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TOPIC: Pittsburgh Cutting Trees
http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees/browse_thread/thread/31d764470ac37636?hl=en
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== 1 of 9 ==
Date: Fri, Jan 11 2008 5:48 am
From: "Edward Frank"
ENTS,
On the Channel 11 news last night was a report that the city of
Pittsburgh has scheduled for cutting about 5000 trees in the city,
including some of the cities oldest. There were large numbers of
people protesting the action at a public meeting, claiming it would
change the character of their neighborhood, lower their property
values, and affect the air quality of their neighborhood. An
interview with public works director was shown in which he said,
"These trees were pointed out to be a hazard, so to avoid
liability they need to be removed." He seemed rather smug about
the entire issue and clearly was not going to be moved by public
meetings. I wonder what authority informed him the trees were a
hazard... Maybe a tree removal company with a city contract? The
entire situation smacks of kickbacks... Pittsburgh city government
in general, and the Public Works department has always be a hotbed
of bribery and corruption.
Ed
-I try to take one day at a time, but several days attack me at
once!
== 2 of 9 ==
Date: Fri, Jan 11 2008 6:12 am
From: "Will Blozan"
Ed,
Not necessarily. I did a hazard tree inventory for my little town
here in
western NC and found over 100 trees in hazardous condition and in
need of
removal. These were just tree with immediate danger, not future. You
know
me; I wouldn't cut a tree if it didn't need to be removed for
liability
reasons. Some of the trees I identified were huge, old, landmark
trees. One
of these trees that was not removed at my recommendation had a top
that
later failed and crushed a stroller. Fortunately, no one was in it.
Will
== 3 of 9 ==
Date: Fri, Jan 11 2008 6:32 am
From: "Will Blozan"
Ed,
One thing is almost certainly for sure; the 5000 trees in need of
removal
are probably in that condition form neglect and/or poor pruning and
care.
Here in Asheville, NC the quality of tree care by public crews is
absolutely
horrid. Trees are being pruned (hacked) now for lack of some much
smaller
pruning cuts or placement selection decisions that could be made
with
kindergarten level foresight. The level of training of the workers
is either
negligible or not done or enforced. Trees are one of our nation's
most
common victims of ignorance.
Will
== 4 of 9 ==
Date: Fri, Jan 11 2008 6:49 am
From: Elisa Campbell
Will,
there is a professor at UMass Amherst, Dennis Ryan, who regularly
points
out that many of the dying and/or hazardous trees around here were
made
that way by damage from human activities - on the UMass campus,
mostly
from construction. I imagine that is often the cause of hazardous
trees
in other urban and suburban areas, too.
Elisa
== 5 of 9 ==
Date: Fri, Jan 11 2008 7:25 am
From: Anthony Kelly
Ed,
I am a resident of Squirrel Hill, one of the Pittsburgh
neighborhoods that will be greatly affected by this. One of the
things that makes this elegant old neighborhood a wonderful place to
live is that its streets are lined with glorious old trees (a number
of which my laser rangefinder and D-tape have come to know I might
add). You never get the impression that you are smack in the middle
of a big city here. I am not yet aware of just what percentage of
trees will be affected by this, but I wouldn't be surprised if the
city planned to just come in and raze pretty much all of them. It
would completely change the character of the neighborhood. It simply
wouldn't be the same with out them.
Like most people this caught me completely by surprise. From the
Channell 11 article below, it seems like the tree removal plan is
pretty much a done deal. I really hope that something can still be
done about it. I was not able to attend the meeting mentioned in the
article, but I'll be contacting the people involved in trying to
stop this.
Your theory of kickbacks to city officials from tree removal
companies is certainly a plausible one. The city's liability argument
then could well just be a convenient PR ploy. It would be
interesting to see how the various liability assessments were made
and by whom. Before this issue even arose, though, I'd heard stories
that, in general, insurance companies want to just get rid of old
trees wherever they may be seeing even the slightest risk of
liability from them as being an unnecessary one. Neither the
aesthetic, nor ecological value of trees figure onto their balance
sheets. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that pressure or even
outright demands from insurers has a lot to do with this, too.
See the two brief articles below.
http://www.wpxi.com/news/15027869/detail.html
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08010/848363-53.stm
Anthony Kelly
== 6 of 9 ==
Date: Fri, Jan 11 2008 7:27 am
From: "Lee E. Frelich"
Ed:
This might represent corruption, or it might also mean that
hazardous trees
that should have been removed were left standing. Its hard to tell
without
more information.
