a. Summary.
b. Introductory.
c. Reason for massive tree destruction changes again.
(1) General.
(2) Won’t it look great in 40 years?
(3) Supposedly diseased trees.
(4) Norway Maples, shudder.
(5). Apparently clear fraud.
(6) Cambridge City Council.
d. Summation.
2. Contact Information to prevent this outrage.
a. Officials. b. Friends of the White Geese.
3. Photo comparison, further destruction of the habitat of the Charles River White Geese.
a. General.
b. Balance of Photos from November 15, 2015.
4. Past Reports in THIS series, and key communications to government agencies.
a. Communications to Public Agencies — Cambridge City Council, destruction plans; MassDOT proposing sanctions; DCR adding to the sanctions.
b. Past Reports in this series.
1. Reports from the Charles, east of the Destroyed Nesting Area - Continuation of November 15 photos.
a. Summary.
At http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2015/11/charles-river-logging-photos-11th.html, I provided a bunch of photos in response to reports of a friend that she is no longer seeing the Charles River White Geese on the Charles River east of the Destroyed Nesting Area to which they are confined without food. The Charles River White Geese have been kept from their food of most of the last 34 years and confined to the Destroyed Nesting Area. Details are linked in section 4.a.
There are two NEW obstacles keeping the Charles River White Geese off the banks of the Charles now.
I
One is a row of orange colored pontoons in the water preventing access to the banks. In the prior report, I provided photos of this. It runs from the magnificent but condemned willow to the BU Boathouse.
The second row of obstacles is on the banks of the Charles. It is generally an average of ten feet or so inland. It is green tubes. In the prior report, I provided photos of this line from the BU Boathouse to the banks of the Charles opposite the Hyatt Regency. This report will complete my presentation of these photos.
Here is a shot of the orange line in the background of apparent saplings since 2009 which are apparently being destroyed in spite of lack of Cambridge Conservation Commission review.
Photos from November 15, 2019, not included in the prior report are below in section 3.
Friends of the White Geese is a Massachusetts Non Profit Organization devoted to defending the Charles River from environmental, mostly governmental, depredations. The most destructive entities are the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (formerly the Metropolitan District Commission) and the City of Cambridge, MA. We have been registered with the Massachusetts Attorney General since 2002.
The Charles River White Geese are a valuable and loved gaggle of White Geese who have lived on the banks of the Charles River since 1981 in a mile long habitat centered on the BU Bridge. They are a mix primarily of White China and Emden Geese. The gaggle includes a number of members (and one Patriarch) of Toulouse Goose descent.
The Charles River White Geese have a clear governmental structure based on family groupings. They have survived impressively in the middle of a very dense municipal area. They have been the source of tourist and commuter admiration from surrounding communities.
Cambridge and the DCR are deliberately starving the Charles River White Geese and have aggressively made the situation worse. Detailed analyses are provided in documents for which links are provided in section 4.a. below.
A few years ago, the Massachusetts legislature attempted to destroy the Metropolitan District Commission which was responsible for the Charles River between Boston and Cambridge.
The legislature divided the MDC responsibilities among the Massachusetts Department of Transportation and the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation. The MassDOT transfer has been, for the most part a success. The DCR transfer has been a failure.
The destructive situation in the MDC has simply changed names, as far as the DCR transfer has gone.
MassDOT has stood up to more than one outrage proposed by Cambridge and/or by the DCR, or by related "activists."
The DCR created irresponsible plans for destruction of hundreds of excellent trees and animal habitat between the BU and Longfellow Bridges on the Cambridge side of the Charles River. The DCR worked closely with the City of Cambridge which, in Spring 2015, destroyed its own Cambridge Common.
The DCR and Cambridge have sneaked through legislation authorizing all this destruction based on 2009 plans (bragged to be 19th Century plans) without any meaningful public communication. This was on top of a funding vote in 2014 based on fraudulent actions, clearly by a fake group which has done environmental destruction for the DCR, possibly by the legislative liaison of the DCR.
