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Months before Governor Lamont’s illegal massacre of more than 180 trees on his own “protected” wetland property in back-country Greenwich, and coincidentally following the postponement of proposed strict tree-cutting regulations on private property in Greenwich, the Governor presided over an even greater tree massacre. This culling was carried out by the Connecticut Department of Transportation (CT DOT) along the I-95 corridor where thousands of trees have been removed over the last year or two.
The trees are gone and noise pollution for Greenwich and Stamford residents has unfortunately increased substantially. Motorists now have a clear view of graffiti on resident’s fences and walls, just beyond the stark train tracks and power lines.
But there’s more – the tree removal has revealed tons of garbage, including toxic waste barrels, that were illegally dumped and clearly visible to motorists traveling through Stamford.
The piles of garbage include old mattresses, numerous tires, paint cans, plastic litter, as well as two propane tanks and a few oil drums, and that's just by where Wilson Street crosses I-95 in Stamford.
Why hasn’t the garbage been removed after all this time?
This illegal dump is clearly visible to motorists, although the spring vegetation is beginning to cover some of it.
The blight is visible to more than just the adjacent community on Wilson Street — which has
complained about this for years — but perhaps the state and City of Stamford will finally do something now that Lumberjack Lamont is in the news for his personal chainsaw massacre.
“Most of us [in the neighborhood] have sent a letter. I don’t know where these people are coming from. Every night they are dumping mattress [sic.], garbage,” said one resident who declined to identify herself.
So much for Lamont’s “environmental justice” initiative, which the “people of color” on Wilson Street might think is nothing more than disingenuous virtue signaling after this experience.
According to the CT DOT, it knows full well that transportation projects and investments have had "adverse effects on the quality of life" in certain communities by "increasing pollution or physically bisecting them." CT DOT further acknowledges that the "benefits and costs of transportation investments have often been distributed inequitably" and that historically underserved communities often bear "a higher share of the burdens of the transportation system and lower share of the benefits."
That's why CT DOT says it's been committed to "ensuring environmental justice is addressed throughout the planning, design, construction, operations, and maintenance of projects across all travel modes." It allegedly does this by "identifying and addressing disproportionately high and adverse effects of the agency's programs, policies, and activities on people of color and people who have low incomes to achieve an equitable distribution of benefits and burdens."
The process of achieving transportation equity is supposed to include full participation by all potentially affected communities, except it doesn't appear to have happened in this case.
Nonetheless, CT DOT still believes that "equity and environmental justice" are essential to the transportation network, and says it's "fully committed" to "equity and inclusion" whatever that means.
Have Governor Lamont and Stamford Mayor Caroline Simmons not noticed the extreme blight? Surely they must pass by this eyesore on a regular basis considering they live there.
How do Governor Lamont and local leaders expect to attract new residents and employers to the area when the place is literally a dump?
In response to complaints from Fairfield county residents, including from the Town of Fairfield, Greenwich and Stamford, Connecticut Lawmakers sought to replace the trees but abandoned their efforts when it became evident that it would be very expensive.
Welcome to Governor Lamont’s and Mayor Simmons' “Gold Coast.”
