With a sense of irony, many in my adopted home state of North Carolina have watched via the web since spring as League City, a town near the Gulf Coast of east Texas with a population somewhere between that of Cary and Chapel Hill, North Carolina, has worked to successfully relocate a massive, 100-year-old Compton oak tree (a hybrid between an Overcup and a Live oak.)
The 518,000 lb. League City oak was moved 1500 feet to allow county road-widening, while at the same time in my adopted home of North Carolina, we’ve watched a handful of legislators ram through legislation that, unbeknownst to most in the General Assembly, will sacrifice 70,000 publicly-owned trees along state roadsides to clear cutting by out-of-state billboard companies.
League City officials allocated $200,000 in impact fees to move what locals there call the Ghirardi tree which is named after the Italian immigrant on whose land the tree first sprouted. Meanwhile in North Carolina we’re watching our legislature gratuitously surrender public trees which are worth more than $11 billion in lifetime soil, water and air conservation alone ($157,143 each).
And if that’s not enough, NC is even letting the billboard companies privately sell the public timber to cover their costs for removal!
Click here for a short video showing how the huge tree in Texas was relocated to a new park appropriately designed to educate residents about conservation, or here for a slideshow (may take a bit of effort to open.)
8 comments:
That was quite a job. Perhaps all the staffs from the vancouver bc movers could help them out in that but I suggest that don't move that oak tree at all cause it might die. What if the tree doesn't like the new place, right?
Relocating a massive tree like that will require the expertise of people who know about plants. This need not be the agriculturist that have published his book, but he can be the farmer from the other town who knows how to take care of not damaging the roots while trying to get it off the ground. Hope this was accomplished well. It would be nice if the movers have some contacts on moving trees and shrubberies like the perth furniture removals back home. That would be most convenient.
Moving a big tree is also like moving to a different place. For instance, you have to get a good deal of property for sale in france, seal the deal and process all necessary papers before you can move. The same with such a big tree. One must first secure a place to put the tree as well as permit to uproot the tree from its original location.
WOW. Do they have like 'shipping to england' service? We have this old tree back at our first house and it's very important to the entire family. We wanted to bring it with us in our new house but we find it too difficult to move it to another place.
I think they should consider the hundred year old tree as a national heritage already, cause any change in might affect its growth. If they want to put up a residential properties to rent in it there's, well, a lot of empty space in there where they could keep up their businesses without sacrificing the life of an old oak tree besides it help us to clean the air we breathe.
It's difficult to decide whether to move a big oak tree or move your office furniture to a new location (especially if it's a home-based office). However, for safety concerns (since trees with big roots attract lightning, it has to be relocated to a good distance from the public.
I agree with the relocation and preserving that old oak tree. It's better than cutting it down. It should be preserved for the future children to see it, we won't know if it would be extinct.
If you think about it, relocating and redesigning an old, historical and a hundred year old tree isn't something you can compared with redecorating a house, which we all know is way easier. The process, I must say, is quite complicated cause the movers should make sure that they don't ruin the way the tree grows and yes, I admire their concern towards the tree cause we all know that putting up hundred old tree isn't easy at least they spare some value on it.
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