Elisabeth Champion
Five nuisance trees in Naracoorte will be removed, while Naracoorte Lucindale Council will engage an arborist in an attempt to save a tree at the Naracoorte Swimming lake.
At the Naracoorte Lucindale Council meeting last week, councillors were presented with several recommendations for trees that needed removal by the Botanical Working Group, due to damage and risk to people and property.
Elected members voted with the recommendations for the removal of the five trees.
The pine tree located at the Lucindale Cemetery will be removed by council, due to “significant damage” it is causing to gravesites.
A tree located on the corner of Pinkerton Road and Wimmera Highway will be removed, as it is dead and is dropping large limbs and bark.
A large tree on Donald Street will be removed as it has numerous dead limbs that need trimming, but it has not responded well to trimming in the past.
A resident on Pine Grove, Naracoorte has requested the removal of two trees as they are causing damage to the property, including causing the driveway to lift. They expressed concern for the safety of their children, should a limb fall.
It is the second time the resident has requested the removal of the trees, with a request for removal being denied in April 2022.
All trees will be removed at council’s expense.
Councillor Abigail Goodman, who is also on the Botanical Working Group, said the tree at the Lucindale Cemetery was in a part of the cemetery where there had been a lot of work on upgrading old headstones.
Mayor Patrick Ross suggested the possibility of using stumps for carvings instead of removing the whole tree in the future.
“I was wondering, especially given the removal of pine trees at the Lucindale Recreational Area, whether there may not have been an opportunity to actually use the stumps for some sort of carving, because all of a sudden the stump doesn’t become a risk because the tree is dead,” he said.
“Like the Father Wood trees you see on the way into Penola and whether there might be an opportunity to do something with a 10-foot stump or whatever it might be instead of just chopping it all the way down at the end.”
Despite voting to remove the trees, elected members voted to get another arborist report done to look at ways to reduce the risk of a tree at the Naracoorte Swimming Lake, after it was suggested it be removed.
A report tabled to the Botanical Working Group called for the removal of a large river red gum located adjacent the beach at the Swimming Lake.
However, councillors voted to engage another arborist in an effort to save the tree.
Ms Goodman said there was an “inherent risk” to having a report done.
“There was discussion around the fact that there’s inherent risk in asking an arborist to do a review of eucalypt in that it’s very rare that they would say there is no risk because those trees are known to drop limbs,” she said.
“So then once you have a report that says there’s a risk, there’s action required, so it’s a little bit of a double edged sword, because it’s very difficult to get someone to say that there’s no risk involved in having gum trees in our environment.”
Director of infrastructure and services Daniel Wilsmore said the report was estimated to cost between $2500 and $3000.
The council also endorsed the Tree Management Policy with the inclusion of reference to the Native Vegetation Act.
