by Bud Sparhawk

* * * *

The trouble with long range plans is that a stage that lasts a long time doesn’t feel like a stage....

Gus stepped off the plane into the bitter wind blowing across the plains from Canada. Three inches of new snow lay white on the unplowed tarmac while wispy snakes of meandering snowdrift ran across the cleared landing strip. Off in the distance something sparkled in the sunlight.

“Glad you could make it, Gus,” a thickly clad man with a colorful scarf wrapped around his neck said as he stuck out a gloved hand. “I’m Phil, Phil Metler.”

“Is it always this cold?” Gus answered. The Lands’ End parka he’d brought obviously wasn’t sufficient to ward off the chill. Even the wool sweater he wore beneath it provided scant warmth as they walked across the pad to the terminal building.

“Only for the winter months,” came the reply. Gus hoped it was a joke. “Actually, they have a decent spring and hot summer up here,” his welcome committee of one answered. “Last year summer came on a weekend, which was nice.”

Gus had Phil pegged—a jokester. Well, maybe that was his way of keeping the depression of a cold winter at bay.

The interior of the terminal, a loose term for the small cinder block building with two and a half small rooms that served as office, operations, waiting room, booking desk, and rental car agency. Neither of the two workers looked up from their card game as they passed through to the parking lot.

“We’re going out to the remediation site from here,” Phil said as they climbed into the car. “It’s not far.” Once they left the airport the road appeared to run arrow straight through unrelieved treeless miles toward a distant vanishing point. They turned off after only five miles.

“This used to be a dump site,” Phil remarked as they got out of the car. “Tell you more about that later. Down below there’s nearly ten million tons of compacted trash from the nauoughts-teens in one huge clay cell.”

“Seems a strange place to have dumped waste.,” Gus remarked. There was no nearby municipality or any city worth the name within eight hundred kilometers.

Phil chuckled. “State figured there was nothing out here to worry about. No residents that might object to a waste dump, no zoning commissions to tie them up in red tape, and no freaking Greens objecting to despoiling nature.”

“I know how that is,” Gus repliedGus had several encounters with the Greens before.

“Anyhow,” Phil went on, “The state figured that they could make a bit of change by dumping waste up here for a fee.”

“I can’t see how that would work. The cost of transport would outweigh any savings.”

“Not when the state owns the land,” Phil shot back. “The only real cost was transporting the waste way the devil up to this god-forsaken place. The rates they offered were so low that four surrounding states supplied their own trucks and drivers. They had so much participation that they filled one of these cells each year.”

Gus whistled. Filling most of the big city dumps took longer than that. “They must have had a stampede to get that much waste so quickly.”

“It wasn’t just the low cost, you understand.,” Phil continued. “Environmental and NIMBY considerations drove most of the decisions back then. Voters would rather pay for the gas than have a dump in their back yard.”

The sparkling Gus had noticed from the tarmac turned out to be a maze of shining pipes sticking out of the ground. Three meters or so separated each rod from its neighbor. At the top of each rod dozens of smaller tubes connected to even smaller ones splayed out. The overall effect was like nothing more than a silver Christmas tree.

This was not quite what Gus had expected. He’d thought there would be a dozen or so rigs dotted around the landscape, not this glittering metallic forest. All it needed to complete a cheery holiday scene were a few Christmas balls and tinsel ropes.

“This is our newest application of an old idea,” Phil said as he led the way through the maze to an instrument rack. “Thought we’d try to improve it with some new twists.” He swept his hand to encompass the nearest array. “This setup is to see if our improved conical configuration allows for better dispersal of the vapor.”

“I remember reading about this and why it wouldn’t work—something about hydrostatic pressure limits?” Actually, he’d read that on the plane in an old article he’d pulled up.

“Yeah, that used to be a problem, but with the new tech we can push those pipes down past the old thirty-meter limit.” Phil unlocked the panel and looked at a screen. “That means they can reach the liquor at the base of even the deepest cell.”

