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| Elsa the Elm |
SCARBOROUGH — The end
is near for Scarborough’s oldest resident, Elsa the Elm, but her legacy just
might live on past Oct. 15, when she’s scheduled to come down.
Recently,
members of the ad hoc committee called to conduct Elsa’s last rites met with
their peers from Yarmouth, who shepherded that town’s elm tree, “Herbie,” to
nationwide notoriety. Elsa’s big, about 70-feet tall, but she didn’t take honors
as Maine’s largest elm tree when Herbie came down Jan. 19, 2010. That honor now
belongs to a 93-foot-tall elm, apparently unnamed, in Castine.
Still,
while nobody is certain whether Elsa suffers from the Dutch elm disease that
felled Herbie, there’s no doubt she’s looking all of her 190-plus years. And
so, given her revered status as last elm standing on Route 1 in Scarborough,
the town wanted to give her a dignified send-off.
But what
town officials learned when they pow-wowed with members of The Herbie Project
is this: There’s money in them there branches.
“Let me
just say that anybody who had anything to do with this tree made money,” said
Joe Sullivan, owner of the New Gloucester mill where Herbie was vivisected. “It
was a money thing from the get-go.”
“I
didn’t make any money,” joked Yarmouth's director of community services, Marcia
Noyes, who oversaw the project. “But the greater good did and that was the
thing. It kept a sawmill alive, it kept a trucking company alive, it
contributed to the creative economy, woodworkers suddenly had orders, and then
the whole marketing piece – ST Vreeland won an award for the poster they
created for us. Everyone got a piece of the pie, it seems like.”
After
all was said and done, the sale of items made from Herbie – and the array was
endless, from bats and benches, to plates, bowls, guitars and cutting boards –
paid for all expenses incurred in his removal and netted $45,000 for Yarmouth’s
Tree Trust account.
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| Scarborough Town Councilor Carol Rancourt tries out a bat made from “Herbie,” a Yarmouth elm tree that captured national attention when cut down in January 2010. A similar project is planned for “Elsa,” located on Route 1 in the Oak Hill neighborhood. |
Carol
Rancourt, who’s taken the reins of the Elsa committee, said she doesn’t dare
hope for results like that. However, it would be nice to achieve something on a
smaller scale, that might also stock an account for future tree planting and
preservation in town. With that goal in mind, councilors were slated Wednesday,
after The Current’s deadline, to authorized the creation of a special reserve
account to house any proceeds the town might reap.
"It's
a huge undertaking," urged Yarmouth Tree Warden Debra Hopkins. "It's
a lot of work, but you can do it. Something like this really brings a community
together.”
Scarborough
Public Works Director Mike Shaw said work to take down Herbie will begin early,
around 8 a.m., and finish by noon. A set of bleachers will be set up across
Route 1 for any spectators. However, there will not by an elaborate ceremony,
out of concern for public safety given heavy Route 1 traffic.
The real
fanfare will come next year, said Rancourt, when a new tree is planted in
Elsa’s place. Bangor Savings Bank, which owns the site, already has agreed to
host a planting party, said Rancourt.
Jan Ames
Santerre, director of Maine’s Project Canopy initiative, said there are a
number of disease-resistant strains of elm that have been developed over the
years, but it’s hard to recommend one. Because Dutch elm disease can take up to
20 years to metastasize, nobody’s really sure which strain, if any, can beat
the disease.
“The
reality is that Dutch elm is still here in our area, even if we just don’t have
a lot of elms around anymore to contract the disease,” said Santerre.
According
to Santerre, Dutch elm disease made its way to America in the late 1930s on a
shipment of logs imported from Europe to a furniture maker in Ohio. Thirty
years later, the disease had spread to Maine and, by the mid-1970s, all but a
few of the elms which once lined major thoroughfares everywhere were gone.
The most
important lesson that we learned with Dutch elm disease is that planting all of
one species is dangerous because we have a global economy,” said Santerre.
“There’s always something that comes along and having tree diversity is
something that’s going to limit having to remove all of your trees at once and
having these stark landscapes people had to deal with when all the elms had to
come down.”
The
current scourge is the Asian Longhorn Beetle, which has a taste for maple,
which was a common replacement for the elm in many Maine towns. The beetle has
so far ventured no closer than Gloucester, Mass., but it has the potential to
decimate Maine’s maple-syrup industry, said Santerre.
Before
the great maple die-off, however, Maine is likely to lose its ash trees –
another common elm replacement – to the Emerald Ash Borer. “That’s not
controlled at all,” said Santerre. “We will see that in the state at some
time.”
Still,
Santerre said it is proper for Scarborough to celebrate Elsa in whatever way it
can, especially if those efforts can stock a fund like Yarmouth’s to manage the
town’s tree stock.
“Making
this a positive effort for community is a very worthwhile goal,” she said.
“Trees are often looked at as luxury item, but it’s one of the things that make
our communities very worthwhile places to live.”
A CLOSER LOOK
“Elsa the Elm” will be taken down from its Route 1 site on Saturday, Oct. 15, starting at 8 a.m. and finishing around noon. There will be no ceremony, though bleachers will be set up for viewers.
Anyone who wants to help The Elsa Project, which will turn the tree into wood products for sale to benefit the town, should contact committee Chairwoman Carol Rancourt at 883-4492 or crancourt@ci.scarborough.me.us.
Big Trees
Local representatives on the most recent Maine Register of Big Trees, for 2009-2010:
Species (Location) Circ. (in.) Height (ft.) Crown (ft.) Points* Last Measured
Himilayan White Pine (Black Point Inn, Scarborough) 99 50 40 159 2001
Camperdown Elm 230 Cottage Rd. South Portland 105 25 32 138 1999
Oakleaf Mountain Ash Black Point Cemetery, Scarborough 90 30 30 128 2002
Pignut Hickory 320 Ocean House Road, Cape Elizabeth 66 52 33 126 1999
American Plum 42 Trundy Rd., Cape Elizabeth 83 25 27 115 2002
European Hornbeam Small Elementary School, South Portland 30 34 38 74 2003
Cockspur Hawthorn 558 Black Point Rd., Scarborough 38 23 16 65 2002
*Points = Circumference, in inches + height, in feet + ¼ of the crown spread, in feet.
** Felled Jan. 19, 2010. New champion in Castine, 93 feet tall (295 total points)
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