Environmental Impacts

Effects of deforestation on the Berkshire Urban Forest

DEFORESTATION: Deforestation accounts for more than 30% of all the carbon dioxide emitted into the earth’s atmosphere and this greenhouse gas is responsible for the major symptoms of climate change. The planned conversion of the Berkshire Urban Forest into a “Mountain Bike Park” will involve the deforestation of many parts of the Berkshire Urban Forest in order to enable “daylighting” (tree thinning and widening of the trails and footpaths for expanded bicycle and offroad vehicle access) and mountain bike trail modification. The result will be a decline of the Berkshire Urban Forest’s net productivity and the eco-services of water conservation and carbon sequestration (sinks) of the oak-hickory forest community. The latter, a key natural solution to climate change, will degrade further with the destructive increase of mountain bike park development, construction and activity, including NEMBA sponsored races throughout the forest.

This will in turn lead to a cumulative decrease in the hydrological and hydraulic ability of the Springside Park soil and bedrock aquifers to transmit adequate surface and groundwater supplies to wetlands, surface lakes and streams, nearby wells and reservoirs of the Upper Housatonic Watershed and adjacent Pittsfield Watershed. The water catchment basin of the meadows and fields will be severely compromised by the loss of surface water interception, infiltration and percolation into the underlying aquifers. The mountain bike deforestation will also negatively impact bird and wildlife bio-diversity with the widespread destruction of bird and wildlife breeding, roosting, foraging habitats and predator evasion cover.

URBAN FORESTS ARE CLIMATE CREATORS AND SUSTAINERS

Just like the 2 and half million square mile Amazon tropical rain forest in Brazil with its millions of trees and jungles discharging a world circling envelope of moisture and benign atmosphere, similarly, urban forests with their modest complement of trees contribute valuable atmospheric moisture (through leaf transpiration and root, branch networks) temperature modification, humidity controls, rainfall, wind buffering, and biodiversity conduits to the city environments in which they grow. Evaporation and condensation from almost infinite leaf surfaces in effect extends an ameliorating climate umbrella over entire cities with a nurturing insulating blanket of air that no air conditioner can imitate, let alone replace and through its green exurban corridors contribute invaluable life giving elements of biodiversity to the natural and agricultural landscapes outside.

In 2019, many cities have declared a “climate emergency” and since have developed comprehensive strategies to improve management of their woods and trees.The climate emergency movement, led by Greta Thunberg, Fridays For Future, and Extinction Rebellion, had reached a tipping point, where thousands of people around the world began advocating for change and demanding real action from their governments. This led to many governments and cities declaring a ‘climate emergency’ and setting goals to be carbon neutral by the next 20 years.

Mitigating climate change is one of the most urgent and significant environmental challenges of cities and communities and that trees, woodlands, and other forms of green infrastructure are a key part of the solution.

Trees and woodlands are part of the fabric of Pittsfield and provide a huge array of benefits that can help address urban challenges such as poor air quality and flooding. Yet they are under constant threat, whether it’s from urban expansion, challenging growing conditions, from pests and diseases or by recreational expansion into the urban forest resulting in plant, animal and watershed degradation.

It is important to make our forest assets more resilient to the impacts of climate change. Climate risks must be considered when making decisions on a wide range of programs and activities that support the well-being of Pittsfield, Berkshire County and the great Commonwealth of Massachusetts as a whole.

Climate Change Fact Sheet

PRINCIPAL ANTHROPOGENIC EFFECTS TO THE EARTH FROM CLIMATE CHANGE, DEFORESTATION, URBANIZATION AND TERRAFORMING

· CUMULATIVE GLOBAL WARMING SINCE THE START OF THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION - (1.1 CENTIGRADE DEGREE FROM 1900) FROM INCREASING C02 RATES, (280 PPM- 422 PPM CURRENTLY- AS OF 6/22).

· CATASTROPHIC BIODIVERSITY LOSS-THE SIXTH EXTINCTION. MORE THAN 1/3^RD OF ALL ANIMAL AND PLANT SPECIES ARE IN DANGER OF EXTINCTION BY THE END OF THE CENTURY. ONE SPECIES IS GOING EXTINCT EVERY 20 MINUTES ACCORDING TO THE IUCN - THE INTERNATIONAL UNION FOR THE CONSERVATION OF NATURE. THREE BILLION BIRDS HAVE DISAPPEARED SINCE 1970.

· WATER AND AIR POLLUTION. THREE QUARTERS OF THE EARTH’S 7.8 BILLION PEOPLE LIVE ON POLLUTED LAND AND WATER.

· URBANIZATION AND AGRICULTURAL EXPANSION. THREE QUARTERS OF THE EARTH’S LAND SURFACE IS MODIFIED OR TERRAFORMED FOR US AND NOT THE NATURAL WORLD.

· DEFORESTATION. EVERY SIX SECONDS A FOOTBALL SIZED AREA OF AMAZON RAIN FOREST IS CUT DOWN. MASSACHUSETTS LOSES 3,000 ACRES OF FOREST EVERY YEAR. ONE BILLION, 500 MILLION TREES WERE CUT DOWN BETWEEN THE YEAR 2011 AND 2019. 5 MILLION ACRES OF TROPICAL RAIN FOREST WAS DESTROYED IN THE BRAZILIAN AMAZON IN 2020.

· “STUCK WEATHER” FROM THE SLOWING OF THE JET STREAM WHICH IMPEDES THE MOVEMENT OF WEATHER SYSTEMS AND STORMS ACROSS THE COUNTRY AND THE WORLD. DROUGHTS OR FLOODS BECOME STATIONARY BECAUSE OF THE STATIC INFLUENCE OF SHRINKING NORTHERN HEMISPHERE WEATHER IN RESPONDING TO GROWING SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE WEATHER.

CLIMATE REPLACEMENT- WARM WEATHER IS MOVING NORTH. FOR EXAMPLE, IN THE NEXT GENERATION, THE CLIMATE OF THE NORTHEAST WILL RESEMBLE THAT OF THE SOUTHEASTERN STATES.

· EXTREME WEATHER EVENTS FROM THE INCREASING AMOUNT OF WATER MOISTURE IN THE ATMOSPHERE AND INCREASING LATENT HEAT ENERGY PRODUCED BY EXCESSIVE EVAPORATION AND CONDENSATION OF OCEAN WATERS. CATEGORY 5 HURRICANES AND TROPICAL SYSTEMS BECOMING MORE FREQUENT.

· RISING SEA LEVELS FROM THE MELTING ICE CAPS (ANTARCTIC AND GREENLAND) AND MOUNTAIN GLACIERS. ESTIMATED 1-4 MM ANNUAL RISE FLOODING OF THE WORLD’S COASTS WHERE MORE THAN 800 MILLION PEOPLE LIVE.

· PERMAFROST THAWING IN CANADA, SIBERIA AND ALASKA RELEASING METHANE (MORE POTENT THAN C02 AS A GREENHOUSE GAS) AND DESTABILIZATION OF ARCTIC LANDSCAPES, ROADS AND INDIGENOUS CULTURES.

· OVERFISHING AND DEPLETION OF MAJOR FISH STOCKS FROM WASTEFUL COMMERCIAL FISHING TECHNOLOGIES-(OTTER TRAWLS, PURSE SEINES) RESULTING IN THE ENDANGERMENT OF THOUSANDS OF FISH AND AQUATIC SPECIES)

· AGRICULTURAL SOIL LOSS. 75 BILLION TONS OF TOPSOIL LOST EVERY YEAR DUE TO WASTEFUL INDUSTRIAL AGRICULTURAL PRACTICES.

· WORLDWIDE WIDE GLACIER LOSS- (50% OF THE WORLD’S GLACIERS HAVE DISAPPEARED SINCE 1900)-AND COLLAPSE OF ANTARCTIC ICE SHEETS, SHRINKAGE OF ARCTIC SUMMER ICE IS INCREASING EXPONENTIALLY EVERY YEAR. THE IMMINENT COLLAPSE OF THE THWAITES GLACIER IN WEST ANTARCTICA WITHIN 20 YEARS COULD RAISE WORLDWIDE SEA LEVELS MORE THAN 2 FEET AND 6 FEET BY THE END OF THE CENTURY. THWAITES IS CALLED THE DOOMSDAY GLACIER FOR THIS REASON.

· CLIMATE TIPPING POINTS AND NEGATIVE FEEDBACK LOOPS. PARTS OF AMAZON RAIN FOREST ARE NOW CARBON EMITTERS RATHER THAN CARBON SINKS, AMOC, (ATLANTIC MERIDONAL OVERTURN CIRCULATION-GULF STREAM) STRENGTH AND DIRECTION CHANGING, ACCELERATION OF ICE MELT IN NORTHERN HEMISPHERE DUE TO DISAPPEARANCE OF SUNLIGHT REFLECTIVE ICE AND SNOW- RESULTING IN MORE ABSORPTION OF ULTRAVIOLET AND RE-RADIATION OF INFRARED CAUSING MORE ICE MELT. A CATCH-22 SITUATION.

· OXYGEN MINIMUM ZONES (ANOXIA) IN THE WORLD’S OCEANS FROM PHYTOPLANKTON BLOOMS DUE TO AGRICULTURAL NITROGEN AND PHOSPHORUS RUN OFF.

· “INSECT APOCALYPSE” A 0.9% ANNUAL DECLINE OF WORLDWIDE INSECT POPULATIONS DUE TO PESTICIDES, HERBICIDES AND HABITAT LOSS, IMPERILING THE POLLINATION OF FOOD CROPS SUCH AS CITRUS AND WORLDWIDE ECOSYSTEM STABILITY.

· INCREASING SALT INFILTRATION AND CONTAMINATION OF COASTLINE FRESHWATER GROUNDWATER AQUIFERS DUE TO RISING SEA LEVELS AND COASTAL DEVELOPMENT.

· PREMATURE TREE AND PLANT FLOWERING RESULTING IN AN ASYNCHRONOUS INSECT APPEARANCE FOR MIGRATING AND NESTING NEO-TROPICAL BIRDS RESULTING IN INSUFFICIENT FOOD SOURCES FOR POPULATION RECRUITMENT.

· “UPSLOPE INCURSION” OF LOWER ELEVATION TREE SPECIES INTO BOREAL OR SUB-ALPINE FORESTS RESULTING FROM A WARMING CLIMATE.

· DROUGHTS, WILDFIRES, CREEPING ARIDIFICATION. 2019 AUSTRALIAN FIRES KILLED OVER 900 MILLION ANIMALS AND BIRDS. MEGA-DROUGHT OF THE WEST COAST.

· LOSS OF FOREST ECOSYSTEM INTEGRITY. ONLY 40% OF WORLDWIDE FORESTS AROUND THE WORLD HAVE “HIGH ECOSYSTEM INTEGRITY.” (17.4 MILLION SQUARE KILOMETERS)

· OCEAN ACIDIFICATION. INCREASING AMOUNTS OF CARBON DIOXIDE DISSOLVED IN THE WORLDS OCEANS RESULTING IN A LOWER CO2 SATURATION STATE THAT THREATENS THE CALCIFICATION OR SHELL FORMATION FOR THE WORLD’S SHELLFISH, CRUSTACEANS AND CORAL REEFS. SOME SCIENTISTS PREDICT THAT THE CO2 SATURATION STATE OF THE WORLD’S OCEANS BY 2060 WILL DROP TO 3.5. CURRENTLY THERE IS NO PLACE IN THE WORLD’S OCEANS THAT HAS A SATURATION LEVEL ABOVE 4. A SATURATION LEVEL BELOW 1 AND CORAL REEFS WILL STOP PRODUCING POLYP SKELETONS.

· WILDLIFE HABITAT LOSS DUE TO INCREASING URBANIZATION AND DEFORESTATION. HABITAT LOSS IS THE NUMBER ONE FACTOR IN WILDLIFE SPECIES DECLINE AND EXTINCTION.

· MIGRATION OF LOWER ELEVATION BIRD AND ANIMAL SPECIES TO HIGHER ELEVATIONS WHICH DISPLACES BOREAL OR NORTHERN NATIVE TEMPERATE SPECIES THAT HAVE EVOLVED IN COLDER CLIMATES.

