Just two weeks ago the southwest corner of Marvin D. Love Freeway and Ledbetter Drive, a few minutes' drive south of downtown, was a long, bucolic stretch of lush green -- trees that, from the road, looked like a forest that stretched into forever but actually backed up to a row of homes along tranquil Dove Creek Way. Today, it's nothing but an expanse of shattered stumps, the result of illegal clear-cutting.

The ground is almost entirely carpeted with splinters, and the fragrance of fresh-cut wood hangs in mid-June's humidity. The freeway, once obscured by thick, towering shade trees, is now visible -- and, worse, audible -- from the neighborhood. Critters, field mice and armadillos and raccoons, who once lived in these woods have relocated into homes throughout the Club Oaks neighborhood.

"I was so taken to the wildness back there," said 60-year-old Bettie Burrell, who, 26 years ago, bought her house on Dove Creek Way solely because of the trees.

We met Wednesday evening, when I went out to survey the damage that no photograph can adequately capture. I'd just come from City Hall, where Club Oaks residents showed up at the end of the council meeting to express their outrage over the illegal clear-cutting behind their homes.The destruction took place in broad daylight, beginning on Memorial Day and lasting through last Friday, when crews were demo-ing trees in a driving rainstorm.

Though the item wasn't on their agenda, the council nevertheless spent about half an hour fretting over the damage done without a permit and a plan to replace them -- and the destruction looming over the horizon if Gov. Greg Abbott gets his way in the coming special session and state lawmakers vote to outlaw more than 50 Texas cities' laws protecting trees on private property.

Mark Clayton, whose district includes White Rock Lake, put it this way: "Our legislature is probably going to take away any rights we actually have to have trees."

A deep bed of mulched trees fills a lot where dozens of trees were cut down by the owner of the property at the southwest corner of U.S. Highway 67 and Ledbetter Drive in south Oak Cliff. The demolition of the trees was halted by the city of Dallas because the property owners did not have permission for the demolition. (Guy Reynolds / Staff photographer)

Yes. Maybe. And all because Abbott didn't like it when Austin once told him he couldn't chop down a protected pecan tree in his yard without paying into a reforestation fund or replacing it. The governor of this state thinks rules protecting trees are "socialistic" and "a violation of private property rights."

Abbott probably thinks The Giving Tree has a happy ending, too.

"It was a sanctuary -- the shade, the calm," Burrell told me about the forest that used to live in her southern Dallas backyard. "It just stayed much cooler back there. I haven't even gone to sit in my backyard like I used to. My grandkids' swing set was by the trees. And now, the sun is going to take over everything."

On two separate occasions in recent days, Dallas has lost more than 200 trees thanks to out-of-towners who thought nothing of ignoring the city's tree ordinance, which says you can't remove trees without the city's OK, and decimating this city's ever-shrinking urban canopy, which cleans and cools the air that's only getting dirtier and warmer.

Last week, a storage-facility owner out of Fate butchered 100 live oaks along Forest Lane without a permit, rendering them structurally unsound and in danger of dying without their food-producing foliage, according to arborist Steve Houser, former chair of the city's Urban Forest Advisory Committee. A release I received from property owner Platinum Construction, days after it was promised, apologized "to everyone upset over the resulting appearance," but said it had to be done because of "erosion control, surface drainage issues, ground cover issues, overgrowth, visibility and limitation of damages to the existing improvements and building."

All that word salad needs is a little ranch dressing.

City Hall says Grand Prairie-based SNSA Group LLC called in the bulldozers behind Bettie Burrell's house because they believed clear-cutting the land would make it easier to sell. City officials say the SNSA's reps, who couldn't be reached for comment, have until July 7 to come up with a make-good: Either pay $98,000 into the city's reforestation fund or plant new trees beneath the bulldozers' tracks.

This was a forest until last week. (Guy Reynolds / Staff photographer)

On Wednesday, Club Oaks residents demanded even more -- a sound barrier behind their homes, for starters, not to mention money to help rid their homes of the wildlife infestation and engineers who can determine whether the trees' removal will impact their homes. A law was broken. Homeowners are demanding justice.

"This was a travesty that did not have to happen," Sherri Thompson, chair of the Club Oaks Neighborhood Crime Watch, told the City Council. She then quoted Martin Luther King Jr.: "Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly."

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But Abbott, whose office never responded to a request for an explanation, and other Republican lawmakers are acting as though trees' impact stops at the property line. They're being shortsighted at best, putting "the economy" over environment, and vindictive at worst. Here's how all-in Abbott is: On Thursday, he vetoed SB 744, which would have let property owners plant new trees to cut down on reforestation fees, which Texas Association of Builders executive director Scott Norman called "forward-looking."

Abbott, looking backward in a prepared statement, said he vetoed the bill because "cities telling landowners what they can and cannot do with the trees in their own backyard is an assault on private property rights." Added the governor, "municipal micromanagement of private property ... should be abolished altogether."

State Sen. Donna Campbell, the Republican from New Braunfels pushing hard for this legislation, sent Attorney General Ken Paxton a missive last week equating tree ordinances with the government seizing private property. This is the same Donna Campbell who also believed the United Nations was going to seize control of the Alamo and hates public schools. No wonder we're sitting here arguing about whether trees are good or bad.

Dallas is in the midst of rewriting its longstanding tree ordinance; that overhaul is supposed to go to City Council in October. But the rules governing tree removal won't mean a blessed thing if Abbott gets his way.

A broken branch sticks out from some mulch after dozens of trees were destroyed by a property owner along Marvin D. Love Freeway near Ledbetter. (Ron Baselice / Staff Photographer)

"If you ever had a situation where one-size-fits-all doesn't work, it would be the preservation and reasonable care of trees," city attorney Larry Casto said after the council meeting Wednesday. "Dallas does not look like Lubbock. And it's my hope the legislature keeps that in mind."

Next week, his attorneys will brief the council on the governor's wish list; they will also begin meeting with the Dallas delegation in an effort to keep the state house out of City Hall.

"I hope the governor doesn't get that passed," said Bettie Burrell, the woman who no longer wants to go outside because of the corpses still lying in her backyard. "If he does, I don't know what we're going to do. Can you imagine if these construction companies can tear down trees wherever they want whenever they want? Nature will be gone."