204 with regard to a wood recovery program. At the time of writing, the pilot program in North Haven, Con- necticut, had generated about $5,800 in revenue for the town (E. McConnell, personal communication); there had been no estimate of utility implementation costs. For a similar concurrent pilot program in Haddam, Connecticut, utility costs were estimated to be $12,000, with $6,000 in revenue for the town (S. Stotts, personal communication); the utility company identified opportunities for improving efficiencies and reducing costs in the future. To guide our discus- sion, we focus on three findings from our analysis: (1) the generally positive attitudes of tree crews toward a wood product recovery program in the utility context; (2) the potential barriers to such a program identified by tree crews; and (3) the utility of qualitative inter- views with practitioners in assessing urban forestry and arboricultural programs. First, contrary to our hypothesis, we found that participants were generally supportive of wood recovery from utility vegetation management. Through the interviews, we learned that participants were particularly motivated by the opportunity to reduce wood waste and to provide benefits to the communities in which they worked. Many partici- pants also expressed that the modified protocol (Fig- ure 1B) was very similar to their current workflow, making the program relatively simple to implement. This enthusiasm is consistent with findings from Endahl (2015), who found that a majority of respon- dents (municipalities and arborists in Virginia, US) considered urban forest waste utilization a major issue for the urban forestry industry currently and in the future. Participants were able to provide insight into where such a program might be most successful. Since homeowners in urban areas are less likely to keep the wood from removals for personal use than homeowners in rural areas, a wood recovery program might be more successful in urban areas. Participants indicated that urban areas generally pose a challenge in finding places to dispose of the wood. Therefore, in urban settings, a wood recovery program might save time if crews are provided a consistent location for log and chip drop-off. Previous research has high- lighted urban environments for potential wood recov- ery due to the high density of tree removals and close proximity of potential end users (MacFarlane 2007). Endahl (2015) found that private arborists often cited ©2020 International Society of Arboriculture Kloster et al: Tree Crew Perspectives on Wood Product Recovery the need for local facilities available to receive and stockpile urban forest waste. In the pilot program for our study, the town provided property at which wood could be dropped off, sorted, and stored until pickup by the end user. Second, the potential challenges that participants perceived for implementing a wood recovery pro- gram were consistent with those hypothesized. These included: (1) increased time required to remove a tree according to the new protocol; (2) safety concerns for removing larger logs; (3) physical obstacles to remov- ing logs (i.e., mailboxes and stone walls); (4) home- owners who want to keep the wood; and (5) low-quality wood (i.e., containing rot or metal). In modifying the protocol for the program (adjustment from Figure 1A to Figure 1B), we were able to take into account the feedback provided during the first round of post-implementation interviews. The new protocol aligned more closely with the current work- flow of tree crews and addressed some of the time and safety concerns that were expressed. By focusing on the butt log of the tree for recovery, rather than assessing the entire tree for potential wood products (Figure 1), the modified protocol ensured that crews worked below the height of the power lines when recovering logs. This modification was intended to reduce the risk of contact with the power lines and minimize disruption to workflow. However, partici- pant feedback indicated that even the modified proto- col could pose challenges at some worksites. Therefore, program success might be enhanced if supervisors are aware of such challenges and empha- size the importance of only recovering logs when it is safe and practical to do so. To address concerns about the time required, ask- ing homeowners whether they plan to keep the wood concurrently with obtaining permission for tree prun- ing or removal would allow crews to focus the wood recovery program on properties willing to donate their trees. Additionally, a protocol for wood recovery might emphasize recovering only logs that are not obviously damaged or decaying. While low-quality logs may be an issue in some cases, the revenue gen- erated thus far by the program in our study area indi- cates that high-quality logs are available from utility removals. Despite identifying low-quality wood as a potential barrier for urban wood utilization, a previ- ous study found that quality of urban-grown hard- woods was comparable to that of nearby forest-grown
May 2020
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