Letter to the Editor - Speak Up

Edi­tor:

After read­ing The Galion Inquirer’s Sat­ur­day, April 14th arti­cle per­tain­ing to the “Tree City Irony,” I felt com­pelled to write this let­ter. First, I want to make it clear that I under­stand what our city man­ager was attempt­ing to do when he directed the city employ­ees to remove the veg­e­ta­tion along the Olen­tangy River bank from Heise Park south to the water treat­ment plant. The idea, although extremely anti­quated, was to clear the veg­e­ta­tion and debris to allow the water to flow with­out obstruc­tion since we have expe­ri­enced more than our share of floods over the years. I am very com­pas­sion­ate to all those who have suf­fered through these floods. My wife and I have per­son­ally helped a num­ber of fam­i­lies with the dif­fi­cult clean up. We were also able to dis­trib­ute hun­dreds of dol­lars to a num­ber of these fam­i­lies through our affil­i­a­tion with a Lutheran fra­ter­nal orga­ni­za­tion, so we real­ize how dev­as­tat­ing a flood can be. The sim­ple fact of the mat­ter is that exces­sive clear­ing can­not guar­an­tee it won’t flood again tomor­row and it only increases the chance of extreme erosion.

When I first saw the crew cut­ting along the river they were south of the bridge on Route 19, I thought it was a good thing they were finally clear­ing the brush. How­ever, a few days later they had worked north up the river and were remov­ing not only the brush but also the trees, includ­ing those high along the bank. I felt the trees were being destroyed for no good rea­son and with com­plete dis­re­gard to their value to our com­mu­nity and most impor­tantly, our envi­ron­ment. As the crew con­tin­ued north I became more con­cerned with the dev­as­ta­tion I was wit­ness­ing and talked with prop­erty own­ers who were affected and was told they had voiced con­cern with the crew leader, but only three lone pine trees remained stand­ing. At this point I felt strongly some­thing had to be done.

I began by call­ing Craw­ford County Soil and Water and was told it was not a county issue. Next, I called the Ohio Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency and was asked to send pho­tos. Their response to the pho­tos was that it was an extremely exces­sive clear­ing and a “backwards-thinking band-aid approach” to flood con­trol. Mr. Toy was then con­tacted by the EPA rep­re­sen­ta­tive who requested a meet­ing held on March 27th. That same evening I addressed the city coun­cil and informed them that I had called the state and reported the exces­sive clear­ing and asked if we were in com­pli­ance with state reg­u­la­tions, etc. or could we be sub­ject to fines from our lack of pre-approval for such a project.

I asked Mr. Toy what the project could cost us and was told there was no total cost avail­able. City work­ers from var­i­ous depart­ments were all devot­ing their time to this project, seem­ingly neglect­ing duties they would nor­mally be doing. When asked about the results of the meet­ing with the EPA, Mr. Toy informed coun­cil there was no con­cern. How­ever, he had not attended the meet­ing. After the meet­ing as I spoke to sev­eral coun­cil mem­bers, I was told that they were only informed that this was to be brush and debris removal, not a clear cutting.

I left the coun­cil meet­ing that night think­ing, since the EPA was involved that things would be done properly.

Unfor­tu­nately, after a few days the crew was back to work with the same destruc­tive mind-set of destroy­ing the bank and per­sonal prop­erty on the east side of Route 598. The prop­erty owner on the north side of the river was sur­prised because he had never been noti­fied of their intent to clear the trees from his prop­erty. He con­fronted the crew leader and asked to have spe­cific trees spared. He was assured this would hap­pen, but upon return­ing from an appoint­ment, he found the trees gone. He is heart­sick about the bar­ren view he now has, as all the beauty has been stripped away. He stated that in his life­time he will never regain what has been lost.

I called Mr. Lyn Makeever, our city engi­neer, and asked what the river project plan was and he informed me that they were in the process of sur­vey­ing the river and would be com­par­ing it with an ear­lier sur­vey to deter­mine any changes in its course.

After the clear­ing they would be rein­forc­ing the banks, reseed­ing and apply­ing poi­son to the tree stumps, as well as plant­ing new trees. I asked Makeever why we would remove mature trees only to replant new trees and also if poi­son near the river is an envi­ron­men­tal con­cern. I was assured by him that there was no problem.

Makeever also said the large trees had to be removed in order to allow the equip­ment access to the river. I ques­tioned clear­ing the entrie bank when just one area would do for an access.

In con­ver­sa­tion with Lynette Hablitzel of the EPA, she informed me that she felt the clear­ing was exces­sive, how­ever, it did not require a per­mit. Lynette’s imme­di­ate con­cern was ero­sion and she stated the state requires a re-vegetation effort within three days after leav­ing a cleared area, but it was over a month in our case. She requested a meet­ing with the city offi­cials which was held on April 3rd. The site was toured by Lynette and Michelle Sharp, both with the EPA and the coor­di­na­tor of the Olen­tangy Water­shed, Brian McCombs. They requested an imme­di­ate re-seeding with a ground cover to pro­tect the banks from ero­sion. They also requested a project plan. At this meet­ing the city was rep­re­sented by three employ­ees, Mike Price, Doug Beugly and the city engi­neer, Lyn Makeever. Our city man­ager was not present.

On April 10th, I again attended the coun­cil meet­ing. The council’s first order of busi­ness was to acknowl­edge Galion as a Tree City and estab­lished April 27th as Arbor Day in the city. I found this quite ironic due to the circumstances.

I hope this let­ter helps you to under­stand why I had to speak up. I felt that too many times in the past our city started down the wrong path and no one ques­tioned the deci­sions made.

The fol­low­ing from the Iro­quois is some­thing we should all take to heart:

“In our every delib­er­a­tion, we must con­sider the impact of our deci­sions on the next seven generations.”

Don Faulds

Galion

Posted by Guest 2 Columnist on Apr 19 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.