Avalon public works employees clear dead Japanese black pine trees from the dunes at 74th Street.
Photo credit: Dale Gerhard

The thought of cutting down and removing trees from Avalon’s treasured maritime forest might seem like the last thing environmentalists would want to do. But Brian Reynolds expresses no remorse as workers removed portions of trees along 74th Street. “We have to get them out,” Reynolds said. Reynolds, who chairs Avalon’s Environmental Commission, is talking about only one kind of tree; the Japanese black pine. When planted in the 1960s, the trees were a great way to keep the dunes from eroding.