An Island is necessarily a place of absolute limits — space, water and resources.
An Island is necessarily a place of absolute limits — space, water and resources. During my 61 years here, I have always put what’s best for the Island ahead of my own personal interests. I voted in favor of the land bank and every resource protection outcome I could, including larger lot sizes in hopes of protecting water quality. It has not been enough, and trying to meet the endless demand is not working for the Island.
The water quality of our coastal ponds is impaired – there are regular alerts of cyanobacteria blooms and increasing shellfish closures, and infiltration of our groundwater by PFAS ‘forever’ chemicals. The airport and business park are also expanding on top of our sole source aquifer.
We ship nearly all of our sewage, and all of our trash, including tons of food and construction waste, off the Island to impact other communities. We further impact our port communities/neighbors with endless incoming freight and tourist traffic. We are a bunch of spoiled babies who insist that our needs come first, refusing to acknowledge the profound consequences of our greed and want.
Meanwhile, our planning and zoning boards and the Martha’s Vineyard Commission (our regional planning agency) are under siege from huge development proposals that supposedly seek to meet the needs of housing, yet completely miss the mark when it comes to managing growth, which respects these critical Island limits.
Roughly 15,000 acres of land remain, for development or preservation. The Island will be a very different place depending on which way this land goes. It is impossible to plan meaningfully for the future that we hope to have when we are under unrelenting development pressure.
Many years ago, there was a citizens’ petition to nominate our sole source aquifer to be a District of Critical Planning Concern (DCPC), a planning mechanism through the Martha’s Vineyard Commission, as one tool to protect this irreplaceable resource. I’ll take this further and suggest that we challenge our leaders to nominate to the Martha’s Vineyard Commission an all-Island DCPC which would include an Islandwide building moratorium to give us a fixed amount of time in which to plan the future of the Island.
Prudy Burt lives in West Tisbury.
Comments
Prudy is right but the
Jay Ayer ChilmarkPrudy is right but the chances of a moratorium are slim. The profits from continued development are huge.
Let's take action before more of our water is unfit for drinking or swimming.
Water wells are already suffering contamination. Why wait until we are forced to drink expensive bottled water? Visit vanishing-vineyard.com
Prudy is correct on all
Charles de Geofroy ChilmarkPrudy is correct on all fronts. People have a bad habit of ignoring issues until it is too late, and as far as an Island Ecology, you keep doing that long enough, and you run out of water someday. Then what recourse do you have if you cut the Forest down and build too many developments? We need to save what we have before it's gone, and we can't get it back.
Thank you Prudy.
Russell Maloney ChilmarkThank you Prudy.
Why don’t the conservation
Elizabeth Durkee Oak BluffsWhy don’t the conservation organizations buy the remaining land and return it to the Wampanoag People? Their history of stewardship is far better than that of the colonizers.
Why don't the conversation
Katherine Scott TisburyWhy don't the conversation organizations just do their job with the lands they currently steward, and advocate for protection of our undeveloped land, including the largest piece of undeveloped land on the Island, the Manuel F Correllus State Forest? @@@
Instead of defending the State Forest as a forest reserve, our conservation organizations are on board with chopping down thousands of healthy white pines, despite the white pines' status as a native conifer (unlike other conifers planted at Correllus). @@@
These trees provide myriad ecological benefits for us in the present, and the benefits only increase as the forest ages into old-growth forest. Island conservation organizations need to rethink their positions and better understand the tortuous history of the expansive cutting plan.
Well said, Prudy.
abigail higgins west tisburyWell said, Prudy.
We can all play our part in supporting each other. All of us who stick our heads above the parapet to discuss the Island openly should bear in mind that we can play a part in empowering others.
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