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Hazard trees pose a risk to people and infrastructure. Having a hazard tree monitoring program can help identify and manage these risks.
All landowners are required to make a reasonable effort to prevent trees within their property from causing injury or property damage. Real or pretended ignorance does not diminish your responsibility or liability. This is best accomplished through a regular program of monitoring areas of high use such as public roads, adjacent properties with structures, and sites used for recreational (play areas, benches, boardwalk, bird blind, sleeping platforms, cabins) or educational (pavilion, bleachers, rustic amphitheater) activities. These areas should be monitored at least once each year and after major storm events. Ideally, the landowner should hire a certified arborist (list available from the International Society of Arboriculture, see Resources) to perform the inspection. Private landowners who cannot afford an arborist or who wish to augment this annual inspection with their own ongoing monitoring can attend workshops on hazard trees. Public landowners could also consider training one or more staff members in the identification of hazard trees to reduce monitoring costs.
Once a hazard tree is identified the landowner should make a reasonable effort to address the hazard as soon as possible. The first course of action is to make sure that the tree is within your property boundary. Along public roads, trees within the public right-of-way are usually the responsibility of the municipality or state, depending on who is responsible for the road. For this purpose, it is the base of the tree that matters. If the tree is completely within the right-of-way, the municipality or state is responsible for the hazard tree. For identified hazard trees, the landowner should engage a qualified contractor or staff to eliminate the hazard through pruning or felling the tree.
For trees along a common boundary, landowners with any part of the base within their property are jointly responsible for the tree. A tree with its base entirely within one property is, of course, that landowner’s sole responsibility.
Many hazard trees are typically identified at the outset of a hazard tree program. This reflects the maturing of the forests in our region and the fact that few landowners are aware of their responsibility and as a result have not addressed hazard trees in the past. Unless resources are unlimited, the landowner should prioritize removing the most hazardous trees first.
Regular monitoring followed by reasonable action will not only prevent potential injury or damage, it may help to significantly reduce the landowner’s liability if a tree does cause injury or damage. Although the landowner is responsible for any injury or damage regardless of the actions taken, showing that you have made a reasonable effort to identify and address hazard trees will help preclude any charge of negligence.
The final key to an effective hazard tree program is documentation. All activities related to the program should be cataloged, including monitoring and actions taken, noting when, where, and by whom. This will be the proof that the landowner made a reasonable effort to identify and address hazard trees in the unfortunate occurrence of injury or property damage.
The hazard tree program used by Natural Lands on its 44-property preserve system in southeastern Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey, described below, is one example of such a program.
