Walden Lake residents who notice dead trees in the medians of the neighborhood will soon see those trees removed.
For the last six months, the Walden Lake Community Association has been working with the City of Plant City to have dead trees along the medians removed. The medians are the property of the City of Plant City, and not of Walden Lake.
Ray Page, chair of the association’s landscape committee, updated the WLCA at its monthly meeting Monday, July 18.
“All of the medians are city property,” Page said. “We’ve talked to some of the department heads, and now they’re getting around to it. Right now, I would say on each one of the medians we have as many as three trees that need to come out. We did that with the city, we picked out the trees that are dying and need to be taken down. Usually (they) are decayed, and you can see the rotting limbs.”
Yellow ribbons have been tied around the decaying trees to show which ones need to be removed. The majority of the medians are found from Timberlane Drive to Trapnell Road and from Turkey Creek to Mud Lake roads. The City of Plant City also is responsible for the trees in the medians on Griffin Boulevard.
“Walden Lake takes care of all of the common ground with 2.2 million gallons of water per month,” Page said.
The City of Plant City will be removing the trees once a week on Mondays, usually early in the morning. The City also will be responsible for moving the related debris.
The WLCA has asked the city to help in removing debris from other trees.
“We’ve asked the city for a little bit of help in taking away the debris
… because of our cost,” Page said. “When we take it away, a dumpster is costing us $400 per dump. With the community getting old, there’s a lot of old trees.”
Page said the WLCA has been spending between $800 to $1,200 per month for a dumpster. Those funds come out of the WLCA’s landscape budget. The summer can bring about added costs with summer storms.
Eventually, the community plans to replace the trees that are removed.
“We will have to probably look at replanting those trees ourselves,” Page said. “We’ll buy new trees and replace those in time. We have a lot of tree work that needs to be done to bring this community up to date.”
Contact Emily Topper at etopper@plantcityobserver.com.