Governor of Connecticut. Ned Lamont was officially ordered Thursday by the local Domestic Wetlands Agency to replant more than 180 trees and thousands of shrubs cut down in November on land behind the Democrat’s Greenwich home.
Although one of Lamont’s neighbors and a community group also were involved in logging protected wetlands and land they don’t own, the wealthy governor has agreed to foot the entire bill for the landscaping project to replace vegetation, his attorney said.
“He was clear some time ago that he would bear the full cost of this,” attorney Thomas J. Heagney told The Associated Press after Thursday’s meeting of the Greenwich Inland Wetlands and Watercourses Agency.
Heagney blamed the illegal felling of trees, which the agency’s director described as “obvious felling” in one of the three affected parcels, on a miscommunication between Lamont and the landscaping company he helped hire.
“It was really a matter of the governor giving general directions to the landscaper and the landscaper doing just a little bit more than expected,” Heagney said.
Lamont has been accused of removing the trees to get a better view of a pond, a charge he has denied. The governor has said the plan was to clear trees damaged by previous storms.
Lamont and the neighbors were issued a cease and desist order in November after a property manager heard the sound of chainsaws on a section of vacant land where the trees were being cut down. The manager said the work “went far beyond the destruction of wetland vegetation,” according to documents from the Greenwich Inland Wetlands and Watercourses Agency.
Fred Jacobsen, real estate director of the land owned by INCT LLC, property formerly owned by the Rockefeller family, said it appeared the “massive cutting effort” had been going on for several days and that he saw more than a dozen workers felling and cutting. clearing trees and shrubs. According to wetlands committee minutes, access to the property was gained through properties owned by Lamont’s neighbor, wealthy businessman Alexander Vik and his wife Carrie.
Jacobsen told the commission shortly after the incident: “Those involved knew they would never be allowed to do this if they had applied for a permit, so they did it anyway.”
Since then, multiple public hearings and site visits have been held to determine the extent of the damage and what needs to be done next to restore coveted forests in one of the nation’s wealthiest communities. There has been extensive debate over exactly how many trees have been felled and the required width of the replacements to ensure mature trees are planted.
On Thursday, Beth Evans, the local agency’s executive director, outlined her recommendations, which in some cases doubled the number of trees and shrubs to be planted than Lamont’s landscape team had originally proposed. In some cases, she called for a wider variety of plantings, suggesting specific types of trees and shrubs, such as sugar maples, red dogwoods and witch hazel.
“This site was bare, with virtually all shrubs and trees removed,” Evans said of one of the plots. “And what was left was essentially bare ground at the time of the violation last November. ”
Lamont’s team also must come up with plans to combat invasive plants and preserve the new trees and shrubs for years to come. There was also discussion about installing fencing in some areas to prevent hungry deer from eating the newly planted vegetation.
Heagney said Lamont is willing to adhere to the director’s recommended replanting orders for the three parcels, which were unanimously approved by the wetlands board Thursday.
“The wetlands director looked at what she thought would be necessary to restore the area,” Heagney said. “And while, as I said at the hearing, we thought it was a little more than was necessary, because we thought the plan that we submitted was sufficient, we can certainly move forward with that.”
Heagney said he does not yet have a cost estimate for the project or a timeline for when work will begin.
