Actually, it’s five Nagasakis, five Hiroshimas and a partridge in a pear tree...
25 years ago, my uncle had a very large (roughly 75’ft tall), very healthy pear tree, but the county came through and cut it down (even though it was still about 20’ft from the road they had widened), after designating the pear tree as an “environmental hazard”, for a future drainage ditch and sidewalk no one wants, and they are still saying should be put in sometime in the next 10-12 years.
Then they went much further. They drove on one my uncle’s farm lanes while he was at work, (more than an eighth of a mile into his property), and cut a 300+ year old Cottonwood tree, (wich had a 12’ft diameter trunk) and a huge wild grape vine/trunk of more than 2.5’ft diameter. University of Michigan actually sent a team out to study the grape trunk, which had been attached to the 300 year old Cottonwood tree. They did not believe anything like that existed in our modern day. It was recorded.
The reason the county “environmental office” gave was similar, stating they intended to run power across his property, and the Cottonwood tree was in the way. That was 25 years ago, and they still keep saying this will happen in the next 10-15 years, and they have changed the proposed route. Again, no land owner out there wants this. Even so, my Uncle, (who is nuclear physicist), was willing to go along, but has clearly been “stomped on” by the PC lefty filled “environmental office”.