The Cost of Not Maintaining Trees Symposium

March 18-19, 2015

Patel College of Global Sustainability, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL

A limited number of rooms have been reserved for symposium attendees at the Embassy Suites Hotel. To receive the special rate of $149.00 per night*, mention the “Tree Symposium” when making your reservation (regular rate is over $200). Round-trip shuttle service from the hotel to the Patel Center will be available free of charge.

*Special room rates are guaranteed through Wednesday, February 18, 2015 only.

Embassy Suites Hotel USF/Busch Gardens 3705 Spectrum Blvd. Tampa, FL 33612 United States +1 813.977.7066

Symposium Location

Parking

Hotel

Patel College of Global Sustainability University of South Florida (USF) 11710 Maple Drive Tampa, Florida 33620 United States

Parking at Patel College or on the USF campus requires a permit. Daily permits can be purchased for $5.00 at pay stations on the campus or from Parking and Transportation Services. This pass enables you to park in daily/visitor lots only (indicated in purple on the map).

Patel College Fowler Ave.

USF

NORTH

CEUs International Society of Arboriculture (ISA): 6.5 Wednesday; 6.5 Thursday Florida Nursery, Growers, and Landscape Association (FNGLA): 4.0 Wednesday; 4.0 Thursday Landscape Inspector’s Association of Florida (LIAF): 4.0 Wednesday; 4.0 Thursday Society of American Foresters (SAF): 6.5 Category 1-CF Wednesday; 5.5 Category 1-CF Thursday

Registration Register for the symposium at: www.isa-arbor.com/costofnotmaintainingtrees

Advance registrations must be received by Friday, March 6, 2015. After this date, only on-site registrations will be accepted.

Additional Information If you have additional questions about the symposium, please contact:

Wes Kocher at ISA (wkocher@isa-arbor.com) Ken Lacasse at FUFC (ken.lacasse@secoenergy.com)

Thank You Sponsors!

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

8:00am – 9:00am…Registration Open

9:00am – 9:15am…Welcome Justin Freedman, President – Florida Urban Forestry Council

9:15am – 10:15am…You’re Spending How Much on Trees? Dr. David Nowak, Project Leader / Research Forester – USDA

Forest Service, State University of New York College ESF Scott Maco, Manager of Ecosystems / Research Forester –

The Davey Institute

10:15am – 11:00am…Trees Can Do That?! Dr. Cecil Konijnendijk van den Bosch, Department of

Landscape Architecture, Planning and Management – Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences

11:00am – 11:15am…Break

11:15am – 12:00pm…Trees Save Lives! Dr. Geoffrey Donovan, Research Forester – US Forest Service

Pacific Northwest Research Station

12:00pm – 1:00pm…Lunch with Exhibitors / FUFC Annual Meeting

1:00pm – 2:00pm…Force of Impact Associated with Branch Strikes John Goodfellow, Expert Consultant

2:00pm – 5:00pm…Breakout Session Option #1 Utility Breakout John Goodfellow, Expert Consultant David Watford, IVM Contract Administrator – SECO Energy Tim Lawyer, Business Development Manager – ACRT, Inc. Perry Odom, Electric Utility Arborist – City of Tallahassee

Breakout Session Option #2 Total Cost Analysis: From Seedling to Tree and Beyond Rob Northrop, Extension Forester – UF / IFAS Hillsborough County Extension

Carlos Rivero, City Planner – City of North Miami Beach Andy Kittsley, Urban Forester – City of Orlando Parks Division Dr. Andrew Koeser, Assistant Professor – UF / Gulf Coast Research and Education Center

Breakout Session Option #3 Using Technology to Model Costs and Benefits Dr. David Nowak, Project Leader / Research Forester – USDA Forest Service, State University of New York College ESF

Dr. Shawn Landry, Research Associate Professor and Program Director – University of South Florida School of Geosciences and USF Water Institute

Jeremy Barrick, Deputy Chief of Forestry, Horticulture and Natural Resources – New York City Department of Parks and Recreation

Erin Givens, Urban Forester / Ecologist – Natural Resource Planning Services

5:00pm – 6:30pm…Social with Exhibitors

Thursday, March 19, 2015

8:00am – 9:00am…Registration Open

9:00am – 9:15am…Welcome Wes Kocher, Educational Development Manager – ISA Norm Easey, Executive Director – ISA Florida Chapter Dr. Andrew Koeser, Assistant Professor – UF / Gulf Coast

Research and Education Center

9:15am – 9:45am…The Cost of Not Maintaining Trees Literature Review Dr. Jessica Vogt, Assistant Professor – Furman University

9:45am – 10:15am…How We Place Value on Tree Benefits Dr. Dave Nowak, Project Leader / Research Forester – USDA

