Chesterton Tribune

 

 

Twentyfive well established trees at Dogwood to be removed for power line

Back To Front Page

 

By KEVIN NEVERS

Twenty-five well-established trees at Dogwood Park East--a few of them monsters--will be removed late this summer by a NIPSCO contractor.

The trees, 19 maples and nine oaks, are located at the southeast intersection of 1100N and 23rd street, and have overgrown a “critical” power line.

So NIPSCO’s contracted arborist, Andrea Nichols of Arbor Metrics, told the Chesterton Park Board at its meeting Tuesday evening.

Simply “trimming the trees to minimum spec would remove 25 percent of the canopy” and badly disfigure them in the process, Nichols noted. “And I have no confidence they would survive.”

“Wrong trees, wrong place,” she added.

So they have to come down, at no cost of course to Chesterton. Nichols, however, acknowledged that in a town which, for nearly a quarter of a century, has annually received the Tree City USA designation, there are bound to be some disheartened residents. “These are long established trees so I absolutely expect some pushback from the community,” she said.

President Candy Tucker concurred, recalling a tree-trimming debacle a couple of years ago at Chesterton Park, where a different NIPSCO contractor trimmed several trees along West Porter Ave. to within an inch of their lives. “I think we could have some irate people.”

To mitigate the tree removal as much as possible, Nichols said, NIPSCO will replace them on a one-for-one basis but will also provide additional funding, which could be used, for example, to plant an arboretum with signage.

The thing of it is, Nichols told the board, the trees need to be removed as soon as possible, and Arbor Metrics would like to begin cutting in two or three weeks.

Members, mindful of the upcoming Chesterton Art Fair at Dogwood Park East, during the first weekend in August, asked Nichols whether possibly the operation could be postponed until after the event. Nichols said that it could, but that--in an emergency--Arbor Metrics reserves the right to do what needs to be done.

Tree replacement will commence in the fall, with plantings likely in early September.

 

Posted 7/3/2019

 

 
 
 
 

 

 

Search This Site:

Custom Search