Drought damage takes toll on trees in MF parks

September 17, 2012, 9:00 pm by Adam Troxtell

The city is in the process of counting all the dead trees in city parks. Staff Photo by Adam Troxtell.

Marble Falls Parks and Recreation Director Robert Moss said fallen limbs and dead trees have kept staff busy for days. The drought sapped some trees completely dry.

"I’ve been with city parks for 10 years, and I’ve never seen anything like this,” Lewis Fincher, parks supervisor, said. "Some of these trees will look completely healthy, and then they just split right down the middle.”

Fincher said Parks and Rec staff are still taking an inventory of dead trees, meaning the number could rise. Staff will take them down once the trees lose their leaves in winter. Sometimes trees will not appear dead, but limbs will still fall off them at any time.

"If we know something is dead or hazardous, we’ll go in and take it down,” Fincher said. "But, you can’t really plan on it. You could walk by a tree, then 15 minutes later a limb will just fall right off.”

Reader Comments

So let me get this correct. MF has a Couple of lakes with water in them. But the city P & R folks cannot water them because? Hey, does the city have a water tanker truck? Maybe once a month or so they could get a couple of truck loads of water from the lakes and do a drive by watering? A heck of a lot cheaper than replacing the trees now? What is going on here P & R, why didn't you think of something like this?
September 18, 2012, 9:01am by Ken Dreger