The Greenwich Land Trust, in conjunction with the Greenwich Tree Conservancy, holds its “Winter Walk — Identifying Trees without Leaves” guided tour at the new Converse Brook Preserve in Greenwich, Conn., on Tuesday February 7, 2023. On this guided forest walk, visitors were shown ways to look closer at the diverse features of bark, branches, and buds to see a varied winter landscape.
Who would’ve thought that the U.S. Forest Service could fail to see the forest for the trees?
National forests contain over 90 percent of federal mature and old-growth forests. More than three-quarters of this area is open to logging. That is shortsighted. New growth takes decades to reach maturity, and potentially centuries to attain the structural and biological diversity of an old-growth forest. Such harvesting also jeopardizes the stability of endangered species populations and increases wildfire risk.
Climate change makes protecting these areas all the more important. Mature and old-growth forests remove enormous amounts of carbon dioxide from the air. When these forests are logged, much of this carbon returns to the atmosphere, and their carbon removal capacity is lost. Yet, even as the Forest Service seeks public comment to guide new regulations, it intends to open up hundreds of thousands of acres of mature and old-growth forest to logging. To do so would severely harm efforts to combat climate change. The Forest Service must ban logging in mature and old-growth forests.
Submitted by JoAnn Messina, Executive Director, Greenwich Tree Conservancy
To the Editor:
The State General Assembly has recently submitted several tree bills, two of them speak specifically to tree issues we have been experiencing here in Greenwich. Our tree canopy is being reduced by the enhanced tree trimming of Eversource as well as the massive tree removals of CT DOT along our transportation corridors.
Tree removal along I95 close to exit 5 in Old Greenwich/Riverside
The pace of this destructive practice appears to be increasing at the same time as stronger storms are creating more dramatic flooding and the resulting erosion. This cutting also results in the creation of heat islands throughout town and other unanticipated outcomes that negatively affect our neighborhoods.
Eversource speaks about hardening their infrastructure, yet their practices appear to focus solely on removal and “enhanced” trimming of our trees and not on equipment upgrades or undergrounding of wires in municipal areas.
They recently issued a press release (Eversource Investing $74 Million in Tree ManagementFeb 3, 2023) stating that 140 miles of electric lines in Greenwich would see trees being “trimmed” or removed, the most in the state. As town tree canopies are weakened by aggressive trimming the trees become more vulnerable to damage from strong storms.
HB 5636 will address vegetation management by utilities by requiring a permit from DEEP for pruning, require a licensed arborist to agree with the assessment of the health of the tree, require stump removal and replacement of trees removed from private property and establish fines when they do not comply with such provisions.
Additionally, the clear cutting by CT DOT along I-95 and the Metro North right-of-way that includes easements provided to Eversource have removed sound buffers that are critical to adjacent neighborhoods, have decimated habitat for songbirds and pollinators, and left behind wide open
areas for invasive plants to take over. Their management policy is to apply pesticides, in many cases directly adjacent to homes and schools with young children. This creates a vicious cycle which would not have occurred if a properly managed tree canopy had remained.
HB5506 will establish guidelines to govern vegetation along state highways by employing a certified arborist to approve tree removals, it will require annual reporting of the amount of money spent on tree removals during the previous year along with a schedule of work to be performed four weeks prior to start. The tree warden will receive this notification as well as a concise planting plan of replacement trees where trees are to be removed.
Representatives Meskers, Arzeno and Khanna are co-sponsoring these bills. We ask you to write to them expressing your support and the importance of these bills.
Please also write to Senator Fazio asking him to co-sponsor these bills in the Senate. Now is the time to stop the practice of clearcutting trees by Eversource and CT DOT.
Recently, the tree warden protected four beautiful pin oaks that mask part of the Cos Cob train station and give shade to that area. He also protected two trees that stand alone along Strickland Road.
We thank him for saving our town’s assets and understanding that safe roads and sidewalks can coexist with trees. Because of recent storms, some residents are concerned about our urban forest. So it’s good to remind everyone of the often-overlooked environmental and economic benefits of trees.
• Trees clean the air: Trees act as giant filters that clean the air we breathe by intercepting airborne particles, cooling the air and absorbing pollutants like carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide. A mature leafy tree produces as much oxygen in a season as 10 people inhale in a year.
• Trees benefit the soil: Trees can store harmful pollutants and change them into less harmful forms. Trees filter sewage, reduce effects from animal wastes, clean roadside spills, and clean water runoff into streams. Trees control soil erosion, conserve rainwater and reduce sediment deposit after storms. Tree roots bind the soil and their leaves break the force of wind and rain.
• Trees increase property value: Real estate values can increase when trees are planted. Data shows that buyers are willing to spend 3% to 7% more on homes with ample trees over few or no trees.
• Trees shade and cool: Shade reduces the need for air conditioning in summer. Studies show that parts of cities without cooling shade from trees can literally be “heat islands” with temperatures as much as 12 degrees higher than in surrounding areas.
• Trees bring people together: Data shows neighborhoods with shady trees and parks create outdoor spaces that attract people. When people are drawn to spaces with trees, they are more likely to see and interact with their neighbors and become friends.
Let’s be mindful of “our friends” the trees and protect our environment, health and property values. Our children, their children, and all the generations to come as the heirs of our fragile planet will be grateful to us.
JoAnn Messina Greenwich
The author is the executive director of the Greenwich Tree Conservancy.
The Greenwich Tree Conservancy agrees with the recommendations given recently in several letters to the editor. Underground wiring should begin without further delay on major town roads, near substations and for all new construction. The long term cost over the many years this will take, will be far less than the cost of the current archaic system when business and property losses are taken into account.
We believe that severe and destructive “100 year” storms may be coming with more frequency and power lines will continue to suffer with our majestic trees, although the suffering will be much less if our trees are maintained. Trees provide many ecosystem benefits including clean air, cleaner water, the sequestration of carbon from the air, prevention of flooding and creating homes for wildlife. We do need to balance these benefits and the enhanced aesthetics and property values with above ground power lines while they exist, that is why the Greenwich Tree Conservancy complies with state policy of planting only right trees in right places—short ornamental trees under power lines, shade trees only where there is no power line.
The majority of trees which impacted power lines in our recent storms were trees on private property, not governed by the existing town tree ordinance nor managed by our town tree warden. We agree that public and private tree management has to improve. We fully cooperate with our town tree warden and urge an increase in funding for care of existing trees on town property.
The Greenwich Tree Conservancy, a non-profit citizen group dedicated to the preservation and maintenance of our “urban forest,” urges our elected officials to require Connecticut Light & Power to bury power lines in Greenwich, wherever it may be feasible. Many Greenwich residents are insisting after the devastation of Hurricane Irene that this be accomplished.
Burying power lines may actually be more cost effective in the long run for CL&P than repeatedly repairing the damage to overhead power lines after a major storm such as Irene and the nor’easter of March 2010, which cost hundreds of millions of dollars. As a result of climate change, it is projected that hurricanes will be increasingly frequent. There would also be a savings to the utility through the elimination of the continuing cost of tree removal and pruning.
