If you travel on Frenchtown Road with any regularity, you’ve noticed a landscape change west of Tillinghast Road – the evergreen trees lining the tennis and basketball courts have disappeared. Well, they’ve been cut down. So, why?

We asked Community Services Director Andy Wade and it starts with power lines. Rhode Island Electric trims trees that come near power lines, or rather it hires tree companies to do that work. For many years, the tree company (companies?) trimmed a neat box into those eight trees that line the courts, allowing the power lines to pass through and keeping the trees pretty normal looking.

But the tree contractor who trimmed the trees last spring, according to Wade, was a less focused on finesse. The result was trees largely shaved down one side. According to the town’s tree warden, they were on a short path to death. The town talked to the people at R.I. Energy and the energy company paid to have the trees cut down.

Wade said they will plant new trees in the space, smaller trees that will not need so much pruning near the power lines.