(Image Credit: Patsy Skene)

By Dylana Kneeshaw

TREE REMOVAL CONCERNS

“Sleeping with one eye open”: Kamloops mobile home park looking for entity responsible for hazardous tree removal

Jul 18, 2020 | 2:24 PM

KAMLOOPS — Frustrated residents of a mobile home park in Kamloops are hoping to have large trees outside of their property removed, as several have fallen dangerously close to homes.

After significant wind on Thursday (July 16), Riverdale Mobile Home Park resident Larry Mason says he came home to see a large Cottonwood tree hanging right over top of his home.

“It looked like it was ready to fall into my bedroom. So I came into the house and looked, and I thought ‘Oh man, that’s really close’,” he explains, “Well my hot water tank is in the closet in my bedroom, and it’s gas. So my next concern was to get out of the house.”

Mason says while he was on the phone with the property manager, he could hear the tree creaking. With that, Mason got his pet bird, and himself out of the house, and called the gas company to inquire about the hazard to the hot water tank.

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The company sent a crew to shut off the gas, and Mason claims it’s been off since then. The tree in question is off the park’s property, and leaning over the fence line, so Mason says he figured it would be the City of Kamloops who would deal with it.

“At first, I called the city and they told me that they were going to send an arborist out and they were going to do something about it. And an hour later they called me back, and said it’s not the city’s job. That I had to get in touch with FrontCounter BC. So I called their office and of course they’re closed because of the COVID-19 (pandemic).”

After leaving a message, Mason says he received a call back from FrontCounter BC, who told him they were not able to come cut down the tree.

“They said they’ve had this problem, and it goes from the city, to province, and then it goes national to fisheries.” he says, “Normally the water doesn’t come up this high, but that tree is sitting in 8 feet of water right now, and it’s leaning and creaking, which makes me feel that the roots are very unstable.”

Shown here, many of the aging or rotted trees in the adjacent beach front have leaned over the fence line of the Riverdale Mobile Home Park. (Image Credit: Patsy Skene)

According to Mason, one of the nearby trees did break off recently, but it fortunately fell on the other side of the fence. Now Mason says he’s nervous another large tree will snap off, and fall into homes and yards.

“Where I am, the tree is 8 feet on the beach, away from the fence to the trailer park, and I have about a 12 foot yard. The people next to me have an 8 foot yard, and the trees are right against the fence, and they’re like 60 feet high. If it were to be one of their trees (falling), their trailer would be destroyed, along with their neighbour’s.”

It’s not the first time residents of the Riverdale Mobile Home Park have dealt with overhanging trees, as Mason notes a petition recently went around asking Kamloops City Council to support having the hazardous trees removed.

A copy of the petition letter sent to Kamloops City Council. (In order to maintain the privacy of Riverdale Mobile Home Park residents, their names and signatures have not been included)

Riverdale Mobile Home Park manager Nicholas Adams says he’s been trying to get in touch with the correct authority to remove the aging, or potentially rotted trees, but it’s been several years of going back and forth between levels of government.

According to Adams, the park could get a permit through the Department of Fisheries and Oceans for the removal, and hire a company to do it, but it would be very expensive. Adams notes that the trees are not on the park’s property, and feels it shouldn’t be their responsibility to organize and pay for their removal.

“It is on the bank, which if you talk to the federal or provincial government, they’ll say it’s a municipal matter,” says Adams, who has grown frustrated with the issue, “And you talk to the municipality, and they’ll say it’s a provincial issue. So everybody is kind of pointing at each other over who is responsible for this land.”

Every time considerable wind comes through the Kamloops area, Adams says he’s worried a tree will fall and damage a home, or injure a resident.

“We’ve had a lot of people who are sleeping with one eye open,” he says, “We’ve had a shed destroyed, we’ve had a fence destroyed, and this last one was hanging right over the bedroom of one of our units.”

While he doesn’t expect a solution anytime soon, Adams says he hopes the right entity will eventually be identified to handle the tree removal.

“It seems like we end up having calls like this every couple of years. And it goes out in the media, and they (governmental agencies) say, “Oh, well we’ll do something’, and then a whole bunch of people come here and talk to us, and explain that they can’t do anything.” He explains, “We’ve had a lot of empty promises over the years.”