By Kim Siebert MacPhail
When a rotted tree fell on her shed, Old Burlington Road resident Veronica Chester called someone to take a look at building a new shed to take the old one’s place.
“In the course of human events, the fellow came and took a look around and said, ‘You’re going to have to take some more trees down because they’ve all rotted.’ He said he knows a guy [who could take them down],” Chester explained to the Conservation Commission on August 14. “I said, ‘OK’ and he came in and took them down but they were within the wetland buffer zone. I didn’t know I was near wetlands. I had no idea.”
“The trees are gone now,” Chester continued. “But I picked up [replacement] trees on Saturday and I’m putting them in….I’m not going to get the [new] shed now.”
“So you took down five trees and you’re going to replace four?” asked Conservation Commission member John Willson, looking at the site map that Chester provided.
“I’m going to do the fifth one [in another part of the property] later,” Chester said.
“Did one of your neighbors or someone complain and that’s how it came to our attention?” asked Conservation Commission member Tim Gray.
Conservation Commission administrative assistant Stephanie Ide answered for Chester, explaining that the work was done while Chester was at work and that the “tree gentleman decided to dump some stuff in the wetland and then the DPW called and said, ‘It wasn’t us.’”
The tree man has since cleaned up the material from the wetland area.
At the conclusion of the discussion, the Conservation Commission told Chester, “When in doubt, please check [with the Conservation office] because you are subject to requirements. There is a process to get rotted trees removed [that are within the wetland buffer zone.]”
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Great story. Wish more were watching when more than 150 trees off Winter Street were decimated.