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.

The Prospect of Goosegate

Budget Deadlock - Day 106

No Activity in the Yankee Bullpen



Goose Gassers Ignored

Own Seven-Mile Rule

On Airport Proximity


In the last two days, we received 28 emails in response to our article on the slaughter of the 400 Prospect Park geese because they were viewed as hazardous to air travel.

Our attitude has been not to condemn or to approve the action, which was said to have been taken by the United States Department of Agriculture with the concurrence of local authorities. We want to know more about the decision and the basis on which it was made. Is there a general policy of exterminating Canada geese? Are there reasons for singling out the Prospect Park geese for the mobile gas chamber, followed by the landfill? Does it make any difference if these geese were migratory or non-migratory, or whether they ever left the precincts of the park?

We posted the emails that we received on our blog, you can find them here. They range from readers supporting or condemning the killing of the geese on principle to others seeking more information, which we are finding is not that easy to elicit from the government agencies involved.

We will continue our inquiries, so we can get the facts for you on this matter. We read in the Times where the bodies are buried – in a landfill.

What we do not know is how, why or by whom this gaggle of geese was selected for termination with extreme prejudice. We suggest an inquiry by an agency not previously involved with the program. If the standard is proximity to an airport, who draws the lines and on what basis are they determined? The radius from the airport was said to be seven miles in the multi-agency press release, increased from five miles in 2009. Prospect Park was alleged to be between six and seven miles from both LaGuardia and JFK airports.

The determination of distance should be made as the crow (or goose) flies. With the aid of Google Earth, a tool equally available to the authorities, we estimated the distance from the Prospect Park Lake to JFK airport at over 9 miles, and to LaGuardia at over 10 miles. We derive from this a certain lack of confidence in government data and a suspicion of ansercide (slaying of ducks and geese, cf. arborcide, the wanton murder of trees - see NY Times, 7/15/10, AFTER ARREST IN ATTACKS ON TREES, THINKING MORE THAN JUST OAKS NEED HELP).

The justification for the removal of geese appears in a June 17 press release from the Department of Environmental Protection, which we link to here. It explains the plan, but does not discuss its execution, either out of squeamishness or fear of public distaste.

The issue of ansercide is also discussed in a New York Times blog today, with two contrary views expressed. One is “Kill Them, Don’t Gas Them” by Steven Garber, CEO of Worldwide Ecology, a consultant to airports, and the other is “Death Isn’t the Answer”, by Sharon Pawlak, Coalition to Prevent the Destruction of Canada Geese. As of this writing, the Times has received 143 comments from readers of its opinion blog. The first one is “Maybe we could kill them and eat them? After all, we kill many animals to eat, and killing to eat is more justifiable than killing to eliminate a nuisance.”

This controversy is likely to continue. We will keep trying to get the facts for you, which may not be easy in the face of bureaucratic reluctance to discuss the details of the issue. The Prospect Park geese are gone, but nature has great capacity to restore what is snatched from it. We do not believe that Prospect Park will be bereft of geese forever.

And we certainly hope that there is no threat to the Central Park ducks. What would Holden Caulfield say if he knew they were endangered by overeager officials carrying canisters of carbon dioxide?