Bob La Trémouille reports:
I have issued the following press release this morning, September 17, 2009:
PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Boston Conservation Commission orders Commonwealth’s Department of Conservation and Recreation to cease cutting vegetation on the Boston side of the Charles River except under the direct supervision of BCC staff.
CONTACTS:
Marilyn Wellons, onblueriver@yahoo.com, 617-792-7738
Bob La Trémouille, boblat@yahoo.com, 617-283-7649
Wednesday evening, September 16, 2009, the Boston Conservation Commission ordered the Commonwealth’s Department of Conservation and Recreation to cease cutting vegetation on the Boston side of the Charles River except under the direct supervision of BCC staff.
This order was given as a result of five years of annual and consistent violation of responsible vegetation management practices and direct violation of existing agreements between the BCC and the DCR.
Representing the DCR were Mr. Richard Corsi who has been managing severe environmental destruction at Cambridge’s Magazine Beach and has publicly bragged about starving the popular and valuable Charles River White Geese.
Corsi brought with him a representative of the Charles River Conservancy which does the most destructive vegetation cutting and a DCR employee who is one of two employees operating a machine used for vegetation cutting.
The employee asked for direction from the BCC. The BCC repeatedly pointed out the existing written agreement which had been directly violated.
One concern of the BCC was the recent clear cutting of false indigo in the area west of the BU Bridge in direct violation of an agreement not to cut it. Mr. La Trémouille observed a CRC crew doing the destruction essentially simultaneously with the DCR’s excessive destruction at the goose meadow on the Cambridge side of the Charles River .
The board asked Mr. Corsi about a Boston Globe report concerning the planned destruction of hundreds of trees with Obama stimulus moneys. This destruction is slated for the Cambridge side of the Charles River between the BU and Longfellow Bridges . It will include massive destruction of animal habitat between the BU Boathouse and the Memorial Drive split / seawall, and an increase in the starvation
attacks on the Charles River White Geese.
Mr. Corsi responded that he had no knowledge of the project and then proceeded to affirm that nothing was being destroyed except diseased trees. This is contrary to reasons given in the DCR's own filing for the project with the Cambridge Conservation Commission in a public document on file there.
Mr. La Trémouille commented that La Trémouille was quoted in the article and La Trémouille had been shocked to see what the DCR had told the reporter and which Mr. Corsi had just repeated.
This tree destruction is part of an ongoing project in which the DCR wants to destroy massive numbers of healthy trees because they do not appear on 19th Century plans for the area when it was a tidal wetlands. The plans, which are now six years old, included destruction of diseased trees.
Mr. La Trémouille commented to the board that what was not stated to the Globe reporter or by Mr. Corsi was that the diseased trees were destroyed five years ago.
Ms. Wellons has better on the ground knowledge. She comments: “The vast majority of trees now slated for destruction are healthy valuable trees. Most of the dead and diseased trees have been removed. There are a few obviously dead trees remaining that should be removed. The fresh sawdust and gashes on the trunk of a tree near two stumps indicate the DCR is still at work. ”
Ms. Wellons has repeatedly complained to the Boston Conservation Commission about lawless destruction of vegetation by the DCR during its five years of destruction. The repeated destruction of ground vegetation was condemned by the BCC.
There has been repeated destruction of healthy trees with a chain saw by a director of the Charles River Conservancy, several occurrences in the presence of Ms. Wellons.
Wellons and La Trémouille praise the BCC for its action. La Trémouille commented at the meeting that he thought the BCC should put “this rogue agency” under court control with regard to its work on the Charles River . Nevertheless, he believes the BCC should be praised for this first step.
La Trémouille and Wellons are co-CEO’s of Friends of the White Geese, a Massachusetts non-profit which has been standing up to environmental destruction and heartless animal abuse by public entities on the Charles River since 2000.
