“Hello everyone, and welcome to Shelby this week; Top New stories, trees groomed for construction, a red hot night and a fatal accident. All this plus much more, but first, a major road construction project is moving along even with these freezing temperatures. 24 Mile Rd. between Mound Rd. and Van Dyke Rd. has been closed for major reconstruction. We talked to Steve Mancini from Ric-Man Construction for an update.”
“Yeah, we’ve had some pretty substantial snow events and then some cold weather. So yea there’s probably been maybe several combined weeks of delay sure, but nothing that wasn’t anticipated.”
“With this weather did your equipment not work well? And then you have your guys working out there too.”
“Yeah, mostly it’s just the safety of the men and the women, its just too cold being in equipment sometimes. If it’s below zero or even sometimes below a daytime high of 10 we’ll shut down.”
“In regards to tree trimming on 24 Mile Rd, those large old trees that Shelby is known for and why we’ve won the Tree City USA Award over the years, the township has turned to an Arborist to watch over our trees. Kay Sicheneder from Owen Tree Service has been on site and keeping a watchful eye over the project.”
“What they have to do is put in a 42 inch main, its enormous, you’ll see those huge concrete pieces and that’s what the water is going to go through. It goes down, down through the ground quite a ways and so they have to maneuver that pipe into the huge trench that they’re going to make. To do that requires a crane. The crane has an elbow that’s going to swing up to 30 feet high and so therefore the trimming is to keep the branches from either being broken and falling onto people who are working on the construction site, ripping the branches out of the tree, which would hurt the trees.
“Again no full trees have been removed, just trimmed.”
“And there are, we’ve identified a few very large trees I’m sure anybody in Shelby is probably very familiar with them at the Chase Bank and around there between Shelby and Mound Rd. there’s quite a few nice big trees that are quite close to the road. So I’ve already talked to the construction folks about that and the concerns and we will do everything we can because some roots can be cut and some cannot. So that’s my job. The construction people don’t understand so they’re very smart to have somebody who does. We’ll try to get it all accomplished without damaging the trees too much. I don’t know that we’re going to be successful in saving every tree but that is certainly our objective.”
“Some of these trees are within 5 feet of construction. Oaks which are the oldest, Silver Maples and Black Locust trees canopy over 24 Mile Rd. Kay says they’ll even hand dig to get around those roots so trees don’t die.”
Some of them are so large and so big on these big Oaks that it would have really been a problem for equipment actually. So what I do want to say is that what I have not seen very often, what I would love to see more, is proactive which is what Shelby is doing. Usually I get the call when the trees are really damaged and it’s too late, there’s wounding that cannot be fixed. There could have been perhaps a little swerving or changing of the plan so that the tree could be preserved better. There are a lot of things that could be done prior to the construction or the construction damage. So no, I don’t see it nearly enough. We don’t have ordinances in this state like that so much.”