Dead oaks provoke ecological enigma

Permitting for tree removal

The Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program is responsible for the regulatory protection of rare species and their habitats and derives its authority from the Massachusetts Endangered Species Act (MESA). A private property owner who wants to clear trees from existing woodland in priority habitat must apply for a permit and pay a filing fee. A landowner may qualify for an exemption if the clearing can be shown to benefit a state listed species.

The cost of a permit depends on the size of the area disturbed. The fee for an area less than five acres in size is $300; five to 20 acres is $1,800; and an area more than 20 acres in size or greater than one mile in length carries a filing fee of $4,000. In all cases NHESP has 60 days to complete its review.

 Most conservation agencies and environmental service businesses that regularly deal with state agencies are aware of Natural Heritage's review authority for any work that would be done on the properties that fall within the category of state designated "priority habitat." It is a designation based on the known geographical extent of habitat for all state-listed rare species, both plants and animals.

Approximately 75 percent of the land on Martha's Vineyard is considered priority habitat.

With the worst of the infestation behind us, according to most observers, the problem is no longer so much when and where to spray, but what to do with all the dead trees. Some see an opportunity to harvest firewood, especially with the cost of fuel oil expected to spike this winter.

But there are legal and logistical impediments to harvesting the deadwood in significant quantities. And, because it's no longer economical for local tree professionals to process Island wood for firewood, almost all the firewood sold on Martha's Vineyard is imported.

For now, the TNC and PHA have decided to let nature takes its course because the cost of removing the dead trees would be too high. Efficient, widespread harvest would require heavy equipment and access roads, which would upset the ecology of woodlands that have been purposely set aside to stay in their natural state. "We'll remove hazardous trees along the trails that our visitors use and along the stonewalls and near the collection," said Mr. Boland.

The Land Bank, however, has taken a different approach, based on its philosophy of encouraging public use of its properties. "At Waskosim's, the management plan calls for a community woodlot program if the Land Bank deems it appropriate at certain times, and this is one of those times," said Matthew Dix, the Land Bank's property foreman.

"We have a sign-up program," Mr. Dix said, "We'll advertise in the paper and individuals who are interested in acquiring firewood sign up and the Land Bank cuts the trees, minimizing the impact as much as we can, and transports them to a site where we leave them in one- to two-cord piles [of 10- to 12- foot logs] and then we call five or six individuals at a time on a weekend and allow them to come in and cut their pile up and take it away. We don't have any wood out yet, so people who sign up now may not get a call for a couple of months. It makes no difference what town they are from.

"And the same is going to be true for our Tiasquam Valley Reservation which abuts Waskosim's on the south side. We just opened it this week off of Middle Road and we're going to be removing some trees there as well."

And it will happen soon, because the trees are not going to be good for wood for long. "We're noticing that they're already rotting in a couple of inches," said Josh Scott of Beetlebung Tree Care. "The white oak will last longer, and the black oak will rot faster. The ultimate firewood is green wood cut and split and stacked that day. Less rot and less mess."

Adam Moore, executive director of the Sheriff's Meadow Foundation (SMF), said his organization's approach is similar. "We hold conservation restrictions over the town-owned land and private land along the path to the Lambert's Cove Beach," he said. "That's an example of a public path where there's a safety issue. We have talked to the town and we're working on that together."

West Tisbury has already taken several trees down around the Lambert's Cove Beach parking lot, according to town tree warden Jeremiah Brown. After all, as Mr. Brown said, "No one wants to go to Lambert's Cove Beach and get bonked on the head."

"Up-Island in general we got a lot of trees hanging the roads that are completely dead," said Vincent Maciel of Maciel Land and Tree. "There are some pretty bad spots in West Tisbury. We did one little stretch along the Panhandle, and that was 30-some-odd trees we took down."

In West Tisbury, there is about $11,000 in the tree warden's budget, enough for removing about 30 of the worst trees, according to Mr. Brown. "I did a little survey on my own in the last couple of months, and I counted about 300 dead trees with their energy pointing toward the road. They may not be on town property, but will fall into our road." A town might declare looming trees a nuisance, and try to persuade a landowner to remove them, but it's not clear that towns can require landowners to comply.

Meanwhile, every morning, Jesse Oliver of the West Tisbury highway department patrols town roads, picking up branches that have blown down overnight and skunks. "It hasn't been too bad do far," he said. "Just branches around two inches or less. The trees are rotting from the top down. When it's going to be bad is next year," when he predicts that whole trees start to topple.

In Chilmark, Keith Emin keeps the roads clear of both dead wood and dead animals with a lap around town every morning. Wednesday morning, after northwest gusts up to 50 mph overnight, there was a mess of mossy branches littering a stretch of North Road just west of Tabor House Road.

