Five Dead Palms Felled in the Circus
By Ryan Haas
Reporter-SKNVibes.com
~~Adz:Left~~ BASSETERRE, ST. KITTS-FIVE Royal Palm trees were removed from the Circus early Sunday morning because they had succumbed to age.
Four trees along the West side and one along the East side of the circus were removed in a joint effort between the Parks and Beaches Unit of the St. Kitts Tourism Authority and the Solid Waste Management Corporation (SWMC).
The Electric Company provided several trucks with boom arms to aid the SWMC in the cutting and safe removal of the trees.
After much preparation, a gathered crowd anxiously watched as workers carefully sawed a nearly forty foot section off of the first tree. A light rain began to fall from the overcast skies and the workers proceeded cautiously as the large, heavy log swayed under its own weight.
With a few more skillful cuts the tree was broken free and the workers were greeted by a round of applause and cheers as the section was safely laid to the ground. Each of the remaining trees was cut down and sawed into small sections in a similar fashion.
“The Department of Agriculture has not been able to determine the age of the trees at this time due to the state of decay they were in,” said Unoma Allen, Corporate Communications Manager of the Tourism Authority, “but we will make everyone aware of that information as soon as we know.”
Judging photographs obtained from the St. Christopher Heritage Society showing the Circus trees in crates before the Berkley Memorial Clock was built, National Archives Director, Victoria O'Flaherty dated the trees as “being planted sometime around the late 1870s or early 1880s.”
According to Allen, “TDC and the owners of Ottley’s Plantation Inn have volunteered to source and execute the planting of new palms [in the near future] with assistance from the Parks and Beaches Unit and the Department of Agriculture.”
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Three of the dead trees
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A section of the tree is set down
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Stumps of the removed trees
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