President Obama and Governor Patrick to Needlessly Destroy Hundreds of Healthy Trees on the Cambridge Side of the Charles River in Massachusetts.

Bob Reports:

I lost part of the title. The full title is: President Obama and Governor Patrick to Needlessly Destroy Hundreds of Healthy Trees on the Cambridge Side of the Charles River in Massachusetts. Needless and silly environmental destruction part of the “economic stimulus.”

The following has been posted to Governor Patrick at http://www.mass.gov/?pageID=gov3utilities&sid=Agov3&U=Agov3_contact_us. President Obama places a character limit, so I will post a link to this blog posting with the index and whatever else I can get in that will fit the character limit. The president's URL is: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

1. DCR Announces Obama moneys for environmental destruction.
2. The Details of the Project.
3. The DCR Record on the Charles River.
4. Supposed benefits from the Environmental Destruction.
5. Longtime supporter bemoans destruction of EVERY cherry tree.
6. Magazine Beach in context.
7. Ongoing poisoning of the Charles River.
8. Yet more lies: “Saving” Trees by Destroying them Next Week.
9. BU Bridge to be transferred to Massachusetts Highways. Mass Highways vetoes or delays some environmental destruction.
10. Destructive Plans proceed.
11. Accomplice, Cambridge City Manager, may be fired for Civil Rights behavior called “reprehensible” by judge and jury.
12. Summary.


1. DCR Announces Obama moneys for environmental destruction.

Environmentally destructive state bureaucrats from Massachusetts’ Department of Conservation and Recreation bragged to the Cambridge (MA) Conservation Commission Monday, June 8. They stated that they were securing funds for their long moribund so-called “Historical Parkways” project. This project is a major part of plans to destroy more than 449 to 660 healthy trees between Magazine Beach and the Longfellow Bridge on the Cambridge side of the Charles River.

2. The Details of the Project.

The bureaucrats claim they are implementing nineteenth century plans for the riverbanks. They neglect to mention that, in the nineteenth century the area was a tidal marsh. When the “Memorial Drive Esplanade” was built it generally was thought to be a major improvement over the wetlands destroyed. Today construction of the “Esplanade” would be an environmental crime, contrary to the Wetlands Protection Act.

The DCR's current “restoration” returns to destroying the environment. Hundreds of healthy trees not in the original plans, including all cherry trees, are to be destroyed.

Literally digging holes in the median of this section of Memorial Drive and filling them would be a better use of federal stimulus money. Instead the DCR is using our tax dollars to destroy beautiful, healthy trees that give pleasure to us all--for a stale and sterile “restoration.”

3. The DCR Record on the Charles River.

The bureaucrats, twice a year, destroy all protective vegetation on the Charles River below the Watertown Dam thus driving away migratory birds. The only exception is a bizarre wall of bushes blocking access between Magazine Beach and the Charles River. This blockage was bragged about as assisting swimming. The “native” vegetation introduced by the bureaucrats proceeded to repeatedly die because it was unfit for the environment.

Their representative brags that this wall starves local resident waterfowl. The wall of bushes was introduced in 2004 with the explanation that it would assist swimming on the Charles. The bureaucrats have bragged since 2000 that they have no intention to harm the local animal residents, the Charles River White Geese. They explain that starving them is not harming them.

The Charles River White Geese are a very popular tourist attraction. They have resided on the Cambridge side of the Charles River since 1981. They are in the way of the plans of the DCR for the Charles River. The DCR is aggressively destroying all living beings below the Watertown dam.

4. Supposed benefits from the Environmental Destruction.

The principal achievement of the “Historical Parkways” project will be to straighten out Memorial Drive between the BU Bridge and the Longfellow Bridge.

Supporters of the DCR brag about how great Memorial Drive will look in 40 years. Even the supporters, however, blanche at the outrageous destruction.

5. Longtime supporter bemoans destruction of EVERY cherry tree.

One longtime supporter of the project, at the Monday meeting, commented on the DCR’s plans to destroy every Cherry Tree between Magazine Beach (just west of the BU Bridge) and the Longfellow Bridge. It seems that, when the planners were making plans for this wasteland a century and a half ago, they did not think of putting in Cherry Trees. So all those healthy Cherry Trees will not be allowed to live out their lives and will be destroyed because they were not included in these century and a half old plans to improve a wasteland which has not existed for a century.

6. Magazine Beach in context.

Presently ongoing is a project to “improve” Magazine Beach playing fields located just west of the BU Bridge. The playing fields are being “improved” by REDUCING the acreage of the playing fields, by replacing green maintenance with poison maintenance, by barring the public from its traditional ready access prohibiting use without prior approval and by making the grass poisonous to feeding waterfowl.

Average humans have never seen any need to “improve” these sixty or so year old playing fields.

7. Ongoing poisoning of the Charles River.

The precursor to the Magazine Beach “improvements” were the “improvements” to Ebersol Fields on the Boston side of the Charles, just east of the Longfellow Bridge, near Massachusetts General Hospital. The DCR’s beloved poisons did not work as well as green maintenance. So the DCR tossed on Tartan, labeled against use near water. The next day, the Charles River was dead from the harbor to the Mass. Ave. bridge from algae infestation. That algae infestation now returns annually.

8. Yet more lies: “Saving” Trees by Destroying them Next Week.

In the tenor of the bureaucrats’ attacks on the Charles River White Geese while bragging no intent to harm, the bureaucrats brag that they are “saving” perhaps hundreds of trees in the “Historical Parkways” project by “phasing” their destruction. Translation of “phasing”: the “saved” trees will be destroyed outside the time period they brag about.

