Low pay. Tiny crews. Lots of deadwood. What’s not to like about trimming trees in St. Louis?

Jul 06, 2023

Dead trees in Willmore Park in St. Louis stretch towards the sky on Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2023.

ST. LOUIS — Christine Drane grew up on a Mississippi farm and migrated north, putting her busy hands to work on the factory floor. After McDonnell Douglas laid her off, she went to Mallinckrodt Chemical for 29 years, until retirement.

She’s lived in the same well-kept brick house in the 5000 block of North Kingshighway since 1968.

“It was nice around here then,” said Drane, 86, a former block chairwoman who also served as treasurer of the Mark Twain Community Alliance. “Trees lined the parkway. Trees lined the curb. Everything has gone to pot, I tell you.”

Part of her frustration stems from one leafless ash tree standing in the front yard, a constant reminder of the deadwood plaguing her small share of the urban forest. Eight feet around at the bottom, it’s in the city’s right of way, between the sidewalk and the street. Like thousands of other residents, she’s been calling the Forestry Division. Then, in the July 1 storm that smacked the region, a large limb fell from the tree, onto her house, blocking the entryway.

City workers cleaned up the main mess. But there were more pressing needs and a shortage of staff to run heavy equipment and saws. The crew left the rest of the tree standing for another day — a day that has not yet come.

“That tree is dead-dead, and it’s going to fall anytime,” Drane said Aug. 18 from her front porch.

Lamar Cooper, left, of the St. Louis Forestry Division, cuts the final section of a sycamore tree on Friday, Aug. 18, 2023, as Victoya Frost, a fellow member of the division's north side crew, stands clear in the 500 block of North Kingshighway Boulevard. With a limited number of personnel, the division is left to prioritize its work to address the most hazardous trees.

On the same day, the Forestry Division’s north side crew was cutting down a large sycamore and trimming a few other trees, farther south on Kingshighway, in the Central West End. They spent the rest of the shift trimming three trees near and in Fountain Park.

The Forestry Division is supposed to take care of weeds and trees. There are 13,000 trees already in the city’s records to be removed or trimmed. Jerry Overmann, superintendent of the division’s tree side of things, said many more are not yet officially discovered.

En route to Fountain Park, he had the crew trim back an overgrown American elm he noticed draping too closely to street level on North Euclid Avenue.

“We are moving forward, but it’s slow going,” said Overmann, 62.

Soon, a foreman was hoisted up in a bucket, by a power line. His chainsaw ate into the thin limbs. The crew fed the branches into a roaring chipper.

“Got a truck coming,” Overmann, keeping an eye on traffic, told them.

Eric Morgan, supervisor of the north side crew, was born and raised in St. Louis. He said he loves the city.

“Me, being in this position, I feel like I have a lot to offer the city and the citizens,” said Morgan, 46.

When storms hit, he said tree trimmers are like first responders, in some cases clearing the streets before fire and police vehicles can gain entry into neighborhoods. Staffing is starkly different than when he came on board in 2005 as a tree trimmer trainee. Back then, he said, there were people waiting to get in the door. Those who were hired felt lucky to have the job.

Today, there are supposed to be 29 tree trimmers citywide. Fourteen of those slots were filled as of Aug. 18; five of the tree trimmers had more than two years of experience. A collection of orange dump and bucket trucks sat idle, as well as division tractors and other heavy equipment. The ranks are so thin that if somebody calls in sick, it can severely limit basic tasks — let alone cutting into the backlog of complaints or expanding healthy canopy coverage throughout the city in meaningful ways.

Morgan said he’s supposed to have two foremen and 11 tree trimmers split between two groups in the north side crew. One group to remove dead trees like the one in front of Drane’s house, the other to cut limbs. On Aug. 18, he barely had enough to field a team. One foreman and three trimmers showed up to wrangle deadwood in the northern half of the city. An additional crew member was out sick, another on bereavement leave.

Anthony McKnuckles, foreground, loads a wood chipper on Friday, Aug. 18, 2023, with members of the St. Louis Forestry Division's north side crew. Miguel Marquez, upper left, Eric Morgan, second from left, and Lamar Cooper help trim an American oak that was hanging too low and obstructing traffic over North Euclid Avenue near Fountain Park.

Miguel Marquez was his foreman. Lamar Cooper, Victoya Frost and Anthony McKnuckles were the tree trimmers.

“I applied for so many positions in the city,” said Frost, 27, the mother of two small children. “Forestry was the first to call back.”

Finishing her third week, she hadn’t yet been up in the bucket. She left early that day to pursue an opportunity to be a 911 dispatcher.

Cooper, 34, sported red chaps and easily handled the chainsaws. He was drawn to the job after a stint in prison.

“I wanted to do something in my life, for real, to better my life,” he said, face covered in sweat.

