A handful of significant windstorms over the last year has prompted the city of Coquitlam to conduct a risk assessment of more than 11 km of tree stands on Burke Mountain.
Lanny Englund, the city’s urban forestry and parks services manager, said the process will take place between July and September, with the goal of making the stands more able to stand up to storms.
“There have been some significant windstorms and a number of smaller wind events,” he told The Tri-City News. “Rather than reacting to each one-off situation, we are trying to comprehensively and proactively go out there and see what we can do to make it more sustainable.”
As development has made its way up Burke Mountain, many forested areas have been retained for parks and creek setbacks. Englund said now that the tree stands have been in place for several years, it is a good time to assess their condition.
The effort will focus primarily on city land and the Stream Protection and Enhancement Areas (SPEA) in the Upper Hyde Creek, Lower Hyde Creek and Smiling Creek neighbourhoods.
But several homes in the area include SPEA in their yards and some work will be conducted on private property, according to a city press release. In these instances, a letter will be sent to homeowners along with a consent form.
A consultant has been hired to conduct the work and residents can expect to see people in high-visibility vests assessing the area in the coming weeks.
Residents with concerns about specific trees in their area can still contact the city about their removal.
“We are hoping to make the area more safe and more stable in the long term,” Englund said. “It will hopefully alleviate the one-off concerns people have as well.”
Last August, a powerful windstorm knocked down trees and power lines across the region, leaving close to 400,000 customers without power. Significant damage was seen in the Tri-Cities, including Coquitlam, where trees were strewn on streets around city hall.
In March, a Port Moody woman was killed after a tree fell on her home when another violent storm hit the region.
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