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To the editor:
Can we all agree that the situation with the tree on Thomas Circle is absurd?
Here is a tree that is clearly a public nuisance because its roots have smashed the surrounding infrastructure beyond all recognition. But it cannot be cut down because it is a shade tree.
Shade for whom? Not people. There is no sidewalk present and even if there were, it would have been made impassable by the tree’s roots, like so many other sections of Marblehead’s sidewalks. (As an aside, are sidewalks for getting around, or for testing the athletic ability of the elderly and parents with strollers?)
In this case Massachusetts General Law Chapter 87 bound the town into keeping the tree. The earliest iterations of this law were passed in 1899.
Some things have happened since 1899 such that the choice is no longer between tree and smashed streets vs. no tree and smooth streets. In addition to putting a man on the moon, America figured out how to plant trees in urban and suburban settings without destroying surrounding infrastructure. Dig deep, put barriers down to direct root growth and everyone gets what they want. Hooray!
But, alas, setting aside state law, this is not an option in Marblehead because we don’t have any money and even if we had money there would be objections because people like trees.
I like trees too! And the main reason I like trees is that they are good for the environment. But this is one tree. Even if we cut down every nuisance tree in Marblehead, I am sure that would be less than all the trees cut down in the Amazon last year. In fact, I am sure it would be less than all the trees cut down in the Amazon last week.
Preserving this single tree may seem like a win, but these situations leave ordinary people feeling like victims of environmental radicalism and it makes building a broad-based consensus favoring preservation of the environment and the climate much harder. It is a literal case of missing the forest for the tree(s). (There, I did the line.)
Marblehead is a town, and towns are for people. A tree’s purpose in a town is to provide shade and beautification for people who live in the town. But sometimes trees create problems and they should be replaced. And yet in a town with $1 million median home prices we can’t afford that. But even if we could afford tree replacement, state law would prevent cutting down the tree in the first place because something, something 1899. So instead nothing happens and we all lose one way or another.
Utterly absurd.
Nick Ward
Rollerston Road
