The Axeman Cometh

All We Are Saying Is

Give Geese A Chance




The "Pelham Parkway 87" are mature trees, primarily lindens, with some elms and oaks, who have the misfortune of living too close to a "road improvement", as the $36 million reconstruction of the two-mile long roadway is euphemistically called. Not enough is being done by the city to preserve these historic trees.

Our efforts to identify the best way to save the Pelham Parkway 87 have been frustrated by the fact that the project falls under the auspices of three different city agencies, each more ready than the last to pass the buck.

The project is funded by the Department of Transportation's (DOT) capital program, designed and built by the Department of Design and Construction (DDC) and lies on land mapped as city parkland under the jurisdiction and protection of the Department of Parks & Recreation (DPR).

When we called DOT to inquire about the removal of the trees, we were told that DDC was in charge of the project. When we called DDC, we were told that the trees were on Park land. When we called Parks, we were told that the reconstruction had been initiated by DOT. This round robin of avoiding accountability would be comedic if it didn't involve the destruction of trees that are older than most people.

It also appears that no environmental assessment was ever performed on this project. According to the City Environmental Quality Review (CEQR) procedure, the lead agency of any city project should perform such an analysis when it would lead to "the removal or destruction of large quantities of vegetation or fauna" or "the impairment of the character or quality of important historical, archeological, architectural or aesthetic resources (including the demolition or alteration of a structure which is eligible for inclusion in an official inventory of such resources)."

Clearly 87 mature trees constitute a large quantity of vegetation. Additionally, according to a 2006 report published by the city's Department of City Planning, Pelham Parkway is eligible for listing on the State or National Register of Historic Places. It seems apparent that a formal review of the impact of removing these trees should have been done.

Under current plans, the 87 will become sawdust next year as construction proceeds. Some city employees have belittled the prospects of the trees claiming that many of them are dead - although some of the alleged dead are still in leaf. We have no problem with the removal of dead trees, Pelham Parkway was not intended to become a petrified forest. We do, however, take issue with the removal of older trees that still have years of shade to provide.

By preliminary observation, the important distinction is between when a tree is "declared dead" and when a tree is actually dead. With humans, that moment is usually when the heart stops beating. With trees, which are much larger and sometimes older than people, there are many specimens which are half-dead, more or less. Some tree trunks are hollowed out to a greater or lesser degree. The rate and the amount of decay vary from tree to tree, as well as their estimated life expectancy.

There is a risk of a dead or near-dead tree toppling, killing or injuring those unfortunate enough to be below its canopy at the critical moment. Several tragedies of this sort occurred this year in Central Park, an area where the trees are particularly well maintained. The appearance of a tree may be deceptive, some look healthy but their trunks and branches may have internal decay.

New trees that are planted are generally saplings (trees with less than 4 inches DBH - diameters at breast height). They will require decades to grow to a size where they produce significant shade. Young trees are also subject to the deleterious effects of pollution from automobile exhaust from the adjacent roadway. New trees will be planted by the hundreds, but many, victims of human vandalism, dog urine, automobile scrapes or droughts, are not likely to grow to healthy maturity.

The Basal Area Replacement Formula, which I introduced while Parks Commissioner, provides for a sufficient number of smaller trees to replace larger ones which are necessarily removed. It is not easy, however, to secure compliance with the formula, which basically calls for wood for wood replacement of old trees with new ones. The previous standard, caliper replacement, would allow four 3 inch diameter trees to replace one 12 inch diameter tree. BARF, in this case, would require four times as many trees as the caliper rule. Before that, it was tree for tree, which meant in effect that a toothpick could replace a redwood.

Guardians of the urban forest must be vigilant to prevent its depredation. Whether greedy entrepreneurs or misguided civil servants threaten trees, the words of George Pope Morris (1802-64) come to mind:

"Woodman, spare that tree!
Touch not a single bough!
In youth it sheltered me,
And I'll protect it now."

A review of the health and safety of each potentially affected tree should be performed, with an eye to preserving as many of as possible. Then the design of the project should be altered to save as many of these healthy trees as can be preserved.

DOZENS OF GEESE LAND AT THE LAKE

The goose population at Prospect Park Lake has climbed to 61, as geese flying past the lake have settled on its waters. This is nature's effort to fill the void caused when government agents goosenapped between 250 and 300 geese who lived on and around the lake, trucked them to a gas chamber, killed them with carbon dioxide gas and dumped packages of bodies in a landfill.

This act of ansercide was intended to prevent geese from being sucked into jet engines and endangering the lives of airline passengers and flight crews. On January 15, 2009, tragedy was narrowly averted when a jet was skillfully guided onto the Hudson River. Since that time, there have been periodic exterminations of geese. Guidelines say geese should not fly within five miles of an airport. The goose no-fly zone area was recently increased to a seven-mile radius.

Prospect Park Lake, however, is about ten miles from JFK and LaGuardia airports, and it is not known whether its geese have ever interfered with aircraft. Geese closer to the airport have been slain without complaint, in the interest of protecting human life.

We believe there should be a determination, based on evidence if there is any, as to which populations of geese are likely to be a hazard to air travel and which are not. There are also more humane ways of reducing goose populations such as addling eggs and transporting geese to areas remote from airports.

We need information from government agencies as to what anti-goose measures are being undertaken. We would like to know on what basis specific areas are chosen for the extermination program. Fear not, we do not intend to tip off the geese. But we cannot make policy suggestions until we know just what is going on. Particularly when a program makes life-and-death decisions, the public should be informed so animal and airplane authorities can bring whatever information they have into the search for sound public policy.

