Lone Tree Hill Saw Improvements in 2023

 Environment, January 2024, Lone Tree Hill, McLean, Newsletter, Open Space, Plants  Comments Off on Lone Tree Hill Saw Improvements in 2023
Jan 052024
 
Lone Tree Hill Saw Improvements in 2023

By Radha Iyengar Belmont’s Lone Tree Hill Conservation area benefited from another year of conservation, restoration, and stewardship, thanks mainly to the efforts of the Land Management Committee for Lone Tree Hill (LMC). Many Belmontonians and visitors enjoy this 119-acre conservation property for walking, biking, viewing wildlife, and being out in nature. The LMC was created through a memorandum of agreement between the town and McLean Hospital in 1999. The agreement  outlined the development restrictions for the McLean Hospital campus. It also reserved approximately 119 acres of the campus as publicly accessible open space, including a new municipal cemetery, and [READ MORE]

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Unauthorized Bike Route and Vandalism at Lone Tree Hill

 Bicycles and bike paths, McLean, Newsletter, Open Space, Town Committee Meetings  Comments Off on Unauthorized Bike Route and Vandalism at Lone Tree Hill
Apr 302023
 
Unauthorized Bike Route and Vandalism at Lone Tree Hill

An unauthorized bike route off the Hillside Trail on the Lone Tree Hill, Belmont Conservation Land (LTH) property was reported on April 21, 2023. The route goes down a hill, over a rock ledge and lands below on a very steep hillside. The builders of the route cut down trees, broke branches, removed rocks and vegetation (trees and native perennial trout lily) from the hillside and excavated dirt by digging and leaving dangerous pits. There has been earlier unauthorized bike activity at Lone Tree Hill, but this is the most dangerous and damaging. At the ninth annual LTH volunteer day [READ MORE]

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Committee Battles Invasives at Lone Tree Hill

 January 2021, McLean, Newsletter, Open Space, Plants  Comments Off on Committee Battles Invasives at Lone Tree Hill
Dec 302020
 
Committee Battles Invasives at Lone Tree Hill

By Jeffrey North On November 3, field technicians engaged by the Land Management Committee for Lone Tree Hill (LMC) and the Judy Record Conservation Fund began a multi-year campaign to restore select parcels of the Lone Tree Hill conservation land. This initial project focused on invasive plant removal at Area A1, where horticulturalists from Parterre Ecological Services began restoration of the shrub layer by hand-cutting the bittersweet vines that were smothering the largest trees and employing a forestry mower to cut down the buckthorn and multiflora rose. Lone Tree Hill—like public, private, and protected lands elsewhere—is gradually being overrun by [READ MORE]

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Commission Plans Lone Tree Hill Restoration

 Environment, July-August 2020, McLean, Newsletter, Open Space, Plants  Comments Off on Commission Plans Lone Tree Hill Restoration
Jun 302020
 
Commission Plans Lone Tree Hill Restoration

By Jeffrey North Belmont’s 119-acre Lone Tree Hill conservation area, like many recreational lands in the region, is plagued by the insidious creep of invasive plant species. The ecological value of this forest and meadow conservation land is depreciating due to a host of invasive plants that act like predators, harming native plants from oak trees to ferns, forbs, and shrubs. Asiatic bittersweet, for example, has enveloped oak, hickory, and pine trees, covering, killing, and felling a number of these tall trees that define the edge of the meadow and the land’s viewshed. Glossy buckthorn and honeysuckle are killing gray [READ MORE]

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The BCF’s Origin

 January 2020, McLean, Newsletter, Sewers, Traffic, Water Quality  Comments Off on The BCF’s Origin
Jan 062020
 
The BCF's Origin

By Sue Bass This is the 20th anniversary of the Belmont Citizens Forum Newsletter; the organization was founded a little over 20 years ago. How did that happen, and why? In 1995, McLean Hospital began exploring publicly how to turn part of its 238-acre campus into cash. Psychiatric drugs had revolutionized mental health care; instead of long walks and fresh country air, medicine could prescribe quicker-acting treatment. McLean no longer needed a bucolic campus, and families relying on health insurance could no longer pay for it. The hospital was $40 million or more in debt. This was not the first [READ MORE]

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