New Haven Independent

“Respectfully, Ken, I think we get it,” said Peaches Quinn (pictured at the bottom of this story), an active member in the Whalley, Edgewood, Beaver Hills (WEB) management team, meeting with United Illuminating Arborist Ken Bullard at the Whalley Avenue substation Tuesday night. “I understand that UI has to do what UI has to do, but right now, between you and Parks, you’re taking neighborhoods. We moved in for these old trees. They are as historical as all the housing in the community.”

“There’s a difference between tree-trimming and hacking, and this is hacking, and butchering,” added local Livable City Initiative Neighborhood Specialist Elaine Braffman.

“We pay a lot of taxes and we love our neighborhood,” Quinn followed up. “We’re tired of hearing about Fairfield County [where power lines were buried to avoid historic housing], while we get stumps.”

What Quinn interrupted was a slide presentation from United Illuminating Arborist Bullard, summoned to the police substation Tuesday to explain why Beaver Hills residents were coming home to trees they viewed as brutally pruned. Some new lines were going in for a power conversion, and other trimming was just maintenance, the arborist explained, justifying UI decisions tree by tree. Bullard said he stays within UI limits of not more than 25 to 30 percent of a tree’s crown pruned away, and even takes steps to avoid pruning: including doing “oddball construction” like “outrigging” power lines on cross-arms nailed out from the trunk to stay clear of the crown. Pruning is a safety matter, he said, showing a slide of a burn where wire met trunk.

“Bury the lines!” suggested one neighbor, who said she was worried about the instability of the trees on Bellevue Road that were “hacked on one side” only. “If there’s a hurricane, they’ll fall on our houses. We’ll hold UI responsible.” Other neighbors jumped in to add that if lines downtown get buried, why not in Beaver Hills?

UI engineer Bob Judd (pictured) took that one. “It’s about a thousand dollars a foot to bury the line,” he said, demonstrating. “That’s just talking the conduit, not the actual circuit.”

The WEB team didn’t seem satisfied by that answer, nor by Bullard’s slides, which some suggested didn’t show the extent, or the “terrible V-shaped” results, of the pruning work. Fernando Lage of the Parks Department (pictured with Peaches Quinn), who wasn’t entirely out of the line of WEB fire, tried to mediate. “There’s a fine line that needs to be met. It’s a matter of a little give and take.” Lage said he felt for Bullard, the only UI arborist working locally and “doing his best.” But Lage also seemed to think UI could do better, citing a specific tree that was taken out at Edgewood and Osborn Streets, only to have the power line go up on the opposite corner in the end. He agreed with Quinn that concerned neighbors needed to take their beef “up the food chain” to UI contractors and higher-level decision makers.

Until then, Beaver Hills residents wanted a “moratorium on all cutting, until they have a plan,” said Quinn. “There needs to be a partnership. Each tree has to have a plan.”

Inside the substation, Bullard had seemed willing to open better lines of communication. “This meeting is a step in the right direction. Until ten days ago, I didn’t even know this group existed.”

“We’re willing to be passive, until we’re violated!” said Quinn.