CUTTING-DOWN OF TREES AN ASSAULT ON TRANQUILLITY
We all have listed the ample advantages of living in the West Island versus downtown Montreal.
The one I will refer to in this sally is peace and quiet (unless you foolishly bought a home along Highway 20 and now are screaming for a sound wall — the subject of my previous companion piece on noise reduction for the overstimulated whose mailing addresses are on service roads.)
If I were to describe tranquillity in one word it would be — trees. The more trees in your immediate area, the more tranquillity (unless it is just a row of trees covering up the south side of Highway 20 where you foolishly bought a home.)
So when a contractor or the ultimate contractor — Hydro-québec — comes in and takes out one of your old shade-shedding beauties because it is not “compatible with the grid,” I don’t blame you for going nuts as some people recently did in Pointe-claire Village.
As well, a Kirkland homeowner was less than pleased when Hydro-québec sent a crew to chop down a row of small trees he’d grown as a privacy wall.
Last July, two mature trees were felled in Alexandre-bourgeau Park to make way for a paved road. The hits just keep on coming. Here’s the deal: Hydro’s explanations do not cover why the option of discrete pruning was not exercised. (It’s cheaper just to cut the tree down to a stump.)
A message for idle-minded tree butchering Hydro: If the tree is not compatible with the grid, why don’t you make the grid compatible with the tree? (Because it’s cheaper just to cut down the tree.)
Why not bury all these lines over the next few generations? Like a métro station (the other elephant in the room), it’s always expensive but a bargain in the long run.
Pointe-claire officials said the tree massacre was to accommodate the rerouting of Hydro poles and wires, related to the eventual popping of the Pioneer condo project. The city said it would compensate by planting “four new fast-growing trees” in the village this spring. That’s a smoke screen, like buying the island of Manhattan for a bag of beads. (It’s cheaper to cut the tree down.)
You don’t need to be a rabid tree hugger to know that trees give us oxygen, they filter out air particles, they cool our neighbourhoods, they give homes to furry creatures and birds singing. Sometimes they protect us from the elements. At even the most pedestrian level of consciousness, it’s obvious we are responsible for Mother Nature’s “lungs” because we are the ones who have done the ravaging. Stop looking at tree cutting from an economic slant. There is a far greater cost in the diminishment of tranquillity.
Cutting down a tree to make way for more bare poles strung with transformers and high tension wires is moving in the opposite direction to what’s right.
People have every right to protest the assault on their peace of mind. Like every child, as they say — every tree is sacred. When are governments going to get that?