Gus started. The best depth he could get out of his genetically modified worker trees’ tap roots was a mere ten meters.

“We’ve packed hundreds of hydrogel straws into each pipe to draw liquids by microcapillary action—just like tree roots, but better.” He pointed at the flat flanges at the tips of the nearest array. “That’s where the sunlight breaks down the evaporate. It’s the same principle that tree leaves employ.”

“I understand the theory of imitating natural processes, but is it as efficient as planting genetically modified trees and shrubs and letting Momma Nature do her thing? It certainly can’t be cheaper.” Nor, he added to himself, as pleasing to the eye.

Phil clicked a query and was rewarded with columnar table of figures. “Maybe in the short term. I think this sort of installation, once perfected, will replace the natural phytoremediation processes; that is, if we can improve our production levels. The best output we’ve achieved so far is only a fraction of that produced by traditional methods, not that we could ever use traditional methods out here.” He laughed as he encompassed the sere landscape with a sweep of his arm.

Gus scanned the treeless plain. Phil was right. Given the long winter, the poor soil, and limited daylight hours, there was no way his thirsty trees could ever grow here.

“We need people who can figure out the best ways to get this tech in operation,” .” Phil continuedpointed to the west. “This pilot installation just covers one cell. Over there,” he pointed to the west, “we’ve got another four cells for future projects.”

Gus glanced at the table on the screen, curious despite his aversion to this technology. “What sort of production did you say you’re getting?”

Phil checked. “Latest results show we’ve been getting about five liters a day per array. Not much, but with better distribution and improved design we hope to double that.”

“One mature tree evaporates nearly a hundred liters per day through its leaves,” Gus bragged. “My oaks get a little less and the willows and elms a bit more. I don’t think that this stuff would be useful anywhere but here, where trees won’t grow.”

“How much do your trees evaporate in the winter, after the leaves fall?” Phil asked with seeming innocence. “These arrays won’t depend on warm seasons. They’ll be producing twenty-four-seven, twelve months a year. I’ll bet when we get this perfected we’ll see the total output is pretty close to a mature tree, if not better.”

Gus had to admit that Phil was probably right, and considering that it would take an act of God Almighty to grow a productive tree in some environments, these metal arrays might be a more efficient alternative.

“Let me show you around and explain some of the other projects,” Phil offered. “We can start with the hydrostatic pumps.”

* * * *

Phil made his pitch two hours later, as they were driving back to the airport. “We’re building a really strong technical team to work on the distribution and spacing issues. We techs could really benefit from some practical field experience.”

“Who’d want to live around here?” Gus answered. Life on the treeless prairie was not something he would relish, even if this unnatural project held any interest for him.

Phil grinned. “Don’t blame you for that, but this is just a god-forsaken test site. We’re working down south in warm and civilized San Antonio.”

It didn’t matter. These cold metal skeletons could never replace the trees in his heart.

* * * *

Gus and Daisy walked among the trees in the early morning, when the early autumn sun tinged the leaves yellow-gold and dappled red. All around them birds chirped their territorial messages, insects chattered incessantly, and a slight breeze stirred the air. This was a mature wood, far different from the few straggly saplings planted among the fresh stumps he recalled from so many years before.

“I walk here nearly every morning,” Daisy remarked. “I’ve always loved the sight and smell of this place.”

Gus sniffed and pointed at the detritus that lay thick upon the ground, covering the mosses and crow’s feet with faded, decomposing leaves. “The smell comes from the decaying vegetation.”

“Always the practical one, weren’t you?” she sighed. “It’s part of the endless cycle of death and renewal. That is, if renewal will be possible now.”

That combination of poetic reverie and biting criticism was unlike the Daisy he recalled from college. The environmentally aware young girl he once romanced might have become a fierce preservationist, but beneath that facade he recognized the same smile, tinkling laugh, and fierce temper that he’d loved long ago when they were in college and the world was theirs for the making.

