Use this search box to find articles that have run in our newspapers over the last several years.
Date: 12/19/2022
CUMMINGTON – Many residents were shocked last week after Eversource contractor Lewis Tree Service felled almost two dozen large and healthy sugar maples along Brick House Road. On Dec. 15 the Planning Board hosted a meeting to gather and dispense information on what next steps will be taken by the town, but the locals were still outraged.
“I’ve only been living here 16 years, but in those 16 years I’ve never seen anything happen like this,” said resident Alan Weisman, who lives on Frazier Lane. “We’ve never had a massacre before.”
A sizable group of residents showed up on Brick House Road at 7:30 a.m., on Dec. 13 while the morning mist was still dense, to stop Lewis’ cutting crew from taking down more trees. The bucket trucks never showed up, but the damage was done. A line of stumps, from 32 inches to four feet across, displayed the irreparable losses.
Selectboard Chair Kenneth “Trudge” Howes offered some explanation of how the unauthorized work came about. He and DPW Superintendent Alan Taylor went up to Brick Yard Road before the trees were cut. Lewis employees showed them a signed document giving the company permission to clear cut on the homeowner’s land, which lay outside the stone wall that lines the road.
“They had permission to cut on one side of the stone wall, not the other,” Taylor said. “They didn’t realize that. They assumed they had clearcut permission, it was everything. That was the problem.”
Lewis employees assumed the permission extended to those trees between the road and the stone wall. The town controls that strip as a setback, not the landowner. The crew was also granted permission to cut and trim only specific trees. Taylor’s explanation, however, does not account for a number of stories of residents who lost trees near and dear to their hearts in other areas.
Christine Doktor, partner of lifelong resident Frank Filbrick, told members of the Selectboard, also attending, that Filbrick loves trees. Filbrick especially loved one tree that stood near the end of his driveway through-out his life. A foreman for Lewis met with the couple, who made it clear which trees could be cut and the precise tree that was off limits.
Filbrick offered tape and spray paint for marking the trees. Lewis’ foreman refused them, preferring to write down on paper which trees could be targeted. The couple left the farm and returned just one hour later.
The cutting crew had taken down Filbrick’s beloved tree.
“We do feel Lewis lied to us,” Doktor said. “We do feel they waited until we left the property until they cut the tree...They said it was rotten. The wood is on the ground and we took pictures. It was not rotten, it was a healthy maple tree.”
Filbrick’s loss was not an isolated incident. Richard Gooding, who lives on Potash Hill Extension, recounted how the cutting crew devastated the strand of trees at the end of his driveway.
“They trimmed, and then they started cutting some trees down,” Gooding said. “I was out there and I said, ‘Why are you cutting them down?’ I thought they already trimmed the 15 feet. They said, ‘Well, they’re rotten.’ Clearly, when they were felled, they were not rotten.”
Another justification used by the chainsaw crew was that certain trees had to be condemned. The crew was in town to trim back limbs and growth to create a 15-foot buffer around Eversource power lines. After that, if more than 30 percent of a tree had been removed the tree cutters then saw fit to condemn the tree and start the saws.
Howe explained to the 30 or so residents gathered at the meeting that the architecture of the local power grid and Cummington’s location made the 15-foot buffer necessary, rather than the 8-foot buffer of years past. The likelihood of a major storm that knocks out power in the town and through-out the area is greater now. The town is also at the center of a power crossroads.
“Cummington is the center of main lines that feed in from three different directions,” Howe said, “so if there’s a major storm we can supply another section. We’re in the center of it all.”
The 15-foot buffer, which takes almost double the foliage trimmed previously, brought the loss of many town trees. The greater trimming is required because more volts are going through the lines now. That explanation, however, does not clarify how Lewis tree crews may have made similar unauthorized fellings in other towns.
A Plainfield resident called into the meeting, but was not allowed to speak. Planning Board chair Katy Eiseman was aware that residents from Plainfield and Ashfield were also complaining about the cutting of healthy trees.
Steve Powell, Director of Marketing & Business Development for Lewis Tree Service, could not respond by deadline with a statement of the company’s intentions for the future. Powell did confirm that permission was granted by landowners for tree cullings. Securing permissions is a part of the standard procedure followed by crews when they begin work in a town.
“It’s likely that our crews or contacts from Eversource were in touch with authorities there,” Powell wrote in an email, “before the work was done, as notification is typically a standard part of the utility vegetation management process.”
Selectboard member June Lynds read a statement at the beginning of the session expressing appreciation for the energy of residents’ reactions. Lynds also entreated residents to direct all questions and efforts to secure restitution through the Selectboard. The board and other town officials are still gathering information to present to Eversource, which has committed verbally to replacing the felled trees with young saplings up to 3 inches thick and 8 to 9 feet tall.
Remuneration for the unauthorized cutting could be substantial. Former Police Chief James Martin told the gathering that an out of control motorist hit a tree in his yard, downing it. The tree, a good-sized maple, drew a high valuation from an arborist.
“It was my option,” Martin said, “replace the tree or get paid. It was 50-some thousand dollars, and this was five years ago…[so] I took 20 grand and said fine.”
Murmurs around the room implied the sadness residents felt about the lost trees along Brick House Road. Katy Eiseman, Planning Board chair, voiced residents’ lingering sense of shock that will not be soothed.
“This is a visceral tragedy in our town,” Eiseman said, “and as everyone knows, a tree of that size,” up to 3 inches thick, “is not really [going to] make us whole.”