A Goldman Sachs executive who illegally chopped down nearly 20 trees at his Katama compound must still comply with a town order to restore them, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection ruled earlier this month.
The state agency weighed in on the issue on July 8 after homeowners John and Amanda Waldron asked the DEP to issue a superseding order on their application to revegetate their $31.6 million Bayside South property on Katama Bay.
The dispute kicked off in October 2025 when the Edgartown conservation commission determined the Waldrons had removed cedar and oak trees that the commission had specifically ordered to stay at the property when the Waldrons built the 15,000-square-foot home in 2022. Fines were levied at $300 a day.
After the fines, Mr. Waldron, the president and COO of the investment bank, and his wife sent in an application to do some replanting on their property and complained to the DEP that the town would not accept the plans.
The Waldrons argued that because the town didn’t take up the application in a timely manner, the DEP should rule on it instead.
The town contended that it couldn’t consider the application complete because the Waldrons only offered to replant 45 shrubs and didn’t address the illegally chopped trees.
Officials with the DEP came out to the Vineyard to see the home in April and then this month wrote an 18-page decision that laid out conditions for the replantings. The DEP was in favor of the shrubs, but specifically noted that the town regulations still stand.
“This Order does not relieve the permittee of the necessity of receiving approval under and complying with the requirements of local regulations,” Maissoun Reda, the chief of the wetlands program at DEP, wrote. “This Order additionally does not approve or deny the removal of trees on site, nor does it nullify or supersede Edgartown Conservation’s Commission’s Enforcement Order.”
The conservation commission wanted to keep the trees at the property because they were part of a protected wetlands area and helped the area’s habitat, officials have said.
In an interview this week, Edgartown conservation agent Kara Shemeth said the town will continue to pursue tree replanting of the 16 trees.
“We still have an enforcement order,” she said.
Fines added up to about $7,800 but stopped when the Waldrons began working with the town on a new plan.
The DEP decision can be appealed, according to the order. The attorney who represented the Waldrons at the spring DEP visit, Peter Alpert, did not respond to a request for comment this week.
Ms. Shemeth said the town is looking forward to putting the issue to bed.
“Hopefully by the end of the summer we have a plan in place and a timeline,” she said.
This article appears in July 24, 2026.
My gosh just replant the trees that were illegally chopped down.
What is with these new arrivals who show up with a checkbook and bully the local boards who are there to protect the interests of the town. Make sure those trees are the same height and density as the ones removed…not some twig that will take 30 years to grow. Apparently ‘beauty is the eye of the beholder’… it would never pass muster in the historic district.
Communism. People should be able to cut down trees on property they own. The virtue signalers that come up with these socialist rules don’t own their own property. If they did, they would not make silly rules like this!
It is not communism to protect the fragile ecosystem of the shoreline. You should not be able to destroy a public waterway which is for everyone. The other owners of this sub division should also be calling out the guilty party to fix this as all the shoreline is in danger.
They should be required to pay the town’s legal expenses as well as replant the trees with same size specimens. And Edgartown needs to update its bylaws to include much more significant fines.