A city forestry department should do continuous evaluation of hazard
trees,
as opposed to doing them all at once every so many years. In
Minneapolis
the forestry department has an prehazard paint marking that they put
on
trees several years before they become an imminent threat, and those
trees
are observed frequently to determine when they merit hazard status
and be
removed. The markings are relatively inconspicuous, but are still
noticed
by people in the neighborhood, so they have time to ask questions
about the
tree well before it has to be removed, and they know that the tree
has a
problem and may only be there a few more years. There are a set of
standards for hazard trees that students in our urban forestry
program
learn and that are used when determining hazard status. If trees in
poor
structural condition are removed on a continuous basis, then there
is less
damage to buildings, cars, and power lines from falling trees when
major
storms occur.
I wonder how the program works in Pittsburgh? That fact that they
are
doing 5000 at once could mean that their forestry program is not
very good,
since they should be doing them a few at a time on a continuous
basis. In
any case, it sounds like the situation was handled poorly. One
should never
underestimate the magnitude of the fuss that people in big cities
will make
over every tree. A tree that is a half-rotted overgrown weed to a
forester
trying to grow timber might be the source of wonder and delight to
someone
in the city.
Lee
== 7 of 9 ==
Date: Fri, Jan 11 2008 7:49 am
From: pabigtrees
I wonder how many new trees will be planted in their place? none I
bet. A policy for tree replacement would quell some of the outcry.
Why not take down 2,500 of the worst and plant 2,500 new ones. Then
do 100 a year or so to maintain it. This would alleviate the hazard
trees and still provide contractor work and kickbacks (lol)
Liability is ruining this country in many ways, including unecessary
tree takedowns. Like I said in a previous post, when someone can
tell
me when a tree will fall, I will start a church for them. I am
pretty
sure more people are killed a year by cars, but no one is calling to
get rid of them. I would argue that trees are needed just as much as
cars are to the general public.
5,000 trees. They must have not cut any trees for 20 years in that
city.
== 8 of 9 ==
Date: Fri, Jan 11 2008 6:56 am
From: Kirk Johnson
Years ago, I worked one season for a tree company out of Monroe, MI
that had
a big contract to work on the street trees in Toledo, OH. I don't
remember
doing any tree removal, but we did prune many large trees with large
limbs
overhanging homes, growing into utility lines, etc. Mainly
selectively
removed problem limbs, removed deadwood, thinned, reduced crown
size. That
kind of thing. Spent weeks on the project. Sycamores, maples, oaks,
etc.
5,000 trees seems like an awful lot to be simply removing all at the
same
time. What will they be doing with the material? Perhaps there is an
incentive to feed some kind of commercial interest that would
utilize the
wood fiber.
Kirk Johnson
== 9 of 9 ==
Date: Fri, Jan 11 2008 8:00 am
From: Anthony Kelly
Lee and Will, I'll let you know more when I get more information
about how many and which trees the city is planning to remove. I'm
not sure exactly what the city's procedures for evaluating tree
hazards. Urban forestry has never been a big interest of mine. As
I've gone around measuring the bigger trees in my Pittsburgh
neighborhood, I never paid specific attention to what hazards an old
tree might pose. Dead limbs here and there have caught my attention,
but in general the trees I look at seem to be in pretty good shape.
Certainly some trimming would be in order, not mass scale removal.
Lee, your description of Minneapolis' tree program seems to be a
sensible one. Like I said above, urban forestry has never been
a big interest of mine, so I've never looked into how it's done
here. My bet, though, is that Pittsburgh's program is probably not
as sensible as that of Minneapolis. Pittsburgh is well aware that
Minneapolis does pretty much everything better than them. A few
years ago the city sent an entire delegation of city, business, and
community officials and leaders to the Twin Cities to study just how
they do things so well. There were reports and much to-do about the
whole thing, but I don't know that anything has changed here as a
result.
Anthony Kelly
== 3 of 4 ==
Date: Fri, Jan 11 2008 2:12 pm
From: Carolyn Summers
Weıve had this problem, or a similar one, with Con Edison being
urged on by
the Public Service Commission. Trees next to utility wires are taken
down
in advance of storms as a way of preventing power outages that go on
for
days after storms. We actually had a tornado in Westchester 2 years
ago and
I think thatıs when concerns mounted. Iım always happy to see
Norway maples
cut down, but when they go after the old oaks...... My advice to
Pittsburgh
is to try to stop it, but settle for a publicly funded independent
arborist
who will represent homeowners and monitor the cityıs contractors.
Thatıs
what we did and the outcome was not too bad.
--
Carolyn Summers
63 Ferndale Drive
Hastings-on-Hudson, NY 10706
== 4 of 4 ==
Date: Fri, Jan 11 2008 2:51 pm
From: "Edward Frank"
Will,
I would be more inclined to believe there was an actual issue if
they did not plan to remove every single tree in several
neighborhoods totaling about 5,000 trees. I am sure that most are
completely healthy and do not need to be removed, except to line
someone's pockets.
Ed
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