ELLSWORTH, Maine — Snow that fell Monday night has resulted in a change of plans for moving a large tree to a waterfront estate on Mount Desert Island, according to the Hancock County Sheriff’s Department.
Transportation workers had been expected to depart at 6 a.m. Tuesday from Atlantic Landscape Construction on Route 1A with the tree loaded on a flatbed truck. The move has been delayed until 6 a.m. Wednesday, Jan. 14, because of the weather, Lt. Tim Cote of the sheriff’s department said Tuesday. Concerns about snow on the roads led officials to reschedule the trip, he said.
Cote added that the total number of trees expected to be transported individually over the next couple of weeks from the landscaping company’s property to a private residence on Sargeant Drive in Northeast Harbor is seven — not 16. He said the sheriff’s department had incorrectly indicated on Monday that a total 16 trees would be moved because of a miscommunication between the companies involved and the sheriff’s department.
The plan is still to move only one tree on any given day, Cote said. Because of the amount of time involved in preparing the trees for transport and in getting them in place after they are delivered to Northeast Harbor, officials expect to move a tree once every few days, he said.
The sheriff’s department is providing a law enforcement escort for the trees while they are being moved, which is a requirement of the special transport permit for the large load that Atlantic Landscape and transportation company R.F. Jordan & Sons have obtained from the Maine Department of Transportation. Cote said sheriff’s office personnel will post information on the department’s Facebook page to keep the public up to date on the timing and progress of each tree move.
Employees at Atlantic Landscape’s Ellsworth facility refused to comment on Tuesday and calls made to the company on Monday and Tuesday were not returned.
Public interest in the tree-moving effort has been heightened by an incident 12 years ago in which the transportation of a large tree from Atlantic Landscape to MDI resulted in a massive traffic jam that delayed motorists for hours. Because of that incident, Texas billionaire Charles Butt ended up publishing an apology in area newspapers for the logjam that resulted from having the tree moved to his summer estate in Northeast Harbor.
The 2003 tree move involved workers from multiple utility companies who had to raise and then lower wires across the road as the large apple tree slowly rolled along underneath. Maine State Police provided an escort for that tree-moving effort, which took 10 hours to complete the 27-mile trip.
Cote stressed that this latest plan to move trees is expected to be a far cry from the snafu that occurred 12 years ago. He said these trees, though still large, are smaller than Butt’s tree and no utility lines will have to be moved.
He added that since the 2003 fiasco, loads larger than the trees being moved this month have been transported by truck through Hancock County without incident.
“We’ve moved bigger boats than this with far less fanfare,” Cote said.
The specific location on Sargeant Drive to which the trees will be delivered has not been officially disclosed, but it is believed to be connected with the construction of a $9.4 million mansion at a waterfront property owned by billionaire Steven M. Rales.
