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Hydrilla menace
Our treasured lakes and rivers have come under attack by an invasive plant — hydrilla — that threatens not only those environmental resources but also poses a threat to local economies, to real estate values and to recreational opportunities.
The Journal has dedicated front-page coverage to this menacing invasive in a series of articles by Debra Aleksinas that concludes in this issue. In fact, Aleksinas has been writing about this fast-growing aquatic weed since it was discovered in East Twin Lake early last summer during a water quality visit near the public boat launch at O’Hara’s Landing Marina. By September last year the plant was identified as the Connecticut River variant of hydrilla vericillata. One rapid response was an immediate moratorium on boating at Lakeville Lake. The boat launch remained closed for the 2024 season.
As summer arrived, more preventative measures were taken at Twin Lakes to stop the spread of hydrilla. Others joined the fight with cautionary decisions. The Ostrander Guest Beach at Mount Riga and all campsites were closed for the 2024 season, and is expected to remain closed throughout the 2025 season. Besides the threat to the environments of Mount Riga’s Riga Lake and South Pond, the namesake organization, Mount Riga, Inc., noted that it lacks the financial resources to monitor and/or combat hydrilla. The Twin Lakes Association has said it anticipates spending as much as $300,000 on the problem in the 2024 season, a tenfold leap in spending.
Just as the Twin Lakes Association and the host of local, state and federal officials have stepped up to recognize the hydrilla threat and to combat it with a joint effort, The Journal remains dedicated to maintaining a focus on this invasive threat to our environment, and in turn to explain how an ecological disaster can become a threat to a community’s economic well being.
In recent years, The Journal has focused on a core mission to focus on our community’s needs for housing, education, healthcare, government, sports and the arts — and add to that a healthy environment. We believe that a community’s health depends on all of the above.
We congratulate Debra Aleksinas for being the first to report on the hydrilla outbreak at East Twin Lake, the first known lake in the state to become infested with the Connecticut River strain. Our readers can thank her as well for her watchful eye on this problem. We salute the coalition of local, state and federal officials who have brought an urgent focus to the problem, and especially the Twin Lakes Association and its leadership for jumping into action when the threat first surfaced.
Our lakes and rivers, our wildlife, our recreational opportunities that provide not only outdoor fun but also promote a healthy state of mind, and our local business economy is ultimately at stake when our natural resources are attacked.
Letters to the Editor - 9/19/24
Reward results: Harding
Steve Harding became a Connecticut State Senator two years ago and quickly became the Minority Leader. He has come to Salisbury many times and is an avid supporter of open space preservation and local lakes. His focus in Hartford has been to insist on fiscal responsibility by opposing the historic tax-and-spend agenda. Steve’s opponent, former dairy farmer Justin Potter, seems to be an honorable person, but we must vote for the candidate better able to help our community—Senator Steve Harding.
Peter Becket
Lakeville
Equus Effect thanks community
‘Man Plans….’ and so it was on Saturday, Sept. 7, for our annual event at The Equus Effect. We could not believe that the skies would open up like that, just in time. And then, we could not believe that folks actually came out to be with us in spite of the torrent of rain and wind. Thank you. What an incredible community this is. We are so honored to be a part of it, and so very grateful for your support — rain or shine!
Jane Strong
The Equus Effect
Sharon
Your vote in November matters
I am voting for Congresswoman Jahana Hayes because:
She believes in the Constitution, democracy and the Rule of Law.
She believes in a woman’s right to choose, contraception, IVF.
She believes in working across the aisle.
She believes in moving the goal posts to help our small farms in the NW Corner, protecting SNAP benefits, protecting OBAMA Care, all while bringing home almost $9 million dollars to her district.
She will protect Social Security and Medicare…not try to destroy it.
She believes that millionaires and billionaires should pay their fair share — not less than the middle class.
She does not believe that our veterans are losers and suckers — she fights for our veterans and proposed a bill to expand healthcare for veterans’ families.
She will always tell you the truth — she will never tell her staff to “deny, deny, deny.”
She believes in helping all the people in her district– not just Democrats.
