Orange County NC Website
Browse       Search
9 <br /> The intent of zoning restrictions on wood processing operations is to ensure that tree workers <br /> haul away woody waste to distant, zoning-compliant locations for the noisy work of sawing, <br /> chipping, and grinding, but what actually happens is the opposite. With zoning-compliant <br /> locations for processing trees so far away, tree services find it more expedient to haul large tree <br /> processing machinery into the residential neighborhoods processing the wood and debris <br /> onsite. Today's standard practice is for tree crews to bring in high-capacity chippers (typically a <br /> 10,000 pound machine capable of chipping entire trees and logs over a foot and a half in <br /> diameter) and parking them on residential streets or in the homeowner's driveway. Whole trees <br /> are processed within steps of the living rooms and home offices of unprepared neighbors. While <br /> electric versions of vehicles, leaf blowers, lawn mowers, trimmers and chainsaws are making all <br /> other forms of yard work quieter, there will never be a quiet way to turn trees into wood chips. <br /> Wood chippers have in fact become significantly louder in the last decade as emissions <br /> standards favor higher-pitched gas-powered chippers over their diesel counterparts. <br /> In short, rigid zoning ordinances bring the noise and disruption of tree processing into the <br /> communities the same ordinances seek to protect, and the standard practices of residential tree <br /> work are thereby increasingly at odds with the reasonable expectations of the neighborhoods <br /> serviced. <br /> 2. Natural Resource Waste <br /> Processing trees within residential neighborhoods is not just loud, it is also highly wasteful of <br /> natural resources. With log yards and sawmills so far away from the communities in which the <br /> tree work is done, it is rarely feasible for tree services to haul the logs to these destinations. The <br /> logs are instead run through high capacity wood chippers or cut into short lengths worthless to <br /> a mill and are, as a result, discarded. Without a local site where logs and woody material can be <br /> collected and staged for their highest use (as lumber, veneer, biofuel, and pulpwood, e.g.) <br /> nearly everything ends up as waste material or, at best, as firewood or coarse wood-chip mulch. <br /> The negative environmental impact of such practices deserves attention. An average chip truck <br /> holds 10,000 pounds of wood chips. One tree crew will fill that truck daily. Our company <br /> currently sends out four crews every weekday, and we will likely need to double or triple that <br /> number to keep up with the local demand for tree maintenance needs. Whether spread out in <br /> the landscape or left in a pile, wood-chip mulch decomposes rapidly, with most of their stored <br /> carbon released back into the atmosphere. Since wood chips are by weight approximately 40% <br /> water, and what remains is 50% by weight carbon,' a truckload of wood chips contains 3,000 <br /> 2 httns://www.fs.usda.gov/sites/default/files/Forest-Carbon-FAQs.pdf <br /> 2 <br />