Paradise Lost : 50 Schabarum Park Trees Chopped Down to Put Up a Parking Lot

They’re not exactly paving over paradise to put up a parking lot, but singer Joni Mitchell probably could still craft a ballad about it.

In a week that marked the 21st anniversary of Earth Day, Los Angeles County officials chopped down 50 eucalyptus trees to make room for additional parking in Schabarum Regional Park.

The parking spaces--about one for each of the aromatic evergreens--will support a $1-million sports complex being built on the county-owned parkland between Hacienda Heights and Rowland Heights.

“They just can’t do this,” complained Lorene Awalt, 59, a neighbor who protested to county officials after spotting the fallen timber Tuesday during a morning walk. “We need all the trees we can get.”

Even the crew hired to do the chopping seemed somewhat embarrassed by the timing.

“I’m an Earth-lover, too,” said Rod Ross, 22, whose Corona-based landscaping company was hired for the job. “We’re just doing what the boss says.”

Officials for the county Department of Parks and Recreation said they regretted cutting the trees, but contended that the impact on the environment would be negligible.

The park’s eucalyptuses, grown from seedlings six to eight years ago, still form large groves filled with hundreds of trees throughout the 583-acre facility, they said.

“It’s unfortunate to be removing the trees,” said Ronald Gagnon, a county facilities planner who is overseeing the project. “It certainly would have been nice to schedule it some other time. But the job has to be done.”

To be sure, the eucalyptus is not the crowning glory of the California wilderness. Imported from Australia in the mid-19th Century, these members of the myrtle family were planted mainly to soak up swampland, serve as windbreaks and provide wood for railroad ties.

Although the eucalyptus today is widely considered a pillar of the state’s landscape, some arboreal purists worry that the fast-reproducing tree poses a threat to less-resilient native flora.

“I would be moved to greater tears for virtually any indigenous species,” said John Rodman, a professor of environmental studies at Pitzer College in Claremont and director of its arboretum. “I am less moved to tears for a eucalyptus.”

Still, even those not enamored of the eucalyptus say it’s a matter of principle.

“Quite frankly, they were not very good specimens . . . kind of scraggly,” said Wil Baca, an environmental activist in Hacienda Heights. “But if it’s going to be a park, it should be a park--not a parking lot.”

The trees that were cut lined the main road inside the park, just off Colima Road.

On a hillside above, contractors are busy grading to make room for four soccer fields and another 200 parking spaces on about 18 acres of undeveloped land.

The project, which was adopted as part of the county’s Master Plan in 1989 and approved by the Board of Supervisors just two months ago, is expected to be completed sometime in July, officials said.

“The county will go back and re-landscape and certainly put many more additional trees in,” said Jim Park, chief of planning for the Parks and Recreation department. “The net result is going to be on the positive side.”

In the meantime, those who have sought peace amid the park’s leafy interior have been met by the buzz of chain saws.

“This is ridiculous,” said Tom Briskorn, 27, of Diamond Bar, as he tried to doze off during his lunch break the other day. “I thought the whole idea for a park was to have trees in it.”