Seattle using special radar to save trees
SEATTLE -- Move over, Dr. Seuss and The Lorax.
The city of Seattle is now speaking for the trees, and it's using the newest technology to do it -- a new tree radar.
Tree roots crack the sidewalks and crumble the street. And the thing about tree roots is they just keep on growing.
But if you cut out the roots to repair the road, you're probably going to kill the tree. So what do you do?
Seattle's answer: the tree radar.
It used to be if a tree root was digging up the sidewalk, you'd just dig up the root, killing the tree. But not anymore.
"They don't want to harm any of the existing roots because once you start getting into those, you can kill the tree," said Robert Schall of GEO Radar.
Now the radar will tell the city where those roots are before crews begin digging. Just point the big red box toward the ground, shoot, and the crews will know what's under the concrete pavement.
Schall says the gadget can tell you if it's a pipe, gravel, a tree root or something else entirely that's under that pavement.
"I found a Volkswagen Beetle buried," he said, "a body, basically .... and the amount of trash people bury is crazy."
But not everything they find is bad.
Search and rescue teams used the same radar device to find earthquake victims buried alive in Haiti.
"The pulsing of the radar - you could actually see the breath, the breathing. You could see the person's cavity moving," Schall said.
Seattle's already using the radar to save trees near construction sites, some of them hundreds of years old.
And there's already a line of engineers, landscapers, utility workers and road crews waiting to try it out.
The radar costs up to $70,000 but the city says that pales in comparison to the number of trees it can save.
The city of Seattle is now speaking for the trees, and it's using the newest technology to do it -- a new tree radar.
Tree roots crack the sidewalks and crumble the street. And the thing about tree roots is they just keep on growing.
But if you cut out the roots to repair the road, you're probably going to kill the tree. So what do you do?
Seattle's answer: the tree radar.
It used to be if a tree root was digging up the sidewalk, you'd just dig up the root, killing the tree. But not anymore.
"They don't want to harm any of the existing roots because once you start getting into those, you can kill the tree," said Robert Schall of GEO Radar.
Now the radar will tell the city where those roots are before crews begin digging. Just point the big red box toward the ground, shoot, and the crews will know what's under the concrete pavement.
Schall says the gadget can tell you if it's a pipe, gravel, a tree root or something else entirely that's under that pavement.
"I found a Volkswagen Beetle buried," he said, "a body, basically .... and the amount of trash people bury is crazy."
But not everything they find is bad.
Search and rescue teams used the same radar device to find earthquake victims buried alive in Haiti.
"The pulsing of the radar - you could actually see the breath, the breathing. You could see the person's cavity moving," Schall said.
Seattle's already using the radar to save trees near construction sites, some of them hundreds of years old.
And there's already a line of engineers, landscapers, utility workers and road crews waiting to try it out.
The radar costs up to $70,000 but the city says that pales in comparison to the number of trees it can save.