The DCR is rather clearly slapping the face of the local cheerleaders controlled by the City of Cambridge who have been fighting for this destruction as a company union for years.
The DCR is conducting fake public input on irresponsible plans for the Magazine Beach playing fields, just west of the BU Bridge. The massive logging proposed is east of the BU Bridge, running to the Longfellow Bridge. The DCR is refusing any form of input in their "public meetings" on the massive loggings.
The DCR does not even allow the fraudulent public input they are allowing concerning the most irresponsible parts of the Magazine Beach proposal to be given meaningful respect. It is no coincidence that the person representing the DCR has been part of the outrage from the beginning. He repeatedly promised "no intent to harm" the Charles River White Geese as he was doing terrible things to them.
"Public input" is "allowed" by the DCR on everything except their irresponsible behavior. Comments on their irresponsible behavior is ignored if not silenced.
The irresponsible behavior is not negotiable.
(1) General.
An additional game is that the DCR has routinely been varying its explanation for destruction of all those trees and animal habitat depending on the audience. Boston residents who have been fighting for destruction may have taken a hike, so the pitch used to bring them in has disappeared, at least for the time being..
Depending on the audience, the story is back to the original one: Won’t it look great in 40 years?
In particular, these sick people have a holy grail they have not mentioned for awhile: plans for the Charles River from the 19th Century.
Since the folks who wrote those plans could not think of cherry trees, cherry trees are being massively destroyed, almost all of them. The same would appear to apply to that magnificent willow, and a whole bunch of other excellent trees, including but not limited to Lindens, Mulberries, Sassafrass, and Zelkovas.
An ongoing lie is that they are destroying diseased trees or trees which are in the way of their gold plated highways.
They do not mention the fact that there are no diseased trees or next to no diseased trees.
The lie comes from the omission of the non existence or near non existence of diseased trees.
So they use "or" with next to nothing on one side of the "or".
But the cheerleaders love it. They can claim to be on the side of sainthood, even if the alternative wording is just another blatant fraud.
Last I heard, however, the poor dears from the DCR will not even document their claims of disease, obviously because they cannot and are determined to destroy the evidence as soon as possible by destroying excellent healthy trees. Even, as far as I can gather, after a request from the Cambridge Conservation Commission.
And the Boston Globe swallowed the flat out lie in 2009 that all trees being destroyed are diseased.
Listening to the legislative liaison emoting with belligerence that they are destroying Norway Maples, and totality ignoring the reality that there is no edict to destroy existing Norway Maples, I have even more sympathy for a good reporter from the Boston Globe who has done good work, but who swallowed the diseased lie.
The kind way to describe the legislative liaison's statement is that he lied through omission, not mentioning the scores of excellent cherries, that magnificent willow, the Lindens, the Mulberries, the Sassafrass, the Zelkovas, and the others.
But his strong statement was much more than lying through omission. "We are destroying Norway Maples." with the belligerence he used, clearly stated that that is all they are destroying.
The liaison then went into a communication that it was unthinkable to object to the DCR’s environmental outrage.
The standard pitch with the people we are dealing with is claim after claim after claim. A reasonable person has to think that, with all the claims being propounded with such great certainty that one of them has to be true. And the pitchmen know which one is the "truth". It is the piece of nonsense that gets swallowed.
As near as I can figure out, the original lobbying effort in the legislature amounted to the falsely named Charles River "Conservancy" showing a petition for underpasses under three bridges further out on the Charles. It appears that they lied that the petition for underpasses supported this massive destruction, without, of course, mentioning the destruction. The words obviously used fit the claim of the name that this entity is conserving the Charles River rather than fighting for its destruction.
Thus, the $20 million looks like it was obtained through outright fraud.
The falsely named Charles River "Conservancy" openly supported this destruction about ten years ago when fraud was not the in thing. The destruction has not changed. They are still using that fake name as well, giving the Legislature the impression that they are the good guys.
Fraud is now the open tool.
And then you have another fake group fighting for destruction with the falsehood of being a neighborhood association "concerned" about the Charles River.
