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    • Fines for neighbors who poisoned trees continue to mount
    Iowa

    Fines for neighbors who poisoned trees continue to mount

    Eira Gwyneth Posted on

    Reg Wydeven
    | For Appleton Post-Crescent

    As I have mentioned in previous articles, I grew up two houses down from my wife, and when we married we were very fortunate to be able to buy my in-laws’ house. However, the neighbor between us was now surrounded by Wydevens and lawyers.

    He did, however, return the favor by putting a huge weeping willow in his yard. It was a beautiful tree in the summer, but in the fall it would drop millions of tiny leaves that were impossible to rake. This was only a little annoying, but we could easily overlook it because it was such a pretty tree and the neighbor was just about the nicest person you could imagine.

    However, some neighbors have no problem personally taking care of other people’s trees that they don’t like.

    Arthur Bond III is an architect and nephew of former U.S. Senator Kit Bond of Missouri. His wife, Amelia, is a former executive director of the St. Louis Foundation, which manages charitable funds with assets of more than $500 million. The Missouri couple spend their summers in a hilltop mansion in Camden, Maine. This community of about 5,000 people is located at the foot of the mountains that rise from the Atlantic Ocean and overlooks Camden Harbor, which is bustling with lobster boats, yachts and schooners.

    Lisa Gorman, wife of the late Leon Gorman, LL Bean’s president and grandson of LL himself, owns a house at the bottom of the hill, between the Bonds and the harbor. Her yard was full of beautiful trees, but the foliage blocked the Bonds’ view of the water.

    In June 2022, Gorman’s trees and other plants began to die. So Amelia Bond went to her, showed her the dying trees, and offered to share the cost of removing them. Instead, Gorman had the trees examined.

    The trees tested positive for tebuthiuron, a powerful herbicide that contaminates soil and doesn’t decompose, so it continues to kill plants. It was the same chemical used in 2010 by Harvey Updyke, an angry Alabama football fan who tried to kill the Toomer’s Corner oak trees at Auburn University after the Crimson Tide lost to their archrival Tiges. Tebuthiuron is so toxic that about 1,780 tons of contaminated material had to be removed from Auburn to achieve negligible levels of the chemical in the soil. After admitting to the poisoning, Updyke went to prison.

    When questioned about the issue, Amelia admitted to bringing the herbicide from Missouri in 2021 and applying it near oak trees on Gorman’s property. Since then, they have paid $4,500 to settle violations with the Maine Board of Pesticides Control Board for unauthorized use of an herbicide that was improperly applied and not approved for residential use, $180,000 to settle violations with the town, and another $30,000 for additional environmental testing, documents show.

    They eventually paid Gorman more than $1.5 million in a settlement, according to a memo from Jeremy Martin, the city’s planning and development director. But they may not be done yet. The herbicide seeped into a neighboring park and the city’s only public beach. That’s why the state’s attorney general is now investigating, meaning the Bonds could be liable for additional monitoring and remediation efforts in addition to possible criminal charges.

    Bonds’ attorney said the couple had no comment, but they “continue to take the allegations against them seriously. They continue to work with the City of Camden, the State of Maine and the Gormans as they have done for the past two years.”

    Even though Amelia didn’t have to deal with willow trees, there was probably still some crying.

    Reg Wydeven is a partner at the Appleton-based law firm McCarty Law LLP. He can be reached at [email protected].

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    Eira Gwyneth
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