Tree Massacre Update – The Vandals Stole the Handle

Turnpike Authority spokesman Tom Feeney said any conversation about property values has to take into account the “economic and safety benefits the shore counties will enjoy as a result of the work.”

Feeney said the agency believes any concerns about runoff are unfounded because the tree stumps and underbrush that remain will prevent it.

Atlantic City Press,  4/13/11

I guess that Turnpike Authority quote pissed off lots of folks, because it got shoved where the sun don’t shine.

In another superb piece of  reporting on the Garden State Parkway Tree Massacre, today’s Atlanctic City Press reports:

Turnpike Authority must now deal with erosion from Garden State Parkway tree-clearing project

By DEREK HARPER Staff Writer pressofAtlanticCity.com | 0 comments

EGG HARBOR TOWNSHIP –  The Garden State Parkway tree-clearing project has left stumps, bare earth and mud along the roadway, as well as what may be immediate erosion issues.

Engineers familiar with the project say erosion is occurring and should be expected any time trees and cover is removed, but they also believe the N.J. Turnpike Authority, which administers the parkway, is addressing the issue. A tree-planting program is expected to begin next week.

But the images of washed-out slopes and mud creeping toward roadways is raising questions.

Richard E. Levitt, a Northfield resident who chairs that city’s Planning Board, said he believed sand was washing down the Mill Road embankment in Egg Harbor Township and was possibly flowing into nearby streams. He photographed the erosion and a sizable tree stump on the embankment east of the parkway and south of Tilton Road. The tree, he wrote, probably predated the highway and should never have come down.

Levitt said he saw no evidence of anything holding back soil from washing onto adjacent land.

“You don’t have to be a civil engineer to see that there is something wrong here,” he said.

And the pump don’t work ’cause the vandals stole the handle.