FEMA Won't Cover Cost of Village Tree Replacement

The village of Garden City lost 612 trees during Superstorm Sandy.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is required to reimburse the village 90 percent of its overall costs for storm cleanup, but this does not, however, include the cost of tree replacement.

"Sadly, FEMA is not giving us the money to replace these trees," Trustee Nick Episcopia said.

According to Kevin Ocker, head of the merged department of recreation and parks, said that trustees approved $82,500 in funding during the budget process for fiscal year 2013-14 to cover the first phase of replacement planting.

The replacement of 300 to 400 trees is expected to begin in the fall. A group of Cornell University students is helping the village with different aspects of the re-planting process, including species selection.

Right after the storm, village administrator Robert Schoelle reached out to three universities (Cornell, Syracuse and City University of New York) to invite students in the landscape architecture program to use the village as their "palette" so to speak to help Garden City with re-planting efforts. Incidentally both Ocker and village arborist Mike Didyk are Cornell grads.

"I anticipate input from our team at Cornell," Ocker said. "Then we will begin to prepare a contract to be bid for the replacement trees."

"A lot of different factors play a role," Episcopia said, including tree age, when it gets planted and soil testing "so that we don't run into the same situation where the roots grow out instead of down.

"Obviously we saw the effects of that horribly in Sandy," he said.

The majority of trees that fell during the storm were oak. Sixty village-owned trees landed on homes. Some residents do not want replacement trees while others would like the remaining healthy trees removed, Ocker said.

The "Street and Park Tree Management Plan" is being finalized with a completely updated inventory and list of suggested new varieties of trees to plant and a review of existing codes for the removal of trees, according to Ocker.