Mayor Bloomberg has declared April MillionTreesNYC Month, part of his highly publicized initiative to plant one million new trees by 2017. Yet Thursday, city attorney Susan Shapiro couldn’t answer a judge’s questions about how many trees have been cut down for the controversial sports fields project on Randall’s Island.
“The city doesn’t know the number of trees, because the contractors never got a permit,” claimed Geoffrey Croft of NYC Park Advocates, who cites sources close to the project. He estimates that thousands were cut down.
“You need a permit to remove a tree,” said former Parks Commissioner Henry Stern, who pushed for a city law against the illegal destruction of trees, or “arborcide.” “People could be fined up to $15,000 and it can extend to a short term in jail,” Stern said.
Contractors are required to have forestry permits issued by the Parks Department before removing trees, Stern said. But the department has refused repeated requests by Metro for the Randall’s Island forestry permits.