Forest Service, State University of New York College ESF

10:15am – 10:45am…Modelling Urban Forest Impacts Dr. Geoffrey Donovan, US Forest Service – Pacific Northwest

Research Station

10:45am – 11:00am…Break

11:00am – 11:30am…A Formal Field Study of Mechanical Wounding of Trees Caused by Lawn Maintenance Equipment Dr. Justin Morgenroth, University of Canterbury – New Zealand

11:30am – 12:00pm…Structural Pruning Using ANSI Pruning Methods Dr. Ed Gilman, University of Florida – Gainesville

12:00pm – 12:30pm…The Costs and Benefits of Treatment vs. Removal of Trees Facing Noxious Yet Manageable Biotic Threats Dr. Rich Hauer, University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point

12:30pm – 1:30pm…Lunch with Exhibitors

1:30pm – 2:00pm…Communicating the Benefits of Tree Care to Municipal Officials Dr. Cecil Konijnendijk van den Bosch, Department of Landscape

Architecture, Planning and Management – Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences

2:00pm – 2:30pm…Milwaukee Case Study Dave Sivyer, Forestry Services Manager – City of Milwaukee,

Wisconsin

2:30pm – 3:00pm…New York City Case Study Jeremy Barrick, Deputy Chief of Forestry, Horticulture and

Natural Resources – NYC Department of Parks and Recreation

3:00pm – 3:15pm…Break

3:15pm – 3:45pm…The Business Case for Preventative vs. Corrective Utility Vegetation Maintenance John Goodfellow, Expert Consultant

3:45pm – 4:15pm…Integrated Vegetation Management Case Study Steve Tankersley, Operations Manager of Vegetation

Management – Pacific Gas and Electric

4:15pm – 4:45pm…Saving Money and Trees Requires Planning Mike Sherwood, Inventory Solutions Manager – Bartlett Tree

Expert Company

4:45pm – 5:00pm…Closing Remarks Rob Northrop, Extension Forester – UF / IFAS Hillsborough County

Extension

Wednesday Presentation Abstracts

You’re Spending How Much on Trees? Dr. David Nowak, Scott Maco

Cost benefit analysis of urban trees from a manager’s perspective

Trees Can Do That?! Dr. Cecil Konijnendijk van den Bosch

Maximizing the ecosystems services provided by urban trees

Trees Save Lives! Dr. Geoffrey Donovan

Capitalizing on the human health and social implications for urban trees

Force of Impact Associated with Branch Strikes John Goodfellow

Right-of-Way Stewardship Accreditation Program - Increased vigilance and increasingly aggressive vegetation maintenance activities on transmission rights-of-way (ROW) have the potential to dramatically alter the ecological characteristics of existing transmission corridors and result in unnecessarily disruptive impacts to the environment. The industry’s response has been to establish a recognition program intended to renew a commitment to the practice of Integrated Vegetation Management (IVM).

Breakout Session Option #1 Utility Breakout John Goodfellow

Force of Impact Associated with Tree Failures - This presentation will report findings from an investigation of the destructive potential of falling tree branches striking a target such as overhead electric conductors, manmade structures, and potentially people. While the work was funded by the utility industry, the findings have relevance to other disciplines within arboriculture.

David Watford “Wrong Tree, Wrong Place” - Creating Alternatives for Removals - Regulatory mandates for transmission corridors and storm hardening requirements have driven energy providers to aggressively take action in removing potential vegetation threats from their easements. While alternatives to tree removals seem few, creative utility arborists are discovering cost effective ways to “bypass” the need to remove large existing trees by partnering with their engineering and construction teams.

Tim Lawyer Trends in Utility Vegetation Management - As spring gets sprung, we embark with fresh new focus. Learn what is emerging in the marketplace as we continue to shape the future. Discover trends affecting the UVM industry, with real life examples and how they relate to safety, regulations, training and risk management.

Perry Odom Less is More: 18 Years Later - In 1997 Tallahassee Electric Utility embarked on a line clearance program where trees were trimmed only 4’-6’ away from primary voltage lines on an 18-month trim cycle. See the results of less trimming but more often on the canopy of Tallahassee.

Breakout Session Option #2 Total Cost Analysis: From Seedling to Tree and Beyond Rob Northrop

Managing the Urban Forest: Adding to the diversity of the trees planted by working with nurseries to increase their plant palette

Carlos Rivero Increasing the diversity of the Urban Forest Canopy: Carlos grows a variety of trees from seed on his own and steps up the specimens at the City nursery eventually planning in the City’s wide medians and linear parks.

