Jaala Smith, a planting coordinator with the Tacoma Tree Foundation, fills a water bag around a tree in South Tacoma. All summer, the Tacoma Tree Foundation will water the neighborhood’s roughly 80 trees, planted earlier this year, to ensure they thrive.
Driving the streets of South Tacoma, there’s a sleek, black, electric Ford Lightning F-150 truck pulling a trailer. The trailer is carrying a 500-gallon water tank on a mission to water some of Tacoma’s newest trees.
Jaala Smith is the driver of this operation. Smith hooks a bright blue fire hose to a city fire hydrant to fill up the tank at the start of the day’s watering route…