Dear Silver Maple Forest Supporters,

The campaign to Save the Silver Maple Forest is heating up this summer. Our rally on June 28th, was a great success with over 150 people and full media coverage! If you have not seen pictures of the event, check out the facebook page (www.facebook.com/events/1489098027989284/)!

The work of saving the forest is far from over and we need your help now to keep these precious trees standing. Here are a few important things you can do this month to save the Silver Maples!

Attend the Belmont Selectmen’s meeting in July 21st at 7:00 pm (Belmont Town Hall, 455 Concord Ave, Selectmen’s Meeting Room): At this meeting, Anne-Marie Lambert will give a 15 minute presentation to request funding for an engineering study of the public safety of the proposed development project on the Silver Maple Forest in light of what has been known since 2011 about extreme precipitation and flooding events in this area. Though this meeting is not an open forum for public comment, attendance will show support for the proposed study. In addition to attending, you can contact the Board of Selectmen (617-993-2610 or selectmen@belmont.ma.gov) and express your support for keeping the trees standing!

Tell the Cambridge Community Preservation Committee that you support setting aside funds to purchase the Silver Maple Forest: Friends of the Alewife Reservation has petitioned the Cambridge Community Preservation committee to set aside funds to help purchase the Silver Maple Forest for conservation land. You can support this effort by emailing Karen Preval (kpreval@cambridgema.gov) and Committee chair Lisa Peterson (lisap@cambridgema.gov) to say you value this unique floodplain forest and support the committee setting aside funds! Emails must be received by August 5th.

Tell Cambridge City Councilor Dennis Carlone and colleagues to bring the Silver Maple Preservation Policy Order for a vote: Councilor Carlone is working on a policy order to protect the forest to be voted on by the Council. Tell them to support this policy and delay permitting until the city’s Climate Vulnerability Assessment Study is completed and interpreted in November: Council@cambridgema.gov, dcarlone@cambridgema.gov, 617-349-4280.

(This is a Quick one!) If you haven't yet, add your name to the online Save the Silver Maple Forest petition at http://www.silvermapleforest.org/petition and share it with your network!

Thank you for your help protecting our floodplain forest! We will follow up with more important ways you can help. If you want to do even more, you can also find more upcoming actions and ways to get involved at www.friendsofalewifereservation.org/. You can also stop by the FAR office at 186 Alewife Brook Parkway #306 to pick up free postcards you can send to Belmont Selectman Chair, Andreas Rojas and Mayor David Maher of Cambridge.

Together we can save this unique forest,

Amy Mertl PhD, Secretary
On behalf of the Friend of the Alewife Reservation, Board of Directors
info@friendsofalewifereservation.org