Laurie Rollins and neighbours would like to see trees felled along a trail behind her property removed by the city.
The Hillcrest Heights trail runs behind Rollins’ 24th Street SE property. Stacked up along the steep embankment between the trail and the retaining wall at the rear of Rollins’ property are 15 trees felled by the city last fall.
“We’re basically looking at a log jam from our backyard,” said Rollins. “It’s a mess, it’s terrible and they’re not concerned and they’re not going to move it because they said there’s a directive from the Ministry of Forests that when trees have fallen, they would just leave them… they said it won’t look terrible down the road. It will get back to natural.
“Well, down the road might mean in the meantime that we could have a fire back there.”
Another concern of Rollins is that the felled and delimbed trees could roll into hers and/or her neighbours’ properties, including that of Greg Barron.
“Greg questions whether the trees were pinned properly and whether it’s safe,” said Rollins. “It’s really steep behind their place, they’ve got a five-year -old boy that lives with them and if any of those come rolling down into their yard – it’s ridiculous is what it is.”
Barron shares Rollins’ concerns regarding the danger posed by the logs.
“I think it’s dangerous,” said Barron. “I live right behind them and am concerned they’re going to roll down.”
Rollins said she and her neighbours asked the city to cut down the trees “because they were dead standing and with the winds, we were concerned with them falling on a house.” This was confirmed via email by city roads and parks manager Darin Gerow. He explained the city followed up on multiple complaints received about the health of the trees by having them assessed by a certified arborist. It was determined by the arborist and a certified tree feller that the trees were an “imminent danger to the neighboring properties.”
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“After felling of the trees, contractors removed all the fire hazard limbs within this area and left the large diameter logs pinned against existing stumps to prevent from any further movement,” said Gerow, noting this decision was made based on a Ministry of Forests’ list of benefits downed logs provide as they decay. These include: provision of shelter for wildlife, creation of growing sites for plants and fungi, enrichment and stabilizing of soils, contributing to living ecosystems and reducing erosion by wind, rain and melting snow.
“In addition, operations staff have a new process of replanting trees where we are required to remove trees that have died,” said Gerow. “This internal procedure will have us replant at a determined ratio in and around the area that the trees were fallen and should be completed within a year of tree removals.”
Regarding the stability of the pinned logs, Rollins said about a week ago she found people cutting some of the logs, presumably for firewood.
“I look outside and sure enough there’s four people up there and they’ve got a chainsaw and two wheelbarrows and for two hours they took wood from there,” said Rollins. “So those trees that were in there… if people keep cutting up that wood then it’s no longer going to be pinned behind these trees that they left stumps for.”
Rollins said she reported what she saw to the city.
“We are aware of some unauthorized work taking place at this location,” said Gerow, adding staff would investigate to ensure the unsanctioned work has not created any insecure or unsafe situations.
Rollins remains uncomfortable with the logs being left to deteriorate naturally, and questions why their removal would be any different from other FireSmart related efforts.
“I did see under –I don’t know if it’s FireSmart or some other program – that there’s money available for this kind of stuff to help with making the area around your community safe, so why not use some of that money to get rid of this?” asked Rollins.