Tree trimming backlog concerns Dartmouth resident

A Dartmouth resident is concerned it could take up to a year for the Halifax Regional Municipality to trim the trees on his street, even though the trees are rubbing against homes and hanging over power lines.

Colin May, who lives on Dahlia Street, said he called the municipality in June to ask crews to prune the trees that are on the portion of the street controlled by the city.

When he called again last week, he was told it could be up to a year before Halifax Regional Municipality crews arrive to do the work.

"If the cutting crew could come along the street and just trim those that are necessary, we wouldn't have to worry about the power lines coming down in a storm or the telephone utility lines," May told CBC News.

"Let's get into the old parts of Dartmouth, the old parts of Halifax, trim those trees that really need trimming and then we don't have to worry about it for five, six, seven years."

The Halifax Regional Municipality owns and is responsible for maintaining street trees along its road rights of way and in its parks.

The work of planting, pruning and removing trees is generally done by the municipality's arborists, as well as private sector arborists.

Nova Scotia Power Inc. is responsible for maintaining its utility corridor easements and works with the municipality to reduce conflicts between trees and power lines, according to the Halifax Regional Municipality website.

Kevin Osmond, the supervisor of urban forestry at the Halifax Regional Municipality, acknowledged there is a backlog.

He said supervisors visit each complaint site and crews are assigned to the most urgent cases first.

"Anything that we may deem hazardous to the public, to vehicles," he said Tuesday.

There are four tree trimming crews in the Halifax Regional Municipality and Osmond said they try to deal with all calls within nine months.

There are 178,000 city trees to look after and Osmond wants to change the pruning cycle so it's proactive, not reactive. To that end, private contractors were hired last winter and they'll be hired again this winter.

"Last year was predominately in Halifax. We now have a big chunk in Dartmouth as well," he said.

Osmond said he'd eventually like to see all of Halifax's urban forest trimmed every seven years.