Effects of invasive plants species on the ecology of the Berkshire Urban Forest

Invasive Plant Species: A key negative environmental impact point resulting from the construction and development of the NEMBA pump track and expansion of mountain bike trails in the Berkshire Urban Forest will be the chronic spread of invasive plant species. The soil degradation, erosion, compaction, modification and “daylighting” of the footpaths and trails will encourage and facilitate the colonization of such plants as Japanese barberry, Asiatic bittersweet, Japanese Stiltgrass, Japanese Knotweed, Eurasian Mugwort, Burning Bush Euonymus and Tree of Heaven, (Alianthus) that will force out the less aggressive, less adaptable native plants of the urban forest ecosystem. Poison Ivy will also increase as a result of the trail modifications that favor its competitive sunlight seeking nature.

The resultant botanical inertial dominance of these invasive plant species will inevitably force out the communities of indigenous native wildflowers that took years if not decades to establish themselves within the Berkshire Urban Forest. Populations of many uncommon plant varieties (orchids, edaphic or micro-niche dependent specific forest wildflowers and rare ferns) will eventually disappear from the original forest mosaic of New England ecology as a consequence of these invasive plants that capitalize on human disturbance.

Effects of forest pest pathogens on the Berkshire Urban Forest community

Foreign Forest Pest Pathogens: Epidemics of foreign forest pest pathogens will also become problematic and increase with time as mountain biking will aid their transmission through the bike tire treads, clothing and equipment. Such invasive insect pests as gypsy moths (Lymantria dispar), the Emerald Ash Borer, (already responsible for the deaths of millions of ash trees across the US), Hemlock Wooly Adelgids and Asian Longhorned Beetles will increase in number throughout the park as mountain biking continues.

Outbreaks of forest defoliation from these foreign forest pests will increase as climate change droughts weaken the forest tree community and make it more susceptible to these infestations. Uncontrolled transport of woody plant materials on mountain bikes and incoming bike campers and vehicles will become a chronic foreign forest vector that will further damage the health of the entire urban forest community.

Effects of air pollution on the Berkshire Urban Forest

Air Pollution and Acid Rain: A serious negative impact point from the construction of the mountain bike pump track and bike park will be an increase of air pollution and acid rain in the Berkshire Urban Forest that will damage the net primary productivity, climate creation, maintenance and hydrological contributions to the groundwater systems of the Pittsfield and Upper Housatonic Watersheds. Suspended aerial clouds from idling car, truck, and camper auto fumes in the pump track parking areas contain toxic carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, ethylene and mercury emissions which will poison the air of the urban forest resulting in deciduous and evergreen tree leaf yellowing, burn and eventual decline of tree health. Wet and dry acid rain deposition from the interaction of summertime fog and mist with nitrous and sulfur dioxides of vehicle tailpipes will also combine to create a lingering toxic atmospheric brew directly affecting nearby trees. The problematic tree health of the nearby American Chestnut nursery is another potential negative environmental consequence of increased air pollution in the Berkshire Urban Forest from the creation of the mountain bike park.

Effects of dogs on the Berkshire Urban Forest

Springside Park

Dog Waste

Besides being unsightly, animal waste can be hazardous to the health of our residents and our children who play in our parks. In addition, one of the most common forms of disease transmission between dogs is through fecal matter.

Dog waste carries diseases to which young children are especially susceptible.

It takes the joy out of outdoor activities — kids play on the grass, and families enjoy picnicking.

It wreaks havoc on the ecosystem — the natural beauty people come to enjoy.

It has been shown to raise harmful bacteria levels in nearby wetlands, ponds and streams.

All animals poop- what’s the big deal if dogs do their business in the forest? Domestic dogs are far from native species and doggy diets more closely resemble human diets than what our native canines are eating in the forest. In other words, it more closely resembles human feces, aka, raw sewage. Domestic dog feces contains bacteria, viruses, and parasites that can cause problems for wildlife and humans alike. Just like everything in the forest all of this excrement will eventually make its way into the watershed and the additional nutrients it contains can promote growth of certain algae in our lakes, ponds, and streams. Aside from the obvious “ick” factor of massive algal blooms, this algae can block sunlight from other aquatic plants and when it dies and decays it sucks oxygen out of the water, potentially harming aquatic animal life as well.

Dogs affect forest plants, animals and watershed

Studies have shown that even properly leashed dogs that stay on the trail result in less wildlife within up to 300 feet of that trail. Off-leash dogs cover more ground, more quickly, and more loudly, and even the best-trained dog will have moments where their instincts take over when they see quick movement out of the corner of their eye. They’ll chase whatever animal it may be, heading off trail in the process and seriously stressing out the animals in the area while disturbing potentially delicate vegetation, causing increased soil compaction, and increasing erosion off the trail. Not to mention the times when the dog actually catches what they were chasing. The Berkshire Urban Forest is a delicate system and our goal is to be able to maintain this balance between limited human use and the preservation of native plant and animal habitat. Dogs contribute to the upending of this balance.

Some people have phobia of dogs resulting from serious trauma they endured when a dog attacked them earlier in their life and how stressful it was to have so many owners let their dogs run right up to them. The friendliest dog with the best of intentions can still inspire fear and post-traumatic stress in people that may share in this trauma in a place where many come to seek a sense of peace and place. The Berkshire Urban Forest is a shared environment where simple courtesies go a long way towards ensuring a positive experience for all users.

Dogs, leashed or unleashed are highly infective vectors of forest pest pathogens, invasive plants and ticks which are transported through fur or feet.

Dogs interrupt the daily processes and rhythms of bird nesting, breeding, foraging and the recuperative rest of native and migratory birds in the forest. Dogs initiate emigration of ground nesting birds by their discovery and destruction of nests found on the forest floor.

Dogs transport the urushiol oils on their fur and feet of poison ivy to people, other dogs and surfaces, which is responsible for the itchy poison ivy dermatitis that afflicts millions of Americans every year

Dogs disturb forest wildflower communities through their continuous digging or disruptive exploration in delicate soil litter micro-niches.

Continuous deposits of dog urine and feces destroys the natural bio- chemical equilibrium of leaf litter soil decomposition, decay and nutrient recycling that is integral to the forest ecology.

Dogs are conveyors of ticks and the seeds of Japanese Barberry on their paws or fur. Japanese Barberry is an invasive plant species that is a breeding reservoir for the Black-legged Tick, the vector of Lyme's Disease.

Dog traffic compacts and erode trails in the woods leading to an ecological prejudice that encourages invasive plant colonization through the alteration of leaf litter/soil surfaces and disruption of micro-climates that favors the more aggressive invasives over the vulnerable less adaptable native species such as True Solomon's Seal or Dwarf Ginseng.

Effects of mechanical vehicles on the Berkshire Urban Forest

ECOLOGICAL IMPACTS - ATVS ORVS MOUNTAIN BIKES AND SNOWMOBILES

THE HUMAN FOOTPRINT

Human footprints pressuring our shrinking green spaces and urban forests also include the motorized and non-motorized recreational vehicles that intrude, invade, degrade and destroy the ecological matrices of precious woodlands, wetlands, fields, meadows and shorelines containing the bio-diverse populations and species of wildflowers, birds, wildlife daily disappearing at an alarming rate in this age of The Sixth Extinction.

All -Terrain Vehicles, (ATV’S), four wheel drive off road vehicles, (ORV’S), “quad-runners”, dirt bikes, snowmobiles and mountain bikes have irreparably damaged many of the landscapes, national parks, forests, city and state parks all across the nation to the point that attempted trail restoration or mitigation has become, at the very least, an exercise in futility with environmental bandaids that neither repair or cover up their extensive corrosive trail influences. These recreational vehicles chewing up the forest trail surfaces, disturbing wildlife and producing negative effects of forest soil compaction, flooding, erosion and alteration of hillsides and mountain ridges have another thing in common-they all provide avenues for further human disturbances of deforestation, logging, development and epidemics of invasive plant, animal and forest pest pathogen colonization.

Motorized ATV’s, ORV’S and dirt bikes, (“quadrunners”) thick lugged tires grind away the trail soil to the bedrock, spraying displaced soil to either side, compacts trail soils which then allows rainwater channels and pools to form and creates new aquatic habitat for mosquitoes, negatively changes forest floor water drainage patterns which weakens and exposes tree roots leading to trail side tree toppling, produces a roar of engine sound that disturbs birds and wildlife for miles around, alters the trail side edaphic plant micro-niches so that only the most aggressive invasive adaptable plants hang on or flourish, provides more trail entry route exploitation and disturbance and produces a new arid climate regime in the forest favoring young successional tree species over slower growing climax or mature forest species by encouraging “gap” species to capitalize on the new sunlit open spaces.

In the winter snowmobiles take up where the summer and fall ATV’s, ORV’s left off. Snowmobile track treads compacts the snow on the trail that allows for the formation of ice channels that erode the trail surfaces below with deep cutting spring melt-water runoff streams that undercut the snowpack on either side further destabilizing the snowpack and eroding forest floor soil (and tree roots) on the hillsides. These snowmobile trails are a negative geomorphic dynamic altering the behavior of winter active animals such as deer which use them to access areas previously denied them, freeing them from their confinement in winter “yarding” areas. The noise, exhaust fumes and disruptive activity of snowmobiles in parks and forests adds another layer of human disturbance to the quiet and peace of the winter woods.

The craze of non-motorized mountain biking which culminated in the late 1970’s in California and then moved east is a major negative environmental ” human foot print” that is second only to the impacts of motorized ATV’s and ORV’s in their disruptive severity to the forest and park trails, wildlife and geomorphology across the United States. Their ease of access to any terrain, whether on mountaintops or coastlines has not limited them to their widespread chronic and cumulative impacts on the green spaces, state parks, national parks or wilderness areas or municipal urban forests and their growing conflict with other trail users (hikers, birdwatchers, campers) has been growing for years. Mountain bikers have even collided with livestock and wild animals because of their far reaching trail abilities. The California based International Mountain Bike Association published rules of etiquette for mountain bikers in response to their abuse of trails, but their unchecked and unsupervised negative environmental influences continue.

Mountain biker use compacts and erodes the trails, forms gullies and water runoff sloughs and pools, create berms and ridges and high crowns on the trails that channel rain water off the sides, flooding low spots and wetlands in the woods. During the summer these pools become mosquito breeding habitat. Mountain bikers often “cross-cut” or “shire shred” off the main trails into delicate wildflower and wild animal habitats, scaring away nesting birds, either through the noise of their peddling and clanking gears, shouts or disturbing group behaviors. The mountain bikers are a major component of songbird emigration (and subsequent biodiversity loss) because they deter and disturb their nesting, foraging and resting cover Mountain bikers also leave trash and refuse behind from their biking camps and even cut down impeding trees and shrubs (without official park permission) that block their way. Mountain bikers even, (also without proper permission), modify some of the trails into mountain bike jumps or raceways. Mountain biker impacts also include the erosive effects of slope destabilization whereby the uphill torque pressure of the outsized tire treads shear and spray trail soil down the hillside slopes. On muddy trails which have a thick organic base (as in the Berkshire Urban Forest of Springside Park) this has the effect of permanently disfiguring and removing the entire soil profile right down to the bedrock. Forest soil profiles take millennia to develop and once removed are impossible to restore to their original state. It takes 500 years to develop one inch of forest soil. Mountain bike trails are often “daylighted” where trees and shrubs are cut down to accommodate the bikers who wish to eliminate curves or blind spots that obscure their vision and this increases the trail entry visibility that invites still more human disturbance and the increasing size of the human footprint.

MOUNTAIN BIKERS DON’T OBEY THE RULES

OF ETIQUETTE WHILE ON THE TRAIL

IMBA – International Mountain Bike Association

NEMBA – Northeast Mountain Bike Association

IMBA started in 1988 as a result of public outcry against the drive to exploit natural resources and degradation of ecosystems for mountain biking recreational purposes.

In 2002 the International Mountain Biking Association based in Los Angeles, Ca. published six rules of etiquette for mountain bikers to be used while on the trail, none of which are seriously followed and in the years since, their documented abuse of forest trails, impacts on park ecology, conflict with animals and with other trail users have only increased, not decreased as this nefarious outdoor recreation activity has gained in unfortunate popularity. Here are five of the IMBA rules of trail etiquette that are flouted every day and their violations will only multiply exponentially in Springside Park if the Pump Track is constructed.

