Crews remove large tree along Warren's Water Street

Root structure was interfering with sidewalk, sewer lines

By Ted Hayes
Posted 3/14/19

A large silver maple on Water Street that had been marked for removal for more than a year finally came down Thursday morning, to the dismay of some residents who wanted the town to do more to save …

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Crews remove large tree along Warren's Water Street

Root structure was interfering with sidewalk, sewer lines

Posted

A large silver maple on Water Street that had been marked for removal for more than a year finally came down Thursday morning, to the dismay of some residents who wanted the town to do more to save it.

“It’s a shame,” said Judy Fardig of the Warren Tree Commission. “They couldn’t let it stay?”

No, town officials have said.

The owners of 396 Water St., just opposite Blount Fine Foods, first told the town more than a year ago that its large root system was interfering with wastewater lines out of the house. Town officials inspected the tree and, coupled with the plan to re-do the sidewalks in that area at a later date, decided that the tree would need to come down.

Though there was some talk of re-routing sewer lines away from the tree’s large root structure in an effort to save it, Warren Town Council president Keri Cronin said Thursday morning that given its expected life expectancy of probably only another decade or so, and the cost of re-routing those lines, the expense would likely not have been worth it.

Regardless, the tree’s demise Thursday saddened some tree commission members and others across town, who took photos of its removal and posted them to Facebook and on other platforms.

“They should have done something,” Ms. Fardig said. “It was a beautiful tree. It gave off so much shade.”

The tree, like others that have been taken down along Water Street over the past year, will be replaced with a species more resistant to the large, twisted root structure silver maples are known for.

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