Town will remove more than 200 'hangers'
Public Works Director Rich Nota has a message for residents planning to haul fallen limbs, branches, and other storm debris to a road adjacent to their property for collection by the town: Don't.
Nota confirmed this week that the town has no plans to collect brush and tree limbs dropped by the October nor'easter on private land, but he did say that his department is looking for other ways to be helpful. In the meantime, the town will hire a tree service to remove the more than two hundred "hangers" that continue to dangle above Harvard's public roads, endangering motorists, bikers, and pedestrians.
Nota reiterated his "no collection" policy at a special Thursday morning meeting of the Board of Selectmen last week, where he asked for authorization to spend $25,000 to hire a bucket truck and crew for two weeks to take down dangerous hanging storm debris. He said his department had cash available for the project, but that so far no additional funds had been released by the federal or state emergency management agencies to pay for the much larger task of collecting homeowner brush.
Following the Dec. 2008 ice storm that left record amounts of tree litter throughout Harvard, the town applied for and received emergency aid to clean up the mess. Residents were told to haul their debris roadside, where the town collected and disposed of it. But many homeowners took advantage of the cleanup to add brush and other detritus unrelated to the storm to their piles. The cost mushroomed to $750,000; and although disaster relief money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the state eventually paid 92 percent of the bill, the town was left with a co-pay of roughly $60,000.
Federal, state, and town officials are still assessing the cost of the most recent storm. Fire Chief Rick Sicard has asked town departments to report the amounts they spent to provide emergency services. A FEMA representative visited Harvard for the first time last week. In order for the town to qualify for any relief money at all, the cost for all of Worcester Country must exceed $2.4 million.
According to Nota, the list of the 250 "hangers" that he and his crew have identified fills eight pages. And that's after a crew paid for by FEMA spent two days last weekend removing roughly one third of the dangling branches left by the storm, he added.
"I hate to use the term," said Nota, "but they're widow makers."
Selectmen agreed and voted unanimously to let Nota use DPW funds to hire a contractor. A transfer from the town's reserve fund will likely be necessary later in the year to make up for the extra spending now.
That leaves homeowners with a dilemma: How are they supposed to get rid of their debris? A notice on the town website last week warned them not to pile limbs and brush next to roads, where it might interfere with snow plowing and other work. The notice was gone by midweek, but the policy is unchanged.
While many residents have the space they need to build a nature-friendly "Ranger Rick" brush pile on their property as a shelter for birds and small animals—or to burn it—others do not, and burning season doesn't begin until January.
Nota said he has received "overwhelming numbers of calls" from residents asking what they should do. So have Selectmen.
So far, the next best thing to a town-funded collection, Nota said, would be to make a piece of town land available as a collection site. Nota said residents could transport limbs and brush to such a site over the next several weeks and then, later, the town could hire a grinder and trucks for a day or two to chew up the wood and cart it away, possibly to a wood-powered generation plant that would buy it. Nota said that a parking lot next to the Ryan Land would make a good collection point, if the Parks and Recreation Commission approved.
Nota said he thought the job of grinding and transporting the debris could be done for $30,000.
Selectman Ron Ricci said he was concerned that even if a resident owns a pick-up truck, it would take several trips to the dump spot to get rid of brush.
For those with a sedan or minivan, "It will be hard to transport," Ricci said.
Nota replied that he was looking into the cost of having the town haul debris, un-chipped, to a common site, but he said that the job would likely cost at least $100,000.
Nota will return to Selectmen later this month to present a more complete clean-up plan for approval.