Deforestation of Wildlife Habitat and Community Sound Barrier - Newberg-Dundee Bypass

I'm starting this blog because I've become fed up with how inconsiderate the Newberg Dundee Bypass project is considering the residents of Dundee.  This first post is a photo of the harvested forest that WAS between us and the road.  They are in the process of taking out the trees all along the South East side of Dundee although they're well away from the proposed road (in the above photo, the proposed road is back where the crane and red truck are; the road you see is simply one of many access roads blighting our community now).

I have no idea why they are doing this.  I hope they did their environmental studies because I'm sure there were all sorts of critters in these woods, especially since there is a small creek that runs through it.  Just the night before this came out I was on a walk and stopped to listen to an owl sitting in the trees that are no longer there.  A big, majestic 100+ year old Oak is next along their march north.

If you'd like to see how rich and thick this area is/was look at the satellite view of the area in google -
https://maps.google.com/maps?q=dundee,+or&hl=en&ll=45.271819,-123.00544&spn=0.001046,0.002468&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=38.502405,80.859375&t=h&hnear=Dundee,+Yamhill+County,+Oregon&z=19

Beyond the environmental consideration, this stretch of woods would provide a sound barrier for the South East residents of Dundee.  I reached out to the Superintendent with ODOT to ask why these woods were being removed.  He replied, "for future facilities".

I checked the project map at their website and nothing is shown in this area.  I sent him the map, and asked, "Nothing is shown, can you tell me what is planned?".  He did not respond.

This is just one example of the inconsiderate treatment of the South side of Dundee.  I'll blog  more about the 200+, per day, double trailer rock haul trucks that drive past our homes and bus stops.  There is a long list of other issues like not providing people access to their property, unsafe driving by site employees, trespassing, gross misspending of public tax dollars, etc.