WEBSTER TOWNSHIP, MI - The Washtenaw County Road Commission is continuing to move ahead with cutting down more than 100 trees along Mast Road north of Dexter.

Residents who've been fighting for weeks to save the trees are continuing to speak out in protest, while the commission maintains the trees need to come down for safety reasons.

More than 300 people are now members of the Facebook group Save The Dexter Trees, where the loss of the trees is being mourned.

Hundreds of others have signed petitions to stop the cutting of trees on both Mast Road and North Territorial Road, but the commission isn't caving to the pressure.

"We are making good progress on the tree removals," Road Commission spokeswoman Emily Kizer said this week.

"The weather has slowed us up a bit," she said. "We are on track to finish all tree removals by the end of March, as is required by the state to protect two species of bat."

Some of the trees that have been cut down in recent days were believed to be hundreds of years old.

Webster Township resident Leslie Panzica-Glapa, described by one of her friends as an "earth warrior," tried to save one of the larger Mast Road oaks measuring about 13 feet around by standing guard in front of it earlier this week. She eventually left and it was cut down.

"It's a shame to lose all these trees. It's heartless," she said, estimating the oak she stood by was more than 200 years old.

The Road Commission is overseeing the effort to cut down hundreds of trees within 10 feet along either side of parts of Mast Road and North Territorial Road, saying it will improve safety after several cars have gone off the roadway and hit trees in recent years.

The cutting on North Territorial already started by the time many area residents learned Mast Road was next, and that spurred many into action. Many showed up to a Webster Township board meeting last month to protest the cutting, and heart-shaped signs reading "save me" and yellow "caution" tape were placed by residents on several trees. "R.I.P." signs have been placed on stumps.

The work along Mast Road and North Territorial is costing roughly $950,000, the Road Commission has indicated.

The commission secured a federal safety grant to cover about 90 percent of the costs.

Kizer said that the majority of the funding is going to two culvert/bridge replacements.

That includes a culvert along Mast Road near Strawberry Lake Road that will be replaced with a bridge, and a culvert along North Territorial over the Wagner Drain that will be replaced with a box culvert.

Both of those will include guardrails, another important safety feature, Kizer said, indicating construction will be done this summer.

Fonson Company Inc. is the main contractor and was awarded the contract through a competitive bid process monitored by the Michigan Department of Transportation, Kizer said. Owen Tree Service is the tree-removal subcontractor for the project.

Kizer said most of the trunk wood is going to property owners in the project area who requested wood.

"The rest of the wood, limbs and trunks will either be chipped on site and removed or removed from the project area and disposed of by the contractors," she said. "They own the wood once it has been removed. This procedure was built into the contract with the contractors, as is typical in tree removal work."



The Washtenaw Bicycling and Walking Coalition weighed in on the debate over the Mast Road trees last month, sending the Road Commission a letter saying the group is highly concerned the tree removals will result in an increase in "design speeds," making drivers feel like they can go faster after the trees are gone. That's likely to exacerbate an already dangerous environment for cyclists and pedestrians, said WBWC Board Chairwoman Erica Briggs.

"We recognize that creating clear zones is an often utilized safety countermeasure, but WBWC is concerned that the removal of trees along Mast Road will increase the risk of bicyclists and pedestrians being hit and killed or seriously injured along this corridor," Briggs wrote in the letter. "Numerous studies suggest that the presence of trees along rural roadways can increase a driver's peripheral vision flow, which allows drivers to better calibrate their speeds, resulting in a traffic calming effect."

The Road Commission responded by saying that, if it had pursued a 20- to 30-foot clear zone as recommended by traffic standards, there would have been a risk that road speeds would have increased.

"Fortunately, we decided on removing target trees within approximately 10 feet from the edge of the roadway," Kizer said. "This plan will result in the removal of approximately 100 trees along the 2.8-mile section of road and will leave thousands of trees on Mast Road. The character of Mast Road will not change; it will remain a tree-lined country road. Since the character of the road is not changing, we believe the average speeds will remain where they are today."

Kizer said all of the trees within 10 feet of the edge of the roadway will be removed and there will be no exceptions.

"Right now crews are working on getting the planned trees down and they will be back for stump grinding and tree trimming," she said.

Some critics of the project claim the tree removals are only happening because the Road Commission wanted to secure federal grant funding for the culvert/bridge replacements and the inclusion of tree removals made the commission's grant application a stronger contender. The grant money is channeled through MDOT.

"We are removing trees along these sections of road because they are too close to the road and we are replacing the culverts/bridges because they need to be replaced and are safety hazards," Kizer said in response, though she acknowledged the commission believed including tree removals would make the grant application stronger.

"We strive to put together grant applications that have a good chance for success in the competitive grant process," she said. "We felt that combining the culvert/bridge replacement with tree removal would be a desirable combination to help improve safety along these corridors and have a chance of receiving funding."

She said the grant application was evaluated and the granting agency, MDOT, felt it was a worthy project.

"Given the years of underinvestment in infrastructure, we do our best to find additional funding sources like grants. We are proud that our staff has a high success rate for our grant applications, this allows us to better serve the traveling public," she said.



Panzica-Glapa, who stood guard by one of the oaks this week, said she's been traveling on Mast Road her whole life.

"I don't even want to drive down Mast anymore because I get so sad," she said of the loss of trees. "They say it's for safety reasons, and there's no way taking these big trees can provide us safety."

Police reports for crashes on Mast Road from 2012 to 2016 indicate cars have left the roadway because of people driving drunk and recklessly, driving too fast for road conditions, swerving to avoid a deer, falling asleep at the wheel, and in one case veering off the road to avoid a Road Commission snow plow.

Hundreds of trees also are being cut down in Pittsfield Township as part of plans for paving Textile Road and creating a 1.3-mile non-motorized path through a Pittsfield nature preserve. The Road Commission also has drawn criticism from some residents over those tree removals.

"I have not cried so much in years," Pittsfield resident Christina Lirones wrote in an email this week. "Our beautiful Preserve and the Pittsfield Preserve Neighborhood are now devastated. People who see it had no idea this was happening and are horrified."