They parted when he graduated and had to relocate for his new job. She, with graduate school still before her, had elected to stay. Their relationship must have been just one of those college romances because, despite their promises to remain in daily contact, the phone calls and emails gradually became less frequent. Eventually they stopped completely.

He couldn’t recall who had stopped first, or when he noticed.

* * * *

A group of protestors were huddled near an old valve assembly connected to a rusting pipeline, the relic of an earlier time when they were still recovering methane. “Save the woodland,” one of their banners read. “Value nature, not profits,” read another, flanked by “Protect our children’s heritage,” and “Save the Park.”

Since his arrival he’d received angry telephone calls and even had a few hostile encounters with a fairly vocal group who were all about “preserving the woods from exploitation.” Even some of the sympathetic local council members had tried to invoke eminent domain to prevent the “rape of the landscape,” as one angry member had termed it. Fortunately, taking over private property went against the grain of the rest of the council.

“We tried to have them rezone the property,” Daisy admitted as they walked by. “That effort failed when your company’s lawyers threatened an expensive court action.”

“I understand that the council opposed the rezoning effort,” Gus replied. “I suspect they realized the benefits the town would get from having the mine.”

Daisy sneered. “Yeah, that argument and a generous contribution to the local school fund managed to stop our initiative cold.”

So long as the protestors didn’t directly interfere with his survey, they weren’t his concern. Still, he’d heard that some of the Greens could get physical, but that didn’t look likely considering the preponderance of gray hair in the crowd. Retirees with little else to do, he suspected and wondered why the students weren’t among them, as he and Daisy would have been. That was when protecting the environment had emotional import to their idealistic hearts and the Greens were the wave of a pure future.

“Lots of people don’t want to lose this,” she said. “Can’t say I disagree with them; chopping down the forest is not very popular in this town. Everybody loves our little preserve.”

Those sentiments were something she’d made clear immediately the first night. Although they had been more than friends before, they were now just temporarily acquaintances, reduced to talking about the past, mutual friends, and catching up with the past fifteen years. Still, there were indications—a touch of the hand, a smile, a reference to a shared intimacy—that signaled that the fire of their past relationship was not completely extinguished.

Gus spread his arms. “I’m not going to chop down the forest, Daisy. All I’ve been asked to do is make a report on the condition of the site. Other people will decide whether or not to harvest the trees.”

Daisy snorted. “That’s a poor excuse! Just following orders won’t absolve you of guilt. Your company’s plans have sparked a lot of local protest. Saving this patch of greenery is the predominant issue of our local blogosphere.”

“I won’t feel guilty,” he continued shot back with some heat. “Nobody’s going to change anything by protesting. Oh, it might delay it another year or two, but the fact that this place needs to be exploited is inevitable. What does it matter if the forest is cut down this year or the next? They’ll restore the woods when they finish mining.”

“Sure, in a decade or more and if they follow the original plan,” she said. “Our concerns are for the people living here now, not what might happen in some far future after we’re all dead and gone.” She looked up as if she were trying to peer into his soul. “What happened to you, Gus? At one time you’d have been out here, carrying a placard and raring for a fight if it would stop the harvesting. Why did you change? When did you lose your ideals?”

“I didn’t change,” Gus answered angrily. “I became an engineer whose job is just one link in the century-long project to get rid of the trash of the last century.”

Daisy shook her head sadly. “But objectives change, just like people. We’ve grown to love this little patch of greenery as it is, Gus. You’d see that if you had any skin in the game.”

Gus stopped at a large poplar that stretched tall and lean, that might have been a candidate for a ship’s mast in an earlier age. The lowest limbs appeared five meters above his head and extended barely two to either side. The bark was peeling from most of them. “I’ll have to core this one. Looks like it’s dying,” he added absently as he unpacked his tools.

“Isn’t there anything we can do to save it?” Daisy asked, her voice quivering slightly.

