No tiger lilies on Brush Lake Road this year

Published 1:32 pm Tuesday, June 15, 2010

To the editor:

There will be no tiger lilies on Brush Lake Road this year.

Thursday, May 27, as we drove out of our driveway, we were shocked at what we saw.

Our beautiful road was being devastated by the Cass County Road Commission.

All that is left of our once beautiful roadside is mangled, twisted tree trunks, limbs and branches lying all over and our beautiful tiger lilies gone.

This devastation is happening all over Cass County.

We are aware that, like other counties in Michigan (and Michigan), Cass County is facing hard financial times, but there must be a better way than mutilating our roadsides.

We wrote a letter to the Road Commission in April 2004 with the same concerns.

This is, in part, the answer we received:

“We do not have sufficient forces or budget to hand trim all the brush which needs to be removed from along the roadsides throughout the county. We utilize machinery capable of the work and leave the materials along the roadsides to naturally degrade. Our experience is that any unsightly materials are quickly absorbed by the environment and the overall appearance of the roadway is improved.”

We can safely say that the materials that were left to naturally degrade in 2004 are still there and will certainly not degrades in our lifetime.

Neither will the new “materials” that they are now creating.

We want to “thank” the Cass County Road Commission for beautifying our once beautiful Brush Lake Road.

Bob and Connie Plucienik
Eau Claire