On The Waterfront

Walking buddy Greg Lee & I checked out the trees along the Dike Road headed for the ax as part of a compromise plan to satisfy the Army Corps of Engineers. Remember? The core wanted to clear-cut all the trees along Rosenberry Drive to ensure that the Fortgrounds area doesn’t become another New Orleans, if a 100-year flood hits. Cooler heads seem to have prevailed. Now 250 of the trees are slated to be leveled to strengthen the dike. Apparently, the are marked with a green dot. Whoever did the marking did a good job identifying diseased, dying and dead trees, as well as thinning clusters, while maintaining the beauty of the treed waterfront. Check it out yourself. I didn’t see any of the stately pines marked. But there were clusters of smaller pines, where 3 or scheduled for the chainsaw, leaving one to flourish. Or a cluster of small ones are scheduled for cutting, opening up the view of the waterfront and better looking trees on the beach. All in all, I don’t think we’re going to see much of an impact on the tree beauty that’s there now. I suspect we’ll notice an upgrade when the last tree falls.