Those of you old enough may remember American elm trees that once lined the streets of many American towns, until The Dutch Elm Disease wiped them out. An historic elm tree, as old as the town, still exists on Summer St. in Lanesboro, MA. The chestnut (not horse chestnut or buckeye) almost became extinct in the 1950s due to a fungus called the chestnut blight. (Since then the American Chestnut Society has been working diligently to restore the chestnuts. There is an American Chestnut Preserve in Stockbridge, MA, not far from the Red Lion Inn.)
In 2002 the Emerald Ash Borer (EAB), a beetle native to Asia, was first detected in Michigan. Twenty years later, as of June 2022, it has been detected in 36 states and 239 (68%) of MA communities. Until recently, Plainfield was one of only two western MA communities that had no confirmed evidence of EABs. This past September, an ash tree on South Central St. in Plainfield has been confirmed with an infestation of beetle damage.
The evidence of their larvae damage, S-shaped galleries (tunnels), is evident where the bark has decomposed. The adult beetle will over winter under bark, emerge May-July, and then lay numerous eggs in bark crevices and layers. The eggs hatch in 7-10 days, and the larvae bore into the tree where they chew the inner bark and phloem, creating winding galleries as they feed. This cuts off the flow of water and nutrients in the tree, thereby causing its dieback and death.
Emerald Ash Borer (about 1/2″ long in real life)
What do we do now? Do we just have to wait until all or most of our ash trees are gone? The Plainfield Tree Alliance is working with the Conservation Commission, the Agricultural Commission, and the Tree Warden in deciding on and coordinating our approach. We urge you to educate yourselves and use the following strategies for tree owners.
First: be proactive and go have a look at the tree on South Central( just South of Pleasant on the West side) to see the damage so you can recognize it.
Second, read up on the problem. Is there anything a homeowner can do to prevent the death of an ash tree due to EAB or treat ash trees? You can find pamphlets in the library, at the town offices, and at the transfer station. Check out the PTA Website at Plainfieldtrees.org, where we will be listing pertinent information. In addition, we have hosted an educational Zoom meeting with Nicole Keleher, Forest Health Program Director, DCR Bureau of Forest Fire Control and Forestry on October 17th. You can see it here. Finally, let us know! Contact the Conservation or Agricultural Commission or — if it is a street tree— Tree Warden Bob Mellstrom if you see a tree you think is being damaged by EAB.
Under-bark damage from EAB larvae
Some resources advise using pesticides. The Plainfield Tree Alliance, along with the Plainfield Conservation Commission and the Plainfield Agricultural Commission, advise great caution and reluctance with respect to the use of pesticides. They tend to kill the pollinators we need to survive ourselves. In addition, EAB has been shown to get immune to pesticides. And finally, we’re not going to stop this with pesticides, we have to mitigate and manage it. Please be in touch with Bob, Judy, or Anna first to confirm the infestation. You can also report to us using this FORM. We will soon be publishing guidelines after doing more research.
Download the Plainfield Tee Planting Guide. This guide is designed to help you choose trees to plant or favor along the road, in particular, but also on your property. There, however, because of the absence of the many stressors that make life difficult for trees along the road, you have more choices. In the guide, you will find suggestions for tall trees and trees for under power lines, flowering trees, and not. One thing they all have in common: they are all native trees.
Trees are one of Plainfield’s greatest assets. Not only do they give us beauty and shade, they provide homes for pollinators and help absorb excess carbon from the atmosphere. Use this pamphlet to help you decide what trees to plant and where to plant them.
Trees planted near the street, usually in rows, are a particular feature of Plainfield, as well as a special category, biologically as much as legally. Not only must street trees be salt tolerant, they must not interfere with power lines.
Although property owners own these trees, the General Laws of Mass. give municipalities authority to cut them and take other actions as necessary for public safety.
The Plainfield Tree Alliance works with local authorities and property owners to choose, plant, and care for replacement street trees, if owners desire such plantings. For example, locating the trees away from power lines is especially important.
The Plainfield Tree Alliance will also work with property owners to plant street trees further away from the road, on private property. These then become the responsibility of the owner.
Planting trees is an act of hope. Trees you plant now, whether on the street or in your back yard, will give people joy and serve the environment far into the future.
Imagine that you have vacationed in Florida for several months and returned to an altered neighborhood, your house replaced by a shelter, yes, but one which didn’t serve your needs and where you couldn’t raise your children. More importantly, all the food available in your area is inedible, disturbing to your tastes and digestion. You’d think of moving on, wouldn’t you?
