School District, Las Vegas told to rip out illegal olive trees

Thursday, May 20, 2004 | 9:55 a.m.

The Clark County Department of Air Quality Management has ordered Clark County School District and Las Vegas officials to remove dozens of what they say are illegal olive trees, officials said.

Twenty-one trees along Alta Drive between Rancho Drive and Valley View Boulevard and 33 trees at Leavitt Middle School on Lone Mountain Road will have to be removed because they produce more than acceptable level of pollen and are therefore hurting allergy sufferers.

Officials for both the city and the School District had ordered Wilsoni fruitless olive trees that are not supposed to produce pollen and had purchase orders to prove they had acted in good faith. Air quality officials, however, ruled that the trees were producing more pollen than allowed under county guidelines.

In 1990 Clark County officials banned European olive trees and fruitless mulberry trees in an effort to reduce the airborne pollen that triggers seasonal allergies for tens of thousands of residents. Engineered hybrids such as the Wilsoni tree were exempted from the ban.

Both the city and the School District have 10 days to to appeal the May 10 order or 30 days to remove the trees, Stacy Welling, the county air quality spokeswoman, said.

The city, which planted the trees as part of a beautification project on Alta Drive, plans to appeal the order, Debbie Ackerman, public information officer for the city's Public Works Department, said.

"We believe the correct trees were planted, the ones acceptable to plant," Ackerman said.

If the city loses the appeal and is forced to remove and replace the trees, it will cost an estimated $35,000, Public Works Director Richard Goecke said.

The city spent about $750,000 to landscape Alta Drive, Goecke said, and another $1 million to fix the roadway and upgrade the street lights. The trees were just a small part of that overall project.

The School District will comply with the order and has already removed six trees, Albert C. Jones, School District spokesman, said.

The district still plans to appeal the order in an effort to establish who will cover the cost of removing and replanting the trees, believing the landscaper may have planted the wrong trees by mistake. It will cost an estimated $2,000 to replace each tree.