Gus snorted and scanned the tree’s barcode. “Twenty-eight years old—that would make it a second-generation planting. It’s probably outlived its usefulness, like that rotting lump over there. It looks like it might have been a maple tree from when they used shallow-rooted, natural species.”

Daisy brushed fallen leaves away from the reddish pile. When she picked up a piece, it broke apart in her fingers. “I remember us picnicking on this stump.”

Gus started, surprised that she would remember some small thing after all these years. “Takes a while for tree stumps to decay.” He thought about those college picnics as he selected a coring drill. Those were great times.

“Won’t be any stump left from this one, though,” he continued as he twisted the drill into the trunk. “The contractors will probably pulp everything—trunk, roots, and limbs—when they cut it down.”

Daisy stood and brushed her hands to rid them of the residue. Was she regretting those afternoon interludes? “That’s typical behavior for an exploiter, isn’t it? They don’t give a damn about destroying this lovely, natural place just to follow a plan laid down long ago.”

“Natural?” Gus replied as he pulled the core sample and examined its tip. “You know very well that this forest isn’t natural.” He swept an arm around to encompass the entire wood. “If it were, the trees wouldn’t grow in a rough grid and there wouldn’t be just these few species around.”

“The town understands this is an engineered forest, Gus. That’s not the point now. Nobody cares how this started, only what we have now. We’ve come to love this quiet, beautiful retreat from civilization. It’s an asset to the community.”

“There were lots of species here at one time,” Gus continued. “Those first-generation maples, pines, and firs were removed a few years before we started college. You mentioned the stumps we used for picnics. Those original trees were cut down so they could plant these modified worker trees. It’s all part of the long-term remediation program.”

“I still don’t think it’s worth removing all of these trees even if they have been ‘engineered.’ They could easily replace these with more appropriate trees. It wouldn’t cost that much and would improve the park a lot.”

“Has everyone forgotten,” he continued, “That that these trees are just temporary? The owners never saw them as more than an interim step toward restoration.”

“Whatever happened to the guy who used to protest about preserving the environment?” she asked. “Don’t you care about what they’re going to do to the environment now, for God’s sake?”

Gus shook his head. It was just like Daisy to change the subject when he’d backed her into a corner. “I don’t get sentimental about worker trees. They’re designed to die quicker than normal, and without anyone’s help. Look there.” He showed her soft, dark paste at the tip of the core sample. “This shows the core is already decayed. I wouldn’t be surprised if most of these poplars are pretty much the same. I’ve also noticed a lot of woodpecker borings and owl and squirrel burrows.”

“Birds and squirrels?” Daisy replied. “What does that have to do with ...?”

“Animals don’t want to work hard to get a place to live,” he interrupted, glad that he had managed to surprise her by another sudden change of subject. “They’re opportunistic. They love to find a dying tree that provides openings where they can burrow.”

“I don’t see how that’s relevant to what we are talking about,” Daisy said in an attempt to get back on her argument’s track. “Why should the town sacrifice a beautiful forest just for the sake of an outdated project? The Gus I knew would have known the right thing to do.”

Gus stopped. “Are you asking me to report that it’s not the right time? You want me to say they should give it more time?”

“Yes,” Daisy said eagerly, giving him one of those smiles that used to melt his heart. “You see how everyone adores this place. It’s an asset to the community that no one wants to lose, not when the rest of the county is becoming increasingly urbanized. The only ones who support this are those who will profit.” She reached out and put her hand on his arm. “You do understand, don’t you?”

Gus chose his next words carefully, wondering about the promise in her closeness. “I understand your point of view, but my job is only to see if these trees are ready to be removed. The decision to cut isn’t mine.”

“But your recommendation is key to that decision. What you say matters, Gus.”

“No, Daisy, this was once the town dump, back when they stuffed garbage into the ground instead of recycling and reusing as we do today. Things were so bad that, when the dump was sealed, shrubs and trees were planted just to clean up the contaminated soil of surface pollutants.