Then you have the DCR's "legislative liaison." It is silly to think that his nonsense was not given by him to the legislature / the governor's office. But I do not know if he were around when the original approval was obtained. If he were, that ramps up the fraud reality.
The Cambridge "City Council" is belligerently environmentally destructive, with falsehoods claiming sainthood about far less important issues than massive tree destruction, and heartless animal abuse. They voted in favor of the three underpasses which the falsely name group claims puts them in support of the massive logging.
With the Cambridge "City Council", however you have the reality that silence in the face of circumstances which call for outrage is consent.
Outrage is consent.
The DCR is unfit to manage the environment. These latest outrages should be immediately ended.
The DCR should be stripped of more of its responsibilities on the Charles River, in a further legislative attempt to end the outrage which was the Metropolitan District Commission. The responsibilities should be transferred to the Department of Transportation which took over the DCR’s responsibilities for the bridges across the Charles River. MassDOT is not perfect. The DCR approaches being perfect from the wrong direction.
MassDOT has shown its willingness and capability to stand up to the DCR and to its partner in destruction, the City of Cambridge.
Part of the transfer would be that portion of Boston's Soldiers Field Road from the BU Bridge to its end in Brighton, an area which MassDOT is currently planning in the Mass. Pike reorganization. Cambridge's Memorial Drive from the BU Bridge to the Longfellow Bridge should be transferred to protect it from the vileness of the DCR.
a. Officials.
Please object to the massive, irresponsible destruction imminent.
Internet Email form: http://www.mass.gov/governor/constituent-services/contact-governor-office/
These destructive people are people from the bureaucracy which reports to him, using money allocated by the opposing party. It would be very much to the governor’s advantage to save the people of Massachusetts from the costs of this outrageous boondoggle, financially, politically, environmentally, and from protecting the animals of the Charles River from an acceleration of heartless animal abuse in which Cambridge and the bureaucrats are belligerently guilty.
Additionally, the City of Cambridge approaches being a one party state, and the party is the opposite party of that to which the governor belongs.
Cambridge City Council: 617-349-4280, council@cambridgema.gov
Letters can be sent c/o City Clerk, City of Cambridge, 795 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139. They should include a cover letter asking that that the letter be made part of the communications to the Cambridge City Council at their next meeting. Because of the timing, letters could be a waste of time.
Formal Email Communications to the Cambridge City Council can be done in a similar manner. The City Clerk’s email address is dlopez@cambridgema.gov. These become part of the formal record. The above address is recorded but not part of the formal package. The above address, however, is immediate, as opposed to the next Monday night when they have a meeting. Because of the timing, formal emails could be a waste of time.
Legislators: 617-722-2000, http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/201304/emails-for-all-massachusetts.html
Contact information as to individuals who might be of value for communications: http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2012/03/what-can-we-do-to-help-on-charles-river.html.
Financial help is needed and encouraged. This blog has a donate button which links to PayPal. PayPal confuses me. I am pretty sure I have charged through American Express, and their materials show all credit cards, but they may somehow amount to a debit card type of arrangement, or perhaps they let you use the credit cards the first time. .
If you would rather use snail mail, please mail to Friends of the White Geese, PO Box 391412, Cambridge, MA 02139. Checks would be necessary in snail mail. Please provide your name and address. I can imagine the pious nonsense which would come from these people with regard to anonymous contributions.
Whatever you can do would be of help.
a. General.
This is the grove on the river just west of the Hyatt Regency Hotel.
To the left is the beautiful strand of Cherry Trees opposite the Hyatt Regency Cambridge.
Here is the magnificent and condemned willow. The legislative liaison says they are destroying Norway Maples. To how many legislators did he hand this lie? To the governor's office?
And here are a few photos of the doomed and magnificent Cherry Grove at the Memorial Drive split.
I am sorry that I have not been able, once again, to publish all the photos from November 15.
4. Past Reports in THIS series, and key communications to government agencies.
a. Communications to Public Agencies — Cambridge City Council, destruction plans; MassDOT proposing sanctions; DCR adding to the sanctions.