1. IMBA advises mountain bikers to Ride on Open Trails only. Really? IMBA (the International Mountain Biking Association) and NEMBA (the New England Mountain Bike Association) trail etiquette does not apply when “kamikaze riders” muscle their way onto every trail past hikers, strollers, birdwatchers or casual pedestrians using the shared use park or forest trail networks. Mountain bikers are not cautioned, constrained or warned against about either going off-trail into private property, thru delicate ecosystems or into wildlife habitats. IMBA asks riders to “respect” trail and road closures, but this seldom happens and every trail they see in Springside Park will be fair game for them to use and abuse. Their cross-cutting, shire-shredding and trespassing activity will become even more rampant and routine in Springside Park if the pump track is built.

2. IMBA’s admonition to mountain bikers to “Avoid Zero Impact” especially on days when the weather turns trail surfaces muddy is also impossible (a joke) because their mountain bike activity of turning, braking, skidding and sliding, compacts, erodes and ruts the trails they are riding on. To try and “observe the different types of soils and trail construction” and practice so-called “low impact cycling” is irrelevant for mountain bikers when they are trying to go as fast as they can to obtain the maximum thrills of speed on the trails. The contradictory policy of the City of Pittsfield’s Park Commission has given carte blanche permission for the Berkshire Mountain Bike Race Training Series to run weekly “RACES” of up to 1,300 attendees through the Springside Park Urban Forest for the 3 summer months (June, July and August) for the past 7 years. Zero impact protocols issued by IMBA and NEMBA for MTBR’s in Springside Park are ignored and a devil-may care attitude will proliferate among bikers and transform the park into a free-for-all riding circus harming the ecology of the urban forest.

3. IMBA’s third and fourth rule for mountain bikers to Control Their Bicycles and to Always Yield the Trail when it comes to sharing the trail with others is also wishful thinking. Incidents of wildlife and people/biker collisions are rife and growing, with mountain bikers intimidating other trail users, or hitting animals a daily occurrence. Blind-siding, and side-swiping are frequent. “Biker inattention” incidents will multiply as the number of riders flood into the park after the pump track is constructed. “Yielding The Trail” is not part of their behavior or vocabulary because they are single-minded individuals in pursuit of their “sport”.

4. IMBA’s fifth rule to mountain bikers on “Never Spooking Animals” while riding is also impossible and their frequent collisions and disturbance with wildlife and domestic animals is constant and chronic. In Springside Park, the wildlife and birds are similarly frightened and declining/dying (deer, opossum, raccoon, bear, bobcat, fisher, turtles, snakes, salamanders, porcupines, woodchucks, muskrats, otters, birds and foraging birds of threatened and of special concern: Mourning warbler, Vesper sparrow, Northern Parula and Blackpoll warbler). Mountain bikers cannot see around curves or blind spots at any speed and their unannounced approach to animals is responsible for constant accidents.

IMBA and NEMBA rules of trail etiquette and respect for others on the trails are merely suggestions and never seriously followed by mountain bikers because their sport does not permit the luxury of acquiescence to protocols of polite behavior.

THE 15 MAJOR DIRECT AND INDIRECT NEGATIVE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS ON MUNICIPAL AND STATE PARK TRAILS AND ECOLOGY FROM MOUNTAIN BIKING.

THE FIRST FOUR MOST VISIBLE AND DIRECT IMPACTS FROM MOUNTAIN BIKING CONSISTS OF SOIL COMPACTION, MUDDINESS, SOIL DISPLACEMENT AND EROSION.

1.Massive geomorphological compromise of woodland trail surfaces that create soil compaction from bike tread incision, torque twisting, turning and braking and from the weight of trail riders leading to sheet, rill and gully washouts.

2.Braiding of trail networks from shortcutting across bike trails due to avoidance of muddy pools and sloughs (created by mountain bike erosion).

3.Reversal of trail gradients from erosion and lateral soil dispersion which create bars, dips and berms across mountain bike trails and walking paths degraded by mountain biker abuse.

4. Exposure and loosening of tree roots from chronic mountain biker trail erosion leading to tree toppling and further degradation of soil surfaces and disruption of native plant communities and diversion of natural water runoff channels away from wetlands leading to localized flooding and accumulation of sediments or pollutants in adjacent wetlands.

5.“Daylighting” The deforestation of forest edges from mountain bike trail development in order to widen or make mountain bike trails more accessible to bikers.

6. Shredding and trampling of forest, field and meadow edge plant communities from repeated crosscutting by bikers into sensitive plant communities.

7. Mountain bike tire tread transportation of the seeds of invasive plant species such as Japanese Stilt Grass, Japanese Knotweed and Japanese Barberry. Japanese Barberry is a major breeding reservoir for Black Legged Ticks- a vector of Lyme’s Disease.

8. Trash and litter problems including human waste, sanitary waste and toxic refuse.

9. Human pollution from mountain bikers like chemical, oil and cleaning solvents running off from bike track infrastructures that could impact adjacent ecosystems.

10. Noise pollution and intrusive biker behavior that disturbs delicate foraging and nesting habitats of migratory and resident bird species; especially vulnerable at risk, including MESA Threatened, Endangered or “Special Concern” species (Northern Parula, Blackpoll Warblers, Mourning Warblers, Vesper Sparrows, Meadowlarks, Bobolinks or The American Bittern) leading to their emigration and biodiversity loss in park habitats where they nest or migrate through.

11. Isolation, segregation and fragmentation of amphibian and reptile vernal pool habitats from erosion and diversion of spring and fall migratory amphibian pathways aggravating current and chronic amphibian biodiversity loss.

12. Alteration of edaphic plant communities that encourage the spread of invasive plant species and poison ivy that thrive in soil compacted, shredded or disturbed soil habitats.

13. Alteration, disturbance and degradation of MESA Endangered, Threatened or Special Concern wildflower or plant communities by repeated mountain biker incursions into their threatened community micro-niches.

14. Disturbance and forced emigration of sensitive wildlife species such as deer, bear, mink, fisher, otter, marten, porcupine which require extensive undisturbed breeding and feeding habitats to raise their young. Chronic Mountain biker intrusion discourages their residency.

15. Trail entry exploitation leading to increased forest and field disturbance and degradation.

These are just the minimum negative impacts generated by mountain bikers in vulnerable open green space.

Ecological, biological and hydrological assessment, diagnosis and prognosis of the environmental impacts generated by the proposed NEMBA (New England Mountain Bike Association) mountain bike pump track project in Springside Park, Pittsfield, Massachusetts and the Direct and Indirect ecological consequences to the core habitats and the multi-wetland complexes that surround the 2.3 acre project site.

By Victor C. Capelli, Field Ecologist and Environmental Analyst

The following document is an Environmental Impact Statement (E.I.S) of the NEMBA/ Powder Horn LLC 2.3 acre mountain bike pump track project site in Springside Park, Pittsfield, Massachusetts based on their design plan submitted to the Pittsfield Park Commission, the Pittsfield Conservation Commission and the City of Pittsfield and approved by the Pittsfield Parks Commission on December 21st of 2021. This environmental study and prognosis of negative environmental impacts is based on the eyewitness scientific evidence of the many injurious environmental and ecological effects of mountain biking in city, state and national forests in the United States (and Canada) that is documented in the scientific literature and personal field survey work (as the Naturalist of Springside Park, 1991-2004) on Springside Park forest ecology, fields, wetlands, wildlife, bird species, micro-niches, hydrology, soils and geology.

Mountain biking is an active recreation activity that has become a chronic existential environmental problem in city, state and national parks across the country and this analysis is done with the aim of focusing on the many negative aspects of this destructive form of recreation that is degrading the ecology of our dwindling open green spaces, with particular reference to the ongoing crisis of mountain biking impacts on the Berkshire Urban Forest of Springside Park.

This paper is divided into two parts. The first part is a review of the specific environmental degradation generated by mountain biking; both the geomorphic and the ecological effects produced by mountain biking, mountain bike trail creating and the biological impacts of disturbance that these recreation activities inflict on the biota, flora and fauna of city, state or national parks. The second part is a discussion of the environmental impacts of mountain biking in Springside Park, with a specific look at the environmental impacts on the wetlands, endangered and special concern plants and animals, wildlife habitats, meadows and forest woodlands that the proposed NEMBA and Powder Horn project and its eco-toxic ramifications throughout the entire park ecosystem; including increased auto emissions from the influx of traffic for the NEMBA pump track and the expansion of mountain biking trails.

NEGATIVE GEOMORPHIC AND ECOLOGICAL EFFECTS FROM MOUNTAIN BIKING

Ever since mountain biking has become the craze for outdoor recreationalists beginning back in the 1970’s, the subsequent effects of these off road bikers has become apparent to anyone walking in our city, state and national parks. There are four common forms of soil degradation caused by mountain biking: 1) compaction 2) muddiness 3) soil displacement and 4) erosion. The initial trail use compacts the portions of the trail that get the most traffic use (center), lowering the tread surface creating a “cupped” cross section that intercepts and collects surface water-which in flat sections (most of Springside Park for example) can form pools and muddy sections. The visual geomorphic destruction from the repeated braking, skidding and shear forces produced by the outsize tire treads has resulted in numerous physical scars such as muddy sloughs and pools on trails from repeated passage of consecutive bikers over days, weeks and months. The compaction of soils along mountain bike trails leads to ruts, berms, cupped treads and “braiding”-where alternate trail paths are created from avoidance of bike created ponds. Erosion and muddy runoff in highly organic soils is a key problem on mountain bike trails and Springside Park’s organic soils derived from alteration of glacial parent materials is no exception.

Mountain bikers displace or loosen soil on unconsolidated trail surfaces leading to soil loss and shredded vegetation along trails. Sediment laden runoff water flows along the incised tread and rutted ridges. The loosened soil is diverted into lowlands along the trail creating a “reversal of grade” and out-sloped treads on either side of the trail (a constructed dip or bar). Physical compaction of the trails by mountain biking is a major effect from the weight of the biker. The bike creates sheet and gully washouts that further erode the trail surface. In most parts of Springside Park, the eroded paths have exposed tree roots, exposing underlying bedrock and forest topsoil from more than ten years of mountain bike abuse.

A study by Cessford in 1995 did a summary of environmental trail impacts by hikers, motorcycles, horses and mountain bikers which emphasized the two types of force exerted on soil surfaces. The first impact was the combined weight of the bike and rider compressing and compacting the trail surface. The second kind of impact was the rotational shearing force from the turning rear wheel. Cessford found that mountain bikes produced the greatest amount of torque with tread abrasion from slippage going uphill only a little less than that of engine powered motorcycles, quad-runners or ATV’s.

Mountain Bikers skid and bank at high speeds around turns and sprays soil outside of the turn. This “tread incision” further degrades the soil surface. Tree roots are exposed from the constant trail abrasion which weakens the trees grip on soil and leads to eventual toppling.

Mountain biking affects water resources like wetlands with laterally dislodged sediments carried downslope into wetlands where water organisms live, affecting the DO (dissolved oxygen), which diminishes fish and salamander egg laying success. Mountain bike trails intercept and alter water pathways that feed into springs and seeps. This diverted water can flow along some distance of the trail altering the riparian aquatic ecology of the area.

Springside Park’s seven different kinds of wetlands are very vulnerable to this kind of pollution generated from mountain bike trail compaction, erosion and lateral soil displacement. Mountain bikers can also pollute nearby wetlands with pathogens, human refuse and exposed human waste (cryptosporidium, giardia, campylobacter etc.).