You may not agree with all of Congresswoman Hayes’ policies, but know that she is highly moral, dedicated, hardworking and most importantly true to her oath. She will always listen to your view points. Rep. Hayes is like you — she struggled to get to where she is today. She will defend the rights that are important to all of us – the right to peaceful protest, a women’s right to choose, voting rights, and more.
It’s up to you. Don’t sit on the sidelines and say I could never vote for someone not in my party. Put country over party. Be assured, you will wake up one day to find that your rights are slowly diminishing, and you will then ask yourself why didn’t I become more informed? Why didn’t I vote?
This election will determine what happens to you, your children, your grandchildren, your friends, and your family. We need to move forward, not back. You still have time to get informed about the issues important to all of us.
Marlene Woodman
Sharon
Issues that led to ‘Save the Rail Trail’ still present
Like Shasta daisies, yard signs sprouted last May in Salisbury and Lakeville. They carried a “Save the Rail Trail” message. The issues that led to the signs have not disappeared.
Those who display the yard signs, in harmony with many neighbors around our community, are ardent supporters of the Rail Trail. Thus, we were stunned to read a recommendation in a February 2024 study prepared for local government by the consulting company Collins Engineering and Design. The company advised paving over the northern tier of the Trail to allow “vehicular” access to the Pope property. That property is on Salmon Kill Road near its intersection with Highway 41/44 and is a possible location for affordable housing.
Collins recommended two-way automobile traffic across the current pedestrian bridge over the Wachocastinook Brook. Bicycle and pedestrian passage would be reduced to a narrow ribbon of land, cheek-by-jowl with cars.
Subsequently, officials have said this trail-paving project will never occur; that this notion is the product of gossip, rumor, and horseback speculation offered at a gallop. Yet a recent Plan of Conservation and Development report, entitled Sustainable Salisbury, has raised anew the prospect of a paved road across the Brook (p. 24).
It is precisely this notion of a paved road on the Trail that gave birth to the yard sign movement. Further concerns grew out of a government committee on the proposed housing development at the Pope site. In its “Schema No. 6” design, the panel recommended the construction of 64 housing units on the property. More than half of these structures extend into the Salisbury Historic District that runs adjacent to the Rail Trail and is one of the few green spaces left in the village.
Such high-density housing would concentrate units together in a confined area. One of the results: each day, scores of cars and trucks would spill onto narrow Salmon Kill Road and the proposed paved road over the Wachocastinook. The current pedestrian bridge would have to be widened and strengthened, at the cost of well over a million dollars. Unacceptable traffic congestion would occur at the intersection of Salmon Kill and Highway 41/44, without even the benefit of a stop light (prohibited on this State highway).
In contrast, if the housing units—which are much needed in our community, no question about that—were dispersed not only on the Pope land but to additional parcels of land in our area, we could retain our rural setting and provide less packed, more humane living conditions for new residents. This “scattering” of affordable housing in communities is the approach preferred by planners throughout the United States, rather than an “urban” design that groups new housing closely together into one overloaded site.
Let us forge a community consensus on a better local approach to affordable housing. We can achieve the worthy goals of new lower-cost homes, while at the same time protect the Rail Trail and the green Historic District, as well as maintain traffic and pedestrian safety.
Loch Johnson
Salisbury
The author is a member of the Salisbury Village Improvement Coalition (SVIC), but these observations are presented in his capacity as a private citizen.
Farm support is important
Both Donald Trump and the Republican plan Project 2025 want to boost fossil fuel drilling in the future and to negate all progress toward fighting climate change. Project 2025 wants to downsize the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency. Their plan means nullifying Biden’s executive orders to mitigate climate change and reducing the Inflation Reduction Act which is the biggest investment in clean energy in history.
If elected, George Logan, running for Congress, would join his Republican colleagues to push this Republican agenda. He says he would vote independently but after accepting support from the Republican National Committee, like so many other colleagues in Congress, he would have to follow his Party’s line. The Republican plan, Project 2025, lists ending the “safety nets” like the Agricultural Risk Coverage (ARC) for farms, and ending the Price Lost Coverage (PLC), and reducing farm crop insurance.
