Dear Mr. Micieli:
Removing urban street trees to facilitate so-called road improvements for the movement of pollution-belching behemoths challenges science and common sense in our time of crisis climate change. Scientists have documented the public health harm from tailpipe emissions, which is reduced significantly by the proximity of trees.
Consider that urban street trees provide a canopy, root structure, and setting for important insect and bacterial life, an environment for songbirds, and a food source for urban wildlife. The importance of combatting increased temperature from climate change cannot be dismissed. Street trees lower temperature in urban areas where concrete, brick, and asphalt heat islands capture sunlight absorbing it into the pavement. In addition to providing a cooling green parasol, street trees also release water vapor into the air, which is why the shade under a tree is often fresher than shade beneath a patio umbrella and why it is cooler under the tree canopy along the Upper Charles River Reservation Greenway than it is on Main Street.
Trees are our best tool in our struggle to lower atmospheric carbon dioxide and mitigate climate change. Trees are clearly a cost effective investment for the wealth of benefits they offer, so removing mature trees that provide erosion control, flood control, climate calming, air cleaning, mental and physical health support is counter to fostering the health and well-being of the Mt. Auburn Street neighborhood.
On a personal note, I can attest to the importance of a single tree to a single city block. During the 30 years I owned a row house on Chandler Street in the South End Historic District, I participated in the citizen review process for the relocation of the Orange Line. One day, the JF White Construction Company’s project manager conducted a walking tour along the rail right of way. That’s when I saw the ash tree, which would be destroyed by the pending construction. I gave the project manger an earful for why the tree should be relocated if possible. He, of course, made the case that the destruction of a single tree was a small price to pay for public transportation improvements. How the ash tree came to be growing along the right of way among weak-wooded ailantus trees is a mystery.
A few weeks later, I returned home to find a tree pit had been dug in the brick sidewalk outside my house, and the ash tree had been planted without notification or explanation. The construction manager did not want or encourage any gratitude as he had flown solo on the relocation. Today, the ash is flourishing and shading my former home along with neighboring homes. It was a happy ending for a single tree which has, since its rescue, contributed greatly to the heath and beauty of the streetscape on Chandler Street.
I urge you to support the preservation of the mature Mt. Auburn Street trees because they silently speak volumes about the benefits they provide.
Sincerely,
Carolyn A. Gritter
Watertown Resident
Carolyn, thank you for this wonderful description of the simple yet powerful ways that urban trees protect us and support a healthy environment — both above and below ground.
I can only add that these extraordinary benefits are exponentially higher for large, well-established trees. The fact that our existing big healthy trees have found a way to survive and thrive in the harsh environment of the street, and the fact that the benefits of these almost-miraculously surviving trees would take new plantings many years to match — that is if they can live long enough — make plans to sacrifice existing big healthy urban trees so colossally wrong-headed and ignorant.
Thank you also for the inspiring story of how you and an anonymous construction manager saved a neighborhood tree. Shows how the actions of just one or two people can bring about positive change!