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Those who drove around the Asbury Circle Friday were met with a jarring visual. Hundred year-old oak and pines trees were being cleared from the perimeter.

“The great looking tall trees around the Asbury Circle are being cut down one after the other,” was Don Brockel’s first message. “Yes some should go down…..but the ones I saw are perfectly good trees and are being dropped like dominoes and damaging other trees [that they say are staying].

What followed were telephone calls and e-mails from community and state leaders to get to the bottom of why the New Jersey Department of Transportation [NJDOT] was clearing the trees.

“It just makes me sick to my stomach,” Brockel said via telephone. “Those oaks and pines were solid.”

The Sun reached out to NJDOT Communications office and was told by a spokesman that they would get back in touch. No call back or e-mail was sent at time of press.

In a Clean Up NJ news relese statement the NJDOT said, “Landscape designs are included in many of the Department’s capital improvement projects to address aesthetics and to mitigate other impacts. Over periods of time, the landscape features mature, outlive a functional service life, decline from drought, insects or diseases, get overrun with invasive plants or are damaged from weather events.”

Ocean Township Mayor Christopher Siciliano said he was not informed of the clearing but by day’s end learned the NJDOT was purging the area of sick and dangerous trees.

“They thinned it out pretty good,” Siciliano said. “I know they had to take some out but let’s face it, those trees survived major storms – how bad could they have been.”

Siciliano and Asbury Park Mayor John Moor expressed concern over how the clearing will affect nearby ponds and lakes.

“These trees went through sandy and they went through Irene,” Moor said. “My concern is the potential of future flooding – where’s all this water going to go. I’m just hoping they have a good storm water management plan because the water has to go somewhere.”

Assemblyman Eric Houghtaling [D-Monmouth] said the trees were examined by the state and deemed to be either diseased, dying or internally decaying.

“A lot of the trees had Black ants that can devastate a tree rather quickly,” he said.

Houghtaling, who also had no prior knowledge of the clearing, said he is working to determine the state agency’s plan for replanting the area. The former Neptune Mayor said he knows there were concerns over trees in the area damaged during Hurricane Sandy.

“The remaining trees seem to be leaning or are pruned in a bad way,” he said.

According to Ocean Township Environmental Commission Chair and Shade Tree Commissioner Ray Pogwist, mature trees soak up 40,000 gallons a year and 40 percent of rainfall.

Without them, the area is headed for the possibility of flooded roadways and more storm water runoff into the ponds and nearby lakes, Brockel said.

“They could have definitely could have done more due diligence,” Brokel said. “Happy Earth Day – just a disgrace.”

[Photos courtesy of Don Brockel]

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