“It took those initial scavenging plants nearly twenty years to do their job before they could be harvested for the metals they’d absorbed. After that they planted these worker trees. That was long before we were freshmen.”

He held up a hand when she started to object. “All of these genetically modified worker trees have tap roots that enable them to absorb garbage’s decomposition liquor along with the subsurface water being pumped down there. They, like the first-generation shrubs and trees, are elegant biological designs that deliver pollutants to the leaves. Then when the water evaporates, sunlight breaks down the complex molecules into something harmless.”

He picked up a yellow-brown leaf. “When they examined these during the growing season, it indicated that production had nearly ceased. That’s why they want me to do the final determination.”

Daisy smiled. “Well, if they’ve made the trash safe, then why do anything more? This town’s forested park is much more beneficial to the environment than a mine will ever be.” She smiled again. “We could even picnic here some day.”

He hesitated. That implied invitation held interesting possibilities. Perhaps the years hadn’t erased all of her feelings after all, just as this encounter was awakening his own.

“The pollution in this dump is why this site was never developed, Daisy. The soil was initially too dangerous to build anything or even use it as a playground. That’s why it was selected.

“Look, down below is compacted trash from the nineteen-sixties and seventies, which means it doesn’t contain much of the dangerous stuff that came with the computer revolution. Now that the project is in its last stages, the lead, mercury, trichloroethylene, or carbon tetrachloride levels are minimal. My company bought this site as a bet that it could dig up enough paper pulp, aluminum, glass, and steel to recycle so they can profit from sale of the improved land.”

Gus hoped he was reaching her, but she still looked unconvinced. “Mining the dump will finally get rid of the refuse once and for all. Better still, in the short term it will produce income and jobs for the town so, in the end, everybody wins.”

“But this nature preserve will be gone,” she added sadly. “The town would have lost something precious. There just aren’t that many places you can get away from the built environment.”

“As if these woods were any less.” Gus smiled. “You’ve got to take the long view, just like the founders of this project. It’s a different type of recycling than we fought for in college: Each pound of metal pulled out of here means that much less raw ore needs to be extracted and processed elsewhere. Each ton of paper recovered means that many more trees won’t need to be pulped. Even every ton of plastics recovered represents a savings in energy and transportation.”

“But look at the cost to the community,” she argued. “Is it worth the loss of playgrounds for our children, picnic areas for families, and places where old friends can take a quiet walk? Is the loss to society worth years of having an open mine, heavy trucks, and God knows what else?”

“Of course it’s worth the effort,” Gus replied evenly. “That’s what we’ve always been fighting for. That’s all I’ve been working for.”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t see it your way,” she said bitterly. “You’ll still have other projects, and the hell with the destruction and loss you leave behind!”

Gus had no response as she stalked away.

* * * *

“Still around?” Daisy asked as she towered over him at the pizza shack. “I thought you’d be gone by now.” Did he detect a note of regret in her voice, or was that wishful thinking?

“They company wantoffered me a promotions me to learn aboutlead a new technology group, something I saw in the Dakotas a few months ago,” Gus replied. “It’s a nice increase career move if I accept.,” Gus offered.

“It’s a fucking bribe!” Daisy exploded. “They’re only offering it so you’d recommend that it is all right to cut down the trees. Can’t you see that?”

Gus shrugged. “Nonsense. The offer won’t affect my professional assessment in the slightest. Just as it won’t be influenced by anybody else’s personal viewpoint.” He regretted the jibe the moment the words left his lips.

“No, no—it’s a bribe,” Daisy repeated with increasing certainty. “Gods, Gus, are you so blind you can’t see it? They need your recommendation so they can move ahead before we can get the political muscle to fight them.”

Now it was his turn to be angry. “I’m going to base my report on the facts, and only the facts.”

“That’s just a stupid engineer’s excuse,” she shot back.

Gus stood. “Listen, sweetheart, my report isn’t a political debate where emotional opinions should be considered.”

