Gina-Maria Giuliano, 21, of Somerville is arrested during a protest to save Silver Maple Forest from a looming development project. Credit: Wicked Local Staff Photos / Sara Feijo

By Sara Feijo | sfeijo@wickedlocal.com | Posted Oct. 14, 2014 @ 6:20 pm | Updated Oct 15, 2014 at 12:57 PM

CAMBRIDGE

A group of local environmental activists took over Acorn Park Drive Tuesday morning to protest a looming development they say will destroy the Silver Maple Forest at the edge of Belmont, Cambridge and Arlington. The civil protest ended with the arrest of a Somerville woman and four Cambridge residents. Gina-Maria Giuliano, 21, of Somerville, and Cambridge residents Ellen Mass, 71, founder of Friends of the Alewife Reservation, Joanna Herlihy, 80, Susan Jane

Ringler, 60, and Madeleine Sis, 21, a junior at Lesley University, were arrested around 10 a.m. for trespassing after they marched into the forest and refused to leave, according to Belmont Police Assistant Chief James MacIsaac.

"A representative from the company asked them to leave the property and they chose to stay and face arrest," MacIsaac said Tuesday.

About 15 people held signs in support of the forest, and most painted their faces with berries found in the woods — peaceful war paint, as they called it.

"This is an area that I have been visiting for the last few years, and I just feel responsible for protecting it and for its well-being," Sis said around 7:30 a.m. as the crowd was setting up camp. "In a way this is a battle. I'’s something that’s going right in those woods."

Dana Demetrio of Cambridge said folks organized the demonstration to protect the forest from being chopped down.

"I just think it's really sad that this is our city's last natural place and it’s something we should be protecting, not destroying," Demetrio, 26, said. "It's a symbolic thing saying that we're here. All of us don't want this place to be destroyed."

Tuesdays protest was the most recent effort in a series of attempts to prevent a looming 298-unit development planned by O'Neill Properties Group, a Pennsylvania-based real estate development company.

The ongoing conflict over the Silver Maple Forest, which is an integral part of the Alewife Reservation ecosystem, started in 1998 when O'Neill Properties announced that it planned to clear the woods and build a commercial development.

However, the scope of the project changed after area residents raised objections. O'Neill Properties is in the process of acquiring the building permit to construct an affordable housing complex in the 15.6-acre forest, which is primarily located in Belmont with 2.6 acres in Cambridge.

Of that, 7.95 acres, including the portion Cambridge owns, is protected land under a conservation easement, according to a report Cambridge City Manager Richard Rossi submitted to the City Council in September.

Activists have been hosting a series of rallies and vigils in an attempt to halt construction after, they say, a small section of the Silver Maple Forest was recently cleared to create a pathway for the equipment.

"They're cutting trees," Mass said Tuesday morning before getting arrested. Fourteen residents filed for an injunction to stop the development, and a hearing was scheduled for Wednesday afternoon in the Middlesex Superior Court in Woburn.

"When the trees are gone, they are gone forever," said Ringler, adding this was the first time she's ever been arrested. "We now recognize how vital this upland woods is for floodwater mitigation. With climate change the Alewife area is already experiencing frequent flood events because we have paved so much of the area and not paid attention to the natural floodplain. It would never be zoned for dense housing if it were zoned today, but unfortunately it was zoned many years ago."

Cambridge City Councilor Marc McGovern, who attended Tuesday’s protest, said he would most likely introduce a policy order on Monday to prevent O’Neill Properties from staging construction equipment and a drainage pipe in Cambridge-owned land.

"It's tough because I don’t want to get people's hopes up for something that may not make a huge difference," McGovern said. "We can certainly file an order saying that we don't want Cambridge land to be used for anything, including this drainage pipe that's on the plans, as well as scaffolding, construction equipment or anything else. Is that going to stop this guy from building a huge project? No, they'll move it, and they'll do it somewhere else."

The current housing proposal does not adequately meet the needs for storm water management in the 50-, 75- and 100-year storm scenarios, all of which are expected to increase in severity due to climate change, according to a July 28 policy order filed by Cambridge City Councilor Dennis Carlone.

The development proposal, Carlone’s policy order says, would cause significant loss of vegetation and associated evapotranspiration, which would in turn elevate the current water table, inundating the proposed underground storm water storage basin.

Multiple area groups have joined efforts in an attempt to save the forest, including Friends of the Alewife Reservation, Green Cambridge, the Mystic River Watershed Association, Lesley University's Division of Science and Mathematics, Fresh Pond Residents Alliance, and the Climate Action Coalition.

Contact Chronicle reporter Sara Feijo at sfeijo@wickedlocal.com or follow her on Twitter at @s_fjo.

Madeleine Sis, 21, left, a junior at Lesley University, Gina-Maria Giuliano, 21, of Somerville, and Joseph Heisler, who lives in the woods near the Silver Maple Forest, protested Tuesday to halt a looming 298-unit development. Credit: Wicked Local Staff Photos / Sara Feijo


A group of local environmental activists protested a looming development on Tuesday that they say would destroy the Siilver Maple Forest at the edge of Belmont, Cambridge and Arlington. Credit: Wicked Local Staff Photos / Sara Feijo


Cambridge residents Alice Heller, left, and Lois Solomon, right, hold a sign in protest of a development in the Silver Maple Forest. Credit: Wicked Local Staff Photos / Sara Feijo

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Article & pictures preserved 2014-11-02 from http://cambridge.wickedlocal.com/article/20141014/News/141018200