STARQUEST IN THE NEWS

This week, Regis Philbin joined New York Civic and the Pelham Parkway Preservation Alliance in our fight to save 87 trees endangered in The Bronx. In a four-minute segment on Live With Regis and Kelly, Regis read from StarQuest's op-ed in last Sunday's New York Post on the air and made an impassioned plea to "Leave Those Trees Alone!" To watch the video, click here.

LAST CHANCE FOR QUESTIONS

We have already received a number of great emails from our readers in response to our call for questions about New York you would like to have StarQuest answer in an upcoming column, but we will continue accepting your suggestions through tomorrow, Friday, August 13th. Please send your questions via e-mail to starquest@nycivic.org as soon as possible, and make sure to let us know whether you would like us to include your name or initials along with your question or if you would prefer to remain anonymous.

Death Be Not Proud

87 Mature Pelham Parkway Trees

Face Deracination Under City Plan

Do you know about Pelham Parkway?

It is a magnificent park and boulevard, 2.3 miles long and 400 feet wide. It connects Bronx Park and Pelham Bay Park. You should read its fascinating entry in Wikipedia. There is nothing quite like it in the City of New York, in terms of greenery and grandeur enhancing a public thoroughfare.

Today it is threatened - by, of all entities, the City of New York, whose Department of Transportation is planning to improve the park's roadways, and remove 87 mature trees that give the parkway its character and beauty. The project is slated to begin this fall and conclude in 2012.

If this were proposed for Central Park, or anywhere in Manhattan, the roar of public outrage would be impossible to ignore. But this is the Bronx, where cries are more likely to be ignored by bureaucrats and by the media. Many Manhattanites don't even know where Pelham Parkway is, much less appreciate its unique appearance.

What is special about this Parkway is that as you drive in it, above you is an arbor of trees whose upper branches reach from one side of the road to the other. It looks, and you feel, as if you were traveling through a park.

There are other parkways in the city, Mosholu in the Bronx, and Grand Central in Queens. Grand Central is a parkway in name only. It is in fact a highway. Whatever trees bordered it have long since been removed for successive widening of the concrete roadway. Mosholu Parkway connects Bronx and Van Cortlandt Parks. It is wide and handsome, but short on trees.

In 1988, while I was Parks Commissioner, a large number of maple trees were cut down by a DOT contractor without the community's knowledge or mine. We were outraged, and called it the Mosholu Massacre. The fallout from that episode consisted of new rules requiring public notice of any city construction project. Such notice, however, often does not reach those immediately affected by the construction.

In the Pelham Parkway case, we are told the road is not being widened. There is a plan to put a guard rail on the side of the road, to protect drivers who fall asleep, drive drunk, or don't know where the road is. The guard rail would also protect the trees, which are scuffed and gashed by the clumsy or irresponsible drivers.

It is not a physical necessity to remove the trees in order to install the guardrail. It is a convenience for the contractor. Also, a mature tree is not usually at death's door, about to fall on the roadway. Most have decades of life remaining. Their fate should not be determined by a death panel of highway engineers.

The situation comes down to values. The cost of the project is estimated at $36 million, all city capital budget funds. The local Community Board district manager has been agitating for years for the project, and we have no objection to it, although we cannot say that it should be a first priority. It would be a mistake to depress the roadway by 18 inches, as we are told is now being planned, because that could do substantial damage to the roots of trees, even beyond those already slated for removal.

A city now engaged in planting a million trees, a most worthy crusade initiated by Mayor Bloomberg, should also place value on keeping the living trees that we have. If people at the highest levels were aware of the damage this project as currently designed would do, they would order the necessary changes so that we could improve the highway, build the guard rail and save the trees.

Part of the problem is awakening the environmental and botanical communities to the arborcide that would occur if current plans are carried out. Although the trees in this case are miles from Manhattan, they deserve equal protection. In order to save them, the Department of Transportation and its construction agency, the Department of Design and Construction, must be made to understand the value of existing mature trees. Many of these trees were planted in the 1930s. It would take until 2090 for the replacements to grow to match what we have today.

In the past, we have been able to save trees threatened by construction. The three Siberian elms in Union Square Park and the two tall oaks on Old Town Road in Staten Island are alive today because of intervention on their behalf.

The arguments for saving trees are so old they have become cliches. They provide beauty, shade and oxygen. For over a century, they have been described as the lungs of the city. Frederick Law Olmsted used the phrase in 1872, referring to Central Park, which he and Calvert Vaux designed in 1857.

Trees should not be removed without a compelling reason to do so. Sadly, there is no legal protection for trees on private property, and some beautiful specimens have been destroyed by people building McMansions. But for the City of New York to execute its own trees in order to save a few dollars on a construction project is indefensible.

One thing I learned in my fifteen years as Parks Commissioner under Mayors Koch and Giuliani is not to rely on bureaucrats who tell you that something cannot be done. Find someone who can do the job, rebuild the road and save the trees. Or simply tell the existing staff that the trees should be allowed to continue their natural lives, safe from the drivers who would crash into them and the engineers who would turn them into sawdust.

LOCAL RESISTANCE

The Pelham Parkway Preservation Alliance, founded by Dr. George Zulch, Joseph Menta and David Varenne, is the ad hoc neighborhood group that has led the effort to preserve the trees. The Alliance members have collected over 1,000 signatures from local residents in support of their cause. Their efforts have been reported in the local press, but have not yet penetrated the electronic media. If you are on Facebook, you can support the Alliance by clicking here to join their fan page. You could also email the Alliance at treestosave@yahoo.com or call (914) 419-9552 for more information.

StarQuest #695 08.06.2010 1,147 words