Wisconsin Public Television
Transcript: “In Wisconsin,” Episode #923 Tree Cop
Original Airdate: April 28, 2011
2INW0923

- From fishing to forestry. But first, we want to begin our next report with a salute. These three treasured members of our "In Wisconsin" team are retiring. So, pay attention to Jo Garrett's cleverly crafted words, videographer Frank Boll's video and editing, plus the music and audio of sound recordist Brad Wray, as they take you to the state's largest city for a closer look at a nationally renowned forestry program. And we might be going out on a limb here, but the innovative program is enforced by a man they call the tree cop in Milwaukee.

- I monitor the city trees and protect the trees in the city of Milwaukee. From construction damage or other damage that may occur to them. That's my beat, yeah, the whole city of Milwaukee. All of it.

- If there's a street or sidewalk construction project in Milwaukee, Jim Kringer is there. His beat is trees.

- Morning, Tony.

- How's it going

- Going all right. We going to be able to clear? You're going to have to move up.

- All right, appreciate it.

- Okay. 
(loud machine noise)
 All that finishing. Finish it up, now.

- They call him the tree cop.

- One minute to get where.

- Kringer is a man in motion.

- I have to come back to shoot this site.

- Measuring.

- Everything on this side would have had to come out.

- Moving.

- We'll get her done. We've got all the walk in here that's coming out. 13th and Mitchell, and the curb and gutter is coming out, as well, here. I drive about 120 miles a day, and I walk anywhere from 12 to 17 miles a day covering the beat.

- Kringer has been walking this beat for 25 years. 
(machine noise)
This is the result. 

§ §
 
You're looking at Milwaukee's urban forest. For many, these trees are an essential part of the city's infrastructure. Bob McFadden is a former Forestry Services Manager for Milwaukee.

- If you didn't have this here and it was all concrete and asphalt, and reflected heat, light, it would be brutal. It would be brutal.

- Trees can make a city.

- That's all you need.

- Preston Cole is the Environmental Services Superintendent for the city of Milwaukee.

- I'm convinced that the social dynamics behind having a well-canopied society, a well-canopied city goes a long way to reducing violence, goes a long way to increasing our property values. And, goes a long way to defining ourselves as a community.

- This canopy also goes a long way in cutting city costs.

- We got 284,000 trees in the city of Milwaukee. And those trees save the homeowners and the taxpayers $21 million a year.

- According to city officials, the trees of Milwaukee's urban forest provide $1.5 million a year in cooling costs, $4.5 million in pollution abatement, and $15.5 million in groundwater treatment.

- $21 million a year saved by the homeowners in the city of Milwaukee. The more trees we plant, the more money that's being saved.

- And the more trees they save, the more money they save. Bigger trees, bigger canopy. Kringer's title is urban forestry inspector. It's a job he helped create from scratch, a job that began on this street.

- Back in 1978, August of that year, we had a windstorm come through here, as a sidewalk replacement project had just finished up. And in one evening in August we had 90 trees fall over in this community. They were lying on top of houses. They were lying on top of cars.

- It was an expensive mess, and people were mad. Kringer was hired and armed with the skills gained from a summer forestry job, an interest in construction and a B.A. in English, off he went in search of an answer, in search of a solution.

- And the alderman wanted to know why, why these trees were falling over in the city of Milwaukee.

- So began a 25-year odyssey that has resulted in a nationally recognized tree inspection program that has produced spectacular results. Before Kringer came, tree losses in Milwaukee numbered in the hundreds.

- City of Milwaukee averaged a loss of between 400 to 600 annually that fell over primarily in construction sites. From 1981 up until now, 2005, we've had less than 50 fall over in construction sites.

- The campaign to save this canopy begins at ground level, or below, where the roots meet the street.

- If you cut through too many stabilizers, okay, the tree can no longer support itself during windstorms and then the tree is going to fall over. Take a look in here. This is where I've got my root plate. Anytime you cut into this, this is going to rot directly into the tree. And everything on this section of the tree would eventually rot out, meaning all of these roots would rot. You'd have no support on this side of the tree whatsoever.

- Many communities simply ditch the trees. They value the straight line. Milwaukee values its trees. Consider this old beauty.

- This is an American Elm, one of the largest ones in the city of Milwaukee that's still left.

- It's an old beauty with bulging roots that raised up the sidewalk and got in the way.

- Most communities they'd cut it down. It's cheaper for them to cut the tree down, not to have it impact on construction.

- Milwaukee didn't cut it down. They went around. To save a tree, Kringer will insist that they narrow a walk.

- We've already reduced the walk by a foot.

- Raise a walk.

- So, my new walk is actually going to be this high, which is going to go over the entire root system itself.- He'll insist on certain equipment, whatever it takes.

- It's all for the trees. All for the trees, itself.

- This is the tree cop's favorite case. Layton Avenue.

- If the original, next to the road would have been here, would have gone through the center of every single tree on this project, so all 280 trees would have had to come out.

- It didn't happen.

- The cathedral that you have is going to be here for a long time yet to come. It's beautiful. It really is. And it adds to the neighborhood. Every time you drive down that block or that area, you say look what the city's done, look what the city's accomplished, because you could have gone in there and cut everything down. Every single tree on that project could have come down. How long does a man live? 87, maybe 88? When we're gone, they're still going to be here. They're still going to be growing. They're still going to be strong.

- Spring is a busy time for Jim Kringer and the tree inspection program. He also teaches classes at UW-Madison in sidewalk management and how to preserve trees in an urban environment during construction.