Courant just recalled a spliced climbing line

The story that should move your gear bag this week is a recall: Courant pulled its Spliced Kalimba climbing line over a defect in the splice. Beyond that, a Utah company owner is trying to force tree-care licensing into law, EPA is moving to cancel a pile of pesticide registrations, and oak-wilt pruning rules are getting stricter in northern Michigan.

The big one

Courant Tree Care issued a voluntary recall of its Spliced Kalimba climbing line, effective June 17, 2026, over a design defect in the splice (TCIA Magazine). The company says stop using the line immediately, fill out an online return form, and pick a replacement or a refund.

A spliced eye is the load-bearing connection on the line. It is the one part you trust without thinking about it once you're tied in. A defect there is the worst possible place for one. If you have a Spliced Kalimba in your kit, this is not a wait-and-see. Pull it now and run the return form.

No injuries were named in the recall notice. Good. The point of a recall is to keep it that way.

The canopy

A Utah owner is pushing for tree-care licensing

Christy Hampton, who owns Clean Cuts Trees LLC in Salt Lake City, filed a formal request with the Utah Division of Professional Licensing to create a specialty contractor classification for tree services (National Law Review). She wants to follow it with state legislation and a public petition that would require training, certification, or a trade exam, and recognize ISA, TCIA, and ATCP credentials as qualifying paths. The filing cites TCIA's count of 243 tree-care deaths from 2020 to 2023, about 61 a year. A licensing push that comes from inside the trade, rather than from a state environmental committee, tends to land better with the people who'd have to comply.

EPA is moving to cancel pesticide registrations over unpaid fees

EPA published a notice in the Federal Register on June 25, 2026, covering maintenance fees and proposed cancellations of registrations tied to nonpayment of 2026 fees (Federal Register). When a registration gets canceled, the product can go off the shelf. If your PHC program leans on a specific label, this is the time to check whether it's on the list.

New York City signs a heat order covering outdoor contractors

Mayor Mamdani signed an executive order on June 26, 2026, directing city agencies to write heat-illness prevention guidance and tighten reporting on heat-related incidents (City of New York). It is not tree-specific, but it applies to outdoor workers and contractors, which puts line-clearance and tree crews working city jobs squarely inside it.

Winter Springs may stop charging for dangerous-tree permits

Winter Springs, Florida commissioners talked on June 24, 2026, about requiring the city to replace every tree it removes and to make its staff arborist hold certification (Oviedo Community News). City Attorney Anthony Garganese pointed to a recent Florida law that bars the city from requiring a permit to prune or remove a dangerous tree. That state preemption keeps eating into local permit rules across Florida.

Pest and disease watch

Traverse City's oak-pruning ban runs longer than the state's

Traverse City code prohibits pruning oaks from April through November to cut oak wilt risk (Press Advantage). That's stricter than Michigan DNR guidance, which advises against oak pruning from April 15 to July 15 because sap-feeding beetles carry the fungus into fresh cuts. If you're working oaks up there, the city window is the one that gets you fined, so know it before you put steel in a red oak this summer.

Napa flags Costco grapevines for a vineyard pest

Napa County put out an alert that grapevines sold at a Costco in Napa may carry glassy-winged sharpshooter, a serious vineyard pest (Napa County). The store took multiple shipments totaling 220 grapevines between April 21, 2026, and the date of the alert. Anyone with suspect plants is told to call the agricultural commissioner.

Species spotlight

Ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba) is about as low-drama as a tree gets. The wood is light, soft, and fairly weak, around 0.45 specific gravity, with no real commercial use, but the structure is what you notice on a job. Strong, well-spaced limbs and sound architecture mean less storm cleanup and fewer surprise failures. It shrugs off compaction, drought, salt, and pollution once established, which is why you see it standing healthy in tree pits that kill everything else.

It's a living fossil, the last survivor of an ancient lineage, native to China and now planted worldwide. Two things to tell a client: plant only male cultivars, because female trees drop foul-smelling, messy seeds, and expect it to take its time. It's a slow grower, slow to establish, and then it just keeps going for a very long time with almost no trouble. Prune in late winter while dormant.

One for the lunch break

A cottonwood at Pibel Lake in central Nebraska just got measured at 561 points by the National Championship Tree Program, making it the largest eastern cottonwood in the country, and by the report's account bigger than Canada's biggest as well (Nebraska Public Media). It's reckoned to be about 125 years old. Anyone who's ever cleaned up a cottonwood after a windstorm knows the species mostly for shedding limbs and rot. This one apparently never got the memo.

Down in Georgia, Altamaha Riverkeeper James Holland turned up old-growth cypress in a 7,180-acre tract straddling Long and McIntosh counties, including one more than 44.5 feet around and over 100 feet tall, with hollows big enough to fit a table and chairs (Coastal Courier).

Stay safe out there,

The TreeNerd crew