You would almost think that the AmeriKan MSM doesn't want AmeriKans to know the country is falling apart!
"Ficus the root of problem in LA concrete jungle; Planted for shade, thriving trees damage sidewalks" by Nadja Brandt, Bloomberg News | July 2, 2008
LOS ANGELES - The bill is coming due for Los Angeles, decades after ficus trees were planted to supply shade for a city bathed in sunshine almost year-round.
The thrusting roots of mature ficus are tearing up sidewalks, triggering complaints and lawsuits.
Los Angeles budgeted $8.4 million in May toward mending 4,000 miles of damaged sidewalks, said Victoria Villa-Agustin, an analyst at the Bureau of Street Services. It paid about $415,000 to settle 99 claims involving tree mishaps from July 2007 through April 2008, according to documents provided by Frank Mateljan of the city attorney's office.
And who do you think paid for all that?
And who is responsible for the problem?
Developers lined neighborhood walkways with trees as they built houses to accommodate the burgeoning population of Los Angeles and its suburbs in the 1950s and '60s. They favored the Ficus microcarpa, whose broccoli-shaped crown can grow to more than 40 feet in diameter. Ficus roots can stretch as far as 90 feet from the trunk.
Oh, REAL ESTATE DEVELOPERS!!!
How shocking! Maybe they can PAY for the REPAIRS, huh?
In Anaheim, efforts to rein in growth of a ficus proved fatal for Michael Gandy, a resident of the town 25 miles south of Los Angeles. Gandy, 49, was killed last year when a 50-foot-tall ficus fell on his parked car.
His family alleged that the town had pruned the tree's roots, making it unstable. Anaheim agreed in February to pay Gandy's relatives $700,000 in an out-of-court settlement, said David Nunley, the city's claims manager.
Fixing tree-damaged sidewalks was a homeowner headache until the city government took responsibility under a 1973 ordinance. Los Angeles is asking private property owners to share the cost under the 50/50 Voluntary Sidewalk Reconstruction and Repair Program, started three years ago.
Is there ANYTHING the state can do right?
Yup, they TAKE IT OVER then want YOU to PAY ANYWAY!
All they ever do is TAKE, TAKE, TAKE!
The Ficus microcarpa, also known as Chinese banyan or laurel fig, is related to smaller ficus varieties that are potted for use indoors or on patios. It represents about 9 percent of the trees along Los Angeles's streets, while palms are the most common, said Ronald Lorenzen, the city's assistant chief forester. Chinese flame goldenrains, American sweet gums, and Chinese elms also are prevalent.
The ficus, an evergreen native to Southeast Asia, does more than shield against the sun.
"Give a big ficus a chance and it will clean the air, even if it tears up the sidewalk in the process," Pieter Severynen, an arborist and landscape architect with North East Trees, a nonprofit environmental group in Los Angeles, said.--MORE--"
Then WHY AIN'T THEY DOIN' IT?
And why does L.A. have a SMOG PROBLEM?
Meanwhile....
"Smoke from wildfires clogs valley, boosts breathing problems; New evacuations ordered in Calif." by Garance Burke, Associated Press | July 2, 2008
FRESNO, Calif. - California's raging wildfires have created a smoky haze so stifling that doctors in the state's landlocked farm country say their waiting rooms have been crowding with patients struggling to breathe.
Even without the blazes, the farming towns and subdivisions dotting the long, flat San Joaquin Valley are typically shrouded in a layer of smog during the summer. But airborne ash from the hundreds of lightning-sparked fires caused a spike in air pollution during the weekend.
"I went and bought a mask because my lungs were not happy with me," said Shawn Ferreria, a senior air quality specialist for the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District.
As if it is HIS FAULT the fires are burning!
Talk about INCULCATING an AGENDA!!!
Why don't you just KILL YOURSELF, buddy, and SAVE US the OXYGEN and reduce your CARBON FOOT PRINT!
"What we are experiencing is way out of historical norms. I thought if I'm going to continue riding my bike to work, I better take an extra measure."
Really? Hm. Healing With HAARP are we?
Hundreds of firefighters were working overtime yesterday to beat back blazes burning from the western edge of the Sierra Nevada to coastal mountains near Big Sur, where authorities enforced new mandatory evacuations along a roughly 15-mile stretch of Highway 1.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger deployed 200 National Guard troops to fire lines yesterday to relieve weary crews, US Forest Service officials said.
Officials had hoped a fog bank along the Northern California coast would aid firefighting efforts, but the moisture did not extend inland, said Brian Tentinger, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Monterey.
Even as crews made headway against some of the worst blazes, air district officials in the Central Valley grew concerned that wind patterns would send more smoke billowing into the valley, which is bordered on three sides by mountains.
Once the tiny particles of soot - which are blamed for causing asthma and other respiratory problems - reach the valley, they're sealed in under a layer of warm air created by hot summer temperatures.
"Our waiting rooms are full of people with sore throats, itchy eyes, and sniffles," said Kevin Hamilton, a respiratory therapist with Sequoia Community Health Center in Fresno. "
In the Bay Area, a thin haze blanketed skyscrapers in downtown San Francisco, but local officials said pollution levels had finally returned to normal levels.
In the Big Sur region of Los Padres National Forest, about 200 people were ordered to evacuate yesterday, and evacuation orders remained in place for occupants of at least 75 homes who were forced to leave the region last week.
Endangered condors also sought to avoid the thick smoke by hunkering in cliffs along the Pacific Ocean.
At Tassajara Zen Mountain Training Center, a monastery in nearby Carmel Valley, students and volunteers stretched sprinklers atop buildings in case embers started falling.
"Air quality is the wrong word. There is no quality," said Chris Slymon, who monitors the monastery's closest phone from a crossroads at Jamesburg about 10 miles away.--MORE--"
What (cough, sniffle, weeze) the (cough, sniffle, weeze) he... (cough, cough, cough).
Trillions for wars, billions for banks and Israel, etc, etc....