(1). DCR Destruction Plans as provided to Cambridge City Council by me on April 1, 2014, full publication of plans in post: http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2014/04/tree-destruction-plans-charles-river.html
(2). Detailed analysis to MassDOT suggesting, at minimum that they get legislative approval to allow DCR to manage open space being created in the Mass. Pike (I90) reconstruction on the south side of the Charles, ideally to ban DCR from the project area: http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2015/10/charles-r-to-massdot-bar-dcr-from-mass.html.
(3). Communication to DCR objecting to the fraud of seeking "approvals" for the irresponsible, but much less irresponsible project at Magazine Beach while going forward with this outrage in secret, October 13, 2015: http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2015/10/charles-river-formal-objection-to-dcr.html.
(4). Charles River: Thought Control and the City of Cambridge, MA, USA, November 5, 2015: http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2015/11/charles-river-thought-control-and-city.html.
This is a strikingly short summary of fake groups in the City of Cambridge and their use to lie to the population that Cambridge and its accomplices are responsible entities while fighting, fighting, fighting for destruction. With me on the responsible side. I have had a lot of very major victories. The victories are timed as my time allows, and as I see an opening.
(1). Report 1. Charles River: Massive Tree Destruction Appears Imminent on Memorial Drive, October 4, 2015. http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2015/10/charles-river-massive-tree-destruction.html.
(2). Report 2. Memorial Drive Plans and Photos, October 5, 2015: http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2015/10/charles-river-memorial-drive-logging.html
(3). Report 3. Charles River: CURRENT Memorial Drive Construction Zone, October 6, 2015, http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2015/10/charles-river-photos-current-memorial.html
(4). Report 4. Charles River: Photos, CURRENT Memorial Drive Construction Zone and Major Likely Victims, October 8, 2015, http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2015/10/charles-river-photos-current-memorial.html
(5). Report 5. Flash: DCR Going Ahead with Massive Destruction on Memorial Drive, October 22, 2015, http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2015/10/charles-river-flash-dcr-going-ahead.html
(6). Report 6. Charles River: Logging preliminary photos - first group of photos October 23, 2015, http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2015/10/charles-river-logging-preliminary.html
(7). Report 7. Logging preliminary photos - second group of photos, October 23, 2015 http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2015/10/charles-river-logging-preliminary_23.html
(8). Report 8. Logging preliminary photos - third group of photos, October 24, 2015: http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2015/10/charles-river-logging-preliminary_24.html.
(9). Report 9. Logging preliminary photos - fourth group of photos, October 25, 2015: http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2015/10/re-charles-river-logging-preliminary.html
(10). Report 10. Charles River: Logging preliminary photos - fourth group of photos - the doomed cherry orchard, October 26, 2015: http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2015/10/charles-river-logging-preliminary_26.html
(11). Report 11. Charles River: Logging preliminary photos - sixth group of photos - the doomed cherry orchard, October 28, 2015: http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2015/10/charles-river-logging-preliminary_28.html.
(12). Report 12, Charles River: Logging preliminary photos - seventh group of photos, update on the ground, November 2, 2015: http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2015/11/charles-river-logging-preliminary.html.
(13). Report 13, Charles River: Logging preliminary photos - eighth photos condemned cherry strand revisited, update on the ground, November 6, 2015, http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2015/11/charles-river-logging-preliminary_7.html
(14) Charles River: Logging photos - ninth photos first destruction likely east of BU Cambridge Boathouse, November 15, 2015, http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2015/11/charles-river-logging-photos-ninth.html
(15) Charles River: Logging photos - 10th photos: Doomed Cherry Grove, doomed magnificent Willow, November 8, 2015, http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2015/11/charles-river-logging-photos-10th.html
(16) Charles River Logging: More Fraud on the Governor/legislature? November 24, 2015: http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2015/11/charles-river-logging-more-fraud-on.html
(17) Charles River: Logging photos - 11th photos: Destruction of habitat, increased starvation attack on Charles River White Geese, November 27, 2015, http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2015/11/charles-river-logging-photos-11th.html
