Eversource States Case for Chopping Norway Maples on Indian Field Road

On Thurs­day Green­wich’s Parks & Recre­ation Dept held a pub­lic hear­ing with the tree war­den con­cern­ing Ever­source’s request to move three trees on Indi­an Field Road.

Deputy Tree War­den Steven Gospodi­noff said the three trees in dis­cus­sion are Nor­way Maples, approx­i­mate­ly 17 inch­es in diameter.

Ever­source request­ed to remove the trees so access an area that until 2012 was acces­si­ble to their trucks. Since then the trees and a guard rail have pre­vent­ed access to equipment.

A pow­er out­age last Sep­tem­ber was also cit­ed as a rea­son to upgrade util­i­ties in that area, which they say is only pos­si­ble with trucks.

“The one out­age last Sep­tem­ber, I think it was like 40,000 cus­tomers went out,” Pat Tra­cy from Ever­source said. “We are under­go­ing a recon­struc­tion of part of that to pre­vent dam­ages in the future. To do that we need to access, which is blocked by a guard rail off the side of the road.”

Tracey Alston, com­mu­ni­ty rela­tions spe­cial­ist for Ever­source, said that upgrad­ing the equip­ment is intend­ed to pre­vent a sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tion to what hap­pened in the pow­er out­age last September.

“There cur­rent­ly is a project to upgrade as well as assist with reli­a­bil­i­ty and con­tin­ued ser­vice down here,” Alston said. “We don’t want a rehash of last year, so there’s cur­rent­ly an ongo­ing project to upgrade equip­ment and this is all part of the plan.”

Alston said that Ever­source has been work­ing with the Town to remove the guard rail and replace it with a gate, but the access would still be blocked to trucks if the trees were left there.

“Even if you remove the guard rail the trees are still block­ing access for the util­i­ty vehi­cles to actu­al­ly be able to access the path,” Alston said.

Green­wich res­i­dents won­dered if this was a one time event, or if trucks would con­tin­u­al­ly need to access the area after the upgrades were completed.

“It would be ongo­ing main­te­nance so it wouldn’t be a one time thing,” Alston said. “There is cur­rent­ly a small walk path that’s kind of been over­grown and there’s nowhere for trucks to actu­al­ly be able to get off of the road to access our equipment.”

Tra­cy said that part of the prob­lem is with trees in sight lines. She said when a truck is pulling out, the trees block views of oncom­ing cars, cre­at­ing a safe­ty hazard.

Green­wich res­i­dent Chris­tine Surette pro­posed hav­ing some­one with a high-visu­al jack­et direct traf­fic while the truck pulls out as an alter­na­tive solu­tion to the obstruct­ed view.

JoAnn Messi­na, the exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Green­wich Tree Con­ser­van­cy said her group would be will­ing to assist Ever­source if they were will­ing to work with them on replant­i­ng in that area.

Ms. Alston said replant­i­ng is some­thing Ever­source might be will­ing to do.

Mr. Gospodi­noff said a final writ­ten deci­sion will be made and emailed to those in atten­dance and those that request­ed a pub­lic hear­ing by Tuesday.