To the editor:
Oh, Thunder Bay city council, I'm normally filled with pride when I think of my isolated hometown of Thunder Bay, but the decision made by city council to remove those trees on Mohawk Crescent fills me with shame.
These short-sighted, narrow scoped decisions are embarrassing.
First off, I want to put things into perspective. A few tamaracks shedding their needles once a year is nothing to get too excited about. These people bought houses in what used to be a bog. Yes, Northwood is built on William's bog. There's a good chance your basements are going to crack and leak, and your house will sink and the natural landscape is going to have some spruce and tamarack trees.
It comes with the territory. I have many suggestions for the homeowners on Mohawk Crescent. Perhaps they should take some homeowner responsibility and buy some gutter guards.
A quick Google search, and I found you can get more than 20 feet of gutter guard for under $30 at Home Depot.
Residents could also hire a local youth to rake up the natural litter (which makes great compost by the way). I used to live on Kenogami Avenue, and one of the reasons I lived there and not on neighbouring streets like Empress was because of the gorgeous trees.
Kenogami Avenue was shaded, and beautified by these fantastic, large silver maple street trees. These trees shed tonnes of leaf litter every fall, and their aggressive root systems sometimes even clogged the sewer lines.
We could have lobbied city council to chop the trees down because they were messy but instead we cleared out our sewer lines with augers and got out our rakes and step ladders to maintain our homes and yards. We opted to save the trees and take responsibility. Now city residents tax dollars are senselessly wasted to pay for city workers to cut down the tamaracks, and replant new trees.
All this after numerous experts including foresters and arborists including Vince Rutter and Jay Dampier recommended keeping the trees. I now consider Powell River, B.C. my home.
I made the move partly because of this idiotic mentality that city council so greatly exemplifies.
Kelly Von Bargen,
Forestry Graduate from Lakehead University,
Powell River, B.C.
