We had requests from multiple folks about cleaning up a county-owned parcel of land adjacent to our Innerarity Boat launch in D1 in Escambia County.
We had a number of trees that were identified to be in need of removal by our County Arborist.
Folks park in this area, folks walk in this area and the thought was that some of these trees were dying and could fall on cars or people. Initially, about a dozen were identified for removal.
Then, the arborist identified 5.
For any tree we were going to remove, the county was going to plant 2 6-7 foot replacement trees in the area, on the parcel.
But upon seeing the visceral reaction online to any trees being taken down--we will continue our efforts to clean the scrub brush from this county-owned parcel and to expand and dig-deeper the county-owned stormwater retention pond on this property and level the property with fill material.
But as for cutting ANY trees down----we are at an ALL STOP.
We will NOT be cutting any down in the immediate term until a full assessment can be done that includes myself, county staff, citizens, and stakeholders.
We will only cut trees that need to come down if they pose an iminent safety hazard, are diseased, or otherwise need to be removed in the opinion of ouar professional arborist.