As a child, Highfield Farm delivered milk and cream every day to my house in the woods. As an adult, I watched the dairy farm across the street decide to sell their prize herd of cows and stop production. Jahana Hayes, our Congresswoman, is a ranking member on the House Agricultural Committee, she backs farms and farmers in the 5th District. She supports ARC and PLC. Crop insurance protects farmers from the dramatic weather fluctuations, including floods and droughts we see from climate change. Price supports are important for dairy farms. Farm products are a huge part of the U.S. export market, and Americans need to feed ourselves.
Re-electing Jahana Hayes is so important for she will continue to work to create laws to mitigate climate change and to protect American agriculture no matter what the climate throws at us.
Lizbeth Piel
Sharon
The First Continental Congress, Part I
On September 5, 1774, fifty delegates from eleven colonies crowded into the long room of Philadelphia’s City Tavern to commence a Continental Congress, to address what the colonies might do to fight the British Intolerable Acts. Those Acts had been wreaking havoc since the spring, exacerbating the harm done by the earlier Navigation Acts that crippled American commerce.
The delegates chose the crowded room to have less chance of being overheard by those already calling them traitors just for meeting together, but soon moved to the larger Carpenter’s Hall and were joined by delegates from a twelfth colony. Georgia chose not to attend, because it did not want to challenge Great Britain, a stance replicated by the colonies of North and South Florida, Nova Scotia, and two other Canadian areas.
Most delegates were rich men who had inherited their wealth.
Most delegates were rich men who had inherited their wealth. Only Ben Franklin of Pennsylvania and Roger Sherman of Connecticut could be called self-made. They were almost all veterans of colonial legislatures, used to the ways of politics and power, and fairly conservative. Some had attended the Stamp Act Congress of 1765, which had succeeded in getting that hated act rescinded.
Of the more radical delegates – Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, and Christopher Gadsden of South Carolina – only Henry proposed independence, and the idea was quickly voted down and he was relegated to a secondary committee where he couldn’t do much damage.
The delegates were determined to be fair to one another, and to not impose the tyranny of the majority, which occurs when a narrow majority forces its will on a considerable fraction that is in the minority. When they disagreed over whether to accept the legitimacy of the earlier British Navigation Acts and reject the later ones, and the sentiment was five colonies for and five against – the vote was not held at all. Rather, the delegates sought another, less divisive way of dealing with the problem.
What rights did the colonists have? Thomas Jefferson, who was ill and had returned to Monticello, sent along his “A Summary View of the Rights of British America,” in which he claimed the rights as those enjoyed by the British, including free trade, which he described as a “natural” right. One malicious result of British regulation, he added, was slavery, and so “the abolition of domestic slavery is the great object of desire in those colonies where it was unhappily introduced.” His anti-slavery notion was shunted aside in Philadelphia but the delegates liked a lot of what Jefferson wrote about their having the same rights as their overlords.
The question of what, precisely, to do about that was answered by Paul Revere, in a long-distance ride bringing the “Suffolk Resolves,” which the Massachusetts colonial legislature had just approved, to the anger of British General Gage and other British-appointed officials. First adopted by the county of Suffolk a year earlier, it mirrored material from Committees of Correspondence of Middlesex, Essex, and Worcester counties, it had urged all counties to close their courts and refuse to prosecute people for violations of the Intolerable and Navigation Acts.
The Resolves were quietly radical: boycott British imports and refuse to use British products; ignore and not obey the hated acts; demand resignations from colonists appointed under the acts; refuse to pay taxes unless the Massachusetts Government Act (over-riding the colonial legislature) was rescinded; and to raise a militia to defend the colonists from the British, should that become necessary.
Would the Continental Congress endorse the Suffolk Resolves? Delegate John Adams wrote in his diary, “This is one of the happiest days of my life. In Congress we had generous, noble sentiments, and manly eloquence. This day convinced me that America will support Massachusetts or perish with her.”
Early in October the Congress adopted the Suffolk Resolves and lay the groundwork for a more formal boycott and non-importation act, and the sending of a last-ditch olive branch letter directly to King George III. They put off the most important votes for the last week of the meeting.
Next: What the First Continental Congress finally agreed upon in October 1774, and its revolutionary consequences.
Salisbury resident Tom Shachtman has written many books, including three about the Revolutionary Era.
