Trees to be cut down in Hartford's Elizabeth Park - Hartford Courant

Trees to be cut down in Hartford's Elizabeth Park

In Hartford’s Elizabeth Park, trees that have been standing for nearly a century are pasted with papers warning they’re slated to be cut down this summer.

City forester Heather Dionne, said it’s part of a larger problem affecting mature trees throughout Hartford’s historic park system and across the state.

“What we’re dealing with is five seasons of drought conditions since 2016 that have caused structural issues in a lot of our mature oaks and causing significant decay,” Dionne said. “When trees are without water for such prolonged periods of time, their vascular systems dry out and they are no longer able to compartmentalize decay which ultimately becomes a risk for public safety.”

According to the National Integrated Drought Information System, the Northeast experienced unprecedented drought conditions over the last several years in 2016, 2020, and 2022 that have not been seen since the 1960s.

Dionne said she is noticing more tree decline than in the past as she inspects the city’s trees for hollowing, cracks in the trunks, dead crowns, and mushrooms or fungus indicating tree health. When trees are identified as dying, the city allocates funds to cut them down based on their amount of decay.

“Some of the younger trees can struggle, but we haven’t had too much of an issue with those,” Dionne said. “It’s the older trees that are really having a problem due to their size and weight.”

In the city’s Elizabeth Park, six mature trees estimated between 80 to over 100 years old are slated to come down within the next few weeks. But that number could rise if more trees are deemed a public safety hazard due to decay. Most of the identified trees are near the entrance to the park leading to the popular Pond House Cafe, with another near the tennis courts.

“It’s going to be a process because there’s also a significant amount of pruning and removing dead branches that has to be done as well,” Dionne said. “I try to rotate parks each year for maintenance work. I am also beginning work at Keney Park golf course and we are having very similar issues there. It’s actually worse there in terms of the number of trees that will have to come down due to decay.”

Dionne said that while it’s hard to put an estimate on the cost of the tree maintenance at Elizabeth Park, she said it could cost the city well over $300,000. Hartford contracts with three tree-cutting companies: SavATree, Northern Tree Services, and J&J Brothers.

“Each of those companies goes through a very competitive bidding process,” Dionne said. “Right now because two contractors are being utilized it’s who is available to do the work at Elizabeth Park. One contractor is wrapping up streetwide trimming and another contractor is working on the Keney Park golf course. We don’t enjoy taking trees down, but it’s about public safety.”

Experts across the state say declining tree health is just another sign of a much larger problem plaguing the state’s trees.

Thomas Worthley, a forester and associate professor with UConn Extension, said that climate change is behind a variety of stressors on the state’s tree population, from invasive insects to more intense temperature swings.

“While drought has had a negative impact we also have this issue with spongy moth caterpillars that eat leaves and defoliate trees,” Worthley said. “The role the climate plays is that it changes the patterns of precipitation, so we get a lot of rain in the winter but have dry spring and summers. The dry spell in the spring reduces the influence of a soil fungus that actually kills the caterpillars. So if the fungus is not active, the caterpillar population continues to thrive and defoliate trees, causing their deaths.”

But while climate change has had a negative impact on many of the state’s trees, Worthley said it’s important that conservation continues to play a central role in planting new tree species well suited for their environment.

“It’s about growing new trees and making an investment to replace trees that need to be removed,” Worthley said. “Encouraging something else to grow in its place allows you to recover some of that carbon loss. It’s when we remove a tree and replace it with steel and concrete, we make the climate crisis worse. A newly planted tree can be absorbing carbon from the atmosphere for many decades.”

But for those who frequent Elizabeth Park and walk under its extensive canopy, the loss of century-old trees is disheartening

“I love going for runs there, but I just feel like Elizabeth Park has more stumps than ever before,” said West Hartford resident Arianna D’Agosto. “I feel like it’s kind of devastating. For people in Hartford, the park is their sanctuary to be outside and be in the shade. ”

D’Agosto, a licensed RN, said that the park provides much needed stress relief and mental health benefit.

“I just worry that if we keep cutting the trees in our parks each year, we’re taking away nature,” D’Agosto said. “I feel good when I’m in nature and I want to make sure others can continue to enjoy the benefits our parks offer.”

Dionne said that new trees are expected to be planted in parks throughout the city to replace ones that are cut down.

Stephen Underwood can be reached at sunderwood@courant.com