Clear-cut

Lincoln Boulevard Extension is a rarely traveled dead-end capped by a warehouse-type commercial building. That being the case, few Middlesex Borough residents are likely aware of the drastic landscape change occurring there.

The Environmental Commission, however, is attempting to sound an alarm, saying that without vigilance, this could be just the beginning

Since Oct. 1, hundreds of trees have been removed from property adjacent to the building housing Central Jersey Dance & Gymnastics.

The clear-cut acreage will eventually hold a water retention basin, part of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Green Brook Flood Management Project. The much-discussed floodwall being constructed in Middlesex is visible a few hundred yards away.

Inside – Middlesex viewed the site on Monday afternoon, Nov. 24. It comprises acres of desolation, large trees and tree parts strewn throughout. At one end, heavy equipment sits next to a pile of tree trunks, the scene reminiscent of a logging operation.

Environmental Commission Chairwoman Clare Levourne is concerned what the feds’ clear-cutting might mean for the future. “I want to know who is negotiating for us?” she said, noting there is more flood project work to come.

The commission serves as an advisory panel to the mayor and Borough Council.

An Army Corps project map shows work being done adjacent to Mountain View Park in 2028 and behind Middlesex High School in 2030. Those work areas will comprise much more acreage than what’s occurred on Lincoln Boulevard Extension.

Clear-cutting in those project sections, would be visible to many more Middlesex residents on a regular basis than the somewhat secluded Lincoln Boulevard Extension work.

Levourne noted that the hundreds of trees removed recently along the extension are in addition to an estimated 7,000 trees cut down previously in Middlesex during the flood management project.

Large-scale tree removal contributes to erosion, loss of wildlife habitat, climate impacts, soil compaction and stormwater runoff.

“When it’s not flooding, all this is for naught,” Environmental Commission Vice Chairman Mike Schneider said while gazing at the extension work site.

Levourne and Schneider brought their concerns to Mayor Jack Mikolajczyk and the council at the governing body’s Tuesday, Nov. 25 meeting.

“The devastation I saw was unbelievable,” Schneider said. Noting there are wetlands on the extension site, he added, that the project “totally destroyed a whole eco-system.”

“It looks like they’re going to put in an Amazon warehouse,” Schneider told the mayor and council. “Acres and acres of property were just clear-cut.”

Levourne asked who represents the borough in attempting to get design concessions from the feds.

“There really are no negotiations with the borough,” Department of Public Works Supervisor Len Vidal said of the Army Corps. “They get their approvals from the (state) DEP.”

Vidal said the Army Corps is willing to pay for compensatory tree planting elsewhere in the borough, but does not replant over retention basins. Typically the borough’s point man with the Army Corps, Vidal offered to include Levourne in future talks with the feds about Mountain Valley Park flood work.

It was anticipated that trees would be removed on the Lincoln Bouelvard Extension site, Vidal concluded, but not the number the Army Corps ended up eliminating.

“We were aware they were going to take down trees,” Vidal said, “but we didn’t know they were going to take down trees all the way to the curb.”

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