1. Reports from the Charles River. Logging commences.
a. Summary.
(1) Logging Starts. Hyatt Regency Trees Destroyed.
(2) General.
b. Introductory.
c. “Reasons” for massive tree destruction change again.
d. Summation.
2. Contact Information to prevent this outrage.
a. Officials.
b. Friends of the White Geese.
3. Logging Starts. Hyatt Regency Trees Destroyed.
a. Today’s occurrences.
(1) General.
(2) Main Destruction.
(3) Partial Destruction.
b. Other changes.
c. Retaliation?
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 River, Logging commences.
a. Summary.
(1) Logging Starts. Hyatt Regency Trees Destroyed.
This report will be presented in detail in section 3, below. It follows on our flash report, earlier today.
This part of the Charles had a magnificent group of cherry trees until earlier today.
Here is one before picture, more in section 3.
Further destruction may have been stopped by Governor Baker.
I was called by a friend who told me destruction was underway.
Before I left, I input a comment in Governor Baker’s email form. When I got there, destruction had stopped, and one tree was half done.
Please contact Governor Baker to thank him for his assistance, and to ask him to end this outrage now. He may also have fired the head of the Department of Conservation and Recreation over these outrages.
His contacts are
Telephone: 617-725-4005, or 888-870-7770 (888 free in Massachusetts).
He has an email form at: http://www.mass.gov/governor/constituent-services/contact-governor-office/
Thank you for your help.
Details in section 3, below.
(2) General.
This blog has been viewed by more than 110,000 times from nearly a hundred different countries.
To make certain that new readers know the latest about this imminent outrage, I am standardizing information in this subsection and to the end of Section 2. Standardization is subject to regular edits to communicate particular points better.
Section 1.a.(2) is new as a general introduction. Section 3 is new and is the purpose of the report. Section 4 is updated each time to reflect the most recent entries. Section 2 is pretty firm, but contact information is updated as appropriate.
I have been delinquent in these reports in that there is one section for which I have not presented photos.
What happened is that this section was made ready for destruction after the information presented earlier. Regrettably, the delay winds up with tree photos out of season.
b. Introductory.
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.
c. “Reasons” for massive tree destruction change again.
(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..
(2) A Culture of Outrageous Lies.
The standard pitch with many of 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. When the pitch persons know finds out which lie works, the pitch person has found out which lie / absurdity is the “truth”. The “truth” in their world is the lie / piece of nonsense that gets swallowed.
Commonly, as is apparently the situation on the Charles River, the lies are tailored to the listener. The explanation varies from listener to listener, and thus each recipient of lies gets his / her own “truth.”
These development mentalities even have a term for this pattern. It is called “getting things done.” And to many members of this culture, the person who best achieves this success is held in great esteem. “Getting things done” to so many people is the only value.
(3) Won’t it look great in 40 years?
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.
And the folks who wrote these plans were also very happy with dumping sewerage in the Charles River and in Boston harbor. This reality is not mentioned in this explanation.
(4) We’re putting in saplings!!!!
Nice, but what does that have to do with trees that should not be destroyed in the first place?
And there are plenty of places which could use saplings. One of them is east of the Hyatt Regency where Cambridge did the DCR’s dirty work for them in the name of sewer work.
(5) Supposedly diseased trees.
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 a lot of 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. Even, as far as I can gather from the DCR’s Legislative Liaison, the DCR refuses to provide documentation after a request from the Cambridge Conservation Commission. The DCR lookes determined to destroy the evidence as soon as possible by destroying excellent healthy trees.
And the Boston Globe swallowed the flat out lie in 2009 that all trees being destroyed are diseased.
(6) Norway Maples, shudder.
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.
Here is a photo of an excellent Willow which the DCR is fighting to destroy under the lie that it is a, shudder, Norway Maple.
The Massachusetts Department of Transportation subsequently commented in response to a question at a public meeting that MassDOT is only interested in planting Norway Maples in the open space it is creating from rearrangement of that portion of the Massachusetts Turnpike (I90) south of the Charles River near the Magazine Beach area, but on the opposite side.
(7) Bike Highway. Pedestrian highway.
This pitch is a current pitch to those who will swallow it.
When I have been standing on the existing bike highway and telling people, as the bikes go by, that hundreds of trees are being destroyed to create a bike highway, I get a look at the bikes going by, and a disgusted laugh.
Then I point out that the trees are also (including that Willow) being destroyed to create a walking path next to the river, the response get downright incredulous, especially since the existing pedestrian path is a lovely, hard trod dirt path, very well fit for the environment.
But the bureaucrats, and their contractors who get paid for the outrage, want gold plating. Gold plating is good for their pocket books. And contractors get paid to destroy and get paid to put in saplings to replace trees that should not have been destroyed in the first place.
This gold plate mentality was a reason why the state legislature destroyed the Metropolitan District Commission and split its responsibilities on the Charles River between the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (bridges) and the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (shore).
MassDOT has been commendable in its management of this portion of the Charles River. MassDOT looks like the adult in the room when dealing with Cambridge and the DCR.
DCR got the managers from the MDC with the MDC vileness that the legislature was trying to destroy.
