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Letter: Perhaps its time to renew group to replant trees
Op-Ed · July 21, 2016
“An Old Yeller moment …” — Words my husband uttered as we witnessed the removal of one mature sugar maple tree from each side of our driveway on Sixth Street last week.
One of these two trees had been dying slowly over many years and therefore was already trimmed to a haphazard third of its fullest volume. The other tree was found that morning split down the middle and partially leaning on a power line.
Because those two trees, and most others up Sixth Street, were mature shade trees when I arrived as a renter more than 30 years ago, I saw this sad event coming as I watched them age and weaken. Like Lou Picek, who lamented such losses in his recent letter, I’m stricken and heartbroken at the successive voids left by the removal of so many of West Branch’s majestic shade trees in so short a time.
As mature trees such as those on Sixth Street gradually decline, as the city continues to undergo a wide variety of infrastructure projects with impacts on the city’s tree population, and as storms take their toll, West Branch clearly faces a reforestation challenge. During several years in the 1990’s, the community maintained a volunteer committee that worked with residents, the city, Trees Forever, and Alliant Energy to raise matching funds and plan for, acquire, and plant trees on all sorts of property throughout town.
Perhaps it’s time to revive such a committee.
Margie Haworth
West Branch
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