Over a dozen workers from Lewis Tree Service, Northern Tree Service, and the Department of Public Works gathered in Pine Hill Cemetery for the arbor day event. (Photo by Peter Currier)
WESTFIELD- Pine Hill Cemetery was the host of an Arbor Day program on Thursday in which tree removal companies and crews volunteered their time to trim, prune, and cut down problem trees.
Crews from Lewis Tree Service and Northern Tree Service arrived at the cemetery at 8 a.m. and began working on trees that had been previously marked for them. Last year, a group of Westfield State University Environmental Science students had come to the cemetery and done a survey on which trees needed work, according to Chip Colton, President of the Friends of Pine Hill Cemetery.
“They came in and they labeled each tree with a number one through four,” said Colton.
He added that the numbers were meant to mark the priority of each tree. They factored in the visible health of the tree itself, its location relative to any walking paths, and if they were encroaching on any grave markers.
An employee of Lewis Tree Service in a bucket truck near the east side of the cemetery. He began removing the larger outer branches of the clearly dead tree. (Photo by Peter Currier)
Another survey was also done by WSU Geography and Regional Planning students last year. They determined the meaning and usefulness of having a garden cemetery in a community. The students were led by Dr. Dristi Neog, a WSU professor who was recently a co-lecturer for the Westfield 350th Historical Lecture Series. In part of her lecture, Neog spoke about the survey and the experiences of her students. Fittingly, Pine Hill Cemetery is 175-years-old, exactly half the age of the 350-year-old city it resides in.
The bucket truck worker waits while a groundman with a chainsaw begins the lower work on the same dead tree. (Photo by Peter Currier)
Scott Hathaway, the Director of the Westfield Parks and Recreation Department and the City’s Tree Warden, said that he thought of the event as a success and he plans to do it again next year.
“For Arbor Day, you don’t always have to plant a tree, you can do events like this as well,” said Hathaway, “The crews said they would do this again next year.”
Throughout the day, the crews trimmed and took down about a dozen trees in different sections of the cemetery. The nature of tree work means that it is best done slowly and methodically due to the danger it can pose to the workers themselves or anyone who happens to be nearby. Most of the trees that were worked on were done so in what Hathaway referred to as ‘high target areas’. These are spots in which there are a lot of objects or highly trafficked paths below the tree’s branches.
A stump grinder was on site to remove the remains of dead tree stumps by grinding them into a pulp. (Photo by Peter Currier)
“It’s a safety factor,” said Hathaway,” people usually look down, they don’t look up,”
At noon, the crews from Northern Tree Service, Lewis Tree Service, and the Department of Public Works, were treated to a lunch served in the small chapel at the front entrance of the cemetery. During the break Mayor Brian Sullivan came to see some of the work and speak with the crews to commend them on the job they had done so far. The crews were at the cemetery until 3 p.m., having worked on as many trees as they could in the nice weather they lucked in to. The companies themselves had volunteered their services for the Arbor day event, but the crews themselves were still paid like any normal day.
