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<div><span id="AssetWebPart1_ctl00___Title__"
class="headlineArticle">You are not alone. Trees down all over
the city. Massive cuts. This is downtown Guelph. No bylaw
protection under half an acre and little on that. <br>
20 more bikes would have protected it from the ladders that were
needed to cut it... another time.. it is on youtube in timelapse
photography... Norah. <br>
<br>
<br>
Activists make last stand to save lone oak Nov 20/10 Guelph
Mercury.</span> <span id="AssetWebPart1_ctl00___PageTitle__"
style="display: none;">GuelphMercury.com - Local - Activists
make last stand to save lone oak </span> </div>
<br>
<span id="AssetWebPart1_ctl00___Author1__" class="articleAuthor">Drew
Halfnight, Mercury staff</span><br>
<span id="AssetWebPart1_ctl00___BodyLineup__">
<p>GUELPH — Environmentalists chained bicycles to one of the last
trees remaining on a strip of Carden Street in downtown Guelph
Friday in an unsuccessful bid to stop the city from felling it.</p>
<p>The mid-sized red oak was the last of more than 20 trees cut
down this week to make way for the city’s new transit hub.</p>
<p>Guelph Urban Forest Friends members Norah Chaloner and Sue
Rietschin and local musician James Gordon were among the
activists who locked a total of five bikes to the tree.</p>
<p>“It’s a symbol,” said Chaloner of the lone tree on its raft of
green in an ocean of torn-up earth on Carden. “Maybe it’ll make
them stop and think about a different way to do things.”</p>
<p>Chaloner is upset at the city for approving an $8.4-million hub
plan that, according to city Coun. Bob Bell, left nary a patch
of ground for trees and shrubs.</p>
<p>“There’s no green space. Anywhere,” Bell said, adding the hub
as currently planned will have no public washrooms.</p>
<p>Chaloner and Rietschin said the city was flouting its 2010
official plan, which calls for trees to be “retained to the
fullest extent possible” and “integrated into proposed
developments.”</p>
<p>The tree slated for removal was about 20 to 30 years old,
Chaloner said, and like any mature oak, could have hosted
hundreds of species, provided shade cover and recharged strained
aquifers.</p>
<p>“It’s a pretty sturdy oak now,” she said.</p>
<p>After locking up their bikes, the activists went to the
adjacent Travelodge where the hotel’s general manager Parimal
Gandhi looked on, visibly defeated, as police inspected the
bike. “It’s too late,” Gandhi said. “Frankly, I was opposed to
this whole project before it started.”</p>
<p>The city has threatened to expropriate part of the hotel’s
parking lot to make room for city bus bays.</p>
<p>Shortly after 1 p.m., workers buzzed off the oak’s limbs and
trunk and removed the bikes, leaving a flat stump where the tree
had stood.</p>
<p>Dave Heffernan, owner of the company removing the trees, said
the activists were “missing the bigger picture.”</p>
<p>“The whole project is to reduce pollution and get people
commuting,” he said.</p>
<p>He said many of the trees were too close to buildings anyway,
incurring maintenance costs. As well, leftover cuttings would be
used for mulch in an organic nursery, or for home heating, he
added.</p>
<p>Bell said construction is being forced through to meet a March
31, 2011, federal funding deadline while councillors plead with
upper levels of government for an extension.</p>
<p>“I really don’t want an extension. I want it to stop right
here.”</p>
<p>Some of the trees being cut down will be replaced, Bell said,
“but for the most part the entire area will be a sea of concrete
and asphalt. This project needs to be reconsidered.”</p>
<p><i><a href="mailto:dhalfnight@guelphmercury.com">dhalfnight@guelphmercury.com</a></i></p>
</span> <br>
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