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Stories from the NFCCA Newsletter, the “Northwood News” |
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Stories from the NFCCA Newsletter, the “Northwood News” |
On 5-6 February 2008, Parks Department crews brought heavy equipment to the meadow for what they claimed was routine maintenance and invasives removal. What they did, in fact, was cause a great deal of damage and create conditions that without prompt remedial action will actually worsen the invasives infestation.
They ran heavy equipment all over the meadow when the soil was wet, tearing up the grass and compacting the soil. They even drove right over the roots of most of the mature trees. (Without careful remediation, this will shorten the trees’s life.) This includes the 176+ year old walnut where they ran right over the butresses, gouged out the earth to a depth of over 20", and piled up debris. Incredibly, volunteers had already removed the invasives from the walnut tree so they really didn’t need to do anything there but trim some dead limbs.
It’s pretty ironic that citizens are supposed to abide by the rules and not play on County ballfields during wet weather so as not to destroy the fields, but the very professionals charged with protecting and maintaining park facilities did nothing to cushion the ground.
Seven large, mature trees were cut down (six silver maples and one locust). Six of these were cut down ostensibly because they were hazards to the public, but three of them were perfectly healthy. Three of them were old trees with cavities, so I could understand if they were in a parking lot or looming over the playground. However, these were not in any such proximity. Moreover, I think they could simply have cut dead limbs rather than cutting whole trees.
Basically, a park visitor would be more likely to win the lottery five times over than to be injured by the “dangerous” trees the crew cut down. If the same standard were applied everywhere, we would have no habitat trees in County parks, and certainly no snags would be allowed. The seventh tree (also a maple) was cut down by the invasives crew because it was growing at the fenceline and the crew said they had to remove it in order to remove the invasives covering the fence.
We have further documented that the invasives crew cut, rammed, or pushed over seven species of healthy natives: silver maple, red maple, locust, staghorn sumac, cherry, dogwood, and hickory. In one section, healthy native locust trees were removed but invasive trees (Ailanthus altissima) were not.
Thanks to the intervention of Councilmember Marc Elrich and State Senator Mike Lennett, we got them to halt the destruction and agree to sit down with us and develop a consensus maintenance plan. The NFCCA hired an expert in invasive plant removal, Dr. Marc Imlay, to tour the site and prepare a sensible removal plan. He confirmed that:
I met with Carole Bergmann (she is the forest ecologist who runs the highly respected Weed Warriors program for MNCPPC) and Mark Allen, the manager for North Four Corners Park, to discuss what to do next. The Parks Department will remove the trash from the park and they will chip up the invasive vine debris. Some of these chips will be placed around the trees to re-start the natural soil-life cycle which is so vital to trees. Any extra chips will be available for the community to take and use. They will place the cut hollow logs in the hedgerow to serve as habitat, and the large healthy logs will be cut for use a benches and seats throughout the meadow.
After the debris is cleared and the vegetation has leafed out, we will assess what needs to be done in the way of invasives removal. That will probably involve a machete crew under the direction of Carole Bergmann’s staff. Carole will also provide a special training event in the park for our community weed warriors so we can help keep the meadow clear and healthy. If you want to help, email me at [contact email redacted].
I am still seeking expert advice from a number of sources on how to ameliorate the soil compaction and what can be done to help the damaged tree roots heal. I will also try to arrange for a native plant understory survey this spring. We also need to insist that Parks replant trees, shrubs, and meadow plants so the invasives don’t colonize all the clearcut areas.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that the Planning Board and Park Director Mary Bradford still maintain that what the crews did was appropriate maintenance. Mary Bradford even claims they own no heavy equipment. The larger issue is that, as long as Parks endorses what was done here, it means that any park can be randomly (or, in our case, conveniently) destroyed and there are no consequences for Parks.
While our case is probably the most dramatic, we have started collecting other examples of maintenance gone amok from around the County. I’m even hearing about crews taking out healthy 16-foot straight trees, presumably for milling as logs. We are also discussing possible ways to get the maintenance responsibility (and funding) away from Parks maintenance in order to give it to someone who actually cares about the public’s natural resources. This might mean putting maintenance of natural resources under the direction of MNCPPC natural resources staff, or transferring the responsibility to the Department of Environmental Protection, or funding an nonprofit “Friends of Rachel Carson Meadow.” ■
© 2008 NFCCA [Source: https://nfcca.org/news/nn200804e.html]