September snow tree damage will take decades to fix

If you thought Calgary's rental housing market was tight, imagine how the birds feel.

It will take decades for the city to recover from the Snowtember storm that devastated the tree canvas, and we're just starting to understand the extent, according to Mike Quinn, the director of the Institute of Environmental Sustainability at Mount Royal University.

"You know, we won't really know until the leaves really come out this spring," he said.

"Obviously we can see the big branches that are gone and the whole trees that are missing, but we're going to have to wait to see how healthy they are when they start growing back this spring," he said.

 "One of the things about losing those big branches on the trees, it's like removing critical girders from a building. It makes the trees less stable and they're more susceptible to damage from the next event."

Wounded and sparse

The open wounds and missing limbs also mean the trees are more susceptible to pests and disease. 

Birds will find it harder to find a place to nest and be more exposed to predators without larger branches and foliage to protect them.

Quinn says a healthy urban canopy would cover approximately 20 per cent of public areas in any given city and Calgary was hovering around seven per cent.

With the storm, the city probably lost one or two per cent of that already low figure, he said.

It will be a long haul.

"In terms of the overall coverage, the leaf coverage, what we call canopy coverage over the city, I would guess that we're looking at 20 to 30 years before we're back to where we were last summer," said Quinn.

The city will be hosting an information session on May 9 at McMahon Stadium for homeowners. Quinn advises those with large trees needing attention to call an arborist rather than tackle the job themselves.