At last week’s Winthrop Town Council meeting, tree warden Tom Derderian advocated for funding to increase the town’s tree canopy.
Derderian pointed to several factors leading to the loss of trees in Winthrop during the public speaking portion of the meeting.
“We spent some time the last two weeks removing dead, diseased, dying trees; some of which were very big, about a yard across,” said Derderian. “They have reached the end of their lives and they were posing and had to be removed.”
Around town, Derderian said there are many trees, especially Crimson King Maples where the tops are dead.
“Those trees are not getting enough nutrients, they are suffering from the drought and they are on their way out,” he said. “The ash trees are being assaulted by the emerald ash borer, the ash leaves are compound leaves and the tops of those trees are dying and those trees are definitely going to die and they are going to have to be removed.”
Another area of concern, Derderian said, is the number of trees he has seen removed from private residences in town.
“That’s even more trees being removed, so we have a net loss in tree cover and we have to figure out a way to make up for that,” he said. “This fall, we are going to get a lot of trees, maybe 20 or 40 trees and we are going to plant them … but that is not going to come close to making up for what is gone.”
The new trees are much smaller than the trees that are being removed, and Derderian said it will take many years for those trees to grow and provide the same benefits as the more mature trees being removed.
“It’s going to take a lifetime to get that amount of tree cover, so we have to do something about that sooner rather than later and figure out a way to find the money to get more trees and to plant more trees,” Derderian said.