The trunks of a mature swamp oak are lifted by crane onto Maine Street during a tree removal operation on Tuesday, August 13. Kristian Moravec / The Times Record

Tuesday afternoon, the sound of chainsaws echoed through downtown Brunswick as rush hour traffic slowly squeezed down Maine Street.

A large crane outside Bank of America hoisted tree trunks into the air as workers in safety vests stood nearby. Witnesses at Gulf of Maine Books, just a few doors down from the bank, said workers began cutting down the tree around 3 p.m. By 3:55 p.m., the crew had cut down a second tree and was beginning a third in front of Cool as a Moose. Inside the bookstore, customers gawked. One customer said “they ruined Brunswick” as he paid at the register.

“We hope there’s an opportunity across the street,” said Beth Leonard, one of the bookstore’s owners. Machines roared as leafy branches were pushed into a chipper.

The “other side” Leonard was referring to is the pristine east side of Maine Street, which will have its sidewalk rebuilt in 2025. Starting in May 2024, Brunswick launched its Streetscape project on the west side of the street. The initiative aims to rehabilitate 5,000 square feet of old sidewalks along Maine Street and add features such as benches, new tree pits and more.

The project sparked an uproar when residents realized that more of the original trees would have to be cut down than expected. Many residents and city councilors raised the issue at public meetings, and a public forum on the project was held on August 5. Still, some residents are wondering what else they can do to protect what many consider a valuable city asset.

“Our worst-case scenario”

Workers remove a tree in front of Cool as a Moose on the west side of Maine Street on Aug. 13, where Brunswick is resurfacing its sidewalk. The project has sparked outrage because the demolition work will remove more trees than expected. Kristian Moravec / The Times Record

The Streetscape project took nearly five years to complete, with sidewalks becoming a priority after the walkways began to buckle and cause people to trip, resulting in some injuries.

Steve Walker, a Brunswick resident and former District 2 councilman who has served on the council for 11 years, said he was present when the project got underway. During discussions about renovating the Maine Street pathways, the focus was mostly on the materials for the design, Walker said, although trees occasionally made an appearance.

“Tree protection was important, but it was never – as far as I can remember – as much of a challenge as it is today,” Walker said, adding that at the time it seemed that an “engineering approach” could be implemented, meaning that building plans could be adapted to the trees and felling would be rare.

Later in the process, council was presented with data showing which trees in the project were diseased and which would not survive the project. Although he did not support the construction approach at the time for various reasons, he said council understood that the remaining trees would be preserved.

“I think the councillors at the time were of the opinion that the work had already been completed, that surveys had been carried out and that we were presented with this colour-coded table of the trees to be lost and we were unfortunately gleefully led down that path,” Walker said. “I don’t think we were given the full picture.”

City Arborist Dennis Wilson, who has been with the city for five years and has 30 years of experience as an arborist, said the goal was always to preserve as many trees as possible and that each specimen was assessed individually.

A three-person arborist team surveyed the trees last fall to determine which ones would not survive the project, such as trees that were already severely dead or already damaged. After that survey, eight trees remained, and plans are in place to examine them when demolition of the walkways begins.

Criteria for tree viability were often that damage to the feeder roots (smaller roots that grow from the tree’s woody roots) had to be as minimal as possible and that the roots reached 45 cm deep so that they did not pose a major threat to surrounding buildings, cars and pedestrians.

If lateral roots – those that branch off the tree’s main root – are severely damaged, the tree may not be able to stand on its own and poses a danger to nearby buildings and people, particularly in high winds or freezing weather. Wilson said that in climate change-related weather conditions, such as those seen more frequently along the Central Coast in recent years with strong storms, authorities will need to weigh the increased risk.

“We found that the roots are very shallow in the worst case scenario,” Wilson said. “Excavating for the new walkway would damage them to the point where they would fall over. The trees would also be more likely to die.”

The recently felled swamp oak in front of the Bank of America was healthy, Wilson said, but the survey last week showed that the lateral roots were only 5 inches deep, far less than the 18 inches hoped for. The lush, heavy canopy combined with the weak roots pose a high risk of the oak falling over in a storm, Wilson said.

Wilson added that it’s impossible to fully understand a tree’s root system until the panels are pulled out. He said that at this point in the construction process, it’s possible that all of the trees on the west side could be lost. But with the project halfway through in 2025, Wilson said more tree assessments are pending for the west side of the street.

“I will do everything I can to save as many existing trees as possible while planting new trees for the future,” he said.

“180 degrees in the wrong direction”

Former town arborist Peter Baecher, who worked in Brunswick for 16 years and has 25 years of arborist experience, has seen many trees die in his line of work, and for this particular project, he attended several town meetings to advocate for “landmark” trees along the street.

“When you replace an entire sidewalk, that’s usually the end for most trees,” he said. “But I actually wanted to save one particular tree (the tree on the waterfront) that I thought would become kind of the landmark tree and grandfather tree of Maine Street.”

Baecher said another construction method was needed to protect the tree, but he could not convince anyone of a hybrid approach, so the tree was cut down.

Now, residents are concerned that protecting historic trees has not been given enough priority because the planning does not provide flexibility to accommodate them. Some said they do not believe the younger replacement trees to be planted along the road as part of the project will make up for the loss.

“You know, by the time these trees provide enough shade again, I’ll be dead,” said 65-year-old Emily Swan of Brunswick about the new trees.

Swan, a 37-year resident of Brunswick, said tree removal and planting on the street has always been staggered. Like many residents, she did not expect large, mature trees to be affected by the sidewalk project.

Swan said it would take a “forceful” vote from the City Council to protect the project’s mature specimens. Given climate change, she said, the city needs to try harder to preserve what’s left.

“At a time of increasingly hotter summers, cutting down the trees in our inner city that sequester the most carbon – and provide the most shade – is a blatant move in the wrong direction,” Swan said.

“They should not be taken lightly”

A photo in the April 18, 2023, memorandum to City Council shows a truck hauling large logs in its bed. The caption states that the truck is hauling logs from a 200-year-old tree that was previously located at Brunswick Landing. Courtesy of Brunswick City Council

Since the trees are being felled within a very short period of time, some people are asking whether there are any protective measures at all for the tree resources.

Walker said there is a provision in the city ordinance that requires trees over a certain diameter to be included in zoning plans and protected for years to come – for historical and scenic reasons, but also for shade, erosion mitigation and more.

“Although this provision was included in the ordinance, the planning committee unfortunately repeatedly overruled it,” he said.

During his time as a councilman, he sought to strengthen protections. A 2023 proposal – available in the council’s April 18 agenda packet of last year – points out that the city’s Natural Vegetation Protection Act does not provide standards for how or which tree stands should be protected unless the tree is in a “scenic area” or near an open field.

The 2023 proposal outlined protections for so-called “significant trees” – mature native species not identified as a threat – and included requirements such as mapping trees in development plans and submitting tree protection strategies for construction projects.

That proposal never made it to the Planning Committee, despite the council unanimously voting for it. Walker hopes Councilwoman Jennifer Hicks of District 5 will bring it back to the table in the fall.

“Trees really define our community,” Walker said. “Whether it’s a forest stand that provides real ecological benefits or just mature trees downtown that define our community, provide shade and protection from the heat, but also provide stopovers for the migratory birds that pass through our community every fall and spring. They serve a whole host of functions and should not be taken lightly.”

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