“Saving” trees by “phasing” falls into the same category as not “harming” by starving, just another of the very varied techniques of the bureaucrats to lie about their very bad projects.

9. BU Bridge to be transferred to Massachusetts Highways. Mass Highways vetoes or delays some environmental destruction.

Previously, the DCR had accelerated repairs on the BU Bridge claiming that needless environmental destruction in that project should be ignored as well.

A recent Boston Globe report indicates that Massachusetts Highways has vetoed the accelerated work on the BU Bridge.

Since the starvation commenced at Magazine Beach, the DCR consigned the Charles River White Geese to an area immediately east of the BU Bridge, extending to the BU Boathouse. The DCR has since then destroyed all ground vegetation in the area except for vegetation they intended to destroyed as part of the BU Bridge project. Half of that vegetation destruction is for staging that should be put under a nearby Memorial Drive overpass.

It seems certain that the state legislature will reassign to Mass. Highways ownership of the bridges currently owned by the DCR and may be reassigned boulevards as well.

10. Destructive Plans proceed.

It is uncertain if the hundreds of trees slated for needless destruction will be able to wait for transfer of Memorial Drive to a responsible bureaucracy. Earlier complaints to Governor Patrick about multiple instances of outrageous environmental destruction by the DCR have been ignored or passed to the DCR for comment.

Monday night, the DCR disclosed that their plans would include a starvation wall at the Charles River just east of the BU Boathouse. This would block access to that grass for feeding by the Charles River White Geese. The 2004 starvation attack included a similar starvation wall erected by the City of Cambridge in this location.

11. Accomplice, Cambridge City Manager, may be fired for Civil Rights behavior called “reprehensible” by judge and jury.

Also associated with the environmental destruction on the Charles River is the Cambridge City Manager. He has a lot of other environmental destruction on his record.

The Cambridge City Council is currently considering the civil rights case of Malvina Monteiro v. City of Cambridge, on which judgment was issued June 4, 2009. Judge and jury awarded the plaintiff $5 million including $3.5 million penal damages. According to judge and jury, the Cambridge City Manager retaliated against a black woman Cape Verdean department head. She had the “effrontery” to file a civil rights complaint. So she was retaliated against and fired. The judge’s one word description was “reprehensible.”

The judge’s opinion may be read at: http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/judge-issues-decision-denying.html. The final judgment may be read at: http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2009/06/judgment-entered-in-monteiro-case-12.html.

The Cambridge City Council is currently considering whether to fund an appeal. The City Council claims to have a strong record on civil rights, but they also claim a strong record on environmentalism. Their records belies their claims on environmentalism. The city council is funding the outrage at Magazine Beach.

A reasonable response by an entity with the civil rights verbiage issued by the Cambridge City Council would be to fire the Cambridge City Manager. That would, in turn, greatly reduce the destructive pressure on the Charles River. There seems to be a consensus that the Cambridge City Council does not have the integrity to do so.

12. Summary.

So the world is faced with a rogue bureaucracy, charged with protecting the environment and aggressively destroying it.

In the background are a governor and a president who may or may not be concerned about the environment, and a city council with a bad environmental record which may possibly fire one of the key actors, their city manager.

Boston Conservation Commission defends public from DCR, striking difference from Cambridge.

1. Commendable Action on Ebersol Field.
2. Cambridge does not want to know it.

Bob reports:

1. Commendable Action on Ebersol Field.

Wednesday evening, June 10, I attended the Boston Conservation Commission hearing on fencing proposed by the Department of Conservation and Recreation for Ebersol Fields on the Charles River across from Massachusetts General Hospital. This facility is the model upon which Magazine Beach is based and is of great concern to us.

The member from the Back Bay dwelt in detail on access for the public to the premises.

Access, for animals and humans, is one of the many shocking aspects to the ongoing outrage at Magazine Beach. The terms of the contract call for Cambridge to regulate access.

Cambridge has shown at Russell Field in North Cambridge how they regulate access. The Police have thrown kids off at least one field for playing there without an advance reservation.

I had to cross examine the DCR representative quite intensely.

The Back Bay rep got the hint and squarely asked about public use of fields which have not been reserved without getting separate and advance permission. He got the DCR to agree to such use.

Signage at Ebersol Fields will expressly allow the public to use unused fields.

2. Cambridge does not want to know it.

I had first learned of this problem from a meeting of the North Cambridge neighborhood entity. It has clear connections to the Cambridge City Manager.

The group met after the Boston Conservation Commission meeting.

I went there and asked to make a brief announcement at the end of the meeting.

I was denied permission to announce the victory. I was told to come to the next meeting, strictly on Russell Field.

This group has a significant visibility in the group “defending” Alewife by opposing private destruction of an ancillary area and supporting public destruction of the reservation itself.

Key members of the group have been very visible in the more than 10 years of downzonings written by the Cambridge City Manager. Too many of these petitions accomplish exactly the opposite of their claimed results through undisclosed fine print. One of the group’s first activities was to push through a City Manager zoning proposal which wiped out residential districts on north Massachusetts Avenue, districts which would require open space at the sidewalk. The upzoning drastically increased development allowed on those lots, on the north side of Massachusetts Avenue going west from Rindge Avenue.

The chair had a letter in the Cambridge Chronicle today defending the Cambridge City Manager. He says the lawyers made Healy due it. I have filed a response. They may be read at: http://www.wickedlocal.com/cambridge/news/opinions/x986603944/Letter-City-should-get-another-lawyer.