The City of Salt Lake had a dilemma. In the center of a downtown parking lot, a large silver maple tree was slowly dying. Enclosed with impervious concrete, the tree was withering because water could not reach its roots. The city’s Urban Forestry Division approached our civil engineers who agreed to work on a pro bono basis to develop a sustainable solution to the problem. They redesigned the parking lot with pervious concrete, which allows water to seep through the surface directly into the soil beneath. It was too late to save the silver maple, but the Urban Forestry Division