“So you say,” she answered and started to turn away. “But being an engineer also means taking responsibility for your actions. Don’t take the bribe, Gus. Think about what’s at stake, first.” Her voice caught on the last word.

Was she talking about the report or their renewed relationship? Was there an “if” in that request?

* * * *

All night Gus debated whether he should accept the position. Turning his back on the natural processes that had consumed so much of his life would be hard. As much as he saw those trees as useful instruments, he also loved their cool shadows and arches of greenery. He was like most people, where the sights and smells of a forest resonated deeply in his psyche, as if it were an instinctive call from the forests of his ancestry.

Perhaps that was the reason he so often softened the designs of trash-cell forests with aesthetic considerations, making the installations pleasant places during the years it took to clean the environment. The downside of those considerations was that it made people get attached to “their” woods, so much so that the preservationists never wanted it to change. It was easy to predict: people get attached to interim solutions and soon forget they are just that—interim. Taking the long view has never been a human trait.

His The aesthetic principles approach would disappear be lost when Phil’s new technology was perfectedused. Instead of leafy forests and shady glades they’d be installing arrays of shining metal, tightly packed row upon row with no refuge for deer or squirrel, dove or woodpecker, cricket or butterfly. There would be no place to picnic, no place to contemplate, no resting place for the human soul.

No place for two old friends to walk on a cool autumn morning and no place for two lonely people to have a quiet picnic.

So, which was the right choice? Should he help develop the technology to speed the decades-long remediation processes and lose his forests, or continue on the professional arc he had followed for years to free the Earth of its man-made pollution?

Was Daisy’s contention that this was a bribe correct? Was the offer a way of convincing him to finish the project so he could move on?

Even if she were right, did it matter? He thought long and hard about his choices, about his integrity, about Daisy, and about the part he had chosen so many years before. But mostly, he thought about the project and his role.

Daisy had once accused him of having no skin in the game, but she was wrong. His love for nature, the trees, and the environment were as strong as ever. But he also knew that the trees were a means, not an end, and his sentiments were as misguided as Daisy’s.

Remediation was the ultimate goal. The objective had always been to purify the wastes sufficiently to allow trash to be recycled so something wonderful could be created.

With that understanding he realized that everything he could do to speed that end was worth the effort so that, some day, new forests might emerge, forests that included a broad spectrum of species and were rich in diversity and wildlife. If he, and others like him, were successful then, some day, there would be completely natural forests where people could wander, play, picnic, and fall in love.

He pulled out his phone and called Daisy. “I’m accepting the offer,” he began. “I need to learn this new stuff.”

Daisy sounded less than thrilled. “I thought you already knew everything about phytoremediation technology.”

“Just part of it,” he said sadly, ignoring the implied insult. “Skill sets don’t last forever. Much as I love working with the trees I have to give them up.” When she didn’t answer, he added. “Do you think you’d like San Antonio?”

“Get serious, Gus. I’m secure where I am,” she answered. “I know my subject really well and better still, I’ve got tenure. That’s why I don’t want my town torn apart by this damn project.” There was a long pause before she added. “It was nice seeing you again. Maybe you’ll come back some day to see the dirt and filth you’ve caused.” In an earlier day he would have heard the phone slam down. As it was, there was only a click and a dial tonesilence.

He had lost more than his trees.

* * * *

Gus took a final walk though the woods to help clear his mind. The leaves were all gone now and soon winter would close its icy grip. If he let his report stand, then the leaves would never emerge and in the spring the sounds of bulldozers and cranes would fill the air instead of chirping frogs and singing birds. Exhaust fumes would replace the smell of emerging flowers.

As much as he regretted that he would never have that picnic with Daisy, he was buoyed by the thought that, once the project was complete and the site filled, something else would replace it—a nice park, perhaps, where the town’s children’s children could play.

As he left the woods for the last time he noticed Daisy standing among the protestors. He waved but got no acknowledgement. That was as it should be. Daisy was a part of his past and, just like the trees, no longer a part of his future.

He picked up his gear and walked away.