This is what happens to returning or hatching insects and migrating birds when we replace their natural habitat with non-native species of plants. Native plants are flora that have evolved naturally in a region, from the most delicate, tiny “weeds” to the most magnificent trees. They are the ecological foundation upon which the whole natural food web is built. And many of them are disappearing. In Massachusetts, 258 species of plants are considered endangered, threatened, or of special concern, and are protected under the state’s Endangered Species Act. These include Purple Milkweed, Upland Wild Aster, Large-Leaved Goldenrod, Swamp Birch, Mountain Alder, and Yellow Oak, to name a few.
We need them. Native plants and native wildlife have evolved together, each adapting specialized characteristics needed by the other. The shape and structure of flowers allows pollination only by specific insects. The chemical content of the leaves appeals to some native insects and birds and not to others. Some native plants bloom early, nourishing specific pollinators migrating north. Wild asters provide food for monarch butterflies on their autumn journey south. All these characteristics have co-evolved.
Enter our national obsession with well manicured lawns surrounded by exotic ornamental plants and foreign species of flowering trees. This taste for non-native plants has reduced a once ecologically continuous landscape by hundreds of millions of acres and left it about as useful to native insects, birds, and animals as AstroTurf, plastic flowers, and artificial Christmas trees. Removing native plants destroys the natural food web and starves the life that depends on it, from bacteria to insects and on to larger animals.
Insects hold up the feeding and reproductive structure of all things above them. In a study of the ecosystems available in ordinary yards, it was discovered that at least 70 percent of the plants must be native to enable common birds like chickadees to raise a normal number of chicks. It takes more than 6,000 caterpillars of a naturally edible type to feed a brood of chickadees to maturity. Trees, like the oaks that are native in New England, can support more than 500 species of native caterpillars. Non-native trees, on the other hand, may host fewer than 10 types of caterpillars, far too few to feed hungry broods of native birds. And these caterpillars may not even be edible. The birds in that area will either die out or move elsewhere.
The natural interaction of the whole local food web, from the smallest to the largest inhabitants, is interrupted. We also lose out as humans. We miss the joy and beauty of the multitude of insects, birds and animals that would thrive around us if the environment included native plants offering their native foods.
Exotic plantings and monocultures such as most lawns and, since the 1970’s, most agriculture, encourage non-native diseases and pests, resulting in large scale plant damage and use of pesticides, further enlarging the circle of destruction. By contrast, most native plants require little maintenance. They are adapted to local conditions and seed themselves into friendly areas. They also need less water, a vital and often scarce resource.
Local nurseries are beginning to offer native species of plants. When purchasing plants, always ask if they are native to our area. Also, make sure they have not been raised with the systemic pesticides that poison the insects, birds, and animals you are trying to encourage. You will come home with a plant, shrub or tree that will take its native and natural place, and fulfill its complex and vital role, in the landscape we share.
Practical responses to environmental crises will be discussed in a series of events sponsored by the Plainfield Tree Alliance and the Plainfield Agricultural Commission beginning January 27 and continuing through April 2020.
“Hilltowns Responding to Environmental Crises: a Practical Approach” a four-event lecture series includes presentations by local experts about how our yards and gardens can enhance biodiversity and combat climate change.
All events are open to the public and will be held on at the Plainfield Public Safety Complex, 38 N. Central St., Plainfield, MA.
Monday Jan. 27, 7PM Book discussion: Bringing Nature Home by Doug Tallamy Moderators: Amy Pulley and Patrick Williamson
Monday Feb. 17, 7PM Our Landscape and Global Climate Change Brittany Laginhas, UMass Amherst
Monday Mar. 16, 7PM (Postponed indefinitely) Gardening for Wildlife Desiree Narango, CUNY
Monday Ap. 20, 7PM (postponed indefinitely) Creating and Supporting Biodiversity in Your Landscape Larri Cochran
This program is co-sponsored by the Plainfield Agricultural Commission and funded in part by the Plainfield Cultural Council.
Thanks to the International Society of Arboriculture and Eversource for their support
Wait a minute for slideshow to load. To move faster, click on the images.Photographers: Polly Ryan, Elizabeth Lambert, Melissa Hancock, and Roxanne Shearer
Grant Wood’s Arbor Day (left) depicts a school scene in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, as it might have looked in the 1890s. It was commissioned in 1932 by the Cedar Rapids School Board as a memorial to two schoolteachers, one of whom planted a tree each year to shelter the school. The painting was owned by the school it portrayed, McKinley High School, until 1935. Later, it was bought by the Hollywood producer King Vidor, and in 1985 sold at auction by his family to an unidentified American buyer.
