Thousands Of Trees Chopped Down By Mistake In Tewksbury
TEWKSBURY (CBS) - The end of Easement Road, a dead end in Tewksbury, has been nothing but woods and wetlands since Madeline Mahoney moved in. "It was a nice spot down there, a really, really nice spot. It's all gone," Mahoney said.
Now, trees have been chopped down and the land, cleared.
"We stood there and said and told them no they couldn't take that!" she added.
The town "ended up taking a lot," she said.
Kylie Flammia said, "I haven't been back there since they've been cutting trees. It's probably sad...They ended up taking down, I don't know how much they said, way more trees than they were supposed to and they did it by accident."
The town planned to clear just under 23,000 square feet of land, but ended up taking about 38,000.
"It was unbelievable the amount of trucks that were coming on a daily basis and it wasn't just once up and down, it was all day," Helena Rooney said.
Department of Public Works Superintendent Brian Gilbert says clearing the land was part of another project in town on Main and Shawsheen streets to raise the flood plain. While that water now has a place to go, in what looks like a retention pond at the bottom of the clearing, he admits a mistake was made and there was never a line drawn on how much of the land should be disrupted.
"A lot of us weren't notified," said one man living nearby. "We want to make sure that we're all in the know because this is a town and we all have the ability to vote."
Gilbert said public crews will be planting more trees and restoring the land come spring.