Mr. Emin draws an invisible vertical line from a point three feet from the edge of a roadway to demark the town's responsibility for trimming or topping overhanging dead trees. Both Mr. Emin and West Tisbury road superintendent Richard Olsen said it was unclear whether landowners are responsible for removing road-threatening trees whose trunks are on their property. If a tree falls on the road, however, the town will clear it away.

Last week Chilmark awarded a contract to Maciel Land and Tree to remove 257 standing dead trees along town roads in the next month. The town plans to stockpile the wood in 4-foot lengths at the transfer station on Tabor House Road for use by townspeople and taxpayers, who will be responsible for hauling the wood away after signing a waiver. Interested parties must first contact Tim Carroll at the town hall, tcarroll@ci.chilmark.ma.us.

Tree care companies have been hired to take down trees for individual customers, either for safety or aesthetic reasons. "A lot of the trees that have to be removed are in problem areas, like around a residence, and the tree is starting to drop branches," said Mr. Maciel. "It can be very dangerous for the arborist when a tree dies like that, because it kills the root too. If a climber gets inside that tree and starts trying to work limbs down, you have a real hazard of the tree falling - tipping right over, whole." If it's risky for a trained professional to deal with these dead trees, untrained homeowners should be extremely cautious if they plan to remove dead trees themselves.

Private property owners who plan to cut and remove dying or dead trees from their property should check to see if they are required to get a permit from The Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program (NHESP), an agency within the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife (see sidebar).

What about the fire hazard the dead trees represent? Walter Manley of Manley Tree Service said, "Fire hazard? I wouldn't put it in that category, but it's possible."

Mr. Pelikan said that TTOR's fire and restoration manager concurs. "It would take really unusual conditions to get a fire up into a leafless crown," he said. "That is another indication for us to let natural processes play themselves out."

Others aren't so sure. "If you had a blistering southwest wind and we had a drought for a month, stand clear folks," said Bob Woodruff, a trained forester and environmental consultant.

Aside from a disaster, what changes can be expected in the deforested areas? Mr. Boland wondered, "What will happen to the understory? It's all lit up now. When those areas are opened up, we'll see an increase in bull briars and huckleberry." Jeanne Woods, owner of the Middle Ridge land where the die-off is most extensive, said that there been great blueberry picking this summer up along the ridge.

"I'd be interested in what is already coming in beneath them," said Mr. Moore, a trained forester. "Are there new trees that have seeded in? I've seen white pines and pitch pines starting a new understory." Cherries, alders, birches, poplars - all fast-growing trees - may get a quick foothold and hang on until the oaks once again predominate. Other experts, like David Foster, an ecologist and director of Harvard Forest, expects oaks to fill back in soon.

"Even if left alone, it'll be a hundred years before you see woods like there were a few years ago - or let's say 70," said Mr. Robinson.

In the meantime, the dead trees that are still upright attract unexpected visitors. "Standing deadwood isn't a bad thing to have," said Greg Whitmore, Southeast Regional Ecologist for the Trustees of Reservations. "It's a wonderful habitat for a number of animals, and we could actually user more of it. Typically, when people see standing deadwood they cut it down. It serves for roosting, it serves for a perch for predatory birds, a variety of insects use it and also mammals."

And there will be more trees dying in the future, even if, as predicted, the moth infestations continue to abate. "Trees that undergo severe stress from drought or insect infestation, they'll hang on for a couple of years, but they spend whatever energy they had and they won't make it in the long run," said Tom Clark at PHA. They become very vulnerable to secondary organisms attacking them. Particularly one called two-line chestnut borer. The trees actually emit gasses when they are sick and they draw these beetles to them."

But things will improve, as they have in the past. Caterpillars come and go. "Years ago, when I lived in Vineyard Haven, we had the gypsy moths," said Ozzie Fischer, 94, of Chilmark. "I lived in Vineyard Haven, when I was a boy, and the town had a rig with a big tank on it and they went around spraying. And then the WPA, which I did sometimes, we went around with a swab, let's say, on a pole and I think we used kerosene, and where we saw a nest on a tree, we just swabbed it."

Long-term, after the current mess is resolved, what can we expect? "I expect this kind of disturbance to be more significant and more frequent because there are increasing numbers of pests and pathogens entering the country and affecting woodlands," said Mr. Pelikan. "And if predictions about climate change work out, it will increase the stress on woodlands by having higher temperatures and longer droughts."

In the short-term, however, the outlook is rosier. Most experts believe the infestation is on the wane. "I'm not recommending that my clients spray next year," Mr. Scott said. "We'll just monitor and spray as needed. It was spotty this year, and it'll probably be the same next summer. We'll watch the moth count in December and January. It's gone down as the infestation has gone down."