After three and a half years as a trimmer, he was moving over to a street sweeper position soon, ready for a new role in the city.

That left Marquez and McKnuckles.

McKnuckles had a few years of college credits under his belt. He did a stint at UPS. Finishing his second day in the field, he seemed to like the pace of feeding limbs into the chipper.

“It can be intimidating at first, but it’s not that bad,” he said. “It’s like a lawnmower for trees instead of grass.”

Management described Marquez, about a month and a half into the job, as a diamond in the rough. He drove the big trucks, went up in the bucket and hustled around the job site in a nice pair of steel toe boots. Originally from rural Mexico, he said he had about 25 years of tree trimming experience, including a pension and 401(k) from doing union work.

Miguel Marquez, a new foreman with the City of St. Louis Forestry Division, removes a portion of a sycamore tree that needed removal at the intersection of North Kingshighway Boulevard and McPherson Avenue on Friday, Aug. 18, 2023.

With two grown daughters — one’s a cop near Chicago, the other a doctoral student at Washington University — he tried to encourage Frost to stay on longer. He grabbed the end of a heavy log to help McKnuckles heave it to the chipper. Stepping aside to visit, he said he liked working with the dwindling crew, and being home every night for supper.

Even still, his time seemed limited.

“They have great benefits, but the pay rate is not there, man,” said Marquez, 57. “If they paid more, I would stay here definitely. Another thing, they don’t provide water. We can’t be out here working like this with no water. We have to bring our own water.”

City tree trimmers start at $15.93 an hour. After one year, they get bumped up to $16.55.

“This is the issue,” said Overmann, the superintendent, who has seen a revolving door of talent leave to chase better pay. “The only way to retain them is money.”

Pull into a St. Louis parking lot in August and the benefit of a large healthy shade tree is obvious. But the benefits get much more technical fast. That mature tree absorbs pollutants, including 48 pounds of carbon dioxide a year, while churning out clean oxygen. It can retain more than 300 gallons of water. Grouped together, over the same parking lot, trees can reduce storm water runoff by 20%.

Through the broader ecosystem, well-shaded streets and neighborhoods can be 10 degrees cooler than “heat islands” without trees, according to the U.S. Forest Service. Lower temperatures mean fewer emissions created by the fight to keep things cool with fuels. Three properly placed trees around a house can cut your home energy bill 30%.

Healthy trees also boost property values and even reduce crime.

“Study after study, the more trees and green areas a city has the better off mentally and physically those residents are,” said Russell Hinnah, part of a Missouri Department of Conservation effort to support urban forests.

He said many cities are trying to boost canopy coverage by maintaining healthy trees. Cutting out deadwood and replanting are part of that process.

A 2018 master plan says Kansas City has 31% canopy coverage, which helps provide over $28 million in services annually. Kansas City wants to increase coverage to 35%, while recognizing “significant risk” from climate change, ash borer beetles and a high inventory of existing trees in fair or worse condition.

“Now is the time to plan for the future of the canopy to be sure the species selected for planting can withstand both the anticipated changes to precipitation and temperature,” the master plan says.

Asked if St. Louis has a master plan, Alan Jankowksi, commissioner of the Forestry Division, said in a recent interview: “It’s simple. Grow a healthy tree canopy.”

The division doesn’t have a heat map of canopy coverage, but he acknowledged that some areas of the city are losing canopy.

“Disadvantaged areas will have less canopy,” said Jankowski, 54. “It takes a community that wants trees, requesting trees. That may not be the highest priority.”

Chris Mckinney, from St. Louis, walks through a grove of dead trees that line a fairway on the disc golf course in Willmore Park in southwest St. Louis on Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2023.

The July 1 storm death of a 33-year-old woman, who was crushed by a walnut tree that fell on private property in the Forest Park Southeast neighborhood, raised new concerns about the state of mature trees in St. Louis.

The urban canopy is supported by a mix of private and public trees, but the city has the largest forest to manage in town. Street trees, of which there are 82,400, live a third as long as those with more desirable soils and conditions. On an annual budget of $9.3 million, the Forestry Division also oversees about 45,000 trees in parks, though Jankowski said that’s an estimate because some parks, like St. Marcus Park, Joseph R. Leisure Park and Jackson Place Park, haven’t been inventoried.

City ordinance requires that one tree be planted for each one cut down.

“We do our best with that,” Jankowski said.

In a typical year, he said the division cuts down about 3,000 trees and plants 3,000, not including work from a private contractor targeting ash trees doomed by an invasive beetle. In 2010, the city reported there were 15,000 ash trees alone: 6,000 have been removed so far, another 8,000 are in the queue and 1,000 are being treated.

“I’d like to be planting 8,000 trees, and try to grow that canopy,” Jankowski said.

