After reading Ryan Voiland’s March 1 My Turn “Utility tree massacre on Turners Falls Road in Montague,” I would like to add my dismay at the tree cutting. I have a master’s degree in botany from the University of North Carolina. I drive regularly along this road and have been watching the cutting, wondering when they are going to stop.
There is more to the story than aesthetics. I have watched the huge trucks drive down my narrow street in Montague Center every morning. The equipment being used costs hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars. The cranes tower over the trees, requiring lifting the resulting branches and trunks over the wires. How much is Eversource paying for this? And who really pays? You do. The utility company simply passes the cost along to its ratepayers, adding their allotted profit to any expense they generate. The more expensive this inefficient process is, the higher our rates will be.
And those beautiful old trees sequester more carbon than the young trees they are planning to plant in their place. It is a myth that old trees stop growing. Unlike animals, plants are potentially immortal and continue growing and sequestering carbon in the part we can see and even more underground, in the mycelial networks we are just beginning to understand.
I find it interesting that they are doing this destructive work in the winter, when it is not as noticeable. We are going to miss the shade, and cooling effects from those trees come summer. Where else in the state is this happening? How can we stop this? Where are they cutting next? Our beautiful Massachusetts trees and forests are important carbon sinks that are not renewable in our lifetimes.
Constance Lentz
Montague