The Belmont Silver Maple Forest: Environmental Value and Development Impact

1. The Silver Maple Forest (Belmont Uplands) & The Impact of Development Charles J. Katuska, MFS,PWS Consulting Ecologist “The aesthetic, wildlife, watershed protection, and wood production values of these (suburban) woods will increase in every future decade” - Lloyd Irland

2. What Is It ? • The Belmont Silver Maple forest is a mixed association of various wetland and upland plant communities on about 15 acres. • Silver maple (Acer saccharinum) dominates the central core of the site. • Unusual, relict forest community in this context

3. The Belmont Silver Maple Forest ARLINGTON Route 2 Little Pond Acer saccharinum BELMONT CAMBRIDGE Little River

4. Silver Maple (Acer saccharinum) A native floodplain tree species with specific autecological values - • Provides an important wildlife food resource (newly broken buds) at a critical time of the late winter • High value food source for beaver, second only to alders • High value for cavity-nesting wildlife • Shallow fibrous root system well adapted to reducing erosion and stabilizing soils

5. This well-grown, diverse, and regionally uncommon forest stand exists in a unique context

6. Locally Unique Forest Context(USGS GAP Analysis for Biodiversity) Menotomy Rocks Park ARLINGTON Spy Pond BELMONT UPLANDS LITTLE POND Cambridgepark City Infirmary BELMONT CAMBRIDGE Fresh Pond

7. The Belmont Silver Maple Forest Forested land always provides value to the urban environment • Maintains and improves air quality • Maintains and improves water quality • Reduces volumes of stormwater runoff • Provides important wildlife habitat • Recreation • Aesthetics • Educational Value

8. The Belmont Silver Maple Forest Provides additional site-specific functions and values here - • Serves as an important “core habitat” adjacent to Little Pond and the Alewife Reservation • Size and Shape • Land Cover Type • Relative Seclusion in Context • Provides a significant reserve within a network of other habitat patches for the continued preservation of area-sensitive species

9. Now, the Belmont Silver maple Forest is the site of a substantial development proposal -

10. How would the Development (commercialor residential) of the Silver Maple Stand affect Forest values ? • Add pollutants and additional stormwater volume to an already stressed receiving water system • Directly eliminate core wildlife habitat and reduce the quality of remaining habitats • Reduce air quality in the immediate area and contribute to local/regional air quality problems • Eliminate the opportunity for recreation in the development area itself and reduce the quality of the recreation experience in undeveloped portions of he site • Eliminate the locally unique and regionally significant floodplain forest aesthetic experience

11. Final Considerations • The environmental values of the Belmont Silver Maple Stand are not solely related to wildlife habitat or the protection of its surrounding wetlands. • The development of the Belmont Silver Maple Stand will substantially eliminate its forest values and will degrade the forest & forested wetland values of the remaining land and the adjacent public open space. • Potentially significant forest values do not flow to the community under current private ownership.