QTA at Cleaner, Greener Quincy

Credit: Erin Santacroce

On May 1, members of the Quincy Tree Alliance joined organizers from Quincy Climate Action Network in cleaning up Grossman Park along Quincy Shore Drive. The event was part of the Cleaner, Greener Quincy community cleanup event that has been running for more than three decades.

Volunteers picked up many bags of trash and even found a nest of (duck?) eggs!

Credit: Erin Santacroce

Thank you, everyone, for a great inaugural event, and hope to see you again next year!

Credit: Erin Santacroce

Student winners of logo contest announced

Three local high schoolers have won $350 for logos they designed for the Quincy Tree Alliance, a new volunteer group dedicated to protecting and expanding the city’s urban forest. 

North Quincy senior Chloe Chin won the top prize of $200 for her logo, which incorporates a Quincy Center skyline; Quincy High sophomore Christiana P. Nguyen won $100 for a design featuring a leafy letter “Q”; and Quincy High sophomore Josephine Leung won $50 for a tree featuring heart-shaped leaves.

The contest, sponsored by members of the Quincy Tree Alliance (QTA), asked high school and college students in or from Quincy to design a logo for the new community organization. Fifteen entries were received by the contest deadline of April 1, and the designs were featured on QTA’s Facebook and Instagram accounts and in The Quincy Sun. Members of the public voted for their favorite entries on social media and by email, and the top six vote getters were then voted on by members of QTA, which announced the results on April 30, Arbor Day.

“We were so impressed with all of the entries,” said QTA chair Maggie McKee. “The contestants clearly put a lot of thought and effort into their designs, and that showed in the quality of the work. It made for a very difficult decision.”

In the end, the group chose three simple and striking logos for its cash prizes, with the grand prize going to a stand of trees surrounded by three historic buildings in Quincy Center: United First Parish Church, the Granite Trust Company building, and old City Hall. “We wanted our logo to have a connection to the city, and this one did so in a bold and beautiful way,” said McKee.

Chloe Chin, the logo’s creator, said she values the trees in our city. “It is important that we take care of our environment so it can take care of us,” she said.

Chin taught herself graphic design as a passion project this past year, inspired by her artistic older sister, Brenda. She did not expect to win the contest but entered because she figured she had nothing to lose. “There were so many amazing entries,” said Chin. “I felt so happy and honored to have mine chosen.” She plans to use her winnings to buy textbooks at Babson College, where she will head after graduating from North in June.

Christiana P. Nguyen, winner of the second prize and a QHS sophomore, said she is also honored to have won a prize in a contest that featured so many “unique and innovative submissions.” She is active in various environmental and social justice groups, including the Quincy High School Green Team and the QYouth Climate Movement. “I hope that we as a community can unite in the continued support of local environmental organizations like the Quincy Tree Alliance,” said Nguyen. “We need to protect and conserve the greenery and wildlife that make Quincy beautiful. This is our home.”

QHS sophomore Josephine Leung said she is grateful to have won third prize in the contest, which she entered “for fun, to experiment with something new.” Her design struck a chord with people for its warmth and simplicity. One Facebook commenter wrote, “There is power in its simple beauty. The leaves as hearts is just genius.”

The Quincy Tree Alliance is a new group that came together after concerned residents noticed mature street trees being cut down around the city in recent years. The group plans to work with local government, other community groups, and individuals to protect and grow Quincy’s tree canopy. If you’d like to learn more about QTA, visit our Facebook or Instagram accounts or email quincytreealliance@gmail.com.

Originally published in The Quincy Sun on April 30, 2021

Vote for QTA logo

Quincy Tree Alliance member Syndie Cine talks to QATV’s Joe Catalano about the 15 logos submitted to our student logo contest.

Historic treasures should be preserved

A red oak tree estimated to be 196 years old has been recommended for removal on Sims Road (Credit: Julie Mallozzi)

Imagine a machine first built in John Adams’s time that has chugged along without a hiccup for 200 years. It would undoubtedly be treated with kid gloves, and every effort would be made to preserve and protect it. Perhaps the Quincy History Museum would display it so that people could stand in awe of the engineering marvel and feel a visceral connection to the past in the rhythmic shifting of its components.

Well, such a machine actually exists – right here in our fair city. Not only that, but this machine has been proven to make people happier, healthier, and wealthier, to prevent flooding, and to fight climate change. What is this astonishing contraption? It’s hiding in plain sight, an unsung hero that makes a city street feel like part of a neighborhood: a mature tree.

Trees improve air quality, lower stress, boost moods, reduce crime levels, and improve home values. They also lower heating and cooling costs, reduce stormwater runoff, and remove the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, storing the carbon as wood and releasing the oxygen back into the air.

Mature trees are especially powerful weapons against climate change. As William Moomaw, an emeritus professor of environmental policy at Tufts, said in a Yale magazine interview: "We’ve seen a lot of interest lately in planting more trees…. These are great things to do, but they will not make much of a difference in the next two or three decades because little trees just don’t store much carbon," he said. "The most effective thing that we can do is to allow trees that are already planted, that are already growing, to continue growing."

After learning about the importance of mature trees to the climate, I was saddened to learn that the city is considering cutting down three trees estimated to be between 100 and 200 years old on Sims Road, near Beechwood Knoll School. 

I know there will be cases where mature trees will have to be taken down for safety reasons – perhaps on Sims Road. But I believe that tree removal should be done only as a last resort, after every measure to preserve the trees has been exhausted. 

One concern raised at a recent hearing about the Sims Road trees was sidewalk safety, as the roots have lifted the surrounding walkways. The city’s tree warden, Chris Hayward, mentioned that one way of addressing the issue is to get easements from homeowners to build sidewalks that curve around tree trunks and onto their land. Others on the call mentioned another workaround: building sidewalks that rise and fall like bridges over the roots. 

Mr. Hayward seemed to feel that some of these solutions would be too time consuming or costly, and certainly, city budgets are tight – particularly now, in a global pandemic.

But I would argue that mature trees are so valuable to our community – which has suffered tens of millions of dollars in storm damage in recent years – that spending money to safely preserve the trees would be cheaper than the costs associated with losing them. These costs include the damage from increased flooding – because trees slow and absorb stormwater runoff, and the loss of tax revenue from decreases in home values. (In 2008, a US government study estimated that street trees increased property tax revenues for the city of Portland, Oregon, by $13 million per year.)

Mature trees are also unmatched in their ability to soak up and lock away atmospheric carbon dioxide. The cheapest mechanical tree scientists are working to develop (which would remove carbon dioxide from the air much faster than a live tree but would not be able to store it) would cost at least $50,000.

Let’s not be short-sighted when weighing the costs of maintaining Quincy’s mature trees. We literally cannot buy machines that do as much for our, and our planet’s, health and safety. Let’s treat them as the national treasures they are and work to survey and preserve them alongside the Adams birthplaces and the Old House at Peacefield. Email quincytreealliance@gmail.com if you’d like to be part of this effort!

Maggie McKee

Chair, Quincy Tree Alliance