This tree survived the last ice age. It’s now threatened by development

JURUPA VALLEY, CALIF. – At first glance, one of the world’s oldest living organisms doesn’t look like much – a collection of shrubs nestled atop a hill in a rocky gully. But those shrubs are just the crown of a giant, spreading oak tree, 90 feet long and 30 feet wide. Most of the tree is underground.

Estimated to be 13,000 to 18,000 years old, the tree – known as the Jurupa Oak – is older than almost any other plant on Earth. It has survived an ice age and rapid climate warming. Its leaves may have brushed against saber-toothed cats and 500-pound ground sloths. But now, environmentalists and locals worry that the ancient tree is under threat from a more quotidian force in modern California: development.

The Planning Commission of Jurupa Valley, a city of 100,000 an hour east of Los Angeles, is poised to approve a 1.4-square-mile development that includes a business park, 1,700 homes and an elementary school. Light-industry buildings would stand just a few hundred feet from the ancient tree.

The city believes that the project will boost the local economy. The site’s developer has said it plans to protect the tree, but environmentalists believe that the construction and resulting development could be deadly to the Jurupa Oak.

“It’s unique among most things on the planet,” said Aaron Echols, conservation chair for the Riverside-San Bernardino chapter of the California Native Plant Society. “We need to be absolutely sure that we’re not going to cause harm to this plant.”

The tree has plunged the Jurupa Valley into an ongoing debate in California: How to balance the state’s growth and need for housing with protecting its rich biodiversity?

Think about the oldest tree on Earth and you may picture a bristlecone pine known as “Methuselah” and estimated to be close to 5,000 years old. The Jurupa Oak fits into a different category: It’s a Palmer’s oak, which is a species of “clonal tree,” a network of genetically identical shrubs connected through a shared root system. Unlike in normal trees, none of the original tissue is still present; instead, after a wildfire, the tree will spring out new, genetically identical shoots from burned stumps.

The current tree has sprouted from that ancient root system. Most of the oldest plants in the world are, like the Jurupa Oak, clonal organisms.

“It’s sort of a philosophical question,” Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra, a professor of evolution and ecology at the University of California at Davis, said of the difference between clonal trees and traditional trees. “If I have a tree in my backyard and I cut it down and a stem comes back up from it, I would generally think it’s the same tree. But if you do it 10,000 times in a row, is it still the same tree?”

The oak was identified in the 1990s by local botanist Mitch Provance – but it wasn’t until 2009 that researchers at UC-Davis, including Ross-Ibarra, calculated its immense age. It is now estimated to be the third- or fourth-oldest organism in the world: Its competitors include a quaking aspen in Utah, estimated at 80,000 years old, and a holly in Tasmania, estimated at 43,000 years old.

The tree could not have been found in a more unlikely environment. It clings to a rocky ridge overlooking warehouses, equestrian trails and the tracks of ATV riders. Jurupa Valley is also not known for its environmental quality: The city is best known nationally for a set of polluted acid pits that catapulted it into the news in the 1980s.

The Jurupa Valley Planning Commission has not yet decided if the development can go forward. At a meeting in late June, dozens of locals showed up to comment on the development – more than half urged that it be rejected or modified. The city also received over 100 emails opposing the project.

“We have discovered a treasure on the world stage here in our humble city,” said Jenny Iyer, a resident of Jurupa Valley. “Will one of the oldest living beings on the planet die just because Jurupa Valley okays industrial and business parks next to it?”

Part of the concern is that the Jurupa Oak is growing far outside its normal zone. While the area around Jurupa Valley was peppered with Palmer’s oaks around the last ice age, all of them are now gone – except for this one. Somehow, the tree is surviving in conditions that should be too hot and too dry.

“It’s already beyond its ecological extreme,” Echols said. “It’s the only one out here.”

Local scientists and conservationists believe there may be a special microclimate or some kind of underground basin that is providing the tree with additional water. But the scientific analysis of the risks to the tree has not been released to the public – the Planning Commission, which has the authority over the project, says it cannot release the analysis because it would reveal the location of the tree. (The Jurupa Oak is considered a sacred site for Indigenous peoples, but locals know its location.)

Tim Krantz, the conservation director for the Wildlands Conservancy and a professor emeritus at the University of Redlands, believes that the tree is fed by groundwater trickling down from nearby hills. If those hills are covered with asphalt and concrete, he warns, that flow of groundwater will halt – potentially killing the tree.

The developer, Richland Communities, counters that the plan will protect the tree with a number of strategies. The developer has promised not to build within 200 feet of the tree and to keep construction equipment 259 feet away from the tree’s edge. The company has also promised to give the land immediately around the tree to a nonprofit, along with an endowment of $250,000 to protect it.

“Not approving the project does not protect the tree,” Jeremy Krout, a representative for Richland Communities, said at the meeting. “If the project doesn’t get approved, you won’t have the protection; there won’t be a responsible party to protect the tree.”

Richland Communities did not respond to a request for comment.

But environmentalists say that a 200-foot buffer is not nearly enough to protect the oak. They argue that a light-industry building near the oak could produce excessive vehicle traffic and an urban heat island of cement and asphalt that could harm the tree.

Jim Pechous, the principal planner of Jurupa Valley, said in an email that the city is looking into creating a larger buffer zone around the tree and plans to further investigate the oak’s root system.

In the late June meeting, the planning commissioners appeared bewildered that they and their small city had been thrust into decision-making over one of the oldest organisms on the planet. They listened attentively to the environmentalists, who urged them to reject the development, and representatives of local plumbing and building unions, who urged them to allow the project to go forward.

“It’s mind-boggling, it really is – that we have this treasure that is not being protected,” Arleen Pruitt, chair pro tem of the Planning Commission, said at one point of the Jurupa Oak.

The commissioners ultimately voted to postpone the decision until July 10. They will then vote to approve the plan – sending it to the City Council for a vote – or reject it.

On a recent afternoon, the tree sat in 98-degree heat, looking out across a small residential neighborhood and, a little farther in the distance, lines and lines of white-roofed warehouses. Krantz, of the Wildlands Conservancy, pointed to small acorns growing on the oak and clusters of pollen.

“It represents endurance and perseverance,” Krantz said of the oak. “It’s survived fires and droughts and, ultimately, climate change. And yet here she is throughout all of that – very much like the hardscrabble people of Jurupa Valley.”

He touched one of the tiny acorns. “Just trying to get by,” he added.