Monday night’s Newport City Commission meeting provided a forum for a public update on the citywide tree pruning schedule. Rachel Comte of Urban Canopy Works, who serves as the Newport city arborist, gave a presentation on how the scheduled pruning of the city’s trees will benefit the community.
Newport instituted a proactive approach for the health of the city’s trees via the Cyclical Tree Care Program. Tree trimming in Newport began on Feb. 21. Madison Tree Care & Landscaping out of Milford, Ohio won the bid to prune the city’s trees for 2022.
“Tree care makes Newport a very healthy and vibrant place to live,” Comte said. “We’re also doing this because this is a national best practice in urban forestry. That’s the industry that handles trees in urban areas. We’re also doing it because it results in healthier trees that live longer, have decreased risk in liability, and provide more services to the community.”
Trees are critical to public health in urban environments because they reduce air pollution, remove pollutants from water runoff, and reduce urban heat levels.
“One tree that is eight inches in diameter, compared to a 30 inch tree, that 30-inch tree removes 70 times more pollutants than an eight-inch tree,” Comte said. “So it does 70 times more work when it’s only four times larger. That’s why tree preservation and care of existing trees is so important.”
Proactive care of trees reduces storm damage and maintenance costs for municipalities. Cincinnati has a cyclical program of tree care. It took the city 20 years to get their first round of tree care done. Cincinnati has now compacted their tree care schedule down to a six-year cycle. The year after the first tree care cycle was completed, Cincinnati reported an 85 percent reduction in emergency and routine service requests, according to Comte.
The program also provides equitable service to all neighborhoods across Newport. Higher income neighborhoods across the United States receive more tree care due to having greater access to reporting methods.
Newport has been split up into 10 management zones. Each year, a different zone gets inventoried and pruned that year. Zone 2 was the first zone completed in 2019. Newport is in the process of completing Zones 8 and 9 for 2022. Comte said any imminent risks that emerge during the inventory process will be taken care of within a few days.
Comte plays a critical role for Newport tree care. Every year, she updates an online database detailing the pruning history of each tree in the city. The inventory map details how big the tree is, what species the tree is, when the last time Comte inspected the tree and what the current condition of the tree is.
In the spring, Comte conducts a level one inspection, commonly referred to as a windshield inspection. Comte drives around to inspect the condition of the trees. In the summer, she reinventories the next management zone. The Newport Public Works Department works during an ongoing basis pruning trees.
“When I started, we had about 2,800. We’ve lost a bunch to the Emerald Ash Borer (an invasive insect). We’re losing a bunch more,” Comte said. “But we are gaining in the past five years, the volunteer groups across the city have planted about 800 to 900 trees. I think we’re around 3,300.”