CUMULATIVE SYSTEMIC DIRECT AND INDIRECT NEGATIVE EFFECTS ON

THE SPRINGSIDE PARK ECOLOGY FROM THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE

NEMBA BIKE PUMP TRACK AND USE OF BIKE TRAILS, WITH AN EMPHASIS

ON RAMIFYING ECOLOGICAL EFFECTS IN THE SURROUNDING PITTSFIELD

NEIGHBORHOOD

Introduction

Since the inception of Springside Park with the initial donation of land by the Miller family in 1910 (with additions of 1939, 1950 thereafter) the varied habitats and mosaic ecologies of the 237 acre city green space and urban forest have undergone many changes; including the development of recreational venues that have fragmented the park landscapes into original multi-use recreation areas (softball fields, playgrounds etc.) for Pittsfield residents and visitors alike. However, Springside Park remains first and foremost a vital urban forest containing integral pieces of New England Upland including secondary field succession, wetland complexes, patches of intermediate-late stage deciduous forest, edge ecology and vernal pools that provide unique ecosystem services such as groundwater recharge to local aquifers, migratory bird flyway “hot spots”, living habitats for mammals, reptiles, amphibians and a floristic sanctuary and repository for 318 documented species of native vascular plants, trees and shrubs, not to mention the Vincent Hebert Arboretum which serves as a horticultural laboratory, tree library and educational resource for the Pittsfield community.

The scope of this environmental assessment is to provide an ecological and an environmental scientific lens focused on the harmful effects on the environment of Springside Park by the proposed construction of the NEMBA pump track facility and the associated ecological degradation and destruction by the mountain bikers on the Springside Park landscape.

Critical to this ecological analysis is the understanding that the Springside Park urban forest has multiple ecological niches with at least 7 types of freshwater wetlands,(calcareous fens, palustrine swamps, emergent and sub-emergent swamps, riparian corridors, wet meadows, vernal pools), fragments of remnant mature deciduous forest, upland edge habitats, typical New England successional old growth fields, “pole stage” deciduous forest and of course, the Vin Hebert Arboretum of ornamental trees, plants and shrubs. Evidence of nineteenth Century farm use, discovery of Native American artifacts (arrowheads) and a rich cultural past has also produced an urban park with rich cultural history. The Springside House for instance has a Historical Landmark designation and dates back to the middle of the Nineteenth Century. Also, the wetlands of this urban forest have provided the City of Pittsfield its first source of fresh water at the turn of the 19th century.

The NEMBA bike pump track, hardscaped infrastructure facility will deal a collective catastrophic physical, ecological and hydrological impact to the urban forest’s eco-services which city residents have depended upon for generations, over 100 years. The following environmental impact statement diagrams what this “atrocity in the woods” represents to the green world of Springside Park’s urban forest.

One of the most important realizations of mountain biking is that as a “nature based” ACTIVE (not passive as some would imply) outdoor recreation activity, is in its curvilinear asymptotic nature of use on the physical environment which is documented by recreation ecology (Cole 2004). The more bikers that “shred”, disturb and erode the trails, the more their highly destructive influence on the physical and biological environment increases exponentially. Anybody who has walked on the many Springside Park trails has seen the dramatic negative effects of mountain bike use and abuse. This will only increase when the pump track is built and new trails are punched in, with existing trails widened (“daylighting”) to accommodate the hordes of more mountain bikers expected to flood into the park.

It should be noted that even very low levels of mountain bike use on trails will cause a great deal of environmental degradation. (Mountain Biking: A review of The Ecological Effects, February 2010- Mistakis Institute Prepared for Parks Canada, Michael Quinn, Grea Chernoff, Faculty of Environmental Design, University of Calgary.)

The significance of the direct ecological impacts of mountain bike use and abuse is a function of areal extent, longevity, intensity and vulnerability of attribute or threat. This latter function has a visible impact on wild flower plant populations because of their rarity, beauty and irreplaceable value. There are four direct negative impacts on the ecology by mountain biking: 1) soil erosion, compaction, water runoff and flooding 2) vegetation, from the shredding effects on plant community, diversity, population size and structure 3) wildlife, the extent to which an outdoor recreational activity disturbs wildlife populations through mortality, behavioral stress, noise, removal of habitat and disturbance. This is reflected in inevitable downward trends of populations through emigration out of the affected habitat 4) water, siltation and pollution runoff into wetlands that contains either nutrients or other pollutants from infrastructure construction or as pathogens into a watershed. (A Conceptual Model of the Ecological Effects of Outdoor Recreation, Monz et al 2010) The amount of use, activity type and distribution of use directly affects the biota and these changes are often irreversible in the highly vulnerable and fragile ecology of Springside Park.

ECOLOGICAL IMPACT POINTS ON SPRINGSIDE PARK AND TROPHIC CASCADES EMANATING FROM THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE NEMBA PUMP TRACK PROJECT AND MOUNTAIN BIKE TRAIL USE.

Specific negative ecological, edaphic, biological, micro-niche, ambient and geomorphological impacts from the NEMBA project are broken down into areas of synergistic influence that is characterized by an ecological ripple effect radiating out from the clear cutting, land clearing, hardscaping and creation of pump track infrastructure that will include new trails and infringement on Vin Hebert Arboretum green space. There will be at least 12 major ecological discernible impacts in the park as a consequence of the NEMBA project. They are as follows.

1).-Mountain Biker Noise Pollution Impacts

The greatest direct environmental impact on the ecosystem of Springside Park from the installation of the NEMBA pump track and the creation of more mountain bike trails and usage by mountain bikers will be a great increase of ambient noise levels inflicted on the birds that nest in the park. The park has already suffered from a notable decline in migratory neo-tropical bird populations from the destruction of neo-tropical overwintering habitats in Central and South America and the Caribbean, in addition to the loss of North American breeding habitat for both native and migrating birds due to urbanization and suburban sprawl. (At least three billion birds or more than 1/3^rd of the world’s population have disappeared since 1970.) The NEMBA pump track infrastructure and expansion of activity will only hasten the emigration of bird species which require peaceful undisturbed nesting habitat in order to breed and raise their young.

Anthropogenic noise affects all the taxonomic groups, but vegetation in terrestrial systems buffers noise better than in aquatic systems because water transmits noise faster and has more lasting effects on ecosystems. The removal of trees, shrubs and vegetation, called “daylighting” will aggravate the intrusive and ecologically destructive impact of mountain bike noise.

A U.S. National Science Foundation funded study (California Polytechnic State University Journal Nature, November 2020) found that physical damage by noise to birds affected stress responses, fright or flight avoidance responses, foraging, changes in reproductive success and communication. Environmental scientists conducted a survey of data bases collected by citizen scientists (bird watchers, amateur ornithologists) and that in some 142 species in North America (58,506 nests)- “birds living in forested environments tend to be more sensitive to noise than birds in open environments”. Further, “noise pollution delayed nesting for birds whose songs are a lower frequency and thus more difficult to hear through low-frequency human noise.” The constant clacking of derailleur gears, shouting, braking, sounds of skidding, jumping from one obstacle to another are all examples of the pervasive interruptive manmade sounds that fits into this category of low frequency noise pollution that invades the breeding and nesting habitats of birds in forest ecosystems. The Berkshire Urban Forest of Springside Park will be another casualty of this pollution affecting the biotic health of forest dwelling songbirds. Doug Lacey, Program Director in the National Science Foundation’s Division of Environmental Biology said; “although birds live in the same world we do, they experience it in a profoundly different way-they see and hear better than humans and are more sensitive to light and noise.”

Natalie Van Hoose wrote in Research News (University of Florida) of a recent study (Proceedings of The National Academy of Sciences, January 8^th 2018) that ”adults and nestlings of three different bird species exhibited elevated stress hormone levels caused by noise pollution because of anxiety, distraction, and hyper vigilance or predator awareness,”. The constant noise created an “acoustic blanket” muffling and masking audio cues used to detect predators, competitors and members of their own species population.

Rob Guralnick, study co-author and Associate Curator of Bio-Diversity Informatics at the Florida Museum of Natural History found that “nestlings had smaller size and reduced feather development.” The stress corticosteroids in the three species of songbirds- Western Bluebirds, Mountain Bluebirds and Ash-throated Flycatchers was significantly lower than birds in more normal environments. Low cortico stress hormone levels in birds showed that the bird’s bodies had decreased their baseline levels of hormone as a “means of self-protection.” In other words, the bird’s endocrine system had developed a fail-safe mechanism of minimizing the deadly internal biological damage produced by environmentally induced stress corticosteroids.

Guralnick added; “These birds can’t escape this noise. It’s persistent and it completely screws up their ability to get cues from the environment. They’re perpetually stressed because they can’t figure out what’s going on. Just as constant stress tends to degrade many aspects of a person’s health, this ultimately has a whole cascade of effects on their physiological health and fitness. This study shows noise pollution reduces animal habitat and directly influences their fitness and ultimately their numbers, and by doing so, it makes it harder for animals to survive. Taken together, that’s a pretty damming picture of what human-made noise can do to natural populations of animals.” This study also noted that a “10% increase of decibels in noise over the natural ambient levels resulted in a 90% decrease in the animal’s listening area.” Put into context for Springside Park, every time a mountain biker rides up a trail he is creating an element of noise that is disruptive and detrimental to the birds living and nesting there. Eventually, they just give up trying to nest in the midst of such noise disruption and move somewhere else.

2) - “Oligotrophic Amplification”

In ecology, scientists have classified an “oligotrophic lake” as an aquatic ecosystem that contains sparse flora and fauna with low nutrients, a narrow trophic (energy) network of few producers, consumers or detritivores, excess organic bottom ooze and a high B.O.D produced by anerobic bacteria. So too, in terrestrial ecosystems that are disturbed or degraded will also have a corresponding low biodiversity characterized by a trophic imbalance that ramifies into neighboring “micro-niches” or habitats which correspondingly become increasingly biologically compromised. (A bog is considered to be a natural oligotrophic ecosystem because of a lack of nutrients like nitrogen.) Similarly, a terrestrial oligotrophic ecosystem acts like an ecological “lens” that affects adjoining wildlife or bird populations by discouraging colonization or nesting. The larger this oligotrophic “island” grows the more chronic and cumulative the negative biologic effects are transmitted to the surrounding healthy ecosystem. Healthy food webs and food chains are negatively affected by adjoining ecosystems that have deficient numbers of either keystone species or bottom rung producers that would otherwise supply them with food or breeding habitats.

This trophic island of food web imbalance often expands through oligotrophic corridors (linear dead zone strips) connecting other biological islands in an increasing “ripple effect”. Examples of this is now occurring in the tropics where vast amounts of rain forest is being clear cut (150,000 acres a day) and the “biotic islands “are reduced to smaller and smaller pieces. Since a biotic pyramid is constructed out of the base line of green producers upwards to herbivores to carnivores, scavengers, decomposers and detritivores; a “trophic cascade” develops where destruction of green producers and consumers results in a highly degraded, unbalanced and unhealthy ecosystem. Every organism in the food chain or pyramid is thus negatively affected and results in more bio-diversity loss.

The biological and ecological effect of forest fragmentation and disturbance creating this oligotrophic magnification is directly linked to the permanent habitat fragmentation caused by human development or outdoor recreational venues in natural green spaces such as mountain biking. Former Colorado Parks and Wildlife District Wildlife Manager Jim Haskins said that “New mountain bike trail construction will likely result in permanent habitat fragmentation. Habitat fragmentation impedes the movement of wildlife across landscapes. Looped trails may create lands of habitat that may be avoided entirely by wildlife.” (George Wuerthner, Impacts of Mountain Biking, The Wildlife News, June 18^th, 2019) The expansion of the mountain bike trails will aggravate the deforestation of the Berkshire Urban Forest and increase the “island effect” of shrinking bio-diversity.

Dr. Brian Horesji (Wildlife Biologist in Canada) has indicated in study after study that “bikes can displace bears and other wildlife.” He discussed the cumulative impacts about the demand and need for refuge from humans is greatest when human use is highest, usually on weekends.” Further, he noted, “previously un-biked niches in the landscapes are of disproportionate value during these peak periods. So what happened? These refuge habitats were dissected by bike roads, which is destructive enough, but bike use also peaks on weekends, aggravating habitat loss at a time when demand/need for it is greatest, so the negative impact of biker use is not linear in relation to the increased number of bikes, but exponential given the elevated need by wildlife.”

