This is so depressing. Webster Street, which could use more trees anyway, just lost a healthy one this morning around the corner from where I live. It could have been uprooted by any truck I suppose, but this looks like another case of uprooting by garbage/recycling truck, considering the proximity of the bins.
There’s a general problem of low limbs being hit by vehicles, which at best damages the limb, and at worst — if the limb is big enough — uproots the whole tree. (You can see both new and old damage to the limb on this tree.) This is largely the result of two decades of no tree crew and flat funding which covered less and less contractor work. Pruning for vehicle clearance and the health of the tree was down on the list of priorities, compared to tree removals and hazard limb pruning. This tree looked to be 22 years old, from counting the rings (it got removed while I was there) and it probably never got pruned.
In this case, however, there’s also fresh damage to the trunk a few feet the ground, which may be from how close the truck had to come to pick up the bins. Or possibly even the automatic arm.
What can you do? First, if your street tree shows signs of truck damage to the lowest limb over the street, you can put in a 311 request to be added to the pruning request list (yes, the one that was 12 years long). I’m not sure what the wait time is now for general pruning, but going by pruning cuts, it looks like the new tree crew has been getting some dead and low limbs taken care of as they do nearby removals. If you don’t want to wait, you can hire your own contractor to prune for the health of the tree, as long as you clear it with Director of Urban Forestry Marc Welch.
Second, for any size tree, think about what happens with the bin pickup when you’re putting your trash and recycling out. The arm goes out, the bin swings up in an arc, maybe hitting branches, then swings down, usually a few feet away from where it started out, and this can tear branches off of small or medium size trees, really bad because it rips the trunk bark. Trees need all the help they can get to survive, especially in their early years.
If all the roots weren’t severed, a tree like that might be saved by promptly righting and supporting it, and nursing it back to health.
Maybe if it lived in a field. My neighbors had a maybe-3″ plum in the backyard uprooted by the hurricane and it’s now staked and looking fine.
But here a major root looked gone, and even if it weren’t, I think there’d be concerns about stability on a street. Anyway, it’s wood chips now.
Can’t figure out how to embed, but here’s video of the the tree going through the chipper:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPb87yJzw6E
Rather impressive. Don’t know what the limit is on how big a diameter trunk it can handle.
It’s no so much placement of the bins as inattention by the driver. Those forks can extend a good ways and I have seen them grab bins from more than a car length away when the truck was partially blocked by a parked car.
In this case though, the bins looked like they were already dumped before the tree came down so it may have been another truck afterwards.
Either way, one less tree 🙁
I think you’re right about these bins being emptied, since the lids were back. If it was the trash truck, it had to be something like the back corner of the truck or some protrusion hitting the limb as it drove off. It could equally have been a tractor-trailer truck, of which there are plenty on Webster, with a plumbing supply company nearby, and all the businesses down on Border Street.
I agree about the reach of the arms. I guess I’m just more pessimistic about the drivers taking as much care to avoid hitting tree limbs as cars, and judging by how bins are sometimes set back down every which way, they’re probably just in a hurry. Worst case would be someone parks in front of your bins under the tree, and the arm has to go over the car and under a limb. I thinks that’s when the guys may get out and move the bin. Then there’s winter….
Trees belong in Vermont.
Julia, I wanted to update you on this. My friends from church who live in the house on Webster Street where the tree was hit (that is their trash bin) originally requested that tree. They told me that the business owner across the street witnessed the accident. Reportedly, it was a Ryder rental truck that struck and uprooted the tree, not a garbage/recycling truck. My friends called the police and talked to DPW about the tree, and then called Ryder to see if they could find out who was responsible for striking the tree (which presumably must have done a fair amount of damage to the rental truck). No word thus far.
They would love to get a replacement, and would be willing to help plant and maintain the tree, but I know that the Tree Conservancy prefers to do group plantings of 8 or more. Do you know if there are any plans to do plantings on Webster Street? I will also be calling Marc Welch and Bob DeRubeis on Monday to find out if the city can replace the tree.
I know Bob was able to get a company that dumped snow in the Cheesecake Brook and damaged a fence on the bridge on Dunstan Street in West Newton to pay to repair the damage a few years back, so I am hoping the city will follow up with Ryder and see if we can get them (or their insurer) to pay for a new tree on Webster Street.
The tree in question used to be in front of my house. I wasn’t home at the time, but I understand that the collision with the tree produced a very loud bang. I spoke to a woman from the Dog Scoop across the street who said she saw a small Ryder box truck that was the cause of the damage. I’m having a hard time imagining the nature of the collision. I had thought that the truck must have gone up on the sidewalk and run into the tree directly, but I see in the photos that the superficial damage seems to be high up on the tree.
The bins had already been emptied. They usually get emptied between 7 and 8 am. The collision happened between 11:15 and 11:30 am.
Ted and Bill, that’s great there were witnesses! I’m surprised it was a small Ryder box truck, not one of the big tractor-trailer kind, considering all the big trucks that go down Webster and managed not to hit the tree. This driver must have been particularly incompetent.
Someone definitely owes the city money, either Ryder’s insurer or more likely the person who rented the van and their insurer. Ryder has to be able to tell the Newton Police & Law Department who did it; they’ll know who brought in a damaged truck.
Bill, I’m particularly sorry since you originally requested the tree, as opposed to being one of those people who would just as soon not have a tree. Once the city, hopefully, recovers from whichever party, that would pay for a replacement, although it will be a while before it feels like the big tree you lost. It also won’t be an ash, since Marc stopped buying ash a few years ago because of the inevitable arrival of Emerald Ash Borer. But if you’re interested in a sweetgum right away, you’re in luck. I am right now looking for places, preferably that I can walk to, to plant some that I’ve been growing to be street trees. You’d have to not mind the gumballs, though!