By MARK DEVOLDER
Los Alamos

Recently, I had an opportunity to look over the $5.5 million dollar “trail” running northward from Central. The wide concrete trail winds through some old-growth pine trees east of Bathtub Row. Given the size of the trees, I figure that they pre-date the Manhattan Project.

I began to wonder how the root system for the trees is going to collect water underneath the concrete trail.

In previous trips up to the Jemez Mountains, I have noticed pine trees along the road which were blown over by the wind. The exposed root ball on the trees is approximately 5 to 7 feet in diameter. If you look at the old-growth trees near the new trail, it would appear that a good portion of root systems are located underneath the concrete where there is limited availability of water. New Mexico has been experiencing increasingly dry weather and that does help the situation either. I have concerns that some portion of or entire old-growth pine trees will begin to die after a few years due to lack of moisture.

Providing some shallow trenches filled with gravel and/or perforated piping (the type used for septic tank leach fields) around the perimeter of the root balls might preserve some or all of the old trees. Of course, this means carefully locating and digging trenches under the new concrete trail.

Perhaps something has already been provided in the trail design to prevent the deterioration or death of the trees. If not, now might be a good time to make some modifications to the trail design.