The oligotrophic amplification generated by forest fragmentation and the human footprint accelerates forest tree pathogen vectors transmitted by bikers, (air pollution from increased car traffic, dogs (unleashed or leashed) and mountain biker abuse) will overwhelm Springside Park ecology to the point of no return. No amount of adequate ecological (re-wilding) mediation will effectively cure this chronic and cumulative environmental impact, save a quarantine of any human development in these ecologically sensitive areas. Through the creation of the NEMBA project, ecological frameworks will no longer be able to support a rich floristic community or abundant fauna affecting the surrounding forest, wetlands and fields. Even the Vin Hebert Arboretum, which requires a healthy insect pollination base for its many ornamental trees and plants, will be negatively affected by the absence of floristic variety and the supporting ecosystems. The ecological integrity of the park will be lost and eventually this ecological dead “zone” will expand out to include adjoining neighborhoods.

3) - Accelerated invasive plant colonization.

Perhaps one of the greatest impacts associated with outdoor recreation, (dog-walking, camping, hiking, mountain biking, off-road motor-biking, zip-lines and snowmobiling) is the transmission of invasive plants and the forest pest and disease pathogens such as the Emerald Ash Borer, Hemlock Adelgids and Spotted Lantern Fly. A pernicious effect of mountain biking includes the spread of Lyme’s disease through the Black Legged Tick by the transportation of Japanese Barberry. Japanese Barberry, an invasive plant species is a known black legged tick breeding reservoir. The transport of the seeds of other invasive plants on the large treaded tires of the mountain bikers aids in the spreading colonization of invasive plants that have been taking over the state, city and national parks and national forests throughout the country. The use and abuse of the trails by mountain bikers in Springside Park will chronically aggravate the spread of invasive plants by the installation of the pump track at the intersecting group of trails next to the Vin Hebert Arboretum and the wetlands. Invasive plants are numerous already in the park due to the outdoor recreation over the past decade and include such numerous invasive plants such as: Japanese Knotweed, Purple Loosestrife, Phragmites, Japanese Stiltgrass, Eurasian Mugwort, Burning Bush Euonymus, Japanese Barberry, Virginia Day Flower, European Buckthorn and Oriental Bittersweet.

Expansion of mountain biker trails into the delicate micro-niches of the park will further spread these species that suppress the native flora because the alteration of the critical edaphic micro-niches (soil compaction, erosion) enables the competitive and aggressive invasive plants to take advantage of the native plants which have a specialized dependence on these delicate edaphic limiting factors. Many of the native wildflower communities take decades to establish themselves, such as Trout Lilies, Solomon’s seal, Red Trillium, Columbine or Yellow Lady’s Slipper. The disturbance of the soils by the mountain bikers allows the invasive plant species to take root in an otherwise un-disturbed micro-niche. Mountain biker trail abuse enables invasive plant colonization to spread in Springside Park through direct (seed transport) and indirect influences (soil alteration) by making them easier to grow in these botanically and ecologically favorable soil conditions.

The synergistic ecological effect of this mountain bike expansion will be intensified and compounded by the increasing summer temperatures caused by climate change and influence the hardier more adaptable invasive plants to take over the original micro-niches of the native wildflowers. The NEMBA mountain bike pump track project and expanded mountain bike trails will synergistically magnify all the direct negative aspects of the meteorological and climatological crisis that is now unbalancing every ecosystem on earth.

4)- Injurious Air Pollution Effects on the Wetland Plants, Vegetation, Trees and Shrubs from Tailpipe Emissions of Unregulated Cars and Trucks Parking and Driving into The Wetland Buffer Zone for NEMBA Events at the NEMBA Pump Track site.

Significant air pollution effects of incoming and unregulated parked NEMBA event vehicle traffic (cars, trucks, motorcycles, vans, and buses) will negatively impact the Vegetated Buffer Zone adjacent to the proposed pump track site that injure and inhibit sensitive wetland plants, trees and shrubs. Particulate matter from plumes of tail pipe exhaust emissions will settle on leaf surfaces either burning them outright with ozone, C0, C02, NO (nitrous oxide), N0x (nitrogen oxide), methane (Ch4), or with heavy metals such as aluminum or mercury oxide. VOC’s and aerosols containing ammonia (NH4), lead, sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxides combine to form ozone (03) in the lower atmosphere which contributes to acidification both in the atmosphere and in aquatic systems (lakes, ponds, streams and wetlands).

Ethylene produced by automobile exhaust is a major problem in urban environments and the increased car and truck traffic from the pump track installation and use will raise toxic levels of atmospheric ethylene in the urban forest. Ethylene exhaust emissions on plants creates a specific negative adverse growth effect on plant species Ethylene gas injury on plants has been correlated with abnormal growth symptoms on many vascular plants, especially on trees and shrubs.

Ozone is the main polluting ingredient in the atmospheric smog problem around towns and cities. It is created when sunlight is combined in the lower atmosphere (trophosphere) with volatile organic hydrocarbons (VOC’s) nitrogen oxides (N0x) and carbon monoxide (C0). Ozone forms from the photochemical transformation of oxygen in the presence of UV light and the VOC’s emitted by the tailpipes of car exhaust. Automobiles, trucks and gasoline powered vehicles are the major contributor to ozone and smog in America, which is particularly hazardous to animal, plant and human health. Ozone irritates the eyes, nose and throat and the respiratory tract. Ozone is very noticeable on calm summer days, when the atmospheric conditions are favorable for its creation and can last for weeks. Ozone is considered by atmospheric scientists to be the most “damaging phytotoxic air pollutant in North America” (The Effects of Air Pollutants on Vegetation and the Role of Vegetation in Reducing Atmospheric Pollution, by Iuliana Florentina Gheorghe and Barber Ion, September 28^th, 2011, Intech Open Book Series, http://www.intechopen.com/chapters/18642)

The increased car traffic coming into the urban forest will only add to the ozone health problem both for humans and the ecology. Another secondary air pollutant PAN (perooxyacetylnitrate), is also produced by automobile exhaust emissions. Ultraviolet radiation and hot weather interacts with S02 and 03 in differing ways but always results in damage to leaf surfaces. Young and middle aged plants are very susceptible to the impact of PAN and ozone. In deciduous trees, young trees are the most sensitive to sulfate air pollution (both wet and dry deposition), while in evergreens seedlings are more susceptible. Ozone is a highly poisonous substance and produces reactive oxygen types including hydrogen peroxide, (H202), super-oxides (02-), singlet oxygen and the hydroxyl radical (0H). It literally breaks down proteins and damages nucleic acids.

Another environmental consequence of this increased air pollution coming into the park will be by the synergistic effect of sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxides from the vehicle tailpipes combined with rainfall or fog creating lingering clouds of acidic wet deposition (sulfuric acid and nitric acid) on the aquatic ecosystems of Springside Park and the surrounding plants trees and shrubs of the fields and forest. Soils and aquatic ecosystems are directly affected by acid rain which is produced by heavy industry, power plants and automobiles. In many countries acid rain has literally destroyed the entire food web ecology of lakes, streams and wetlands. In New York State’s Adirondacks, the ecology and fisheries of over 500 lakes were destroyed by acid rain. The pH of normal rain water ranges from 5-5.5 but acid rain averages 4.0 or below which is the acidity of vinegar. Acid rain depresses the uptake of nutrients and increases the availability of heavy metals by making them easily dissolvable in water. Slightly acidic rainwater (pH of 5.6) contains H2C03, but at higher acidic pH (4-3 or below) come out of solution. In California acidic fog has gone as low as 1.7. Heavy metals such as aluminum which prevents nutrients from being absorbed by plants and mercury, (transported and bio-magnifies in the food chain like DDT) eventually arrives in human bodies. Acid rain is a major cause of the decline in forest health of Europe and North America.

It should be noted that the toxic mechanism of air pollution from sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxides is through the leaf stomata and follows the structural gas diffusion pathways that C02 and NOx follow, which then dissolves in the plant cells and transform into toxic (at high ppm) nitrate and nitrate ions along the same biological pathways of roots. The leaf stomata then close (which protects the leaf) but prevents photosynthesis and causes water stress. The plant cannot transpire because the sulfur dioxide replaces oxygen in the cells and the nature of cellular membranes.

Nitrous oxides, another air pollutant emitted by vehicle tailpipes, damages leaf surfaces by creating crystals in the stomata of chloroplasts in plant cells and the swelling of the thylakoid membrane. This forces the plant to stop photosynthesizing and causes chlorosis and tip burn in the bracts and sepals of both deciduous and evergreen trees. Leaf defoliation, caused by the increased air pollution of acid rain, will negatively impact the overall health of ornamental trees and shrubs in the Hebert Arboretum. Crown height, crown thinning and leaf burn will also be unwanted botanical and floristic effects of this air pollution.

Arboretum tree specimens will eventually be affected by declining tree health and subsequent forest pest/pathogen susceptibility. Arboretum tree health is endangered by this potential increase of plant lethal car exhaust pollution.

5)- Alteration, contraction and compression of ambient “micro-climate” niches due to the “bike trampling”, “cross-cutting and “shire shredding” disturbance of plant communities and vegetation by mountain bikers trail abuse, leading to decline of wildflower communities in the Berkshire Urban Forest of Springside Park

One of the most crucial limiting factors in the evolution, succession, stability and variety of forest, field and wetland ecosystems is the conservation of micro-climate niches that depend on plant vegetation to buffer and ameliorate daily extremes of weather and climate. The Springside Park ecology is no exception to this natural mandate. The numerous micro-niches that have developed in the park have produced a large variety of micro-niche site specific plant, shrub and tree species that are exclusive to those ecological areas. There are several physical variables that control and moderate the ambient environment of micro-niches; temperature gradients, absolute and relative humidity, evaporation and condensation, wind, air convection and diffusion. Removal of any of these physical “limiting factors” by the removal of critical plants and plants buffering the unique micro-climate environment will disturb the stability and the growth of the site-specific plants growing there.

Vegetation reduces the steep angle of air temperature gradients that peak and bottom out with the daily sunshine cycle and influences the height of the active soil surface, that area of the forest floor which intercepts the maximum amount of solar radiation. If there is a total absence of vegetation or only a thin amount, air temperatures rise exponentially near the soil surface but as plant cover increases in height and density the plant leaves intercept more sunlight and the plant crowns become the “active surface”, raising the air temperatures above the ground. Temperatures become highest above the forest canopy or field and lowest just above or at the surface of the ground. For example, the mean differences between maximum air temperatures between forest and adjacent fields ranged from 9 to 24 F. and maximum soil temperatures 1 inch below the surface in open chestnut-oak forests were 66 degrees from mid-May to late June and 75 degrees F. with an absolute maximum of 93 degrees F. from July to mid-August. The forest canopy acts as a thermal absorption blanket that cools the understory.

Plant vegetation redirects wind movement, evaporation, humidity, moisture and soil temperatures within the micro-niche because the plant leaves transpire (give off water moisture) and respire (breathe) contributing to a micro-climate conducive to site specific plant species. The vegetation of a micro-niche also deflects wind flow up and over its top, creating eddies of air behind the vegetation where plant seeds are dropped and the air beyond this is normally colder and drier as a result. The humidity also varies considerably from the ground up in these micro-niches and the absolute humidity decreases rapidly from just above the soil surface to atmospheric equilibrium above. In a community of growing plants however, the relative humidity is much higher than above the plant cover, reaching near saturation levels. That is why it often feels sticky within a forest as opposed to a field or meadow. Darker organic soils absorb heat better than light sandy soils and thus soil surface temperatures will be lower during the day and higher by night compared to lighter soils. Most of Springside Park soils are dark with a rich organic layer contributing to a further enhancement of the micro-climate and micro-niche environments of the park.

