Home
About Us
At least 31 trees in Ann Arbor, Mich., are being killed or damaged by natural gas leaks, according to a new report commissioned by the city.
The report found that gas was damaging roots and the ground near the trees, Michigan Live reports.
The number of trees affected likely exceeds what was reported, but, overall, the report found DTE Energy's lines to be in well-maintained condition.
Ann Arbor would like to see the gas lines repaired immediately and changes made to infrastructure so that leaks like this are unlikely to happen, the city has a broader goal of weaning itself off of dependence on natural gas in order to meet ambitious climate change-mitigation goals.
"We found vegetation that had been killed," Missy Stults, Ann Arbor's sustainability and Innovations director, tells Michigan Live.
"The only discernible reason for that is the gas leaks in the system."
The city hired an expert to map every single road in Ann Arbor twice to measure natural gas leaks, then do a visual inspection of the tree canopy to see if leaks were correlating with killing vegetation, Stults says.
"We found notable cases," she adds.
"We did not find any major leaks on the systemreally catastrophic leaks, right, that need immediate instant repair Read the Entire Article