PEABODY – The Peabody Conservation Commission continues to zero in on tree-cutting at Salem Country Club, issuing an enforcement order to Mayer Tree Service, in regards to hundreds of trees.
The order references trees felled without permission within buffer zones, in close proximity to jurisdictional resource areas at the Salem Country Club.
During a meeting last week, commission members expressed their frustration with the country club, while the club’s attorney, Barry Fogel, presented a suggested restoration plan.
“What you guys did was terrible because we gave you permission to take down 20 trees and you took down hundreds and you’ve admitted as much in discussions since,” Commission Chairman Stewart Lazares said.
Besides a fine, which Lazares said the country club deserves, he requested a restoration plan and monthly updates in writing, as well as site visits every three months to see how the restoration is proceeding.
Fogel presented a proposed restoration plan from the country club that includes planting 24 trees on the golf course for restoration of 12 trees that were cut down near the eighth hole; removing all wood chips from the buffer zone areas by hand; and removing sod from banks near the second tee and replanting it with natural shrubs.
The committee voted to have Michael DeRosa peer review the restoration plan before going forward with it. Members said DeRosa is well versed in these matters and requested to have a licensed arborist work with the peer review team.
The country club received an enforcement order in January for the removal of living trees, the grinding of stumps in the buffer zone in close proximity to jurisdictional resource areas, and depositing wood chips in buffer zones in the riverfront woods.
According to Conservation Agent Lucia DelNegro, this was the third enforcement order for tree removal action that the country club has received.
The club was approved by the commission to remove 20 trees, but ended up removing more than 200.
Fogel said the reason this additional work was done without a prior filing was because the country club believed that because the trees were in parts of the course that were already maintained by them, that work could be performed without a filing.
“They’ve become much more aware obviously through this process of the extent of the buffer zone,” Fogel said.
Lazares said that no one gave them the okay to permit them to remove all of the trees that they did.
According to Fogel, the reason Mayer tree and the architects removed trees near buffer zones was because they didn’t know where the buffer zones were since there was no delineation done.
Commissioner Travis Wojcik responded saying that Fogel has told them “nothing but lies for a year.”
“We got lied to when we asked about the U.S. Open. You lied and told us none of this was germane,” Wojcik said. “I do believe that if you are authorizing work to be done in buffer zones, and to be done in wetlands, getting that contract is 100 percent germane to us. It is important to know why you authorized it and why it was okay and what was going on… Stop trying to justify it — it’s already been done and you’re already in huge trouble for this.”
Commission members agreed that they should have learned by now since this was not the first time the country club had come to them for this matter.
“I do not care what you say because you have come before us so many times for violation orders that are in direct correlation to the same violation in this sense of cutting down trees,” Wojcik said. “The only way that we will truly know what was done and why it was done is if we see that contract (with Mayer Tree).”
Wojcik then yelled into the camera and told Fogel to be quiet.
The committee made a motion to continue this discussion at its next meeting on June 15.
“Tell us what you’re doing. Don’t surprise us — we’re in this together and I hate it being us against them,” Lazares said to the country club representatives. “It doesn’t do anybody any good. We want to restore this and make sure everybody gets to play golf.”
