The mass amounts of gypsy moth caterpillars and drought over the last handful of years have left widespread damage—especially in the eastern part of the state—leaving trees severely compromised or dead.
Now the towns hit the hardest are left cleaning up the damage.
About 600 trees on town roads will need to be removed because of the gypsy moth caterpillar, said Canterbury First Selectman Chris Lippke. Already, 250 have been chopped.
Lippke called the severely compromised or dead trees a “public safety issue.” The town has dipped into Town Aid Road grants for the removal. But that means the money is not being used on other road repairs.
In the neighboring town of Brooklyn, First Selectman Richard Ives said they’ve taken “over 400 trees down at our own expense which was about $71,000.”
Ives said he will easily need that much money to do it again. This time, he plans to budget for it. He used some state money the town had in reserves for the recent work.
Ives said the town realized hundreds, if not thousands, of trees were dying because of repeated defoliation due to the gypsy moth caterpillar back in 2017.
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The town put a heavy focus on trees on the sides of town roads. Specifically, the side without electrical wires since Eversource will handle those, according to Ives.
“Safety both from a personal thing of dropping on top of somebody or something, as well as wires and power outages,” Ives said.
Connecticut Department of Transportation crews have been out in force taking down compromised tree, too.
DOT spokesperson Kevin Nursick said the estimated cost is tens of millions of dollars.
According to Nursick, DOT crews have been working on this for the last couple of years and will be addressing this for years to come. Crews are prioritizing imminent threats.
Between the gypsy moth caterpillar and emerald ash borer, the department estimates at least 50,000 trees are affected, Nursick said.
As the season picks up and the damaged trees are identified more easily, there will be an increase in tree work. The DOT relies on private contractors for certain equipment when it comes to tree removal. Nursick said they’ll likely be competing with utility companies and towns for those contractors.
There’s stump after stump in front of homes on Buck Hill Road in Canterbury from trees cut down by the town.
“We’re going to see in a few more weeks when the leaves start coming back out what is actually left,” said Ivan Kennerson who lives on Buck Hill Road.
He guesses over 100 oak trees in his Canterbury yard have succumbed to the gypsy moth caterpillar.
Already he’s marked trees that need to be taken down, he’s removed others and even invested in a log splitter.
A picture from his yard in July 2016 showed trees as far as the eye could see with no leaves.
