Alliance joins movement to save Merritt Parkway trees

    The Norwalk Tree Alliance has added its support to the campaign of the Merritt Parkway Conservancy to preserve the trees bordering the parkway that are designated for destruction, supposedly for safety considerations.

     The alliance, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting Norwalk's urban forest canopy, expressed its position in an appeal e-mal to Commissioner Joseph Marie of the Connecticut Department of Transportation and other state officials.

    Marie has taken the conservancy's concerns under advisement.

    Dave Tracy, the president of the alliance, told Marie "the irreparable cutting down of trees is removing the defining elements of the parkway."

    Tracy described the parkway as "a treasured Connecticut landscape." He suggested the transport department should work with the conservancy and professional consultants to replant the appropriate trees and shrubs to restore the parkway's unique bucolic character which he reported has already been damaged in Fairfield and Trumbull. 

    He added "further tree removal without their concurrence is unacceptable."

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