ORlEANS ANNUAl TOwN REPORt FOR YEAR ... - Town Of Orleans

and piping connected to a flare system that burns the Methane gas beingproduced by the rubbish under the Landfill Cap. A significant amount of time,effort and funding is required for this task.The staff of the Transfer Station is available to discuss any questions orcomments concerning solid waste disposal issues.Tree Department:The Tree Warden (Municipal Arborist) Dan Connolly continues to improve andmaintain the Towns Urban Forest. The duties and responsibilities associated withroadside trimming, tree planting, and tree maintenance are year round tasks. Inaddition to routine tasks there are unforeseen events that impact work plans.Recent natural events like the Noel storm and the caterpillar infestation haveimpacted efforts to keep up with regular work. N’STAR finished trimming 2 largedistribution circuits in town this year. There has been renewed effort to gaincontrol of roadside cutback with progress in removing lower underbrush.• The Town of Orleans has received the Tree City USA award from theMassachusetts DCR Urban and Community Forestry Program. This is the10th consecutive year that we have received this prestigious award.• The Tree Department wrapped up a long term project on bike path this year.After years of working with the Orleans Improvement Association, SnowsDepartment Store, MA DCR, and Bikeways Committee we finally put thefinishing touches on Main St crossing. The very last details included granitecurbs installed by OIA and plants and fencing provided by DCR. The TreeDepartment will continue to work on bike path with cooperation frominterested parties.• Ameri-Corp intern put finishing touches on 1 st phase of Tree Inventory.Unfortunately the request for another intern this year was turned down. Thegoal is to complete a full inventory will continue in house.• The Department continued its ongoing roadside cutback program. Thepruning and removal of trees and shrubs from the traveled way will continuewith the intent of the program being to make the roadways safer for the publictravel and maintenance. The long term plan is to phase out inappropriatevegetation and replace with suitable maintenance friendly plants...• The Tree Department also acted as contact for coordination with theAmeriCorps Volunteer Program. The AmeriCorps Program contributed over5000 hours of labor planting trees and cutting out invasive plants. ThisDepartment thanks the AmeriCorps Program and all the volunteers for theirsupport.136