Submitted by Don C. Collasius, Fairhaven Tree Warden
Greetings from the Tree Department and happy spring. So far it’s been a busy year for the Tree Department! We have completed our annual town street tree survey where we identify high risk trees and deadwood that needs to be removed. We have again partnered with Eversource to remove high risk trees near utility wires. And, on Boston Hill Road we unfortunately had to remove over 25 public and private dead Ash trees. The trees died due to the Emerald Ash Borer, first seen in Michigan in 2002. Sadly, much has been done by many to try and stop this pest to no avail.
On a much brighter note we planted 35 new trees last week and will be doing another round of planting around Arbor Day, April 26. As we have done for the last two years, a group of Fairhaven High School students will help with the planting and learn about our town’s tree canopy. It’s always a fun time with the students!
Over the last three years the Fairhaven Tree Department has planted 317 new trees. Over 200 trees were paid for by donations from residents and businesses. Thanks so much!
I want to take a moment to thank my crew Dex, Gene and Ben at Grass Gone Wild for their continued hard work. They do this one day a week and it takes a lot for them to juggle their schedules to be able to do this important work for the town. As well I would never get all new trees in the ground at one time without my gang of volunteers that hail from Wareham, New Bedford, Virginia and beyond. Thanks for caring enough to show up Doc, Bingo, Joan, Alec, James E. You folks rock!
Speaking of rocking, I want to thank all the folks in the Town Hall and BPW for the help I get on a daily basis. It would be impossible for me to do anything without the support and cooperation from all branches of town government. The level of teamwork and good will between departments seems to be at a high since I started this journey 3 years ago. Let’s get even better.
As of late we have lost a few really good people. It’s a competitive market out there! I will miss our departing Town Planner, Paul DeGuiseppe who did great work while he was here and was lured back to his previous town.
Ya know it’s easy to find fault with anything. It somehow seems harder to appreciate all we have. This town is amazing and the professionalism and work from Town Hall is at a high. When we just point fingers and call each other names we are wasting time, hurting one another and not contributing to solutions.
As humans, we identify problems, and if we can build a team to fix them we progress — that’s how we got out of smoky caves.
Be well and be green.
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