Andy Kittsley Importance of the Tree Inventory in the Maintenance of the Urban Tree Canopy: The inventory allows a management plan to be developed scheduling tree trimming, take downs and planting efficiently by need and area utilizing both contractors and city staff.

Dr. Andrew Koeser From initial propagation to eventual removal and disposal, a wide array of material and energy inputs is linked to urban trees and their care. Unlike most “products,” trees also provide ecological benefits as they grow. This presentation traces the carbon footprint of an urban tree from cradle-to-grave making comparisons in overall carbon balance based on factors and cultural practices that influence growth and longevity.

Breakout Session Option #3 Using Technology to Model Costs and Benefits Dr. David Nowak

Modeling Urban Forest Ecosystem Services and Costs – This presentation will discuss the methods on how i-Tree models ecosystem services, values and costs.

Dr. Shawn Landry A case study and discussion of i-Tree and OpenTreeMap use in Tampa, FL

Jeremy Barrick Data is powerful, but is only as discerning as what goes into the system and how thorough it is investigated. Through relationships with DataKind and Columbia University, NYC Parks has been able to analyze massive data sets that provide great insight into how the routine block pruning program relates to subsequent trends in citizen’s service requests and work orders, as well as the effectiveness of the Trees and Sidewalks repair program.

Erin Givens Review of current tree inventory software to utilized to manage urban trees

Thursday Presentation Abstracts

The Cost of Not Maintaining Trees Literature Review Dr. Jessica Vogt

Existing urban forest literature is strongest in its quantification and qualification of the benefits and care of trees, and not in its ability to assess the results of lack of investment in trees. This presentation will show the results of a literature review on the “Costs of Not Maintaining Trees,” commissioned by the ISA Science and Research Committee. We summarize the literature from within the field of arboriculture/urban forestry to answer the questions: What are the costs of maintaining trees and the urban forest? And what are the costs of not maintaining trees? We present a detailed summary of the literature on the costs of maintenance and lack of maintenance for types of tree care commonly included in municipal budgets (planting, pruning, removal, pest and disease management) and briefly review less-studied types of tree care (including tree risk management; watering; mulching; fertilizing and nutrient management; staking, cabling and bracing; tree protection; and infrastructure repair). Finally, we discuss current gaps in the literature. We suggest that future literature should aim to examine the influence of maintenance regimes on costs and tree outcomes.

How We Place Value on Tree Benefits Dr. Dave Nowak

Understanding the economic and environmental benefits of trees and forests can lead to better vegetation management and designs to optimize environmental quality and human health for current and future generations. Quantifying the benefits derived from trees is one of the first steps in understanding the value of trees. While progress is being made in quantifying several of these benefits, determining the monetary value of the benefits can be challenging. There are numerous means to ascribe a value to the various benefits received from trees and forests. This presentation will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of various ways to place monetary values on tree benefits, as well as current limitations in understanding the overall value of urban forests.

Modelling Urban Forest Impacts Dr. Geoffrey Donovan

This presentation will begin by summarizing the speaker's work on quantifying the benefits of urban trees. These benefits range from the intuitive—increasing property values, for example—to less intuitive benefits, such as improved public health. Particular emphasis will be placed on the practical implications of the research for arborists. The presentation will also focus on how tree maintenance can influence urban-tree benefits. For example, the speaker's research showed that poorly maintained, view-obstructing trees were associated with higher crime rates in Portland, Oregon. In contrast, large, well-maintained trees were associated with lower crime rates. Therefore, poor tree maintenance can turn a tree into a liability rather than an asset.

A Formal Field Study of Mechanical Wounding of Trees Caused by Lawn Maintenance Equipment

Dr. Justin Morgenroth Urban trees surrounded by grass are susceptible to mechanical wounding caused by lawnmowers and trimmers. Anecdotally, this problem appears to be pervasive, affecting trees planted in school and university grounds, parks, botanical gardens, golf courses, roadsides, and any location where grass is maintained on a regular basis. This talk presents the results of the first formal study to document the incidence and severity of tree damage caused by lawn maintenance equipment. The speaker's research team will use recent field data to explore whether land use, mowing frequency, or tree size are correlated with the observed pattern of wounding in surface roots and stems. This talk will conclude with a discussion on long-term tree health and economic implications of mechanical wounding, as well as the role of tree protection.

