In an excerpt from his upcoming book, TCAA regular Jim McArdle highlights the importance of being specific about time when it relates to arboristry.
The issue of stating time frames when securing work, specifying work when time frames aren’t given, or the relaxing of a date by which a job must be completed or dated, is important.
Recently TCAA was given permission to peer review reports from an AQF5 and saw time frames were consistently given as ’ASAP’ (as soon as possible).
The issue with allowing ASAP is it gives leeway. The client may say the work isn’t possible due to budgetary allowance or some other factor which ignores the urgency the tree’s situation.
Report time frames are a prediction by a professional practitioner and can be implanted as priorities to allow clients a better understanding of the urgency of work, or which work and at what rate it should be prioritised. The key issue is the experience of the arborist and whether they understood the complete nature of the defect or toxicity, failure or exposure.
A useful pointer
The treatment of a toxic tree and the management of a tree with defects have similarities, but are very different. Both could be cordoned off, but with toxicity, branches, leaves, dust and even contact surfaces need to be treated or eliminated. Access should be restricted by stated time frames to allow the carrying out of those protocols. This is the case with the Dendoroncnide sp (Stinging tree or Gympie Gympie), Toxicodendron sp (Rhus tree), Nettle tree, the Euphorbaecea family and Melia species.
Other time frames can be specified according to the nature of the exposure within one day, three days, or seven days prior to access by public or students in recreational areas.
Times for times
One useful timeframe condition which can be imposed is re-inspection after a certain, definite, period. That might be one week and three weeks after a tree has been transplanted or pruned, for instance. The clearly stated intervals indicate goals of the arborist – to distinguish moisture requirements, growth of canopy and compartmentalisation of wounds (if there are any).
Timing of pruning and maintenance can be listed as appropriate to the season: late spring, early autumn, mid autumn and even winter, looking for a good response after a dormant growth season.
The annual inspection has been underlined as a typical and reasonable response within educational facilities and childcare establishments, but some variation on this can be useful in high target areas bringing the timeframes in line with high occupancy. An experienced arborist can assess the environment and may suggest either monthly, bi-monthly or tri-monthly inspections be part of the essential solutions. Within these timeframes drip-feed or hand watering of plants is also suitable.
When assessing running irrigation on both large and small construction sites, water dispersion also needs to be midconsidered. Checking the water delivery and dispersion may be as simple as a hand or field moisture test, but the frequency of those tests is important and needs to be clearly stated in a report.
Qualifying
The TCAA typically recommends five years’ experience for an arborist to be considered a qualified, bonafide consultant.
Naturally, the candidate must be in a related field, and of course, those entering as an arborist assessor may be in a better position to qualify as a consultant more rapidly than those from horticultural gardening.
Coming through the ranks from tree worker to climber is a practical and popular way to gain experience. Not all Level 3 arborists want to go on to Level 5, and not all Level 5 arborists want to be consultants. The question of how the arboriculture industry can capture the AQF5 consultant with experience has been an ordeal under consideration for the past 10 years. A review of the IACA and Arboriculture Australia listings show a large number of AQF5 arborists on their sites, but TCAA membership acknowledges more than 50 (that comparison includes the TCAA AQF5 arborists who own businesses but also engage AQF 5 arborists on their teams).
Peer guidance
Time frames given by consultants who are relevant and active must be related to the experience they’ve gained with like-minded arborists. Within an association it’s always the case that members are building experience through contacts at team meetings, through reference materials and from peer reviews.
With regard to a description of a tree’s condition for the next arborist reviewing a tree on a separate occasion, we should look at the condition of the tree – its vigour, vibrance and veracity – and whether the good vigour and good condition, on review, can be restated.
The given re-inspection time frame – for example, ‘in 12 months’ with a description of the tree’s condition in the assessment schedule – can assist the next assessor.
Having a picture of a usable size also is useful, particularly for monitoring trees. TCAA suggests the issue or defect should be monitored by an AQF arborist and placed with a time frame that may take into consideration weather extremes, or fall within a specific timed event, weather event, after construction, or after winds of a stated speed or force.
It’s worth noting that 40kph is written in the NSW Department of Education handbook as a parameter where it considered not safe for students to be near trees.
Arborists only
Monitoring indicates an ongoing process that must be carried out by the assessor. A change can be stated by a person of locality, usually a general assistant or gardener, or even an owner can state a change, but monitoring is, by definition, to, ‘Observe and check the progress or quality of XXX over a period of time.’
A systematic review is specialist work for a qualified AQF5 arborist. Monitoring by a general assistant is not a systematic review. The AQF5 assessor should not rely on an unqualified person to determine the quality or progress of a defect.
This would be like asking a patient to prescribe medicine.
Frequency
Allowance needs to be made for material samples to be dispatched and tested, and the results and conclusion documented. The conclusion and documentation then has to be communicated to the client.
This process takes time. Botanical identification, soil tests, aerial inspection, Resistograph and Picus tests, contaminant tests…they all take time.
A business needs to allow for that interval related to the bookings and the queue of cases. It’s usually two to six weeks, but urgency can sometimes decrease time frames if there’s a hazard involved, and it’s communicated well, and the lab or business can adjust to meet the criteria.
Aerial inspections can be done more easily if the AQF5 has a climber who is mobile, and cordoning off or isolating trees is useful as a risk-reduction management process.
‘In perpetuity’ is defined as ‘for all time’ by the Merriam-Webster dictionary. As a time frame it means ‘forever’. Using this term in a report can align with a conservation process as noted biobanking-zoned areas like AIS areas of intergenerational significance. Wetlands, mangroves and waterways, foreshore zones and high-quality heritage zones would be unlikely to be challenged in a court.
It’s beyond the scope of this piece to discuss indigenous areas and scar trees, but these could be considered. The ‘in perpetuity’ comment is difficult to manage if the owner has a different intention and is under direction of a court order.
Many times over
Remedial orders in the case of Hunters Hill Council v Liu [2018] NSWLEC 108 addressed an occasion where two trees appeared to be cut down in Sydney’s Hunters Hill area and included: “No agreement on whether a period of years to monitor replacement trees should be imposed to address any arboricultural problems arising with replacement trees – monitoring of replacement trees to be required, but for a shorter period than that proposed by the council.”
The Prosecutor-proposed orders (made pursuant to s 126(2A) of the EP&A Act) to address the Prosecutor’s direction was the necessity for an ongoing regime of:
1. Arboricultural inspection of, and reporting on, the trees for a period of years into the future;
2. The furnishing to the Prosecutor of a copy of the arborist’s report after each inspection;
3. Implementation of any recommendations from the arborist arising from each inspection; and
4. The time frames within which these inspections were to be carried out.
Naming a period of time well into the future seems nebulous and not quantifiable, but furnishing a report after an inspection is. Implementation – and more importantly, the specifying of xtimeframes within which these are carried out – were a requirement. The environmental damages fine, after consideration, was $48,000.
This has also happened in critically endangered community areas related to valued vegetation time.
Tag, or you’re it
Maintenance schedules auditing insurance, workers comp or annual or six-monthly paid periods also can be cited for industry best practice.
An alternative is something dated and signed citing a certain time frame. Reports not sent within a suitable time frame can indicate duty-of-care breaches.
Arborists are almost immediately recognised and signed in when they attend a site, and these attendance logs need to be fairly accurate, both for proving compliance with a court directive and as being a professional, reliable arborist.
Finally, make allowance for gear that, by law, needs to be date stamped and in good order. Ropes are required to be tagged with dates, as are helmets, bracing equipment or rope harnesses, as is any electrical equipment.
Learn more of the TCAA at tcaa.com.au.
