While the Jurupa Oak is ancient, it’s no feeble thing. Living in Riverside County, California, the tree has beat the dry heat by growing with it as it proliferates after being touched by wildfires. But the organism—which withstood the Ice Age—stands to be impacted by something more pedestrian: a developer by the name of Richland Communities.
The real-estate investment company is seeking to build out a large structure that includes 1,700 residential properties as well as an industrial project and school, reports TheWashington Post. The potential plan would be only steps (or 250 feet) from the tree, according to local station KVCR. Planning commissioners have postponed voting on the proposal until July 24 which will then send the project into the hands of City Council.
The Jurupa Oak might look like a cluster of bushes, but it’s really one living thing connected under the soil. The tree has since gone on to become one of the oldest organisms in the world at what National Geographic projected to be 13,000 years old. Other estimates clock the self-cloning tree as up to 18,000 years old.
Some conservationists are trying to pump the brakes on Richland Communities for fear of the tree potentially being damaged by the new development. The concrete foundation of the building standing so close to the tree’s roots could create a warming effect that makes the area surrounding the tree around three times hotter, former environmental professor Dr. Tim Krantz told KVCR. Richland Communities did not respond to requests for comment.
“If you took a thermometer out there today…I guarantee you, it’s gonna read more than 150 degrees, maybe 160,” said Krantz. “You could crack an egg and fry it on that. You times 2.7 million square feet of that. And that’s going to literally cook everything around it.” And it’s shocking that the tree is even still sprouting where it is, as the Post notes that the Oak is “growing far outside its normal zone.”
Environmentalists told the outlet that there might be an underground water supply or specific microclimate that is bolstering the rare tree. There’s no way to confirm this publicly as the planning commission of Jurupa Valley cannot release the location of the tree because it is sacred to Native Americans in the area. But if the conservationists are right, the new development could potentially impact or impede this water supply.
Richland Communities says it has plans in place to protect the tree, as the Post notes that they promised to give the surrounding land to a nonprofit to manage it. They’ve also “tentatively agreed to hand over the Oak tree’s conservation duties to the Kizh Nation—Gabrieleño Band of Mission Indians,” according to KCVR. Kizh Nation—Gabrieleño Band of Mission Indians did not respond to requests for comment.
But many advocates don’t see this as nearly enough to ensure the livelihood of the sacred tree.
“From the beginning we’ve been opposed to this development,” Matthew Teutimez, a tribal biologist, told the L.A Times in 2023. “It’s not just the oak—we’re concerned about that whole landscape of hill complexes that have been used for ceremonial purposes for thousands of years.”
The backlash to the plan means that public hearings were extended until this past Wednesday.
“We have discovered a treasure on the world stage here in our humble city,” Jenny Iyer, Jurupa Valley resident, said to the Post. “Will one of the oldest living beings on the planet die just because Jurupa Valley OKs industrial and business parks next to it?”