West River Chainsaw Mystery Solved

The ​“whodunit”in the woods by the West River is now a ​“hedidit.”

Nature lovers had wondered who was the mystery chainsaw-wielder who had cut three steps into a toppled tree in oder to make a path passable in the West River Open Space trails.

After this article about it appeared in the Independent, Alex Amendola, the Regional Water Authority’s forester, came forward as the man behind the mystery.

According to Amendola, Ron Walters, also of the RWA, heard about the tree blocking a pathway from the West River Watershed Coalition, one of RWA’s community partners. The two decided to go lend a hand.

It was only when Amendola arrived on the site and saw the tree that he realized the magnitude of the task.

“It was larger than three feet in diameter!” Amendola exclaimed.

“The way the tree had uprooted meant that it was suspended in mid air in the center,” Amendola explained. ​“There was so much tension in the trunk that I was worried I couldn’t get the chainsaw out if I tried to cut all the way through.”

Amendola had to get creative. He had done some chainsaw work back in college; he used skills he honed then to create a miniature staircase through the tree instead of just cutting out the portion of the trunk obstructing the trail.

The project took around four hours to complete.

Amendola pointed out that many of the people who walk through the West River trails are of an older age demographic. It was possible for some to jump over the ​“giant” tree, but the steps offered increased accessibility.

While the elegant steps started considerable speculation and discussion, this kind of work is not out of the ordinary for Amendola.

The RWA manages over 21,000 acres of watershed forest. Amendola said he does ​“trail work on RWA property all the time.” He also regularly volunteers to lend his time and skills to other community parks and forests.

“It would have been a real trial for the community to have done that work without our tools,” Amendola said.

“The RWA is involved with a lot of different organizations around New Haven and around Connecticut,” he added. ​“We have a lot of power being a quasi-state organization, so we like to do anything we can do to help.”

The WRWC celebrated Amendola’s stairway as an important step towards increasing the walkability and connectedness of the area. Amendola emphasized some of the project’s other benefits.

“The first step to healthy water is a healthy watershed forest,” Amendola said.

Amendola leads multiple timber harvests every year. ​“No one in the world loves trees more than I do,” he said. But one of the most important parts of supporting younger trees is recognizing when to take down the old ones.

Identifying senescing trees and creating ​“a younger forest” improves species diversity as well as water quality. Younger trees are able to filter rain water more effectively before it reaches the reservoir, meaning the water will ultimately require less filtering and treatment by the RWA.

“Having a healthy forest is in the interest of everyone in our distribution system,” Amendola said.

Under normal circumstances, Amendola also makes community outreach and engagement a central part of his work.

“A few other environmental guys and I do a lot of outreach and interpretive walks through the West River and the Mill River,” he said. ​“We do all sorts of stuff over the summer: bringing kids outside, teaching them to fish.”

While Amendola has been able to keep up some of these activities through the pandemic, he admitted that most of that work ​“has been smashed into the ground” by Covid-19.

He said that it is possible to effectively social distance outdoors, but that many of the events are arranged in partnership with local organizations that have canceled because of the stress of the pandemic.

“And again,” said Amendola, ​“a lot of the people that come to these activities are in an older demographic… they are understandably wary.”

For now, Amendola will continue to do more solitary volunteering when and where it’s needed. However, his future projects may not have the same anonymous allure as the wooden steps.

Amendola noted that neither he nor Walters told the WRWC about their work. Then the story ​“spiraled out of control,” and the stairs became regarded as ​“some unbelievable thing.”

He has since received consistent positive feedback from the company and community. His company’s CEO even reached out on social media to say ​“great job, Alex!”

Despite the praise, Amendola remains humble.

“It was no superhuman feat,” he said. ​“It just required a bit of planning.”