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A tree dies in Bellevue A 110-foot American elm tree that is 250 to 300 years old won't be growing any higher due to decay Wednesday, July 22, 1998 By Gretchen McKay, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Bellevue residents may soon lose one of the borough's best-known and most treasured landmarks.
A report recently submitted to council by Davey Tree Expert Co. recommends that the 110-foot-high American elm in Andrew Bayne Memorial Park, known locally as the "Lone Sentinel," be cut down because of excessive decay.
Though the Gibsonia-based company has been injecting the tree with a powerful mix of insecticide every three years to ward of Dutch elm disease, a lethal fungus that has killed more than 50 million trees since the 1930s, or about two-thirds of the nation's American elms, nature has taken its course, said Scott Simpson, district manager for Davey.
"There is nothing unique here," he said about the tree's failing health. "Decay is part of nature."
The towering elm, across the parking lot from the Andrew Bayne Memorial Library, was part of the four-acre Andrew Bayne family homestead, which was bequeathed to the borough in 1912 for use as a library and park. A trust set up by Bayne's daughter Jane Bayne Teece, set up in the early 1900s, provides for the tree's care.
Davey was called in earlier this spring to service the tree after one of its largest limbs suddenly crashed to the ground, due to internal rotting. Because the decay was undetectable externally, council asked the company to do a more extensive evaluation.
On June 10, plant pathologist Christopher Luley, a consultant for Davey's northeast operations, boarded a bucket truck and climbed high up the tree, where he drilled into several locations with a tool called a resistograph.
By recording the resistance to the drill bit, or relative density of the wood, the instrument provided a picture of the tree's internal condition: the different stages of putridity (rot), rings, cracks and voids, fissures and other defects.
Luley's diagnosis: Only a small part of the tree is still alive. In fact, the second largest of the tree's three biggest limbs, which measures 40 inches around, has as little as 3 1/2 inches of sound wood.
The tree also shows some fresh cracks between the two largest branches, further evidence the tree has started to fail.
"Davey is all for preserving trees, but based on the amount of defect here, the tree should be taken down," Luley said. And with one branch hanging over an adjacent apartment building, he added, "the amount of risk is too great. If the branch fell, it could do a lot of damage and personal injury."
At a council meeting earlier this month, mayor Paul Cusick urged members to get a second opinion regarding the tree's health, noting, "I'd hate to make a mistake on something like this."
The elm tree, which is estimated to be between 250 and 300 years old, was designated a "State Champion" by the National Register of Big Trees in 1983. The register rates the state's 823 eligible species on a point system according to height, circumference and diameter. At 150 feet across, 20 feet, 2 inches around and 110 feet tall, it is believed to be the biggest American elm east of the Mississippi River.
Council is expected to discuss Davey's report at a parks and recreation committee meeting tonight at 8 in the Bellevue Borough Building, 537 Bayne Ave.
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