New trees for Flight 93
Decision-makers at Flight 93 National Memorial must not repeat the mistakes that have reportedly led to some trees' failure to thrive at key parts of the Shanksville-area memorial.
James Mealey, a landscape architect with the Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation, gave an unflattering assessment of the roots of the problem, as our Dave Sutor reported last week.
Mealey said during an online presentation: 'One of the things we found in our research and study of the initial development of the memorial is that one of the things that went wrong is that it was rushed – that there was this desire to get things built, get things in the ground to meet different sorts of deadlines, and to sort of just get the project done.'
Approximately 2,000 native deciduous trees were planted from 2012 to 2016 at the memorial's 40 Memorial Groves and its Allee walkway – a 30-acre landscape feature that defines the field where United Airlines Flight 93 crashed on Sept. 11, 2001, planted to honor the flight's 40 passengers and crew.
But as of 2020, about a quarter of those trees were in poor condition, dead or missing. And about 700 dead or declining trees were removed last year, Sutor reported.
Mealey listed some factors contributing to the problems – poor soil quality and the selection of tree species that struggled with the 'harsh conditions' at the former strip mine; a lack of irrigation; improper planting practices; and the memorial's constrained maintenance capacity.
The Olmsted center, the National Park Service and Penn State University are among the organizations now involved in the memorial's 'Resiliency Project' with the goals of understanding what went wrong and creating Memorial Groves and an Allee with healthy trees.
As Sutor reported, Mealey said project leaders are not going to repeat the mistake of rushing the revitalization. He laid out a 40-year timeline to establish a healthy and mature landscape.
• Steps already taken or underway include soil testing and the addition of new topsoil in some locations. A test grove has been planted to see which species do well, with swamp white oak and Kentucky coffeetree showing 'strong' performances.
• Project partners hope to finalize cultural landscape treatment and tree operations plans this year. Other goals are to enhance staff capacity, design and install irrigation systems, and continue soil improvements.
• The first phase of tree-replanting could begin by next spring. Mealey said the replanting process 'would take place over the next decade, maybe even into two decades.'
Flight 93 National Memorial's natural beauty is one of its most outstanding characteristics. Thanks in part to the reforestation effort at the former strip mine and acid mine drainage treatment that even predates Sept. 11, 2001, the tract has been transformed into an important habitat for wildlife and a destination for hundreds of thousands of visitors each year.
A couple years ago, Stephen Clark, superintendent of western Pennsylvania's NPS sites, said: 'So much of this memorial was not just bricks and mortar, but it was also to manage the landscape. … To transform this once-scarred landscape of a strip mine over generations to be a place of reflection and a natural space where people will visit – and will for many generations to come – it's extraordinary.'
That's one reason why the Resiliency Project is important. But the other, of course, is centered on the memorial's mission – to honor Flight 93's passengers and crew and to preserve the story for future generations.
Kristina Melgar, acting deputy superintendent for western Pennsylvania's national parks, put it this way: 'We are not going to give up on (the groves). … The groves are there, and what they're meant to do is represent on a large scale the sacrifice that these 40 heroes made that day, on 11 September 2001, which was the ultimate sacrifice.'
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