Trees

Last year, there was a big brouhaha over the poor pruning practices of our city's large urban trees, mostly raised in Watts Hospital-Hillandale and Trinity Park neighborhoods. Kevin wrote about it here. (I also touched on the issue here and here.)

The solution, or compromise, that was reached called for Duke Energy to meet with neighborhood associations before pruning, and also to enlist city arborists to hep determine which trees needed pruning, and how much pruning to do.

This morning an alarmed email appeared on my neighborhood list serve indicating that Duke Energy folks had been speaking individually to neighbors letting them know their tree trimming crews would be at work on their blocks in the very near future. I know for certain that no meeting with our association has taken place. And i strongly suspect that Duke Energy is not consulting with the city on this project. Maybe they thought the whole matter had blown over?

Regardless, there's lots of discussion going on right now. Here's the latest from the city's department of urban forestry.

I read your posting to the Duke Park list-serve this morning and I thought it deserved a reply. Let me first say that your observations are correct and your anger and indignation is justified. It is not my place to explain or defend the practices of Townsend Tree Care in their pursuit of fulfilling their contract with Duke Energy, but I feel it is my job to inform the public on why the situation has gotten to where it is and what can be done about it.

The major component of Durham’s streetscape consists of willow and water oak trees planted in the period roughly between the mid 1930’s through the 1950’s. For a long time the trees and powerlines have coexisted due to constant pruning work done at Duke Power’s expense. The early pruning practices called for “rounding over” the trees, like you would do to a boxwood, to create trees that look like mushrooms.

This practice was phased out in the 1980’s when the science of Arboriculture took a giant leap in its applied understanding of tree physiology under the lead of Dr. Alex Shigo. It was shown that “rounding over” is not sustainable and leads to trees that are dangerous to the public when the decay resulting from numerous treatments finally undermines the trees’ structure.

The shift to “directional pruning” that took place in the 1980’s created the Y-shaped trees that we now have. It was instituted by a crew of tree workers who were “dedicated” to Durham. They worked year-round and constantly pruned trees from one side of town to the next. The “pruning cycle” that was thus established meant that trees received maintenance roughly every 2-4 years.

Somewhere in the late 1990’s Duke Power became Duke Energy and expanded it’s share of the market. It absorbed competitors and moved its operations base to Charlotte. In the process it stopped its
dedicated Durham crew and went away from a pruning cycle and adopted an “on demand” policy. In other words, trees no longer obtained systematic pruning to keep the power on, they waited until the "reliability” of the circuit became compromised (power was interrupted by contact with tree limbs) to act. When they acted, they did so in such a way as to remove all of the growth that had accrued since the last pruning cycle (~8-10 years) and to further prune in an attempt to guarantee that the tree wouldn’t interfere with the line for 8-10 years. This is what their contract with Townsend stipulates – 15’ of learance from the wires with no overhanging branches.

What I am confronted with today are trees that are in overall pretty poor shape due to their age (these trees can be expected to live another 5-20 years depending on the site and when they were planted), their history of pruning, incidents of drought and vehicle impacts (both the pollution and being physically hit). This is the backdrop into which we now introduce the contractors who have been given an impossible task; to make powerlines “tree-proof” for a period of 8-10 years after up to a decade of deferred maintenance (and still perform their function as street trees). In many cases, it couldn’t be done. The work required by Duke Energy would leave trees that look more like goalposts or totem poles; “trees” in name only whose liability for potential failure would outweigh any potential benefit they could deliver. Rather than have the power company leave me with more dangerous tree for my already overextended crew to deal with, I’ve directed a lot of removals.

I approach this problem knowing that the power company has the right to maintain its lines, and the way in which it does so needs to translate across all of its jurisdictions (not all towns and citys in D.E.’s customer base are as full of oaks planted under powerlines as Durham). My “solution” is to push for a compromise, to go back to a pruning cycle (4-5 years instead of 8-10) and to replace large trees under the lines with small-medium ones. The cycle issue is being addressed through a “master permit” process as well as internal dialogue with D.E. representatives. The tree replacement part will need to be addressed through the Street Tree Replacement Partnership program, which requires neighborhoods to take a proactive role in replacing the trees in the right of way next to their homes and businesses. This link goes to the city’s website that explains the program and I’d encourage you and your neighbors to participate:
http://www.durhamnc.gov/departments/general/forestry.cfm I am available to speak to groups of people who are interested in coordinating their efforts to get trees replaced and would be happy to set something up for Duke Park.

Feel free to post this on the list-serve and/or contact me personally.

Alex Johnson RF, CA
Urban Forestry Manager
City of Durham General Services Department
Office: 560-4197 Extension 275