Interestingly, many people who have been fighting most for this destruction with this “explanation” turn out to include people who live on the Boston side of the Charles River. These folks are fighting for maximum increase in open space on the Boston side in the Mass. Pike (I90) project. These people lie that they are environmentalists.
Talking to pedestrians, and standing the middle of the existing bicycle highway, people concerned about the massive tree destruction seemed to think there always is a bike highway.
(8) Apparently clear fraud.
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.
(9) Cambridge City Council.
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 named 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.
Lack of outrage is consent.
d. Summation.
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.
But then again, there is a lot of logic in giving MassDOT the Charles River from the Boston Harbor Dam to the next dam to the west, in Watertown. There is still a lot to destroy that destroyers would love to pay their contractor friends to destroy.
2. Contact Information to prevent this outrage.
a. Officials.
Please object to the massive, irresponsible destruction imminent.
Governor Baker: 617-725-4005, 888-870-7770 (888 free in state)
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.
b. Friends of the White Geese.
Volunteers are needed and encouraged. Please contact us at 617-283-7649 or boblat@yahoo.com.
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.
3. Logging Starts. Hyatt Regency Trees Destroyed.
a. Today’s occurrences.
(1) General.
I got a call as I was preparing to come in, reporting that the DCR had started logging.
I filed an email communication on the governor’s form, asking him for his assistance.
When I got to the Charles River, I realized that all trees in front of the Hyatt Regency Hotel had been destroyed.
There was left a magnificent tree opposite the street on which the hotel’s entrance is, plus the magnificent willow. After that is a protected tree and a unprotected tree whose destruction had started.
I normally use an iPod Touch for photos. It is convenient and creates files a reasonable size. I do not fully understand it. I got two shots of the partially destroyed tree and then things went wrong.
I caught the problem doing an earlier attempt at this report.
I returned with the iPod Touch, got a couple of photos of the area around the BU Boathouse. Then it lost its function.
I switched to my smartphone and its massive files. I got one photo with it, which probably does the trick.
I will start with that photo, file reduced, then give you the partially destroyed tree. In each case I will give you before pictures.
(2) Main Destruction.
Now
Before
(3) Partial Destruction.
Before
b. Other changes.
The boom in the water which prevents access to the riverbank for the Charles River White Geese has had a partner added, going around the BU Boathouse, but stopping before the Wild Area. Here is a shot of it next to the wild area.
Here is the portion between the boat house and the Wild Area.
This is the area where the Charles River White Geese go in the extreme cold. I hope this boom does not hurt them. Clearly, it is keeping them from the shore east of the BU Boathouse.
c. Retaliation?
Monday night, January 11, 2016, I attended a meeting of MassDOT’s advisory committee on the Mass. Pike (I90) rebuild on the Boston side of the Charles River.
Boston’s planning / zoning body, the Boston Redevelopment Authority, made a presentation on open space suggestions for the future Harvard Medical Area / Mass. Pike facilities.
A number of members of the group spoke. One thought that stands out was from people who emphasized that they want open space which uses the Charles River.
A representative of the Department of Conservation and Recreation and a cheerleader for the body spoke nicely about the DCR facilities on the Charles River in Cambridge.
Succinctly, I commented that the Magazine Beach playing fields (always praised by the cheerleader) have been walled off by the DCR from the Charles by a 16 foot high wall of introduced vegetation, and that, except for a small opening, you cannot see the Charles River because of the bizarre introduced wall.
In response to the DCR staffer’s general comment on the area east of the BU Bridge, I pointed out the DCR’s plans to destroy hundreds of trees between the BU and Longfellow Bridge, and that the DCR had turned the area east of the BU Bridge into a construction zone.
I commented on my complaint of November 10, 2015 to the governor and the, possibly coincidental resignation by the head of the DCR on November 10, 1015. Part 4.a below, items (2) and (3) present links to the two documents in that communication. The governor’s letter on the ongoing destruction is item (2). The attachment to that letter is item (3). The attachment is my letter to MassDOT going over the earlier outrages including the Magazine Beach outrages.
At the meeting, I did not state the conclusion of the communication that I believe that the DCR should be stripped of responsibilities on the Charles River in Cambridge from the Longfellow Bridge to the Western Avenue Bridge, and in Boston from the BU Bridge to the end of Soldiers Field Road, and that these responsibilities should be transferred to the Massachusetts Department of Transportation. You can only say so much.
I was devastating to the pretension to sainthood of the two DCR types.
That was Monday night. It was too late then to turn on the outrage which was accomplished this morning. This morning was the earliest the DCR could retaliate.
I do not believe in coincidences of this nature.
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.
b. Past Reports in this series.
(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
(18) Charles River: Logging photos - 12th photos: Destruction of habitat, increased starvation attack on Charles River White Geese, completion of 11th photos: http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2015/12/charles-river-logging-photos-12-th.html
(19) Charles River: Logging photos - 13th photos: Doomed trees just west of Mass. Ave. Bridge.: http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2015/12/charles-river-logging-photos-13th.html
(20) Charles River: DCR Chair Resigns; DCR Lead Presenter Disappears? December 23, 2015: http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2015/12/charles-river-logging-photos-next-one.html
(21) Thanks to Governor Baker: Charles River: DCR Chair Resigns, January 7, 2016: http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2016/01/thanks-to-governor-charles-river-dcr.html
