Let's Go Camping in the Great Trinity Forest! After They Plant Trees.

By Robert Wilonsky Tue., Aug. 19 2008 at 9:05 AM

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A small pond hidden in the midst of the Great Trinity Forest

This morning's meeting of the city council's Trinity River Corridor Project Committee looks interesting all the way around: They're talking Trinity River Park Design Guidelines (which we covered here and here), the Gateway Projects in the Trinity River Corridor (which deals with upgrading parks and even some neighborhoods along the Trinity) and the Great Trinity Management Plan. The latter document's an interesting read this morning, as it plainly states right there on Page 5: "THE FOREST NEEDS OUR HELP!" Which is what Schutze said earlier this spring. But, why come?

Well, first off: "Only about 60-70 large trees are scattered throughout the 6,000 acres"; the Great Trinity Forest is filled mostly with "small diameter, low quality trees that do not support wildlife or allow recreational activities." That means a major planting is in order, and it'll be a drawn-out process: 40 acres a year for the next 25 years. Which is important, because the city today will also discuss the creation of a campground at Roosevelt Heights. As in: "The campground could contain 288 sites for recreational vehicles (RV), 60 sites for tents, and an area suitable for large groups to camp." Only, it'll cost about $13 million, at minimum, And isn't funded for now, which totally screws up our weekend plans. --Robert Wilonsky

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Everyone submitted very negative comments. This surprises me greatly because if you were concerned about the forest you would be offering ideas to improve it. Instead I feel like most of you are enjoying the fact that you can pick away at the idea rather than improve it. Criticism and critics do nothin but destroy. If you want to be a builder/creator add some positive imput or be quiet. I would like to see some of you embrace life instead of feeling satisfied picking away at it. Dont be a cannibal.
You people don't have the sense that God gave a bastard rat. For years the big Dallas Metroplex has been dumping on and polluting the The Trinity River...causing sections to be closed due to harmful chemicals that you have sent down stream. Where do you think your toilets lead to? Let me remind you whom are old enough of the DDT Spills. Have any of you been to Trinity Bay in this century? It is about time someone came up with a plan to do something useful with the areas around the river instead of it being a dump, or a spawing ground for more meth labs,three eyed toads, and crack babies. Forest Watcher dosn't want rows of trees, he likes the natural look of abandoned cars and cigarette butts. Sounds to me like he needs to volunteer for the herbicide and planting crew since he is a professional forester. Wake up Dallas, this is your chance to shine because the Cowboys have not in a while!
Rico, watch out...cottonwoods and hackberries are not on the Dallas protected trees list. They'll be the first to be hit with the herbicide, no matter how big they are. The buckeyes? Do you really think the guy on the end of that hose will know what a buckeye looks like? I love it, a forest of oak saplings imported from Alabama, all in a row...
Hike the Buckeye Trail and the Scenic Overlook Trail from the trailhead at Bexar Street and then tell me its not a forest, and a great one at that. There are hundreds, if not thousands of mature, majestic Pecans, Elms, Cottonwoods, Oaks, Hackberrys, etc., not to mention the Buckeyes.
Hmmm.... this confirms what I saw over the weekend. Flying back from Austin, on approach to Love Field, we were flying parallel to the Trinity River for several miles. I saw the new Audubon Center, the entrance road to which is located in the midst of what appeared (from the air) to be a bunch of junk yards. Although there were certainly a bunch of trees located on a couple of sides of the Audubon Center, I wasn't able to see anything remotely resembling "a great forest" anywhere I guess this is more Dallas marketing spin, huh?
Ah, you have six fingers on your right hand-- someone was looking for you.
Maybe they are going to turn it into the Fire Forest and have rodents of unusual size.
When I first planted the Great Trinity Grove at the beginning of time it did well and prospered. From the evidence I've been able to gather criss-crossing the Great Trinity Forest every day since then in order to lead my starving immigrant neighbors to the choicest pecan falls before the wild pigs can get them, it has been the massive influx of non-Texans from the North over the years that has led to the demise of the great trees and their replacement by inferior scrub species and invasive landscaping refugees from the big box hardware stores. The best remedy for the Great Trinity Forest is to fence it off entirely from the inferior demographic mix of non-Texans now overrunning Dallas and to turn it over to me for preservation. I in turn will continue to roam it for the remainder of time, sharing the tales of my ancestors with the great trees while replanting them from their nuts and acorns for my future enjoyment.
We used to camp in Big Lake Park in Plano all the time when I was in high school. Early in the morning we'd used the public library bathrooms to bathe in. No joke.
Why do they keep pretending? They WON their election -- they can now officially do anything they want. So let's get going on that big river bottom tollway already! Don't even bother with that park lip service bullshit, nobody believes it and you aren't even vaguely obligated to do it. You know, I'm kind of looking forward to seeing this tollway started. I'm curious just how far they get before it becomes obvious to even the most obtuse supporter realizes it just won't work.
I think they are trying to attract the elusive chupacabra...
Are they kidding!? Who is going to camp there!?
They're talking about using herbicides and fire ("the most natural site preparation method") to wipe out the "undesirable" trees, replanting with larger trees, and then expecting a "high mortality" of those trees. And they expect to pay for this partly by selling carbon credits from the new "forest?" Wow.
Prediction: a few years from not, Mayor Wilonsky will lose the battle of keeping the 'nearly-great Trinity Forrest' to land development interests on the City Council who want the land for a Skee Ball Park that will be linked by light rail to the convention center, convention center hotel, and city owned video arcade & massage parlor, a building once known as American Airlines Center. Other residents of Dallas were contacted for comments but neither of them were available.
Why do they insist on calling it a forest when it obviously isn't one?
40 acres for 25 years is only 1000 acres. What about the other 5000 acres? But this is all silliness. We know how stressful the Texas summer is on trees. We are best off with what is there. What kind of wildlife are they playing to support? I assume birds and squirrels are already there.
Forty acres a year for 25 years? Can you say, "never gonna happen". This will be the first item cut from the budget ever year there is a budget deficit.
So, really, it's the Mediocre Trinity Forest.