Structural Pruning Using ANSI Pruning Methods Dr. Ed Gilman

Pruning the correct live branches can have a dramatic impact on how trees respond to gravity, wind, and ice storms. Structural pruning designed to reduce growth rate and weight on co-dominant limbs is the most effective method of minimizing damage from storms. This talk will thoroughly decipher thinning, reduction, raising, and structural pruning. Learn how to: • Provide the latest scientifically-based tree care to your

customers • Contrast structural pruning with other ANSI pruning

methods on mature trees • Combine pruning methods to meet customer

expectations

The Costs and Benefits of Treatment vs. Removal of Trees Facing Noxious Yet Manageable Biotic Threats

Dr. Rich Hauer This talk will focus on forest health issues that have globally changed the way we manage a diverse urban forest. Results from nearly 40 years of managing Dutch elm disease (DED, Ophiostoma ulmi), and a more recent decade with managing emerald ash borer (EAB, Agrilus planipennis), show hope is warranted in the face of doom. This talk shows how science-based research led to developing a management approach to culture the urban forest into the next generation of a more diverse urban forest. The economics of urban tree management are an integral part of this talk that demonstrates how maintaining trees through several decades is a preferable strategy to doing nothing, or reacting aggressively and removing a population of susceptible tree hosts. Real life examples from practical application and research will show how the cost of proactive management was less than no management.

Communicating the Benefits of Tree Care to Municipal Officials Dr. Cecil Konijnendijk van den Bosch

Urban trees need to be well maintained to fulfill their potential in terms of benefit provision. Poorly maintained trees can even start producing more disservices (e.g., creating hazards, fallen branches, damage to infrastructure, etc.). The importance of sound maintenance needs to be made clear to municipal officials – ranging from ‘tree’ officials and landscape architects, to engineers and urban planners, but also health officers. Communication and collaboration between scientists and practitioners from different fields will be required. This presentation focuses on some of the ways in which communication and collaboration between science and practice, and between municipal officials of different departments and backgrounds, can be enhanced. Examples of good practices from different parts of the world will be discussed.

Milwaukee Case Study Dave Sivyer

One of the most serious threats to urban and community forests are invasive and exotic pests and diseases, ever more pressing due to globalization and other factors, such as drought and poor species diversification. Sixty years after Dutch elm disease was first detected in Milwaukee (1956), the City’s urban tree canopy (UTC) is still recovering from the loss of 135,000 elm trees. And now, 17% of the City’s UTC is threatened by Emerald Ash Borer. Milwaukee’s case study assessed historical changes in UTC from leaf-on aerial and satellite imagery, and applied i-Tree ECO retrospectively in combination with growth modeling and economic data to quantify the cumulative ecosystem services benefit loss and costs attributed to DED. This broadened understanding of the long-term impacts and costs associated with UTC loss provides Milwaukee and other communities with results that can support resource and policy needs for sustainable urban forest management.

New York City Case Study Jeremy Barrick

With an estimated 2.5 million city trees, about 600,000 of which are street-side, New York City Parks manages one of the largest urban forests in the United States. Every aspect of the operation, from planting to maintenance and emergency response, must be efficient to be effective. The Forestry, Horticulture & Natural Resources Division has a long history of using GIS data to maximize efficiencies. After experiencing several significant storm events that resulted in significant tree damage and loss in the past five years, GIS data was used to analyze how routine block pruning reduces future tree hazards. As well as recognizing the importance of structural pruning, a young street tree pruning program has been implemented to develop more storm-resistant trees.

Thursday Presentation Abstracts

The Business Case for Preventative vs. Corrective Utility Vegetation Maintenance

John Goodfellow The Utility Arborist Association (UAA) established the need for a better understanding of how to determine optimum vegetation maintenance cycle periods and the tradeoffs between the relative costs of preventive vs. corrective maintenance. The presenter has completed the first phase of the research, and will offer a review of the applicable literature on the topic, and discuss a quantitative assessment model that was developed in the first phase of the investigation. This initial phase of the investigation laid the foundation for a proof of concept assessment and demonstration. The second phase of the project is currently under way and is intended to validate the algorithms that were developed in the first phase of the research. The final step will be to validate the model by completing a pilot demonstration using data available from a participating utility vegetation management program.

Integrated Vegetation Management Case Study Steve Tankersley

PG&E is one of the largest combined gas and electric utilities in the country, serving over 16 million Californians, in one of the most diverse service areas in the world. PG&E’s electric system consists of 134,000 miles of transmission and distribution power lines with over 55,000,000 trees under and adjacent to those lines with potential to conflict and cause power outages, wildfire, and public safety concerns. This presentation will illustrate real world contrasts where the cost of not maintaining trees are examined from a financial, reputational, civil, and criminal perspective.

Saving Money and Trees Requires Planning

Mike Sherwood This presentation will focus on several case studies where having existing inventory data and a master plan helped organizations save money and trees when facing acute threats such as severe weather or noxious invasive pests. Examples are sourced through work with a variety of institutions, botanical gardens, college campuses, and small municipalities from across the United States.