The mountain bike use and abuse of the trails in Springside Park are major degrading negative impact agents on the micro-niche (and macro niches) plant communities of Springside Park for four main reasons. 1. The “shredding” (Berkshire Shire Shredders) component of their racing behavior; skidding, turning and braking rips up the delicate native plants growing alongside the trails and in their shortcutting or “cross-cutting” across trails flattens or tramples micro-niche wildflowers, ferns and wild orchids like Solomon’s Seal, Trout Lily, Yellow Lady Slipper, Red Trillium, Spleenworts, Doll’s Eye Baneberry, Red Columbine, Christmas Fern, Interrupted Fern, Cinnamon Fern, Polypody, Jack in the Pulpit and others too numerous to mention. Direct environmental effects on the trails are already widespread throughout Springside Park. A partial list of some Springside Park wildflowers and plants is available to review at the end of this paper. 2. The transportation of alien seeds of invasive plants or forest pathogens on the large tire treads of the mountain bikes is another negative ecological disturbance vector that allows colonization (infection) of these aggressive non-native plants into heretofore “undisturbed” forest field or habitat micro-niches, often far from the park entrance. For example, the seeds of Japanese Barberry, (a notorious Asian invasive plant taking over much of the northeast forest and fields of natural areas) is often caught on the feet of dogs, people and mountain bike tires and transported across vast distances far out of their normal botanical colonization radius. Japanese Barberry is a well- known Black legged Tick repository, incubator and the primary vector of Lyme’s Disease which has sickened millions of people throughout the United States. 3. The repeated cross-cutting tracks made by the trespassing mountain bikers also permits easier access through sensitive wildflower micro-niches by creating pathways of intrusion and colonization for invasive plant species to move into previously blocked sunlight rich competitive zones, such as goldenrod meadows, agricultural abandoned second growth upland fields and wet meadows (much of this surrounds the proposed NEMBA pump track site and in the north of the park), edge habitats adjoining the woodlands and the numerous calcareous fens, palustrine swamps and sub-emergent and emergent vegetated ponds of the Springside Park wetland complex.

6) - The intruding bike pathways also disrupt the delicate balance of ambient micro-climates responsible for these micro-niches and wildflower habitats by altering and degrading the plants ability to moderate the wind, humidity, soil moisture and temperature extremes that modify the site specific plant species. The mountain biker shredding and trampling destroys the very components of micro-climates responsible for the development of “micro-niches.”

George Wuerthner in his excellent article in The Wildlife News (June 18^th, 2019) wrote that “mountain biking is a significant threat to our wild lands-both in designated preserves like National Parks, Wilderness Areas and the like, but also wilderness study areas (WSA) and road less lands that may be given congressional protection under the 1964 Wilderness Act” and pose threats to wildlife security. Wuerthner cites four and are applicable to the mountain biker crisis: 1) Creation of New “Rogue” Trails. 2) Increasing mechanization of mountain bikes-new E bikes, (expands the terrain distances). 3) “Thrills” speed and conquest of natural barriers. The bike jumps in the northern section of Springside Park are examples of this. 4) Growing body of research documenting adverse impacts on birds and wildlife.

Many of the wildflower and plant communities in the urban forest, found in the Vin Hebert Arboretum, literally take decades to establish themselves and require monitoring and protection from mountain bikers who continually invade and trample their environments. Some wild orchid species such as Trout Lily and Red Trillium require specific mesic (edaphic) soil regimes found only under mature deciduous forests (oak, basswood, maple), while others grow in acidic soils underlain by thin (granite or gneiss geology) or poor soil adapted forest trees such as pignut, shagbark, mockernut hickory, pitch pine, chestnut white oak or bur oak. Several endangered and threatened species of wildflowers are found in Springside Park including Purple Milkweed (E), American Bittersweet (T), Arbovitae (E), Red Mulberry (E) and Northern Mountain Ash (E).

Approximately 151 species of wildflowers and plants in Massachusetts are listed as Endangered out of the 259 that are also either threatened with extinction or of Special Concern according to the classification under MESA-the Massachusetts Endangered Species Act and the Massachusetts Wild Life Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program.

The invaluable eco-services of the Berkshire Urban Forest also includes the moderating of the UHI Effect (Urban Heat Island) whereby the forest, fields and wetlands provide a valuable moderating influence of incoming cooler air temperatures, moisture and oxygen. This combination of the forest’s moderating vegetation, varied ecosystems and hydrological contributions thus produces a valuable natural resources asset to Pittsfield that cannot be overestimated. The ecological threat that NEMBA represents to the delivery of those eco-services cannot be stressed more.

7). Disturbance of native and neo-tropical bird migratory nesting sites and migratory flyway paths (“hot spots”) in Springside Park.

There are many critical site-specific bird nesting areas in the park that support well over 200 species of birds, including over 40 species of warblers, vireos, tanagers, thrushes (Wood Thrush, Veery) and raptors such as the Red-Tailed Hawk, Red Shouldered Hawk, Broad Winged Hawk, Coopers Hawk, Sharp Shinned Hawk and Rough-legged Hawk. The wetlands and the edges of the deeper woods are home to ground nesting warblers and sparrows. The dense tangle of the calcareous fens and wooded swamps have numerous water loving birds such as Green Herons, Great Blue Herons, Bitterns, Black Crowned Night Herons, Yellow Crowned Night Herons and dozens of wetland loving songbirds such as the Swamp Sparrow, Yellow Throated Warblers and Louisiana and Northern Water Thrushes. The meadows and fields of Springside Park are also home to the Eastern Bluebird, the Eastern Meadowlark and Bobolink, as well as the Massachusetts Threatened Grasshopper Sparrow. All are vulnerable to human disturbance and repeated stress that comes with active human recreation through their nesting habitat.

It is well known by ornithologists and bird lovers that birds will abandon their nests from repeated intrusion into their nesting sites, which leads to eventual reproductive failure and loss of biotic potential. The proposed NEMBA Pump Track will be right in the middle of prime grassland bird species habitat and impact those grassland species with repeated disturbance. If parts of the entire meadow is destroyed by the construction of the NEMBA pump track, the result will be emigration of the grassland bird species (Eastern Meadowlarks, Bobolinks, Grasshopper Sparrows) out of the area and additional bird biodiversity loss. Repeated passage of mountain bikers through the bird habitats of edge and woodland thickets will further disturb nesting resident and migratory bird species, adding to their biological stress and failing reproductive success, and “fitness.” Springside Park’s subsequent wholesale decline of native and migratory bird populations due to this mountain bike intrusion will worsen the impacts produced by the destruction of their overwintering grounds in the tropics. Wood Thrushes, for example, a neo-tropical migratory thrush species related to the robin which nests in Springside Park, is a particular woodland bird species that has already lost half its U.S breeding range in the last 50 years (60% decline). The NEMBA project will create a growing ELE- an “extinction level event” for the bird species, wildlife and park’s ecology.

8)- Interruption and isolation of amphibian migration pathways vital to the maintenance of amphibian (frogs, toads, salamanders) vernal pool populations, reproduction and natality.

Twenty species of reptiles and amphibians in Massachusetts are protected by MESA, The Massachusetts Endangered Species Act. The Blue-Spotted Salamander (Ambystoma laterale) is Endangered with 160 local populations in 160 towns. The Blandings Turtle, Marbled Salamander and the Eastern Spadefoot Toad are listed as Threatened. The Copperhead and the Eastern Timber Rattlesnake are listed as Endangered. The Bog Turtle in Massachusetts is listed as Endangered and the Wood Turtle is of Special Concern, while the Northern Red-Bellied Cooter (another turtle species) is also Mass listed as Endangered. The Eastern Box Turtle is also of Special Concern as well and its habitat can be found in Berkshire County. The Jefferson Salamander, Northern Dusky Salamander, Eastern Red Backed Salamander, Spotted Salamander, Four Toed Salamander, Spring Salamander, Northern Two-lined Salamander, Eastern Newt, Spring Peeper, Mink Frog, Gray Tree Frog are all found in Berkshire County. Of course, both the American and Fowler’s Toads are also found here. The list is administered by Mass Wildlife’s Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program. The Mass Division Of Fisheries and Wildlife protects all the species that are listed as Endangered, Threatened or of Special Concern in Massachusetts. Springside Park’s reptile and amphibian populations are under their monitoring as well.

Springside Park has many wetlands, ponds and vernal pools that are core habitats for many amphibians such as Spring Peepers, Wood Frogs, Green Frogs, Bull Frogs, Pickerel Frogs, Leopard Frogs and salamanders such as the Northern Three lined Salamander and The Eastern Newt (the terrestrial state is called the Red Eft) and Jefferson Salamander. All of these amphibian species require unhindered access to their breeding sites such as ponds, vernal pools or wetlands. NEMBA’S proposed mountain bike pump track project and mountain bike trail expansion will have a disruptive effect on the spring migration pathways of salamanders, frogs and toads that connect the wetlands, ponds and vernal pools. Amphibians like frogs, toads and salamanders like birds, are “indicator species” because their decline in population indicates the health status of the environment. Amphibians are the “canaries in the coal mine” which warned miners of the increasing poisonous gasses and potential suffocation. The NEMBA project will extinguish the viability and fecundity of these indicator species and by their absence cause a ripple effect in the food chain connecting other food webs.

Repeated Mountain bike passage over the trails creating hard compacted soil surfaces, berms, barriers, eroded ruts and impassable terrain will impede the migration of these species that have long been adapted to travel over the soft protected surfaces of leaves, twigs or moss. Dry, dusty exposed mountain bike trails will make migration hazardous for them by creating hostile terrain which stresses their delicate biological skin homeostasis that is dependent on shade, moisture and protection from predators. The increasing isolation of vernal breeding pools from one another as a result of the ever increasing network of mountain bike trails will negatively impact their reproductive success. The increased desiccation effects of climate change induced drought on the woodland swamps, fens, and vernal pools of the park will also heighten the cumulative negative environment breeding impact on amphibian populations. “Rogue mountain bikers” riding through the delicate vernal pools and ponds- (producing siltation and disruption of the bottom muds) is still another negative environmental consequence that will accompany the mountain bike project.

9)- Wetland loss will be affected by the construction of the NEMBA pump track by the interruption and degradation of the natural hydrological characteristics of the meadow catchment basin that supports the subsoil and bedrock aquifers connecting them.

Wetlands are the primary ground water table recharge source for our planet and since there is only 3% of freshwater resources available for use by human civilization (compared to the salt water oceans) it is critical that we protect them. Springside Park, named for the dolomitic springs that feed the wetlands, depend upon the continuous seasonal recharge to the underlying consolidated lower Ordovician, Lower Cambrian calcite quartz marble, and meta-quartzite and meta-chert bedrock aquifer that underlies them. The sub aqueous layer of soil, sorted and unsorted glacial till, and glacial outwash gravels that overlays this, contributes to the consolidated bedrock aquifer below-by a slow percolation recharge process of capillary water movement through the bedrock matrix pore and air space and which is wholly dependent on adequate rainfall, snowfall and snow ice melt in the spring.

The entire Springside Park hydrology is characterized and controlled by this universal geological process and our wells and domestic water supplies are vitally connected to the groundwater table levels that lie beneath the park. The NEMBA project threatens this natural geo-hydrological recharge process by robbing the wetlands and the groundwater table below the precipitation catchment basin of the Springside Park meadows and supplied by the water retention characteristics of the nearby oak-hickory forest floor. The hydrological framework maintained by the Berkshire Urban Forest in turn connects to the Upper Housatonic Watershed and the Pittsfield aquifer that supply reservoirs, wells, lakes and streams of Berkshire County. The climate change droughts afflicting the northeast cities are mitigated by the natural solution to this climate crisis found in urban forests such as the one we have here in Springside Park. Its health and contribution to the hydrology of the Pittsfield and Berkshire County watersheds must be kept intact at all costs.

10). Possible Violation of the Massachusetts Endangered Species Act

(M.G.L. c. 131A), revised and implemented January 10^th, 2020 (321 CMR 10.00).

The Massachusetts Endangered Species Act is administered under Title XIX, Agriculture and Conservation, Chapter 131 A Massachusetts Endangered Species Act of the M.G.L. A. “Endangered species” any species of plant or animal in danger of extinction throughout all or a portion of its range including those species listed under the federal ESA.” Further:

“The director shall conduct investigations and consult with the natural heritage and endangered species advisory committee in order to determine whether any species of plant or animal constitutes an endangered or threatened species of special concern. Habitat alteration permits are required under this act when any person undertakes a project that may alter a significant portion of habitat.” Definitions: “Alter” to change the physical or biological condition of a habitat in any way that detrimentally affects the capacity of the habitat to support a population of endangered or threatened species.

Massachusetts has 432 native species (173 species of animals and 259 species of plants) that are protected under the MESA which are Endangered, Threatened or of Special Concern. Some of the MESA listed species live in Berkshire County such as the Bog Turtle (E), American Bittern, (T), Short-Eared Owl, (E), Grasshopper Sparrow (T). There are 151 species of plants in the state that are strictly Endangered, a few grow in Berkshire County and some may be in Springside Park.

