VASSALBORO — The unannounced cutting down of about a dozen trees in three cemeteries this year is raising questions about the future of trees in the town’s graveyards.

Over the past year, trees in Vassalboro’s Union and Methodist and Maple Grove cemeteries were cut down at the direction of the town’s Cemetery Committee. Many of the trees towering over the town’s roughly 27 cemeteries are more than 100 years old. Officials say more of them are toppling over as they age, damaging historic headstones and monuments below.

Vassalboro’s Cemetery Committee has long overseen the graveyards’ maintenance, including cutting down trees. But discussions of cutting down dozens more trees in coming years has worried members of the Vassalboro Conservation Commission.

Cemetery Committee members are concerned that more graves and monuments will be damaged as trees age and eventually fall. Committee members say they authorized cutting down about a dozen cemetery trees earlier this year and are considering chopping down more in other graveyards to address such concerns.

The conservation commission, however, says some of those trees were planted around 30 years ago and it wasn’t warned that they would be chopped down. Many of the trees cemetery committee members have flagged to be cut down in the future are also healthy and do not pose a risk to any graves, commission members say.

Now both municipal bodies are trying to sort out who decides which trees are unhealthy and which ones need to be cut down.

Members of both committees met beneath century-old pine and oak trees at the Nelson Road Cemetery on Monday afternoon to discuss the trees at Vassalboro’s cemeteries.

Both advisory groups believe recommendations over tree maintenance should be under their jurisdiction. The cemetery committee says the trees are theirs to maintain and direct to be cut down because they are within the cemeteries. The conservation commission says it’s their job to conserve Vassalboro’s natural resources, which includes the trees.

Grave markers are shown Tuesday near large trees behind the sign for the Nelson Road Cemetery, also known as Fowler Cemetery, located on Nelson Road in Vassalboro. Two committees in town each say the trees in cemeteries fall under their purview.  Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal

Savannah Clark, the chair of Vassalboro’s Cemetery Committee, said the committee’s nine volunteer members are spending more time each year repairing and replacing the headstones knocked over by aging trees blown over in storms.

The cemetery committee has an annual budget of roughly $45,000, Clark said, roughly $11,000 of which was spent on cutting down about a dozen trees at three cemeteries last year.

“We had budgeted to take trees down because a lot of times they fall and damage the stones, and our volunteers spend a lot of hours cleaning them up,” Clark said. “A lot of trees came down in our cemeteries. It did not look good. We had damage to a lot of stones and to the fences around some of the other cemeteries.”

Vassalboro’s cemeteries have maintained a “zero-tree” policy for roughly the last 15 years, according to arborist Tim Basham, who has overseen the cemeteries’ trees for about the last 20 years.

The policy doesn’t mean that no trees are allowed in the cemeteries — rather that no new trees can sprout or be planted. That, Basham said, means the cemeteries’ remaining trees are older and at a higher risk of falling down.

“There are a number of over-mature trees in the cemeteries. Not every tree, but there’s a lot of them,” Basham said. “There are trees that are an asset to the cemetery, that are strong and provide shade, but there are some that are rotting and may fall soon.”

Historically, the cemetery committee’s volunteers have made the decisions about how to maintain the graveyards’ upkeep, Clark said. Though the committee is comprised entirely of volunteers, it still acts as an arm of Vassalboro’s town government.

“Over time, the town has sort of absorbed many of the private cemeteries in town,” Clark said. “We cut the grass, maintain the stones and keep them up. Even in some of the cemeteries that we don’t technically own.”

Though the cemetery committee budgets each year for the removal of trees, Clark said it doesn’t allocate funds to tree maintenance — raising questions about whether it’s the cemetery committee or conservation commission’s place to oversee the trees’ health.

A grave marker that has been over grown by roots of a large tree is seen Tuesday in the Nelson Road Cemetery, also known as Fowler Cemetery, located on Nelson Road in Vassalboro. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal

The lack of maintenance is particularly troubling for Steve Jones, a member of Vassalboro’s conservation commission who helped plant several trees in the town’s cemeteries before the zero-tree policy was implemented.

Jones said he planted the trees at the East Vassalboro Methodist Cemetery in the 1990s with funding through Project Canopy, a statewide program that works with Maine municipalities to plant and maintain trees. Two of those three trees were cut down by the cemetery committee this spring without warning, he said.

While he wishes the trees hadn’t been cut down, Jones said he worries about the lack of maintenance among the cemeteries’ remaining trees and wants to ensure they are properly taken care of.

“We’re not against cutting down trees that are hazardous and should be taken down, but in a situation like this, there’s some proper care that we ought to be doing before we bring out the chainsaw,” he said.

The groups did not come to an agreement at their meeting Monday. The ultimate decision on whose job it is to take care of the trees will likely be made in the coming budget season, Town Manager Aaron Miller said at the meeting.

Before a decision could be made, Miller said the committees should work together to identify which trees need to be cut down or maintained so the town can estimate the cost of the work.

One of the two groups will likely receive that additional funding for the tree work when the budget is hashed out next year, Miller said.

“We have a limited budget. We know we have trees that need to be cut. There’s questions about whether some trees actually need to be cut,” Miller said. “I mean, you can’t replace this stuff. Everyone has opinions about it, and it’s a very subjective topic. But when we’re looking at dollars and cents, then we can start moving forward.”

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to clarify that the commissions are advisory and that work at cemeteries occurs at their direction and recommendation.