HOULTON, Maine — When tree crews leveled five seemingly healthy trees in front of the Aroostook County Courthouse in Houlton the day before Earth Day, local emotions escalated, according to Jane Torres, executive director of the Greater Houlton Chamber of Commerce.
On Friday, Torres started receiving calls from a variety of angry people — residents, conservationists, people involved in a recent town tree count — who were outraged about the courthouse’s new barren landscape.
Initially, there was confusion about who ordered the tree felling. But it turns out the Aroostook County Commissioners had planned the tree removal last year while budgeting $5,000 for replacement trees, Bryan Jandreau, Aroostook County facilities and IT director said.
After Dutch Elm disease took the original courthouse trees in 2007, the County replaced them with silver maples and disease-resistant elms, Jandreau explained.
The courthouse trees were “good-sized” silver maples and healthy Lindens, a large shade tree attractive to endangered bees, said Angie Wotton, district manager of the Southern Aroostook Soil and Water Conservation District.
“As for the County sending out a service to cut the trees down, I think it was just bad timing. That, and the fact that it coincided with Earth Day and Angie had just given her report about the importance of trees, emotions were definitely heightened,” Torres said, adding she hopes they replace them as soon as possible.
The Earth Day tree removal came in on the heels of a recently completed Southern Aroostook County Soil and Water Conservation District street tree survey, funded by a Project Canopy Grant through the Maine Forest Service. The survey found 763 of Houlton’s street trees are more than 120 years old and, until now, there has been little attention paid to replacing these ancient trees threatened by age, disease and weather.
Another Project Canopy Grant will pay for 15 new trees for downtown as a first step, Wotton told the Houlton Town Council on April 17.
Trees are vital in many ways: they provide aesthetic beauty, provide cooling shade on warm summer days, act as a source of food and habitat for insects, plants, birds, fungi, mosses, and more, Wotton said. Each year, one large tree can retain 1,000 gallons of stormwater. Taking away large trees from the town’s landscape removes much more than the tree itself, she added.
“The removal of this many trees, so close to the center of Houlton’s downtown community, should have begun first with a site visit and discussions with a forester or licensed arborist,” said Wotton on Friday. “If there were concerns about the health of the existing trees there are resources through agencies like the Maine Forest Service who can provide valuable information.”
U.S. Sen. Gaylord Nelson started the first Earth Day in 1969, following a California oil spill. It spurred national rallies and protests to protect the environment and animal habitat, which led to the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency and the passage of the Clean Air, Clean Water and Endangered Species Act.
The SASWCD street tree survey and future planning guide advocated for the town to create a tree warden position and/or town tree committee. The plan also recommended that Houlton develop ordinances around street trees that many other towns and cities in Maine already have in place, like Kennebunk and Cape Elizabeth.
If Houlton had such an ordinance, at the very least there would have been an official process to go through before cutting the trees by the courthouse, Wotton said, adding that she is considering starting a tree committee for the town because having a plan is important.
“If the County Commissioners office believed that the trees that were currently there will need to be removed in a few years, then best management would be to plant a few replacement trees before cutting existing trees down,” Wotton said. “That way, the new trees would have a chance to get established and we would have a better understanding of their survivability.”
