Tree-planting program takes root in Hamilton after Hydro One clear-cut
City of Hamilton to put $400,000 aside to fund a tree planting program for Ward 5
Just over a month after a section of land along the Red Hill Valley was clear-cut by Hydro One, Ward 5 councillor Chad Collins is sowing the seeds for a tree planting program.
Hundreds of mature trees were lost as a result of Hydro One's vegetation-clearing efforts at the end of May.
We lived in our own little world. Everybody thought it was paradise. Now it's just wide open.- Lynda McDermott, homeowner
As a result, the power authority has offered the city $20,000 in compensation: $10,000 for the Red Hill Valley corridor and $10,000 for the Hamilton Beach corridor clear cut.
Last year, Hydro One cleared the vegetation in the corridor along the Beach Strip.
RELATED: City, Six Nations fighting Hydro One clear-cut of Red Hill corridor
On Monday, Collins put forward a motion at the city's general issues committee to have $400,000 made available to fund a tree planting program in his ward. He said with the trees lost in the recent clear-cutting and the ash trees killed by the emerald ash borer, it was like "a double-whammy" for the city.
"The combination of the two, they both couldn't have happened at a worse time."
He said the compensation from Hydro One "doesn't come close to addressing the situation."
The money for the program will come from a Hamilton Beach reserve and a Ward 5 area rating reserve account. Of the $400,000, a little less than half will be used to plant trees in the Hamilton Beach community and Confederation Park area. A little more than half will be used to plant trees in other areas in the ward.
The replacement trees will be "a good size," Collins said, not young saplings.
Homeowners still grieving
A 1.6-kilometre swath of land running along the Red Hill Valley Parkway from Glen Castle Park to the brow of the escarpment, now resembles the surface of the moon. Tracks from giant machinery can still be seen in the dirt, and while a mix of prairie grass and wildflowers have been planted by Hydro One, few shoots are actually poking through the parched soil.
Homeowners along Mount Albion Road and Glen Castle Drive are grieving at the loss of the vegetation behind their homes. Lynda McDermott still gets teary-eyed talking about the clear-cutting.
"It was so beautiful," she said, describing her back yard. "We lived in our own little world. Everybody thought it was paradise. Now it's just wide open."
McDermott has lived in the shadow of the hydro lines for nine years. She says she's still a newbie on the block – everyone else along the corridor has lived there for 35 to 40 years.
Some of the trees behind her house were part of an old orchard, trees that have been around "since the beginning of time," she said. These were just outside the property line on city land and were considered inside the corridor. They were among the trees cut down.
The clear-cut took away two of the old fruit trees and around 18 other trees behind her house, including a giant fir tree that helped block a view of the tower and the highway. Without the trees to block the sound, she said it was as if the road moved closer to her home.
"The sound of the trucks used to be muffled. Now it's like I'm in the cab with the driver."
Cost-cutting measure
The purpose of the clear cutting was to remove any trees or shrubs that had the potential to grow higher than two metres.
Tiziana Baccega Rosa, spokesperson for Hydro One, said it was done as a cost-cutting measure to keep maintenance costs low.
"We only cut within the area we needed to," she said. But those residents with sheds, trees or gardens beyond their property lines lost whatever they had back there.
Baccega Rosa said with the 32-metre-wide section of land totally clear, hydro crews won't have to come back as often to maintain the growth under the wires.
Hydro One is obligated to maintain transmission right of ways in compliance with a number of regulatory authorities including the North American Electric Reliability Corporation.