This is a printer-friendly version of an article from Zip06.com.
06/08/2022 08:30 AMSome 10,000 years ago the land we now call East Haven had no trees. Not even one. The glacial ice sheet that covered the Connecticut shoreline at the time—a mile deep—destroyed everything that had grown prior to the ice age. In the centuries that followed the end of the ice age—as the planet warmed naturally—the trees came back, resulting in the woods and forests that cover the Northeast.
The trees would suffer again, as European settlers cut them down to fuel fires, construct buildings, and open land for farming to support the growing American population. But times changed again, and the trees—while always under the pressure of nature or human influence—came back yet again. Historically, trees have always been under pressure, but thankfully they are renewable and regrow if allowed.
One East Haven woman, Erika Crawford Mennone, is all too aware of the danger trees suffer, especially old trees that have grown too large and weak and must be cut down for safety.
Erika and her husband, Dustin, were only away from East Haven for a few years after they married and had moved to Hamden before they returned to purchase a house in the downtown area of East Haven and settle in.
“We bought the house we did because it had a 100 year-old maple in front of it,” Erika says.
The tree was located on the strip of land by the street owned by the town. Her fetching view of the venerable tree didn’t last long, however.
“Within the first year, the town came and cut it down,” she says, recalling her shock and sorrow.
That started the idea in Erika’s mind that she needed to replace the tree in front of her house, which, in turn, germinated the idea that as the town continued to remove old-growth trees posing a hazard, new trees should be planted to make up for the loss.
“I’ve always liked trees. We planted like 25 threes on our little quarter-acre lot in the last seven years,” notes Erika.
“Over the last few years, nearly all of the older, larger, beautiful trees in East Haven have been cut down,” continues Erika. “Not only does this remove the tree-lined historic look of our town, but it increases temperatures in the summer and removes habitat for local birds. It affects our air quality and the future of our air quality as well. I would love to try to replace as many as we possibly can.”
Trees release oxygen when they use sunlight during the process of photosynthesis to make a sugar from carbon dioxide and water, and store that sugar in the root systems. While trees also consume oxygen when they use the glucose to thrive, and release carbon dioxide in the process, trees produce more oxygen than they consume, which is released into the atmosphere for people to breathe. Destroy enough trees on the planet and the air that the planet’s evolutionary processes created over hundreds of millions of years will be quickly compromised, putting most life a risk, including humans.
This is of great concern to Erika, and she’s adamant about doing her small part to help protect trees and the vital support for human life they provide.
In 2021, Erika approached the chair of the Town Council to see what could be done to plant more trees in town, for both their beauty and the vital service they provide as oxygen producers.
When Erika spoke with the Town Council chair, she said, “We talked about purchasing the trees ourselves and going street by street to see who would want a tree and we would plant it in front of their house.”
Although the idea was appreciated, Erika says there did not seem to be a lot of motivation to follow through. The idea was even floated to invite UConn students to come to East Haven and plant trees, “but that never really took off,” Erika says.
Driven to press on with her dream of seeing old-growth trees replaced with saplings, Erika recently learned about the West Hartford Tree Project.
“They’ve done this in West Hartford for two years now,” explains Erika, “where they raise funds, buy [young] trees, and distribute them in the community to anybody who wants them.”
When Erika approached the West Hartford Tree Project, she found that they had extra trees this year.
“So, we drove up to West Hartford and picked up four trees,” says Erika.
She also contacted the founder and asked for advice on how to launch a tree project in East Haven.
The inquiry was met with exuberance, and Erika was given a step-by-step plan for what she could do to get the ball rolling and establish a fundraiser.
“And that’s where we are right now,” Erika says, having set up a GoFundMe page. “We’re in the fundraising stage to buy trees to give away to East Haven residents and businesses that want them.”
Looking back, Erika says she recalls the first five years of her life growing up on Concord Street in the Morris Cove section of New Haven. And she remembers the giant sycamore trees.
“I don’t know if it’s a very young childhood thing,” she says, “but it doesn’t feel like a neighborhood without trees,” making a giant canopy of leaves over the street. “Almost every street in East Haven, at least where I am in the center of town, there are just stumps, and it’s barren,” she says, adding, “And I just don’t know why nobody’s replacing the trees.”
“The timeline right now is to fundraise through the summer and purchase, distribute, and plant the trees this fall,” states Erika. “If you think this is a great idea, then please donate to the project.”
For those without the funds to donate, Erika says, “I am looking for volunteers as well. We will be distributing hopefully many trees this fall and will need a small team to sort organize and hand out [the saplings].”
She’s hoping to follow in the footsteps of the West Hartford Tree Project, and her goal is to raise $1,200 to purchase 1,000 one- to two-year-old old native saplings to give away to any East Haven resident or businesses willing to plant them on their property.
Erika notes that if people are concerned about trees eventually becoming too large and falling on houses or disrupting power lines, “smaller trees can be planted like dogwoods, that wouldn’t go into the power lines,” she says.
For more information and to donate, visit www.gofundme.com and search “East Haven Tree Project.”