Municipal officials say overdue tree thinning along the Brown Drain in north Chatham has led to complaints.
Tim Dick, director of drainage for the municipality, said the area needed to be thinned out for public safety and drainage purposes.
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He said some trees along the drain had been dropping limbs — something that is a public safety concern and a drainage one.
“It’s overdue maintenance. The trees we are cutting, a number of them had fallen limb issues,” Dick said. “Typically, trees are removed to allow for proper drainage. But there’s also a safety component. A lot of kids play in that area.”
Walking paths line the drain between St. Clair Street and Orangewood Boulevard.
Dick said the falling limbs can wind up clogging up one of the nearby culverts, and that could create some serious problems.
Whenever the municipality takes out trees along municipal drains in urban areas, Dick said they always receives phone calls.
“We had calls from some who didn’t think we cut enough, and have had calls from people who think we’ve cut too much,” he said.
That was the case several years ago when crews went along the municipal drain that flows beside the courthouse property. Dick said work was done to take down some mature poplar trees along the drain, and people took issue with it.
“The last one of these we did was over by the drain by Crabby Joe’s. We took down some huge poplars, but they had a great deal of rot through their centres,” he said. “From time to time, you have to do this with municipal drains. You have to manage the balance of how much is too much.”