“Significant habitats” are specific areas of the Commonwealth designated in accordance with Section 4, in which are found the physical and biological features important to the conservation of a threatened or endangered species population and which may require special population monitoring and which may require special management considerations or protection.

According to the MESA list there are 9 breeding bird species in Massachusetts that are Endangered, 7 are Threatened (2 are Federally Threatened) and 14 are of Special Concern, making a total of 30 species.

Many of the warblers that fall under these classifications either nest or migrate through Springside Park including the Northern Parula (T) and the Golden Winged Warbler (E). The Golden Winged Warbler (Vermivora chrysoptera) shares similar habitat preferences with the Blue-Winged Warbler. Both species have been spotted in the park, and the Blue-Winged Warbler nests in the mid-successional brushy areas to the east of the Arboretum near the old trout ponds. Both warbler species (the Blue Winged has been known to hybridize with the Golden Winged and the hybrids-Lawrence and Brewster’s are the result) prefer openings in the woods, old orchards, power line right of ways, wet fields, swampy edges and alder bogs which Springside Park has in abundance.

Large sections of Springside Park contain numerous secondary field growth sections satisfying the optimum habitat requirements of this sibling species. The Golden-Winged Warbler’s breeding range extends up and down the Appalachians and west to the Great Lakes and into Canada. The Golden Winged Warbler’s breeding range also includes western Massachusetts, western Connecticut and western Vermont. The ecological plight of the Golden-Winged Warbler has become increasingly worrisome. Since the late 1970’ reports of Golden Winged Warbler breeding success in Massachusetts has seriously declined or ceased, but in the Housatonic River Valley, the species has been reported “probable” for breeding at least up to 1980. According Massachusetts Audubon (Breeding Bird Atlas 1), from 1975-1979, 45 out of 67 blocks were surveyed and were “probable” (4.6%) or “confirmed” (0.5%) in estimation of nesting success.

Two thirds of the Golden Winged population north of Mexico has disappeared since 1970. The two major reasons for the warbler’s decline was the return of hardwood (oak) forests following their removal for agriculture and logging and the increase of the closely related Blue-Winged Warbler which took over what remained of the ideal breeding habitat (second growth field growth) and their hybridization. As of 1998 the 7^th Edition of the Check-list of the North American Birds listed the Golden-Winged as a “distinct” species although their phenotype varies and most field guides list two types of Hybrids- Brewster’s and Lawrence’s Warblers as a result of their interbreeding.

Even though the Golden Winged Warbler was not “confirmed” breeding during the Atlas reporting period the ”number of probable reports indicated that nesting was occurring.” (https://www.massaudubon.org/our- conservation-work/wildlife-research-conservation/bird conservation-monitoring/breeding-bird-atlas). Since the Blue-Winged and Golden Winged share almost identical habitat (they actually overlap) preferences (second growth fields and shrubby openings in woods) it is not altogether unreasonable to consider that the Golden-Winged Warbler still nests in Springside Park. Although Cornell’s Lab of Ornithology Publication- (Golden-Winged Warbler Status Review and Conservation Plan) has determined that the “Golden Winged Warbler now may be extirpated as a breeding species from Georgia, South Carolina, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio”- there have been range shifts in the Upper Mid-West and has been documented as breeding in the north and western states. There is reason to hope that with better habitat management the Golden Winged Warbler could return to New England. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Partner’s in Flight prediction of a population loss of 1.2 million birds (97%) in 135 years is gloomy there is still reason to hope for the birds survival.

Possible Golden Winged Warbler habitats in Springside Park therefore should monitored by the DEP Division of Fisheries and Wildlife Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program to ascertain that Springside Park meets the classification of “significant habitat” for this species under Section 4 of the MESA and protected from disturbance such as mountain biking. It should also be noted that the Blue-Winged Warbler, which hybridizes with the Golden Winged and nests in Springside Park, is listed as a Tier 1 Conservation Priority by Partners in Flight and a “Watch List Species” by the National Audubon Society. The Breeding Bird Survey has shown that the species population is dropping at an annual rate of 0.41% from 1966-2002 and has declined in the Appalachian Bird Conservation Area by 97.8% from 1966-2010 and 2.4% annually across the country (Breeding Bird Survey 2019). The northern part of New England and Canada seems to be a refuge for the species as climate change is pushing them further north and to higher elevations. The Blue-Winged Warbler is a ground nester, a single brooder and highly vulnerable to house cat and raccoon predation and cowbird parasitism. These are just more good reasons for the Springside Park Commission to safeguard and manage these crucial habitats from more disturbances such as the mountain bikers and the NEMBA mountain bike pump track project.

Similarly, the Eastern Meadowlark, a bird of Special Concern has been seen breeding in the upland fields and meadow of the park close to the proposed NEMBA site. This should also be noted as a “significant habitat” for this species under the MESA as well as the Grasshopper Sparrow which is a Massachusetts Threatened songbird. Other Special Concern birds that have migrated through Springside Park include the Barn Owl, Mourning Warbler, Long Eared Owl and Blackpoll Warbler. The four bird species that are regular migrants through the park documented by the Hoffman Bird Club of Pittsfield listed by MESA are: Mourning Warbler (Special Concern), Vesper Sparrow (Threatened), Northern Parula (Threatened) and the Blackpoll Warbler-(Special Concern).

If these species populations are determined to be at risk because of mountain bike park development then due diligence must be made by the Pittsfield Park Commission and the Conservation Commission to make sure that the bike site will not damage or negatively disturb valuable bird breeding habitats of the Springside Park Berkshire Urban Forest.

11)- Dynamic contraction of multiple ecological networks and decreasing viability of Springside Park wildlife populations.

In the 112 year history of Springside Park there has never been so great an ecological threat to the health of the living communities in the park as the proposed NEMBA project will have at all levels of the ecological spectrum. All integral elements of the food webs, food chains and trophic pyramids constituting the Springside Park ecology will be negatively affected. Since wildlife populations can only do one of three things, increase, decrease or remain stable, it is important to note that anything negative that affects their biotic potential will correspondingly be reflected in population recruitment numbers. The NEMBA project will negatively affect all of the wildlife populations in the park. The NEMBA project also, (unlike other recreational or industrial development projects which may damage only one or two aspects of the local ecology) catastrophically impacts all parts of the ecology at the same time, regardless of project stage of development and with time becomes chronically cumulative and permanent.

Each of the many habitats; wet meadows, palustrine wetlands, fens, edge habitat, deciduous strip corridors, old growth patch forest and old growth fields will feel the effects of this mountain bike tentacle from the soil and hydrology up and through the succeeding and interconnected layers of the ecology. The compacted and eroded geomorphology of the trails, siltation into wetlands affecting wetland ecology, bird emigration due to noise and human disturbance, disrupted wetland and aquifer recharge, destruction of amphibian vernal pool refuges, forest fragmentation and “day-lighting” of trails, air pollution and invasive plant colonization will all combine to create synergistically an atrophied ecology with diminishing biologic returns that will only worsen from the effects of climate change and extreme weather events.

The urban forest ecology of Springside Park will progressively deteriorate and the normal intra-specific biodiversity of specific different forest groups in the park (which normally converge as tree communities age and succeed to intermediate and then into the climax stages) will be interrupted or halted entirely. Natural tree succession will become so disturbed that the younger pioneer species such as aspen, cottonwood or birch will invade the forest interior that was damaged or and destroyed by new or expanding mountain bike trails. The Springside Park urban forest ecology of tree branch stratification (so vital to various nesting bird species) will be altered and the resultant ecology of various bird species that normally were at home in their respective nesting habitats in their characteristic branch levels will disappear. Where once the oaks and maples and ash trees grew to great heights and provided shade will become broken up into parcels and patches. The ecological trajectory of forest tree succession will change but not in the way that forest ecosystems normally do.

This disrupted forest tree succession will disrupt nesting patterns, increase competition for nesting sites, produce stress in migratory and resident species, reduced reproductive potential and eventually bird species emigration out of the area. This bird species emigration will be accompanied by bird species more adapted to disturbed habitats and the bird diversity will decline accordingly. The bird species loss will initiate a biological vacuum that will be reflected in a change of understory plant species, (due to the absence of previous birds which depended on insect foraging in those plants) which will ramify into the surrounding ecosystems. Collectively, the increasing detonation of human abuse in the park will result in a severely depleted and degraded wildlife and plant bio-diversity.

12)- Disruption of trophic pathways between eco-systems.

A key ecological element of the health of urban forests is their ability to exchange trophic energy between adjacent eco-systems such as meadows or wetlands. Insects and invertebrates and other wildlife species share both eco-systems through the eco-tone border that joins them. The 190 acres of urban forest next to the fields and meadows of Springside Park are crisscrossed by a myriad of interconnecting mountain bike trails which will be expanded, straightened (day lighting) or surface modified (terra-formed) to suit the needs of the bikers. The meadows and fields next to the urban forest are the food pantries which feed the birds and wildlife. Hundreds of insect species and invertebrates feed and breed in the meadows and provide a rich source of food and cover for them and in turn, the basic food base for the rest of the food chain. Milkweed alone provides food for over 300 species of insects, especially for the Monarch Butterfly which is so impacted by insecticides and pesticides and habitat loss across the country.

Unsynchronized or un-rotated mowing of the meadows and the increasing disruption and physical mountain bike trail modification increases the “trophic distance” between meadow and urban forest ecosystems and reduces the potential food exchanges (food net) that normally exists between both of them. This decline of food source transmission and ecological communication to and from the urban forest and meadows will be inversely proportional to the increasing physical distance between these ecosystems and will be reflected in a further loss of biodiversity in Springside Park’s Berkshire Urban Forest.

SUMMARY

The existential threat that NEMBA poses to the Springside Park Berkshire Urban Forest ecology is both dire and consequential because the park’s biological and ecological systems cannot recover from such a massive influx of mountain bike intrusion and disturbance into these delicate and vulnerable plant and animal communities. The constant bike trail compaction, soil erosion and constant and chronic mountain bike “shire shredding” trampling or braiding of the trails leads to a floristic decline and shrinkage of delicate wildflower and vascular plant micro-niche environments developed from decades of “protected” micro-climate humidity, air temperature, wind deflection and site specific edaphic factors, plant decomposition rates, soil bacteria activity and alteration of soil parent materials.

The bike tire tread transport and colonization of invasive plant species, forest pests and pathogens (Lyme disease bearing ticks) that thrive in these disturbed environmental conditions has a direct correlation with each other. In effect, the mountain bikers will become, with the addition of the NEMBA pump track and more mountain bike trails- viral agents of ecological destruction, ecological oppression and bio-diversity attrition, degradation and extinction of macro- and micro floral and faunal communities throughout the entire park ecosystem. Once severely degraded, these eco-systems will take years of mitigation for them to be restored to their original state of ecological health.

In the real terms of a drastically diminished biodiversity, the human footprint of this biker apocalypse will expand exponentially and lead to a wholesale (not piecemeal) radiating “dead zone” of profound ecological ramifications, which will have at its center the “bulls-eye” biological equivalence of an ELE (extinction level event) and at its heart, the odious culmination of Springside Park mismanagement.

Aldo Leopold, the great naturalist and author of A Sand County Almanac wrote in his plea for a national land ethic, “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.” He also wrote that “conservation is a state of harmony between men and land.” But the Pittsfield Park Commission has decided however, that the disharmony between man and nature is the necessary price we must pay for the acquisition of recreational revenue. Aldo Leopold also wrote, “One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds.” Indeed, but the wound that we all will suffer at the death of this park will be mortal to the natural world of The Commonwealth and to those future unborn generations who will never know what we lost if this bike project is allowed to stab at the heart of one of the last beautiful urban forests in Berkshire County.

REFERENCES

MACC Wetlands Buffer Zone Guidebook, For Use with Massachusetts Wetlands Protection Act, MGL Chapter 131, Section 40, funded through a grant from the Massachusetts Environmental Trust. MET (www.mass.gov/eea/met.) (MAAC-Massachusetts Association of Conservation Commissions). Published June 6^th, 2019.

