Company says no trees were removed unnecessarily

By Alice Waugh

The president of the company in charge of tree removal for the Route 2 project said on May 31 that no trees were removed unnecessarily and that his workers cut down only those they were asked to remove.

Lincoln residents near the highway construction site, especially in the Brooks Road vicinity, have complained about what they say is excessive tree removal among other issues related to the work, and the Board of Selectman has named a Route 2 Oversight Committee to gather more information (see related story).

“We’re told exactly what to cut. If there’s a tree they can save, trust me, they save it,” said Doug Cook, president of Cook Company Inc. of Upton, MA, a subcontractor hired by general contractor D.W. White to do tree and brush removal for the project. “We get fined if we cut the wrong trees—they’re that fussy about it. There’s a lot of thought put into it,” Cook added, saying that his workers were acting under the direction of state highway officials.

“As an engineer, it needs to be done that way for proper grading,” Cook said. Tree roots extend out from the trunk as far as the branch canopy, and the smallest roots at the periphery are the ones that take in the most water, he said. Consequently, excavation for grading, drainage or underground utility lines can endanger trees that are quite a distance away.

“It’s shocking to people now to see these trees gone… [but] there’s more to it than what people see,” Cook said. A tree whose roots are damaged can die even after the project is completed, and “you don’t want that tree to blow over in a storm” when it’s near a major highway, he added. “When you do all that digging, it’s really going to compromise that tree.”

The contract requires that a third-party arborist and environmental monitor be present for this portion of the work, Cook said. The identities of those individuals could not immediately be determined.