Overgrown

The thick and shadowy brush along the roadway between Harcourt and George’s Brook is causing concern for drivers.

Treshana Gosse travels this route daily during her commute to Clarenville where she works as an employment coordinator for persons with disabilities. In recent months she noticed the alder bushes are flourishing to the point of becoming a potential driving hazard.

“On the right hand side of the road approaching Clarenville, there are places where the alders can almost touch the pavement,” she describes. “The whole side of the road is completely covered.”

The overgrowth is not just affecting drivers.

 “While driving to work the other day there was a gentleman out in the ditches cutting brush near what we refer to Snook’s Brook, and around his own driveway because the alders were completely covering it in. So it’s pretty bad.”

Gosse noted there doesn’t seem to be any brush clearing happening like in previous years around this time.

“We haven’t seen a thing,” Gosse said. “It’s kind of like the big joke in our family — who’s going to hit a moose before it means something. It has to mean someone’s life I guess before any work gets done. We keep watching for the brush workers and we keep watching for the machine to come down our way, but we never seen anything.”

Pedestrians are being hidden by vegetation as well.

“I can’t imagine walking on the side of the road. Soon the alders will literally grow out over the edge of the pavement, so they could start to even scratch the side of your vehicle, it’s getting that bad in some places. It’s not the whole way, but most of the way it’s pretty bad,” she added.

Vera Smith of Elliot’s Cove describes a similar situation in her area as well.

“The alders growing near the roads are the worst I have ever seen it in my 30 years of living on Random island,” she said. “What scares me is the moose jumping out through it - a driver doesn't have a chance. The highway signs are covered in some places and the alders and trees are up over the wires in some places, too.”

“We need one of those projects where people cut and burn them...the ditches are completely grown in and the water won't be able to drain off in the winter and we will have flooding,” she said, adding that if such work is delayed until wintertime, the snow will be in the way and the work will only be half-done.

It has been approximately two years since brush clearing has been completed in both of these areas, although one side was partly cleared by utility crews last year in order to access the power lines and poles. The Random North Development Association, who helped administer employment programs for brush clearing in 2008, has indicated they haven’t been approached by government this year for brush clearing, which is normally done before Community Employment and Enhancement Projects begin.

Roger Scaplen, communications director with the Department of Transportation and Works says the decisions on where brush cutting will take place this year have not yet been finalized.