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by Laurie Puliafico

Increase font  Decrease font    Printable format  Email to a friend On Sunday, September, 14, 2003, Laurie P. had the opportunity to speak with some of the supporters of the Wachusett Mountain tree-sitters and has written the following report about that encounter in her own words. Traveling from Westminister, MA to Rutland, MA I decided to drive past Wachusett to see if I could notice any trees being cut to prepare for the new trails. As I passed the ski patrol building, there was a group of tree-sitter supporters sitting on the side of the road across the street from the beginners area. I slowed down as I passed. Having a skier number plate on the front of my car apparently drew their attention. I was met with “F*&# You” and other profanities. As I continued up the road I looked in my rear view mirror to see several of the members of the group giving me the finger and one member dropping his pants to me and exposing a “full moon”. When I neared the top of the hill I decided to turn around and go by again to see if I could get a picture of them or their sign. There was a car stopped there and so they were fairly quiet this time. To keep to my travel plans I turned around once again at the ski area and began to head back toward Rutland as planned. Again, I was met by foul language. So this time I pulled over to the side of the road and told them that they might have better luck at gaining support and/or sharing their views with people if they weren’t so quick to make judgements and didn’t use the profanity. I talked to them for a while and told them that I was NOT against the environment and that just because I had a ski number plate on the front of my car doesn't mean that I don't care. I told them that I had been following the situation and looking at both sides. I mentioned the studies that had been completed and the results. They calmed down and we were able to have a rational conversation. During that conversation one of the half-dozen or so members of the group was chatting with the tree sitters on a 2-way radio. Another was video-taping people who went by. A few people stopped and they handed them pamphlets and tried to engage them in conversation. The young man I was speaking with was well spoken and very firm in his beliefs. He brought up several times in the conversation that the Crowley’s were making a lot of money on this. He mentioned that in addition to the money they would earn by having a larger area for more people, the state would get a good sum of money from the lumber taken from the forest, which is why they approved the cut. He mentioned that Crowley had been over to speak with them and he asked Mr. Crowley if he cared about the environment and the answer he got was “I’m a business man”. I mentioned how Wachusett had received some environmental awards over the past few years and that I was sure that the Crowley’s did care about the environment. I brought up all of the environmental impact studies that the ski area has had conducted over the past few years. His response to this, “ You can get anyone to say what you want them to if you pay them enough. As for the awards, they were given by the ski industry, of course they are going to give them one to make them look good so they can get the expansion." He also told me that their access to the tree sitters had been cut off and they could no longer get food or water to them. He told me that the state police had vehicles up the fire road and on the trails near there 24 hours a day, blocking all access. He said that the trail heads were blocked thus closing the trails to the people. He continued to say that the police had people with night vision equipment up there to stop them and anyone attempting to get near there could be arrested. He said that they had cut off all access to the tree sitters to everyone. Another young man said that they let reporters through, but they won’t let anyone who looks as though they might be a member of their group through. During the discussion one of the young men said that yesterday, while they were cutting down trees, one of the trees almost fell on the stand that Leroy was in. A while later the other one said that they had started cutting the area, but were only cutting the ground brush. There were several other instances when these two contradicted each other as well. I reminded them that the court had spoken and that they said that they were not going to allow any more motions on this situation. They said that they weren’t going to give up and that they were going to remain in the trees and that they would win. Again they brought up the Crowley “Cash Cow” and they needed to stop them (the Crowley’s) from getting any richer. I suggested that they should be concerned with the safety of their friends in the trees. Now that the tree cutting had begun and they were shut off from bringing food and water to the tree-sitters, it might be a good idea to get them out of there before they get hurt nd find a new cause to fight for. He again said that they were not done fighting and that they were going to win and there would be no more cutting. I asked if I could take a few pictures. They said that they did not want their pictures taken so I asked if I could take pictures of their signs and they granted me permission. Ironically, they had taken my picture on the video tape that they were making. I took the pictures and we spoke for a few more minutes before I left. We agreed to disagree and I left peacefully. I decided to take a ride up the mountain to see if there were State Police blocking trail heads as they suggested. I did not see any. I did, however,see a sign saying that the area below the road was closed because of construction. This sign was not on on a trail.

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