Village of RVC receives grant to inspect trees

The state’s Department of Environmental Conservation has awarded the village a $47,295 grant to inspect 4,000 trees in its downtown area.

The grant will be used to gather and assess data on the trees, according to village spokeswoman Julie Scully, which she added would then help the village efficiently replace them.

Rockville Centre officials and residents have discovered a large number of diseased pear trees over the last year or two. Trellis rust — caused by a fungus new to North America — had spread throughout the village, leaving many of its ornamental pear trees partially or fully bare, or with discolored or blotchy leaves.

“Unfortunately, if they are diseased, they should come down so they don’t infect more trees,” Scully said last year. “It’s not an ideal situation — we are a green space, we’re a Tree City — but we have to do what’s best too. We don’t want to get other trees infected.”

The RVC Conservancy led the initiative to remove 175 of those diseased pear trees in residential areas. The resident-funded mass removal and replanting happened at the end of 2017. “We lost a lot of trees due to the blight of the pear trees, and we want to replace them in an educated way,” Scully told the Herald last week.

In order to evaluate the situation further, the village applied for the DEC grant on July 11. They were notified that it was awarded on Nov. 2.

The village hopes to gain extensive information on the thousands of trees that still potentially need replacement, including tree species, tree size, number of stems, location, condition and defects, maintenance, tree risk and rating, further inspection, overhead utilities and potential tree planting sites. This evaluation will take place in the downtown area, main business districts, Village Green, Recreation Center parks and, if resources allow, Lister Park.

At the Nov. 5 village board meeting, Mayor Francis X. Murray thanked grant writer Suzanne Murphy Sullivan and the RVC Conservancy for their hard work in getting the grant. The DEC received a total of 115 applications and awarded them on a competitive basis, he said.

The village will soon get a letter from the DEC outlining next steps in the process, Scully said.

Ben Strack contributed to this story.