Traffic passes near where crews have removed brush and trees. Greg Beckner/Staff
View Slideshow

Tree removal sparks debate

Caesars Head work leaves roadsides sparse

by Charles Sowell

Published: July 30, 4:13 p.m.

Multi-ton machines called Shinn Cutters have been at work on the lower reaches of U.S. 276 on Caesar’s Head, sparking angry outcries over denuded roadsides and shattered trees.

“U.S. 276 is one of our most scenic highways,” said Ben Gregg, executive director of the South Carolina Wildlife Federation. “What they’ve done along the roadside up there is just awful. What kind of an impression will it make on people?”

Gregg, whose wife owns a home at the mountain, said he first noticed the work about a week ago.

“I went by the park and spoke with the folks there. A lot of people were upset, let me tell you,” he said.

Michael Trotter, park manager for Mountain Bridge Wilderness, which includes Caesars Head and Jones Gap state parks, said he started hearing about the tree trimming from residents calling park headquarters.

“I told them to contact the highway department,” he said.

He did some checking on the work and soon called the South Carolina Department of Transportation to make sure work on the road shoulders would not damage the look of the park.

“The folks at DOT were really cooperative,” he said. “We’d had some issues with downed trees recently and the mowing was in response to that. The contractor DOT is using for the work only cut trees we’d marked on park property.”

The cut back roadside, so prevalent on the lower reaches of the mountain, stopped at the park boundary. Removal of problem trees, “leaners” as Trotter put it, is barely noticeable in the park.

Kevin Coyle is assistant resident maintenance manager at the SCDOT office on Saluda Dam Road in Greenville, the office tasked with supervising contractor work on tree removal. He said there was a bit of excess zeal on the lower slopes of the mountain.

“Nothing that is out of our right-of-way,” he said. “We’d contact a landowner if we were forced to remove trees on private property.”

The work was done after a series of winter storms knocked dead or diseased trees into the highway blocking U.S. 276, Coyle said.

“Folks up there called and complained and we were contacted out of Columbia to do the work,” he said. “Frankly it was overdue. We tallied 88 dead or leaning trees along the roads up there. This was a safety issue.”

SCDOT contracted with Nash Grading and Excavating Contractors of Charlotte for the tree removal work, Coyle said. The company is using the Shinn Cutters, multi-ton tracked machines that can grind fully grown trees into shavings and a low stump in minutes.

Greenville County Councilman Joe Dill, who represents the Caesars Head area on council, was upset by the scale of the work done on the lower reaches of the mountain and by all the debris left behind. “They need to clean that up,” he said. “U.S. 276 coming over the mountain is one of our most scenic gateways.”

Coyle said SCDOT intends to pretty up the raw looking roadsides over the course of the next few weeks.

“We’ve got a lot of work left to do up there,” he said.

---

Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites

Comments

Add New

Write comment
Name:
Email:	do not notifynotify
Title:
	Please input the anti-spam code that you can read in the image.

3.26 Copyright (C) 2008 Compojoom.com / Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."