Someone is cutting down the fledgling forest Rob Girvin and his son Kellen are planting at Tacoma’s Garfield Park.
The evidence of the vandals’ dirty work litters a footpath that runs alongside the northern edge of the soccer field: small shore pines hacked off at the base and seedling Douglas firs ripped out at the roots.
Who and why remain a mystery.
“It’s malicious. It’s targeted, and it’s really setting us back,” the elder Girvin said Monday while touring the devastation in the North End park near North Seventh Street and Borough Road.
He’s counted 26 damaged trees at the park in the last couple of weeks.
Metro Parks Tacoma went public with the vandalism Monday in an attempt to flush out who is destroying the trees – or at least scare them into stopping.
Parks officials ask anyone who spots someone tearing out vegetation in the park to contact police, who already have been contacted once about the vandalism.
“It’s really a shame,” said Mary Anderson, natural resources coordinator for Metro Parks Tacoma.
Girvin, a physician, and Kellen, a senior at Stadium High School, have spent hours of their free time in the park over the past six years tearing out blackberry brambles and planting native trees and shrubs in their place.
The goal, Girvin said, is to restore the park to something resembling its native state, where vine maples and Sitka spruce shade an understory rippling with Oregon grape.
Metro Parks has encouraged the Girvins and other volunteers in their efforts, Anderson said.
Restoring Garfield Gulch and other Tacoma open spaces to a more natural state is a goal of the agency, she said. They help reduce the amount of stormwater runoff reaching Commencement Bay and provide habitat for native wildlife.
“These natural areas we have, they serve a lot of functions,” Anderson said. “We can’t do it by ourselves. We count on volunteers like Rob and his son.”
Kellen Girvin, a member of his school’s environmental club, said he’s saddened that someone would try to undo his father’s and his efforts.
“I planted them. I nurtured them. It’s funny to say, but they’re like my babies,” he said of the trees he’s planted at the park. “It’s devastating to see them ripped out.”
There’s a plan to repair some of the damage later this week. Volunteers from DaVita will plant 50 conifers in the gulch.
And Rob Girvin said he and his son will continue their work at the park.
“We remain undaunted,” he said.
Adam Lynn: 253-597-8644
adam.lynn@thenewstribune.com
blog.thenewstribune.com/crime
Twitter: @TNTadam
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