Gendy AlimurungRemember those ancient oak trees in Arcadia? Chopped down by the Department of Public Works and the Board of Supervisors to make room for a sediment dump? Here's what the trees looked like before the bulldozers…and after.
Environmental activist and Arcadia resident Camron Stone took these photos. “I decided to face the music and go for a walk with my dog Nikki in the Arcadia Wastelands,” he says. “At first it was very emotional but I found myself detaching as time went on. A gigantic and very loud grinder/chipper machine was still pumping out mountains of oak and sycamore chips.”
This one below was one of the biggest and oldest of the oaks. Not sure how old a tree like that would be. Though, I suppose now we could go and count the rings. Stone nicknamed it “the patriarch.” Additionally, he nicknamed the grove “the Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich Memorial Wastelands.”
How much wood can a woodchuck chuck? Probably not more than the Department of Public Works. Here's a sycamore waiting for the grinder.
The porta-potty in the background is particularly charming. Not so much.
Stone also wrote a poem to commemorate the woodchipped trees. This is the short version:
The machines came
Critters confused
The promise of life was broken
Oak and sycamore discarded
They were there
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