This double pine will come down on Monday
After a thoughtful 45 minute discussion deliberating the fate of ten trees along both sides of Pine Street the Planning Board and Tree Warden came to the unanimous conclusion that 9 of them be removed immediately and more efforts will be forthcoming to save the remaining one.
Unfortunately the twin pine is not the one.
The trees are all in the later stages of their lifespan and most of them show their age. The discussion among Planning Board members and neighborhood residents who attended the meeting centered on the safety issue.
Pine Street is in dire need of a sidewalk and the trees, unfortunately, are rooted firmly in the way.
The Amherst Shade Tree Committee had voted in March to "save as many of the trees as possible," but in the end only one of the ten earned what may be only a temporary reprieve.
Tree Warden Alan Snow was going to take extra measures to try to save a 30" Silver Maple, but did not seem confident it would last for long after the sidewalk is installed.
30" Silver Maple not coming down ... yet
The hearing Wednesday evening was required by state law since Pine Street is a "scenic way". And yes, even with the loss of all these trees will still be considered so.
In 2012 Amherst Town Meeting approved borrowing $612,000 for the purchase of 2,000 trees, an inventory that has not yet been depleted. So replacements will go back in the ground over the next few months.
17 comments:
Coming from out West "wide open spaces" I do not understand the obsession with having trees along the roads. It feels very claustrophobic. Also I am also always vaguely worried that a tree will fall in the road or on my car. It seems to me that there are plenty of trees about. Maybe trees should be set back a little, like setbacks for houses and for the same reasons?
Anyway happy these folks are going to get their sidewalk.
In Amherst trees are people too.
And all lives matter.
Larry, you will need to apologize, as the Smith College president had to do, for saying that "all lives matter".
Why not a Cobblestone sidewalk 10-20 feet each side of that Silver Maple Tree? I bet that wouldn't kill the tree -- while a concrete one well may.
Alan Snow is a good man who knows his stuff and the Town is quite lucky to have him. I disagree with him on the issue of Cobbestones, which I'd like to see used a lot more. I consider them "greener" than grass - and one reading the MDSS sheets on the stuff that Chemlawn uses would likely agree...
(OK, I am also from the part of Maine where they used to be quarried, and I'd to get into the production/selling part as well, but I digress...)
And in fairness, I know that the issue in Southwest was that Cobblestones are difficult to plow, particularly if you are using something like a loader (you can lift them out of the ground if you aren't careful) -- but the Bombadeer that Amherst plows sidewalks with ought not do this.
Water drains down through Cobblestones, trees literally go up to the gaps between them to get it, and the nice thing is that you don't have to excavate down a couple feet before installing them, like you do (or should) for a sidewalk. And while I cut roots with a chain saw when I must excavate, most guys just rip them loose with a backhoe -- that's how you kill trees -- although I'm not helping the tree.
I've even put in Cobblestones with a gap for a near-the-surface tree root -- Alan may disagree but I really don't think you will do that much damage to that Silver Maple if you put a COBBLESTONE sidewalk in there. Particularly a Cobblestone sidewalk that only bears the occasional weight of a pedestrian -- hundreds of people a day or vehicles would be a different story.
Bricks are porous and tree roots will fragment them, but tree roots neither have any desire to go into Granite blocks (no water inside) nor are they able to.
And while tree roots will destroy a concrete sidewalk, by growing up around the Cobblestones, they bind them so tightly that I once almost had to call in heavy equipment to remove Cobblestones set in sand. The worst you (usually) will have are moguls which aren't a problem for pedestrians and which the Bombardier goes right up and over.
Or you take up all the cobblestones, judiciously trim the tree roots, and reset them. I've done that before -- instead of putting your homeless people in jail, being sentenced to help with something like that (something they could feel good about having accomplished) might solve a lot of your problems.
Folks -- lugging 20 lb rocks, in the sun, with a hangover -- has got to suck. Perhaps enough to encourage one to behave himself/herself/itself the next time he/she/it is drunk...
Love the way public input works. The people say they want the trees to stay. Tree Warden,(town employee)tells everyone they must go because of age. Sounds like a lot of bull to me!
Works the same way with every project, residents say no, town looks the other way and does as it pleases.
Surprised they aren't being taken down today as Amherst always has such a great sense of timing
As to trees, and I understand the Amhest DPW union wanting to ensure employment for its guys, so lets assume that "X" trees will be planted by them this year, and that we all agree that this is "X-PLUS" -- that there is n ironclad agreement that the DPW will be planting "X" and that these are trees beyond that which otherwise would not be planted this year.
Lets also agree that there is no shortage of places to plant trees nor of trees to plant -- which, I believe, is the reality right now. Hence that we can promise the union that this is work that they wouldn't otherwise be doing next year or the year after that -- that it is work that would never be done.
And work done under conditions that they wouldn't want to do it under -- digging with shovels and mattaxes and such -- that heavy equipment will not be diverted from other uses to help plant X-PLUS trees -- although the town will provide Alan Snow to help advise, instruct and explain how to plant a tree so that it lives.
Because if they all die, the kids have to do it again -- that's part of the deal and a strong incentive to young adults who may be uninterested but who aren't stupid.
Although they likely will surprise you once it is something that THEY are invested in -- and recognized as being invested in. And it really sucks doing manual labor with a hangover, which is an incentive not to have one -- another added aspect of this...
Imagine working out a deal with Enku Geyae (assuming she could be trusted -- I'm not so sure on that) where a half dozen UMass students spent a Saturday digging holes (by hand, see above about hangovers).
Then they plant some of these trees that otherwise won't get planted, and then --- this is the real logistical nightmare for the DPW -- they water them. They haul water from campus, in their own vehicles --- either a couple dozen empty gallon jugs or maybe the Town invests a few pennies in 5-6 gallon containers which are borrowed from and returned to the DPW "front desk" or whatever the DPW prefers.