Blocks of canopy are also opening in prominent areas of the city, where a lot of towering pin oaks have been cut down in recent years or remain standing with dead or dying limbs loaded down with horned oak gall. Though Jankowski downplayed the significance of horned oak gall citywide, he said southwest St. Louis is hit hardest.

A broken limb dangles from a dead oak tree infested with horned oak galls in the 6400 block of Loughborough Avenue on Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2023. The golf ball-size growths on oak branches are caused by tiny gall wasps. A tree infested with gall can live for many years, but more severe infestations can cause branches to die and potentially result in the tree's death.

Horned oak gall is caused by a tiny, non-stinging wasp that lays eggs under the skin of oak trees. Over the course of up to three years, the unsightly galls grow larger, reaching the size of golf balls. Galls cut off water and nutrients to small branches. The spikes, like those on an overripe potato, are exit tunnels for baby wasps. There is no proven treatment.

Numerous trees infested with horned oak gall have been removed or remain standing in St. Louis Hills.

“It’s like a brick oven,” said Holli Will, 59, looking out on a block of Childress Avenue that has been particularly cut back. “Everybody feels the heat now. It’s changed the whole vibe, but we are all determined to replant and begin the whole process of growing a canopy again.”

Bill Fortenberry, 82, of the same street, said he was drawn to the area about 15 years ago because of the canopy.

“Oh my, God, above,” he said. “There were trees all over place. Let me tell you it was beautiful.”

Many that remain are unsightly and messy, if not dangerous.

“Look at that one,” he said out on a bike ride, pointing to an oak in the 6900 block of Jamieson Avenue. “There’s not a leaf on that tree.”

The tree, standing dead in the city’s right of way, with a circumference of 13 feet at the bottom, has a familiar story.

“We call the city all the time and they say it’s supposed to be taken down,” said Judy Stanfield, 79. “It’s been two years. You can’t park under there anymore because you are afraid it’s going to fall on your car. I just wish they’d get out and take it down.”

At least two other nearby neighbors have similar complaints about different street trees. What’s more, Chris Mckinney, who likes to play disc golf at nearby Willmore Park for his mental health, pointed out one dead tree after another — some still standing, some recently fallen.

“You can pretty much see,” said Mckinney, 47, walking through a grove. “This one. This one. This one. … This one. They are all dead.”

Chris Mckinney walks past a fallen tree as he plays the disc golf course in Willmore Park in St. Louis on Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2023. Mckinney, an avid disc golfer, says the tree fell on the disc golf basket a few months ago. A replacement basket was put up but tree fell on that one as well, and a third basket had to be put up.

After a complaint comes in about a tree, Jankowski said a city arborist comes out to do an assessment, usually within two weeks. They carry tablets now to make an electronic record.

Asked what to tell residents like Drane, on the north side, and Stanfield, on the south, Jankowski said: “I am running out of things to say. We are trying to take down the most hazardous trees and work from there.”

He said vacancies are holding them back. The city recently doubled a contract with a private firm — Michael’s Tree and Loader Service of Memphis, Tennessee — to $2.1 million to help address the backlog of complaints.

“It takes a special person to work out in the elements every day for eight hours,” he said. “Then to run hazardous equipment, such as a chainsaw or chipper.”

Not to mention pay.

There is a $1,500 hiring incentive. The city residency requirement will be lifted at the end of the month. Though it hasn’t seemed to help the police department much, Jankowski hopes that will make a difference for the Forestry Division, along with more reliance on modern machinery. As is, dump trucks, buckets, chippers sit idle. Chainsaws are piled up.

And the calls come in.

The division is on the hunt for a grapple saw, an expensive machine that can take down and maintain a tree with minimal manpower.

Victoya Frost, with the city of St. Louis Forestry Division, watches from the wood chipper as an American oak hanging too low over Euclid Avenue is trimmed back on Friday, Aug. 18, 2023.

Anthony McKnuckles, with the city of St. Louis' Forestry Division, loads a wood chipper on Friday, Aug. 18, 2023, as members of his north side crew trim an American oak that was hanging too low and obstructing traffic over N. Euclid Ave. near Fountain Park.

Anthony McKnuckles, with the city of St. Louis Forestry Division, loads branches into a wood chipper on Friday, Aug. 18, 2023, as he and his fellow north side crew members, Eric Morgan, background center, and Lamar Cooper, right, cut limbs off a tree in Fountain Park.

Chris Mckinney makes a throw as he plays the disc golf course in Willmore Park in St. Louis on Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2023. Mckinney, an avid disc golfer, says the downed tree behind him was blown over during a storm a few weeks ago.

The tree team at the Missouri Botanical Garden commenced their annual trimming of up to 25 to 30% of the canopy of some trees beneath the geodesic dome of the Climatron during a weeklong process. The aim is to prevent their growth from reaching the top of the dome and to allow ample light to reach lower-lying plant life. Video by Christian Gooden, [email protected]

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