New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
DOT draws fire after overnight tree-cutting
HARTFORD — State Transportation Commissioner Garrett Eucalitto and his staff are the targets of sharp criticism over the agency’s campaign of clear cutting trees along state highways and removing green screens from neighborhoods with no notice in the dead of night.
The criticism boiled over this week when veteran state Sen. Tony Hwang, R-Fairfield, charged that residents of his town were literally ambushed, with no public notice during a recent tree-clearing campaign along Interstate 95. Transportation officials told Hwang, a top Republican on the legislative Transportation Committee, that town officials had received prior notification of the work, but they promised to provide better direct communications with neighbors going forward.
Hwang took aim at Eucalitto during a public hearing this week on a variety of bills, including proposals to require the DOT to have licensed arborists sign off on any tree removals; and provide sound barriers for neighborhoods where the agency removes trees and vegetation. He complained that some of the work occurred at 2 a.m., and literally scared home owners and their families.
“Who’d you notify before you went and cut it?” Hwang said during a 20minute back-and-forth with DOT officials Monday. “It seems to be, according to the residents I spoke with, a complete surprise. I had no idea and I would dare say that goes for my (legislative) colleagues. Where was the notification of the residents whose very homes and community would be changed?”
“When we make the decision to remove trees it is for safety and it’s for the travelers because trees are falling, trees are diseased and dying in our state, but it’s also to protect people if they have to leave the roadway,” Eucalitto said of the programs clearing interstate and parkway right of ways. “You want to avoid fixed structures that can kill them when they leave the roadway, or cause serious harm and injury to them.”
In 2018 the state reached a multi-million-dollar settlement with the estate of a Pelham, N.Y., couple who died in a 2007 incident on the Merritt Parkway in which a 70-foot tree fell on their vehicle, from which their two children escaped.
“I do want to stress, you know, that evidence shows that trees do not actually reduce the sound for residents,” Eucalitto said. “There is a psychological benefit, but in reality the decibels that residents encounter is not necessarily tied to the presence of those trees.”
Kimberly Lesay, chief of policy and planning for the DOT, said that studies indicate that a 100-foot-wide swath of evergreens can reduce traffic sounds by no more than eight decibels. “Certainly vegetation can help but it’s certainly not a silver bullet,” Lesay said, adding that the department began a study last year for the major highways and where there are noise impacts that will result in a priority list.
Paul Rizzo, bureau chief for highway operations said that over the past five years, Connecticut trees have been ravaged by pests including the emerald ash borer, the spotted lanternfly, and the spongy moth. “Our program is to go out there, recognize these hazards and we try to eliminate them,” Rizzo said. “And while we do this we’re trying to create our 30-foot clear zone, which is a national standard for a straight road, a flat road, with a minimum of 6,000 cars a day at speeds of 60 miles per hour. Now we all recognize that our highways carry many more cars than 6,000 a day. The portion in Fairfield we are speaking about is about 34,000 cars a day and I’m sure the speeds are well above 60 mph.”
Rizzo said that an arborist and environmental planner approved the tree cutting, which was done late at night to have less traffic impacts along the interstates and parkways. “We’re trying to clear those before they fall and close the road or land on a car,” Rizzo said in the Legislative Office Building. He said that prior to five years ago, “any” kind of wind or snow event would result in downed trees along the parkways, necessitating road closures.
Rizzo said the Fairfield public works director was notified in advance of the work and a news release was issued from the DOT warning of lane closures. Adam Boone a landscape designer for the DOT and a licensed arborist, said that since the Fairfield project, DOT personnel now issue notification cards to neighbors abutting highways where tree clearing is scheduled. “We have so many trees failures, so many trees falling directly on cars,” Boone said.
“I’m encouraged to hear that you’ve adopted a policy to inform residents,” Hwang said. “But beyond informing the DPW director and a press release, you did not in this case in Fairfield, notify any of the residents. Residents that live near parkways and highways understand what they’re buying into, but when they buy into it there is that buffer-kind of protection, To have it unilaterally changed and not be informed, and to say there is nothing that can be done about it and they have no control, is a usurpation of the social agreement in my mind that someone upended the deal and their lives are irreparably changed, from quality of life and quality of health.”
State Rep. Roland Lemar, D-New Haven, co-chairman of the Transportation Committee, ended the discussion on trees by stressing the importance of a planned statewide landscape management and replanting plan.