A project Eversource will be conducting sometime this year in Plainfield and many other communities in Massachusetts raises grave concerns. They’re calling it the “Reliability Project” and it involves cutting a lot of trees in the transmission power line rights-of-way across all of Massachusetts. Eversource is claiming this project is necessary because the trees pose a threat to the lines if they fall.
Eversource officials say they have sent all landowners with power-line easements a letter describing the project. I received one—but it made me want to know more, a lot more.
The project involves widening the transmission right of way by an average of 25’ on both sides of the current clearing. Eversource will be cutting all trees that are standing in these areas. Since the transmission lines run through Plainfield for five miles, this translates to 30 acres of trees that will be cut, most of them white pine. On average, 200 mature (100+ years) white pines can occupy an acre of land, so we’re talking approximately 6,000 pine trees in our community alone.
What are my concerns?
The impact this will have on climate change. These trees sequester (hold) carbon and, depending on how they are repurposed, may significantly impact the balance of CO2 in our atmosphere. In addition, research has shown that older trees exponentially sequester more carbon that younger growth. (See Statement from Scientists.)
2. I was a directly impacted landowner on the proposed NED pipeline project that was planned to go through our community a couple of years ago and the clearing is happening exactly where the pipeline was to be sited.
3. Landowners have no choice but to accept this plan, Eversource representatives managing the project told me. I asked if they would consider leaving my stand alone since its only 50’ wide and cutting 1⁄2 of them down would weaken the remaining stand. They said this was not an option. I then asked if they would at least leave the healthy trees standing and they said no to this, too. I tried to point out to them that the trees they plan to cut on my land wouldn’t even hit the lines if they fell. I was still told I had no choice or rights as a landowner in stopping the project from going forward.
4. There is a monetary value to this crop of trees and the sub-contractor hired by Eversource stands to profit from it while landowners receive no compensation.
I did some research and found that the stumpage value of white pine in Southern NH is $80-170 per MBF (1000 board feet) of timber. Each mature pine (DBH 20” and 80’ tall) is about 1000 board feet so let’s low ball its average value at $100/pine. 6000 pines times $100 is $600,000 worth of pine in Plainfield alone.
The Eversource representative did say that I could keep the logs and in that case the subcontractors would pile them neatly on my property. Then, at my expense, I could get the timber trucked to a local mill yard. This may be a profitable solution if all impacted property owners in town shared the expense of having our stands trucked to a mill yard, but I doubt any of us will profit much if we individually hire truckers to transport our logs.
5. In order to get the project done sooner and with less effort or notice, Eversource has decided to avoid cutting in areas that require special Federal and State permits. So they won’t (or rather are not allowed) to cut trees along river fronts, in rare and endangered species habitats or, on Article 97 land. They are required to contact all municipal Conservation Commissions though. In Plainfield, our Conservation Commission asked Eversource to submit a “Notice of Intent” to proceed with cutting in wetlands and Eversource responded by saying that this would never happen.
Therefore, they are not allowed to cut any trees within a 100’ buffer zone of any wetlands in town. This saves roughly 5 acres of trees in Plainfield. However, reports have been made in other towns, where cutting has already happened, that the contractors have ignored these requirements and the only consequence has been that Eversource has to pay a fine.
6. Standard forestry equipment will be used to fell the trees like feller bunchers, forwarders, skidders and chippers. This is very impactful to soils and makes a huge mess of the landscape. Eversource did assure me they would spread wood chips where cutting occurs if I requested it. I bought my property in Plainfield because of the 2’ of “black gold” (topsoil) on it, hoping to farm it in my retirement. You can’t farm compacted soils covered with wood chips!
7. There may be a larger picture and more at stake here than just a “Reliability Project.” I had two meetings with Thomas Degnan, the Project Manager. At the first one, I asked about other projects happening in our neighborhood and he said he only knew the details related to this project. So I requested another meeting with an Eversource representative that would know about these other projects. There was a second meeting but there wasn’t an Eversource representative present with any knowledge of any other projects. Rose Wessell from “No Fracked Gas in Mass” attended both meetings and she was concerned about other possible motivations for widening the right of way because another utility in New York has also been widening this same transmission path and their plan was to run an additional transmission line.
Thomas Degnan said he had submitted final maps and the procurement package to Eversource this past December. He said it will take anywhere from two to eight months for Eversource to get through the procurement process and negotiate bid contracts with logging companies. Once a logging contractor has been hired, a schedule for cutting will be implemented. Eversource hopes to start logging in 2019. Burns and McDonnell are the subcontractors.
I suggest that abutting landowners contact Degnan if they have any concerns about how this project will impact their property. His office number is, 203.949.2408, and his mobile is 860.209.2863. Perhaps if a number of residents have similar concerns we could arrange a gathering to discuss them.
Plainfield Tree Alliance 