The DPW agrees not to grieve this under the "work done by non unit members" stuff.
You -- Larry, YOU agree to remove whatever you may have on them from your blog (or perhaps not to have put their names there in the first place).
Enku Geylae agrees to make all of her stuff "go away" and her promise can be trusted. The latter is a big one and it isn't just her -- there are too many people who know of too many times when young people were told that there wouldn't be anything on their record/transcript 2-3 whatever years from now as long as they behaved themselves -- and those promises not being kept.
So even though people don't' trust Enku -- and it isn't just me -- it's like plea bargains with a DAs Office which has consistently failed to honor past ones -- any attorney would not trust the current offer nor should he/she/it.
The promise has to be that Enku not only makes the judicial sanctions "go away" but expunges any and all references to the entire incident in all records, including her super-secret ACT files which she still claims don't exist. There will be nothing at UMass about the fact that Freddie Fratboy and Suzie Sixpack had a loud party or whatever -- not only will potential employers or grad schools not be told about it, there won't be any record of it at all. And the APD agrees not to tell as well -- they keep a record but it's not released under that "investigatory" exception.
Amherst DPW agrees to make a nice little metal sign saying something like "These trees were planted by [names] on [date] -- maybe naming the species of trees but something like the MassDOT signs for adopted I-91 islands down by the mall. And it might be simpler (and safer) for the Town to take both a group picture adn one of each individual in front of the sign because yes, these kids are going to want that.
And at least one of the trees has to have leaves on it at the end of the semester or something -- some trees always die no matter how hard you try and how well you plant them. But the requirement that at least some of them have to live -- be alive at Date X -- ensures that this isn't just a waste of trees -- that there is a real effort to make them grow.
And the ongoing watering -- something newly planted trees need (and Alan knows far better than I how much water and how often is ideal) is something that isn't that difficult when you are talking a few specific trees planted on the same date in the same general location -- but a logistical nightmare in the contest of a whole town, with lots of newly planted trees everywhere, planted on different dates.
The key thing here Larry is that it is expungement -- nothing less -- and that it is not punishment.
Instead, it is "being a good citizen" and "contributing to the community" -- something that I've heard people say they want from the often loud and sometimes obnoxious neighbors who happen to be UM students.
And there is the very real possibility that there may be kids volunteering for this -- UM students who haven't done anything wrong but want to put this "public service" on their resume -- well, instead of planting trees, the DPW guys might agree to repair catch basins instead -- it's trades and hours, it's assurance to guys that they won't be 'outsourced' and it can be worked out.
The other important point here Larry is that the truly obnoxious asshole students are untouchable. They already can do everything including rape with total impunity and they know it -- and they don't care about having a judicial sanction blemish on their transcript because Daddy is going to look out for them anyway -- there are kids with connections to money and power beyond your comprehension and you would be amazed with what some students on that campus have gotten away with.
Let me just say that I once genuinely thanked a young lady for not punching a schmuck (male but definitely not a man) because it would have caused lots of problems that I would have had to deal with. (She was bigger and stronger than that little schmuck, and he definitely deserved it -- he deserved to be arrested but that'd never happen because of who he was.)
I'm reasonably certain that a different schmuck raped at least two different women -- with impunity. I heard that it cost his father either $30K or $40K (I forget which) to get him un-expelled -- to make that completely "go away" and beyond what it was he'd been kicked out for as a freshman and the figure, I never quite heard the details.
And then there was the alcoholic with connections to/in the mASSgop -- I don't think I *ever* saw that woman sober and I doubt I ever saw her with a BAC under 2.0 -- quite likely 3.0 as she'd been drinking quite heavily since the ninth grade if not earlier. I never saw her doing it, and would have done *something* (probably yank the valve stem out of the nearest tire) if I had seen her doing it, but I was vaguely aware that she had a car and was driving everywhere with impunity -- money and power making OUI permissible and one of these days, well hopefully she'll only kill herself.
Larry, these kinds of kids aren't going to get their fingernails dirty -- the only ones who would be interested in something like this are the good kids who made a mistake -- and you gotta admit that planting trees with hand tools is hard work -- particularly if it isn't something you have ever done before.
"Coming from out West "wide open spaces" I do not understand the obsession with having trees along the roads. It feels very claustrophobic"
Initially they were American Elms planted along the roads -- look at the old (circa 1940-1950) pictures of Smith College as I believe Hamp had Elms. They would drape down over the street -- Dutch Elm Disease killed them all -- well most of them.
The people say they want the trees to stay. Tree Warden,(town employee)tells everyone they must go because of age.
I disagreed with him once on a Maple -- he said it was dying and why -- I said it has lots of green leaves on it and looks healthy but fur the few dead boughs. It died.
Did anyone ask him why old trees are dangerous? Did anyone listen to has anser and ask him why he thought what he did?
Hint: What's wrong with driving an old rusty car?
That " claustrophobia " you refer to is a natural traffic calmer, keeping cars from zooooooming even faster in the wide open spaces. Also they help to clean the air making breathing in the vicinity of traffic more pleasurable as well as shading the sidewalks and controlling storm water. I could go on but then I might be accused of being a tree hugger. I enjoy breathing...
dawn winkler
Diarrhea of the mouth, Mr. Ed. A horse is a horse of course, of course...
He doesn't expect us to read all that ranting, does he?
I try to remember this little rule when speaking or writing: always realize that the one who's most interested in what you have to say is---You! For Ed, that goes Double!
If only the drivers in amherst would zooooom as fast as the speed limit! I know that's too much to ask.
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