‘A tragedy.’ Ocean Springs cuts down Live oak tree after months of controversy.
The centuries-old tree that shaded an Ocean Springs playground is no more.
On Wednesday morning, the streets around Fort Maurepas Park were blocked off as a crew started sawing off the Live oak’s massive branches.
The scene marked the conclusion of a months-long battle over the tree. City officials believed it was damaged during Hurricane Zeta and hired an arborist to evaluate it. In his report, arborist Ben Kahlmus recommended it be removed because it could threaten the playground that sits in its shadow. After months of deliberation, and after paying for some of the tree’s branches over the playground to be cut off, the board of aldermen voted in June to remove it.
But many Ocean Springs residents still held out hope that it might be saved. They argued there was little sign that Hurricane Zeta had significantly affected the tree, and that it appeared healthy enough that it was unlikely it would suddenly come crashing down while children were playing below it.
At a board of aldermen meeting on July 6, several residents spoke during the public comment period to ask the board to save the tree, but the board took no action on the issue.
Resident Glenn Miller said he had been going to the tree regularly to make drawings and showed the board a few ideas he had for art pieces that could incorporate the tree.
Joe Jewell of Ward 3 urged the board to conduct borings of the tree to determine whether it was suffering from internal decay.
“I think the city needs to take into consideration the precedent that cutting it... will represent to all of the trees out in the city of Ocean Springs,” he said. “Trees are very complex ecosystems. They communicate through their root systems. They provide microhabitats for insects, birds. They provide moss, lichens.”
“The loss of any tree is a tragedy,” he continued, but the loss of such an old tree was especially one.
Kahlmus, an arborist who examined the tree, told the Sun Herald it looked to be at least 200 years old, but without cutting it down to examine its trunk, it was impossible to know its true age.
On Wednesday, Joe Jewell arrived at the park around 11 a.m. and took photographs of the scene as workers cut the tree piece by piece. The enormous trunk was still standing as its branches, sawed into pieces, piled up around it.
“The oak was not damaged or hollow, please review the photos I just took of the cut tree,” he wrote in an Ocean Springs Facebook group. “I believe the reason they refused to take borings was they knew the tree was healthy.”
He told the Sun Herald that if the tree had any significant structural problem, or a hollow trunk or limbs, he would not oppose its removal to protect the public. But he doesn’t believe it suffers from those problems.
Earlier this month, city clerk Patty Gaston told the Sun Herald the city was reviewing bids to cut the tree down and that it would come down as soon as possible, though wet weather was delaying the removal.
It is not clear which company removed the tree. Jewell said the work vehicles he saw at the scene had no markings or tags.
