HRM tree pickup plan requires staff support
If a tree falls on your property and nobody clears it, do you make a sound?
Coun. David Hendsbee (PrestonChezzetcook-Eastern Shore) took up the cause Tuesday for those Halifax Regional Municipality residents who did make some noise about the removal of tree debris in the aftermath of hurricane Dorian.
“My concern is that there are residents across the municipality, especially in my district of Mosher River, Sheet Harbour and Port Dufferin who were hit extremely hard and I have been getting calls from residents asking will there be a tree debris pickup program like we did for hurricane Juan,” Hendsbee said in moving that council consider asking the CAO to initiate a roadside pickup service of Dorian-driven tree debris across the municipality.
Hendsbee said he moved that council direct CAO Jacques Dube to initiate the service because it would otherwise require a staff report that Hendsbee suggested would take so long that a lot of the roadside material would be left where it is to rot or dangerously burned in piles.
Hendsbee estimated the pickup might cost in the range of $2 million, an amount that might be taken from a municipal reserve. Municipal lawyer John Traves said council would have to accept Hendsbee’s motion by a two-thirds majority to waive the rule that the motion be deferred until a staff report is completed.
“What we are talking about now, as I understand, is private trees on private property and people need help with them,” Coun. Shawn Cleary (Halifax West-Armdale) said.
“If the hurricane blew everyone’s house down, we wouldn’t have the resources or the mandate to go and repair everyone’s house. “I would need to have a staff report . ... We need some information before we can direct the CAO to do anything.”
The eventual vote finished 7-7, prompting Hendsbee to move instead for a staff report on removing the debris. Dube said the report will take at least two to four weeks to complete.
“We will try to bring it in in the first meeting of October, that’s our target, but don’t be surprised if we are two weeks after that.”
Brad Anguish, director of transportation and public works for the municipality, provided a Dorian update.
“There are still about 1,000 what we call low-priority activities left,” Anguish said. “To put that in perspective, the low-priority activity deriving from the storm is a critical activity on any normal work day. These are sidewalks heaves, obstructions in the right of way, of which there are still a lot all over the municipality.
Anguish said there is a lot of work to do on the streets and in the parks to clean up, make the community safe and get ready for winter works. “We have dealt with all the trees that are physically disturbed, however, there are a lot of trees that are standing that are unsafe. They all need to be inspected.”
Anguish said a key lesson learned from Juan was that pulling all of the downed trees from private properties into the right of way was a huge mistake that hampered cleanup and power restoration. He said a new removal plan will require a specific start and end date.
“This means that we will have to access a lot of extra assets that we don’t have as a municipality and we don’t have as a province. We would have to outsource and we’d have to outsource outside the province.”
Meantime, HRM residents are allowed to put out 10 tied armload-sized bundles of branches for curbside collection.
The bundles can’t exceed 34 kilograms and no pieces are to be more than 1.2-metres long or larger than 0.2 metres in diameter. Larger residential tree waste, such as trunks, brush, branches and tree limbs, can be delivered to construction and demolition sites at Halifax C&D Recycling Ltd. Tree waste at the municipal collection sites will be turned into wood chips and used at municipal parks and active transportation trails.
Anguish said the department is committed to looking at additional sites for collection.
“I just received advice today from risk and insurance that the private operations, they are not comfortable with. Therefore, we are moving to public operations.” Anguish said Lake Charlotte and Sheet Harbour locations will open soon.
“I am just trying to find a reasonable way and quick process,” Hendsbee said in support of his initial motion. But approval of Hendsbee’s second motion means that residents will have to wait at least two weeks for HRM staff to come back with a report and a plan to get rid of the tree debris.