Unsafe trees being felled in Trafton Park

In today's world, a lot of people might put their nose up to you if they heard you were chopping down trees, because that's the kind of world we live in.

There are also a lot of people that would sue a town if a tree fell on them or if they broke a bone from falling from a tree.

The truth is sometimes trees simply need to come down. As is the case at Trafton Park.

Jim Brown the director of Malta public works and his crew have been cutting down unsafe trees for the past couple of weeks.

"The thing about it is that a lot of them are hollow and dying," Jim Brown told the PCN. "They are a liability and we just don't want them to fall and hurt anybody."

Upon seeing that many of the near 100 year old cottonwoods were in rough shape, the crew made a project out of removing the trees.

"I thought, we've got time this summer. We're just gonna jump right in and take care of the problem," Brown said.

About ten or fifteen trees were marked to be de-branched, cut down and segmented into firewood for whoever wants to pick it up.

"The trees that we're taking and piling are for people to come down and cut all the wood they want," said Brown. "They don't seem to be diseased or anything, they're just getting too old."

For those concerned that it's not in the city's budget, Brown insisted that the project isn't costing the crew a lot to do the service.

Though the loss of trees will also be a loss of shade, the city crew has planted more trees including a few pine trees.

Less cottonwood trees also means the possibility of less cotton drifting into residential areas of the city.

"We're keeping the trees up, but we're getting rid of the nuisance trees," Brown said.