On Friday morning, July 27th, I heard the sound of a wood chipper in my neighborhood and I thought of the Ash trees in Glen Armil Park. I wandered over to the park for a visit and sure enough, the Ash trees were under attack by a marvel of modern technology. Rainey Tree Service of Moline has been hired by Davenport to aid in the removal of Ash trees on public property. Nine trees in our park were marked for removal back in March (See story earlier on this site.) Back in the spring the city removed one of the nine infected trees but left the majority standing. “For safety reasons,” the Rainey employee said, “we are removing all of the marked trees in the park.”
The operator stays on the ground with a radio remote controls the boom and compound saw and grapple.
The corner of Lillie and Rusholme on the afternoon of the 27th.
The new boom truck of Rainey Tree Service allows a 2 man crew to do the work of several more employees and easily remove five trees in one day. No one climbs into the trees and the long reach of the boom allowed the truck to do the heavy lifting. Some of the limbs the boom had a hold of must have weighed several hundred pounds. The boom manipulated the limbs handily to a point right in front of the chipper. By repositioning the boom the operator was able to push the limb right into the chipper.
The fourth tree is being cut down while the trunk of the second tree still stands near the corner. There is a boom on the large white truck that can pick up the logs from the trunk. After chipping three trees, the white truck was full of chips and logs, so it left to dump its load. Meanwhile the operator continued to stack limbs in front of the chipper in a long que.
The third tree (along Lillie) coming down. This tree will become the stump on the left in the photo elsewhere.