Ecology and Field Biology Robert Lee Smith, 2^nd Edition, 1966, 1974, Harper and Row Publishers, New York, Evanston, Illinois, San Francisco, London.

Ecology of Eastern Forests-Peterson Field Guides, John C. Kricher, Gordon Morrison, Houghton Mifflin, NY, NY, 1988, Roger Tory Peterson.

Field Guide to Trees and Shrubs by George Petrides, Peterson Field Guide Series, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, Third Edition, 1958

Invasive Plants, A Guide to Identification and the Impacts and ControlOf Common North American Species, Second Edition, Stackpole BooksMechanicsburg, PA. 2012, by Sylvan Ramsey Kaufmann and Wallace Kaufmann

“Do Allelopathic Compounds in invasive Solidago Canadensis restrain the Native European Flora?” Dipti Abhilasha, Naira Quintana, Jorge Vivanco, Jasmin Joshi, Journal of Ecology, August 12^th, 2000

Allelopathic Effects of Goldenrod Species on Turnover in Successional Communities. January 2010 Nikki L. Pisula, Scott J. Meiners, American Midland Naturalist Eastern Illinois University

Canada Goldenrod Inhibits the Growth of Sugar Maple Seedlings and Germination of Herbal Species typically found in wet moist soils. Solidago Canadensis growth is a fire enhanced plant species. Coladorato Milo, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Fire Sciences Laboratory, 1993 USDA Publication

Massachusetts Buffer Manual, Berkshires Regional Planning Commission 2003.

Science Proves Mountain Biking is More Harmful Than Hiking-The Impacts of Mountain Biking and People. A Review of the Literature-Michael J. Vandeman, July 3^rd, 2004 (Culture Change .org Mountain Biking Impacts)

The Impacts of Mountain Biking by George Wuerthner, The Wildlife News, June 18^th, 2019

A Field Guide to Trees and Shrubs, George A. Petrides, (Peterson Field Guide Series) Northeastern and north-central United States and southeastern and south-central Canada. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1958, 1972, 1986.

A Field Guide to Warblers of North America, by Jon L. Dunn and Kimball Garrett, Peterson Field Guide Series, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1997

Golden-Winged Warbler Vermivora chrysoptera-Find A Bird (https://www.massaudubon.org>bba1>find-a-bird

Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife-(http://www.Mass.gov/doc/bluewingedwarbler/download) Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program (www.Mass.gov/nhesp.bluewinged warbler)

Golden Winged Warbler Status Review and Conservation Plan 2020 Cornell Lab of Ornithology Amber M. Roth, Ronald W. Rohrbaugh, Tom Will, S. Barker Swarthout, David A. Buehler. National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, Golden Winged Warbler Working Group, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (https://gwwa.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/gwwa-conservation-plan_191007_low-.pdf)

Soil Survey of Berkshire County, Massachusetts, by Richard J. Scanu, Soil Conservation Service, Fieldwork by Richard J. Scanu, Donald C. fuller, John R. Mott and Eric Swenson, Soil Conservation Service, Massachusetts Agriculture Station.

The Nature and Properties of Soils Nyle C. Brady, Macmillian Publishing Co. 1974, 8^th Edition.

The Effects of Air Pollution on Vegetation and the Role of Vegetation in Reducing Atmospheric Pollution, by Iuliana Florentina Gheorghe and Barbara Ion, September 26^th, 2011, Intech Open Book Series, (https://www.intechopen.com/chapters/18642Journal Nature, November 24^th, California Polytechnic State University

Natalie Van Hoose, Research News, University of Florida, January 8^th, 2018 (http://www.Florida Museum.UFL.edu/science/noise-pollution-causes stress in birds/ Research News

Principles of Field Biology and Ecology, Allen H. Benton, William E. Werner Jr. MacGraw-Hill Company, Inc. New York 1958

BOTANICAL SURVEY OF SPRINGSIDE PARK

The following is a partial list of the tree, shrub and vascular plants and wildflowers of the urban forest.

Coltsfoot Rough Leaved Goldenrod

Black Snakeroot (“eupatorium”) Canada Goldenrod

Rattlebox Grass leaved Goldenrod

Heal All Bog Goldenrod

Tall Meadow Rue Blue-stemmed Goldenrod

Cucumber Vine Common Plantain

Thyme Virginia Day Flower

Peppergrass Multi-flora Rose

Common Cattail Pasture Rose

Lesser Leaved Cattail White Alsike Clover

Common Phragmites Common White Clover

Bishop Weed Hop Clover

Common Yarrow (Achilla) Purple Clover

Field Thistle Wood Sorrel

Wood Strawberry Black-Eyed Susan

Common Smartweed (Polygonum) Ox-Eye Daisy

Chickory True Solomon’s Seal

Fox Grape Virginia Creeper

Riverbank Grape Poison Ivy

Queen Anne’s Lace White Baneberry

Tovara (Jump Seed) Zig-Zag Goldenrod

Spotted Knapweed Panicled Aster

Thimbleweed Meadowsweet Spirea

Horsetails (Equisetum) Bloodroot

Water Hemlock Red Trillium

Common St.Johnswort Jack in the Pulpit

Cypress Spurge Common Milkweed

Bristly Sasparilla Butter and Eggs

Chain Fern Orange Jewelweed

Interrupted Fern Wild Madder

Hay Scented Fern Japanese Honeysuckle

Sensitive Fern Quaking Apen

Polypody Japanese Knotweed

Elm-Leaved Goldenrod Meadow Parsnip

Tall Goldenrod White Baneberry

Heath Aster Red Raspberry

Giant Solomon’s Seal Blackberry

Dewberry Northern Red Oak

Yellow Hawkweed Pin Oak

Orange or “devils paintbrush” White Oak

Woodland sunflower Eastern Cottonwood

Lowbush Blueberry Gray Dogwood

Evening Primrose Red Osier Dogwood

Mugwort Flowering Dogwood

Green Amaranth Weepng Willow

Japanese Barberry Pussy Willow

Burning Bush Euonymus Crack Willow

Alianthus Black Willow

Little Leaf Linden Autumn Olive

American Basswood Yellow Birch

Common Hawthorn Black Birch

European Buckthorn White Birch

Black Locust Gray Birch

Honey Locust American Beech

Witch Hazel American Hackberry

American Hornbeam Common Dogbane

Hop Hornbeam Spotted Alder

Crimson King Norway Maple Silver Maple

Sugar Maple Red Maple

Box Elder White Ash

Wild Apple Green Ash

White Pine American Sycamore

Red Pine Small White Aster

Scotch Pine Common Bell Flower

Red Spruce Late Goldenrod

Norway Spruce Elm Leaved Goldenrod

Northern Arbovitae (white cedar) Lowrie’s Aster

Red Cedar Garlic Mustard

Maple Leaved Viburnum Bluets

American Elm Morning Glory

Slippery Elm Hedge Bindweed

Hybrid American Chestnut- (Horticultural variety) Common Dandelion

American Lilac American Shadbush

Forsythia Early Meadow Rue

Staghorn Sumac Thimbleweed

Smooth Sumac Tall White Lettuce

Common Ragweed Toothwort

Lambs Quarter’s Wood Anenome

Pickerelweed Beggar-Ticks

Pineapple Weed Timothy

Field Mustard

Smooth Yellow Violet

Bedrock geology of Springside Park

The bedrock geology of Springside Park consists of ancient rocks from the Lower Ordovician and Lower Cambrian periods (between 450-500 million years old) with sedimentary rocks and low- medium grade metamorphic rocks ranging from calcite marble, calcitic quartz marble, meta-quartzite and meta-chert. This geology is called autochtonous meaning it was deposited in place and stationary, compared to the Taconic Mountains to the west which are “allochtonous” which were shifted west as 12 separate pieces of continental and oceanic crust called “knappes” during the Taconic Orogeny 463-430 million years ago. The Taconic Orogeny was the result of the first collision of a micro-continent called Baltica with proto-North America that was part of the ancient Grenville “super-continent”.

To the east of Springside Park and Pittsfield are the increasingly metamorphosed and igneous rocks of the Acadian Zone derived from the long vanished Acadian Mountains that arose from collision of another micro-continent Avalonia with the growing proto-North America called Laurentia. These accreted “suspect terranes” were part of the initial phases of the Appalachian Revolution which created the mountains and landscape of Eastern North America. The lithology underlying Springside Park is largely the sedimentary and mid-metamorphosed limestones, sandstone and dolomitic marbles that were deposited in an inland sea during the early Paleozoic Era (the Stockbridge Sea) that was consumed in the subsequent Taconic and Acadian Orogenies. The calcitic marbles, calcitic meta-quartzite, muscovite schist and dolomite aquifer bedrock is largely responsible for the softer, more basic pH of the groundwater (sweeter) that appears in the springs of Springside Park. The following list describes the mapped lithologic units and geology of Springside Park:

OSe: Stockbridge Formation. (Lower Ordovician-lower Cambrian Periods) Mainly white coarsely crystalline blue-white calcite marble.

OSd: Gray to yellowish-tan weathering phlopitic calcite-quartz marble and impure meta-quarzite.

Csb: Gray to yellowish tan well bedded impure dolomitic marble-containing thin beds of quartzite, black and silvery muscovite schist and characteristic micaeous parings.

CSc: Massive light gray to steely gray weakly dolomitic meta-chert that contains white knots of quartz.

SOILS OF SPRINGSIDE PARK

The soils of Berkshire County are for the most part derived from the parent materials of glacial till (sorted or unsorted), glacial outwash containing sand, silt and gravel, recent alluvial deposits and weathered bedrock of either limestone, marble, schist or sandstones. These glacial parent materials date from the scouring and moraine deposition of the North American Wisconsian Ice sheet and the previous two ice ages that covered more than a third of North America under several miles of ice. These soils are grouped under the Soil Order of Inceptisols (there are 12) from the Latin word meaning “Inceptum” or “beginning” because they are young soils (10-11,000 years old) and have minor soil horizon development, only recently modified by vegetation, forests and recent agriculture. Three Pittsfield area soils are in the sub-classification of Dystric Eutrudepts” (sub-order Udepts), because they include the Heb Hero and Amb and Prd soil series.

The Prd- Pittsfield Loam Soil Series in Springside Park were formed in glacial till and derived from Limestone and rated as “good” for grains and seed crops, grasses, wild herbaceous plants and deciduous trees and conifers and “poor” for wetland plants and “very poor” for shallow water areas. Their water capacity is high and good wetland soils. These Prd soils (3-8% slope) have only a “slight” absorption and percolation rate for possible use a leach field in septic systems. So any kind of drainage field for a permanent sanitary system installed by NEMBA for use at the pump track would be poorly sited. Prd soils have limited use for construction because of slope and problems of erosion in disturbed areas and cut and fill protocols for road building is advised. Roads are best constructed on the contour and planting grasses to control erosion is advised.

Similarily, Heb soils in Springside Park have “severe” limitations for the construction of pond reservoir areas, embankments, dikes, levees and aquifer-fed excavated ponds. Heb or Hero series soils are coarse-loamy over sandy-mixed parent materials, from calcareous glacial outwash and

have a high water capacity and wetlands are easily formed on these soils. Frost action on the slopes and cut-banks will occur with frequent cave-ins. Management of these soils is mainly concerned with overgrazing and compaction and equally so for bike trail soil compaction. The seasonal high water level in spring and restricted access to field crops is characteristic of Heb soils. Their surface pH ranges from moderately acid to mildly alkaline and moderately alkaline in the substratum. The mildness of Amb soils is clearly influential in the rich plant and wildflower communities of Springside Park. Amenia Silt Loam soils also have a slow water percolation rate and only a “moderate” seepage and are definitely not suited for any kind of construction that requires adequate drainage.

These soil descriptions is clearly indicative that the rich floral variety of Springside Park is largely due to the high water absorption capabilities of these soils and which are not conducive to any kind of human development which dependent upon good drainage characters, and responsible for the very creation of the numerous wetlands in the wetland complex of Springside Park. Excavation, grading or filling from the proposed NEMBA bike track will only aggravate and accentuate the natural prohibitive features of these local soils and accelerate geomorphic degradation of the Springside Park ecology.