What is the county doing here?
Sharing Jim Powell’s videos and email
Seventeen 80-year-old trees cut down in Lake View Hill Conservancy County Park in ten hours of one day….
…and ground up on the spot.
Why? Primarily to improve the “viewshed” for people.
Here’s the explanation
Hi All,
I asked Darren Marsh at the Parks Division about the trees that are being removed – here is his response. (As a member of the Dane County Tree Board I try to keep up with all “tree” issues.)
Any additional questions could go to Darren.
Thanks everybody for your concern.
Paul Rusk
County Board Supervisor
District 12From: Marsh, Darren [mailto:Marsh@countyofdane.com]
Sent: Wednesday, September 02, 2015 11:58 AM
To: Rusk, Paul forward
Subject: RE: Please don’t cut down any more trees on Lakeview HillHi Paul,
You could post this information:
The trees that are identified for removal are a component of the Nurses Dorm Deconstruction and Preservation Project. The plan went through an extensive public review before it was approved in 2014. The larger pines that are identified for removal include trees that need to be me moved for the stormwater spillway, trees that are in decline such as the Austrian Pine and a couple of trees that have poor form with split trunks (double leaders). The thinning will improve the vigor and growth of the remaining trees.
Darren Marsh
Parks Division
Dane County Land and Water Resources Department
Rm. 234
5201 Fen Oak Drive
Madison WI 53718
(608) 224-3766
Fax (608) 224-3745
I think I snorted diet coke out of my nose when I read the words “The plan went through an extensive public review before it was approved in 2014.” Right . . . .
This is from Jon Becker:
Hello Darren and Paul,
As a participant in the 2014 Nurses Dorm Deconstruction and Preservation Project meetings, I do recall that there was a mostly separate discussion about the much needed stormwater facility plan. It was at least once re-designed in response to calls from the public to minimize the need for tree removal.
I question the need to move trees that are “in decline” or that have “poor form.” Isn’t it the case that, in conservancy parks, dead trees are desirable for habitat (roughly 7 per acre)? And isn’t removal in this sort of setting usually done only for public safety (e.g. along trails, near sidewalks, over swing sets, etc.)? And what about the information provided by Jim Powell that tree removal was being done to enhance views from the county office? If I recall correctly, this information emerged during the 2014 Nurses Dorm Deconstruction and Preservation Project meetings, and also was documented as part of that process. As you probably know from your long public service, sometimes a defensible means is found to achieve a preconceived end … If an enhanced viewshed for county employees actually is not the rationale for this removal, then: Will Parks be planting new native ‘oak savannah’ trees to replace the pines? Underplanting native trees near the other non-native Sanitarium-era pines that are aging in this location?
And when will the beautiful managed meadows be extended across the “great lawn” (at long last, seven years after being proposed during county plan meetings)? During those long ago meetings, when I was President of the Friends of Lake View Hill Park, we heard that county staff in the main office building were the stumbling block to this well-conceived and conservation-appropriate proposal. The idea makes more sense than ever, now that Rhythm and Booms has departed the Northside.
Just a reminder about another one of the 2014 plan outcomes: County Land & Water Division engineer Jeremy Balousek pledged that the county would be seeking 100% “natural” stormwater stay-on as an outcome of improvements to the Lake View Hill county campus (the main office building, outbuildings, driveway, sidewalks, and parking lot. The run off from this county property is dangerous to the nearby neighborhoods and negatively impacts water quality in Warner Park and Lake Mendota. It also contributes to flooding downstream in Madison and thence all the way to the Gulf of Mexico.
As was pointed out during the 2014 Dorm meetings, restoring the prairie across the lawn on Lake View Hill will help mitigate stormwater runoff. Then the county can probably mow the slope just once a year in late autumn– to maintain the hill’s use for winter sledding– saving thousands of dollars. Then we can rename this wonderful community feature the Great Prairie Slope, or –better yet– John Muir’s Ramble, honoring his visit in 1863, to “a hill on the north side of Lake Mendota on his last day as a UW student.
Best, Jon
P.S. On SEP 17 THU 7p, UW’s Prof. Ken Potter will be giving a talk in the Varsity Hall of the South Union, sharing the results of a recent study. He asked: What would happen if the 2008 Baraboo-Delton storm occurred over Lake Mendota, during the months of APR-OCT, when the dam at Tenney Park was being used by the county (under the 1979 WDNR orders) to hold the lake ~5 feet above its natural (pre-1848) level? Last year I saw some preliminary results of this study, during a presentation by UW-EXT staff. Those indicted that the Tenney dam would be overtopped by ~1 foot, causing extensive surface-flooding and back-flooding (via basement drains) on the Isthmus, as well as several other locations on or near Lake Monona, resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars in damage.
