Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont was officially ordered Thursday by his local inland wetlands agency to replant more than 180 trees and thousands of shrubs that were cut down in November on the property behind the Democrat’s Greenwich home.
Although one of Lamont’s neighbors and a neighborhood organization were also involved in clearing protected wetlands and properties they didn’t own, the wealthy governor agreed to foot the entire bill for the landscaping project to replace the vegetation, his lawyer said.
“He made it clear some time ago that he would bear all the costs,” attorney Thomas J. Heagney told The Associated Press after Thursday’s meeting of the Greenwich Wetlands and Inland Watercourses Agency.
Heagney blamed the illegal cutting of trees, which the agency director described as “clear cutting” on 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 guidance to the landscaper and the landscaper doing a little more than expected,” Heagney said.
Lamont was accused of removing trees to get a better view of a lake, an accusation he denied. The governor said the plan was to clean up trees damaged in previous storms.
Lamont and neighbors were issued a cease and correct order in November after the sound of chainsaws was heard by a property manager on part of the undeveloped land where tree cutting occurred. The manager said the work “went far beyond destroying wetland vegetation,” according to documents published by the Greenwich Wetlands and Inland Watercourses Agency.
Fred Jacobsen, director of land ownership for the Rockefeller family-owned INCT LLC, said it appeared the “massive cutting effort” had been going on for several days and that he saw more than 10 workers cutting and clearing trees and bushes. Access to the site was provided through the property of Lamont’s neighbor, wealthy businessman Alexander Vik and his wife Carrie, according to wetlands commission minutes.
Jacobsen told the commission shortly after the incident that “the people involved knew they would never have been allowed to do this if they had applied for a permit, so they did it anyway.”
Since then, several public hearings and site visits have been held to determine the extent of the damage and what should happen next to restore the coveted forests in one of the country’s wealthiest communities. There has been detailed discussion about exactly how many trees were felled and the width of replacements needed to ensure mature trees are planted.
On Thursday, Beth Evans, director of the local agency, presented her recommendations, which in some cases doubled the number of trees and shrubs to be planted that Lamont’s team of landscape architects had originally proposed. In some cases, she called for a wider variety of plantings, suggesting specific species of trees and shrubs, such as sugar maple, red-twig dogwood and witch hazel.
“This property has been cleared, where basically all the bushes and trees, all the bushes have been removed,” Evans said of one of the parcels. “And what was left was essentially bare land at the time of the breach last November. ”
Lamont’s team must also come up with plans to combat invasive plants and maintain the new trees and shrubs in the coming years. There was also discussion about placing fences in some areas to prevent hungry deer from eating the newly planted vegetation.
Heagney said Lamont is willing to comply with the director’s recommended replanting orders for the three parcels, which were unanimously approved by the wetlands board on Thursday.
“The wetlands director was looking at what she thought it would take 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 we had presented was sufficient, we can certainly work with that.”
Heagney said he does not yet have a cost estimate for the project or a timeline for when work will begin.
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