pollinating and low-pollinating olive trees from growers certified by Clark County are permitted in the county, where concern for residents' springtime allergies led the health district to ban the high-pollinating common variety, the olea europaea, several years before the trees in question were planted.

Both sets of trees have produced olives, indicating to county officials the trees may be the wrong kind. Meanwhile, the school district and the city have receipts showing the trees they purchased are the wilsonii variety, an approved strain.

Neither the school district nor the city purchased their trees from county certified nurseries. Still, they question the appropriateness of a regulation that exempts only certain nurseries selling the correct trees, calling it confusing. Instead, the county should simply exempt the approved varieties, they contend.

Removing the trees and replacing them with new ones may prove costly and unnecessary, the representatives of the school district and the city said. Both agencies estimate it would cost about $2,000 to remove and replace each tree.

And it is not clear that the trees are violating the health district's regulation, they added, suggesting the trees may have produced fruit by cross-pollinating with older olive trees in the area not subject to the 1991 regulation.

Also, no one has ever measured exactly how much pollen these trees spew into the air every spring. The low-pollinating varieties are supposed to release less than 15 percent of the pollen released by the banned olive tree.

When Leavitt Middle School was built in 2001, 33 olive trees that were supposed to be the non-pollinating, non-olive-producing variety called wilsonii were planted around the school to appease neighbors who had been opposed to the school's construction in the first place, said Alan Paulson, a landscaping and grounds coordinator for the school district.

Six trees already have been removed because students were using the olives' juice to write graffiti on the school's walls, Paulson said.

The trees were meant to provide an attractive shield around the school to benefit neighbors who had complained about the school's location.

In addition to being relatively fast-growing, olive trees are resistant to heat and drought. But they also trigger severe allergic reactions in thousands of Las Vegas Valley residents.

David Turner, who lives near Leavitt Middle School on Quadrel Street and who also owns a desert landscaping nursery, first alerted the county to the existence of the school's questionable trees. Later, when he noticed similar-looking trees on Alta Drive between Rancho Drive and Valley View Boulevard, he again called the county to complain.

Turner, whose wife and daughter suffer from pollen allergies, would like to see the trees removed as soon as possible. But he doesn't want residents to have to pay for the project. He said the nursery that provided the trees should pay if the trees are ordered removed.

"Why don't they just go back to the people who put them in and tell them to take them out?" Turner asked, referring to the contractors who planted the trees, the broker who provided them and the nursery that grew them. "It wouldn't cost taxpayers a thing."

But the school district is still not sure removal is necessary. Paulson would like to give suppliers an opportunity to monitor the pollen levels next spring when the trees will be at their peak levels for pollen. Only then can the county determine scientifically whether the trees' pollen levels exceed county regulations, he said.

"If there's something to this, we should get rid of them," Paulson said. "In the meantime, I'd hate to lose some very attractive trees."

Lori Wohletz, an environmental officer for the city, said the county's efforts to remove the trees "makes no sense."

The trees the city planted along Alta Drive are the approved wilsonii olive, Wohletz said. The Swan Hill variety is also acceptable in Clark County, if it is sold by a certified business.

Right now, the school district and Las Vegas are asking for more time from the county to assess the situation.

"We just want the opportunity to prove 'yes' or prove 'no' that these trees comply with the standards," Chuck McQuerry, a coordinator for new construction with the school district, said.