Brown trees and shrubs ahead — entire sections of new I-5 HOV project landscaping are dead
It may be summer time but the living isn’t easy for new landscaping along Interstate 5 in Tacoma.
Most of it is dead.
Some of the final touches to the state Department of Transportation’s years-long, $1.4 billion HOV project through Tacoma was the addition of trees, shrubs and other plants.
It looks like much of it will need a do-over.
“During a recent site visit on I-5 between SR 16 and I-705, over half of the recently planted vegetation was found to be dead,” WSDOT said in a statement to The News Tribune Thursday in a response to queries regarding the dead plants.
Who will pay?
The year-old plantings are part of the contract with Atkinson Construction and it’s their responsibility to establish the plants during a 3-year-long period, WSDOT said.
“Replacement of the vegetation is not an additional cost to taxpayers or to the project,” WSDOT said.
Some of the vegetation dispersed along road sides, in medians and alongside ramps appears to be thriving. But they are in the minority.
“We are coming up on the one-year mark since the landscaping was installed and will be doing a walk-through of the area next month with our WSDOT region landscape architect,” WSDOT spokesperson Cara Mitchell told The News Tribune.
Eyesores
Just north of Delin Street, a row of dead trees line newly mulched slopes along I-5’s northbound lanes. Behind them, a retaining wall features 6-foot-tall graffiti. If the trees had lived, they would have blocked out the painted symbols.
The trees’ leaves are too brown and wrinkled to identify but WSDOT said the project includes a mix of native conifers including western red cedar, Douglas fir and incense cedar and the native broadleaf cascara.
Dead plants line the western and eastern sides of Interstate 5 between South 38th Street and Portland Avenue despite what appears to be a robust irrigation system. Crispy brown cedars greet southbound travelers as they exit on to South 38th Street from I-5.
The design build contract for the project included final landscaping for the I-5 corridor from the SR 16 interchange to the Port of Tacoma Road, WSDOT said.
What killed them?
“Increased temperatures and drought are creating stress on these species, which makes the irrigation and maintenance plan more important,” WSDOT said.
WSDOT said it will discuss irrigation fixes with Atkinson.
Highway plantings aren’t the only ones in trouble this summer. Less than a mile away from the WSDOT project, rows of newly planted trees flank the Kohl’s building at Tacoma Mall.
They are nearly all dead.
