Those who hike along the Hockanum River Linear Park used to enjoy the cool shade of the pine trees, enjoying the native shrubs that grew along the side of the trail near Laurel Marsh. Now, Eversource Energy has cut down the trees and low-growing shrubs underneath its high-voltage power lines in Manchester, say those who have maintained the trails for as many as 30 years. “It’s basically a desert in that regard,” said Frank Belknap, who helped set up the trail in 1995.
“But the other thing is, there were trees that were planted, that were designed to form a corridor to differentiate the trail and make it so much shaded,” he said. “Everything is gone. So it’s like you’re walking through a plant desert now, which is kind of disappointing.
” Eversource said the conclusions about what was done are incorrect, that the utility looks for compatibility of species, works carefully and that the power lines in questions are important to thousands of people. Yet, Belknap took a tour of the area last week and said he found, “They completely clear-cut the entire area. In the past, they used to use a selective cutting.
They would cut out specific trees that had potential. This is a case where it was just completely cut. It didn’t matter what it was, it’s gone.
” Belknap maintained that Eversource came in, in the last two weeks, with heavy machinery and was indiscriminate about what it cut down. “The machinery they have is very efficient and they can mulch and cut th.