Requiem for trees in Blue Hill

Last Dec. 18 at the Blue Hill Town Hall, three representatives of the Maine Department of Transportation appeared to hear the concerns and “inform” the citizens about their project to repair Route 15. They assured the nervous crowd that this project would “not widen the road” nor “change its existing character.” We were promised that “absolutely no trees would be cut without prior consultation with property owners.”

The MDOT’s reputation is not the best. The murmured comments in the audience were skeptical. When asked to provide a detailed plan of their project, the answer was that the plans were too expensive and they couldn’t afford them. Despite misgivings, we trusted them. We were dead wrong.

In June, without prior “consultation” of any kind, loggers in unmarked vehicles arrived and began a destructive rampage. A few property owners managed to rush out in time to save a tree or two on their properties. On one side of the road alone, in a distance of 450 yards, 76 trees were butchered, leaving stumps, trampled flowers and unsightly litter behind. In the process, these loggers also managed to bring down a power line, causing $2,000 in damage to the town generator at the treatment plant.

One neighbor lost two old oak trees that flanked their driveway. We lost seven trees, one of them a tall oak. The worst damage was on the property of our immediate neighbor. There, a hedge and more than 50 fine fir trees were simply clear-cut, leaving nothing but a dismal row of stumps. The character of a gracious country road was irrevocably changed.

How could this atrocity happen? The MDOT took bids and hired Vaughn Thibodeau of Bangor to do the road job. Thibodeau in turn subcontracted the Jake Voter forestry firm of Skowhegan to do the tree cutting. None of the promises were passed down the line of contracting. Not a single member of the MDOT team was present to supervise the job; the project manager was “called away on another job” the day the massacre occurred.

Why was the project necessary? In order to dig “regulation ditches” to keep water from running under the asphalt. The roots of the trees would be affected and they would “die anyway.” But surely we could have been given a say in whether to take that chance. Given the state of modern technology, were there no other options to this tree butchery? Yes, answered the MDOT representative I queried, “There are always options.” Why were these options not mentioned at the town meeting, nor the hapless property owners informed? I can’t help wondering what happened to those valuable old trees. At up to $4 a running foot for oak planks, there was gold in those giants. Could this in any way account for the overly enthusiastic cutting? No doubt we will never know.

To their credit, when the three MDOT representatives who had been at the town meetings came to inspect the damage they were aghast. They admitted that since no member of the MDOT had been there to supervise the work, it was “their fault” and apologized profusely.

The MDOT, overextended and over- regulated, limited by budgetary considerations to take the lowest bidder, is in a tough position. But in this case, “sorry” isn’t good enough. What about accountability? If a mistake has been made, who will do something about it? Who is responsible for broken promises? The MDOT may be within their legal rights, but legal and moral are two very different matters. The century-old trees are gone, but mature trees can be replanted to repair some of the damage, and a detailed plan could be presented. The bottom line is that because of questionable planning and bureaucratic inattention, what was once a scenic road is being transformed into a soulless turnpike, in the process exacerbating the problems of a stretch of road into town that already suffers from a dangerous speeding problem.

Sacrificing the heritage of our ancestors for a ditch seems like a miserable exchange. There must be a better way to improve a road surface. It could begin with honesty and accountability from state agencies and the construction firms they hire. In the meantime, we hapless and victimized taxpayers, who pay the salaries and finance the projects, are left betrayed and violated to contemplate daily the unsightly stumps of what were once majestic sentinels gracefully welcoming us to our town.

Suzanne Massie is an author and a year-round property-owning resident of Blue Hill.