I arrived home yesterday to discover that a 40-plus foot hemlock on our property, which has provided a visual barrier between our property and our neighbor’s, had been cut to the ground by Asplundh, a contractor to Central Maine Power.

I am distraught to know that someone came onto our property and removed an irreplaceable tree, apparently without regard to us or other options.

We understand that CMP has the right to remove and prune trees that are a threat to power lines and can access private property to do so.

We have lived at our home in Boothbay for 16 years and CMP has cleared this power line along our driveway at least three times during our time of residence.

In the past, the hemlock, whose base was located nine feet away from the overhead line, has been pruned so its branches did not compromise the line. That’s what should have happened yesterday.

Instead, the yahoos hired by Asplundh decided they would simply cut down our tree.

No one tried to contact us. No one gave us an opportunity to work out a different solution that would have met CMP’s needs and saved our tree. I was only away from home for two hours when this occurred.

We’ve contacted CMP and they have sent out Asplundh’s contract manager. Next week, they’ll send out someone else. But it won’t really matter. That tree is gone forever and it won’t be replaced in our lifetime.

According to CMP’s website, their “tree crews are committed to preserving as much of the trees’ natural beauty as possible, and consider the shape, strength, growth rate and appearance of the tree before pruning.” 

That’s certainly not been our experience this week. The only natural beauty we have left is a 9-inch diameter stump. I’m not loving it the way I loved the 10-foot wide expanse of greenery formerly at eye level.

The website also says that wood from any cut tree  larger than 3-inch in diameter will be left for the property owner’s use. Nothing was left of our hemlock or the 7-inch diameter oak they also removed from our property. Plenty of broken branches were left in our driveway. Thank you, CMP, for those.

It’s too late to save our tree but we have protected ourselves for the future.  And you can do.

On their website, CMP has an online form where you can request to be contacted before non-emergency tree work is done on your property.

If you don’t fill out the form, like us, you may be crying over downed trees.