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Concord, Massachusetts
July 2001

Checklist of some Thoreau-related conservation and environmental issues
needing attention and support in Thoreau Country

Prior to the 2001 Thoreau Society annual meeting, a group brainstormed a quick list of Thoreau Country issues. This incomplete list focuses on Thoreau-related conservation and environmental issues, though issues of conscience in the wider world should continue to have a moral claim on our attention. These issues are varied and have both urgency and an opportunity for leadership. They have a demonstrable connection to Thoreau, his writings, his life, and the prescient breadth of his interests. They provide an opportunity for people of different interests and skills to become involved.

* Walden Pond and Walden Woods issues, including
--- Reconstruction of Crosby's Corner-Route 2 (DEIR soon). A Great Wall of Jersey Barriers.
--- A new study of the future of the former Concord dump (Why did I think this had been all settled?).
--- Relocation of Route 126 (DEIR scoping soon). See below for more detail.
--- Cell towers in Walden Woods-- a continuing skirmish.
--- Potential for a wildlife and pedestrian link from Walden to Bristers Hill across (or under) a reconstructed Route_2.

* Specific Walden Pond issues, distinct from the above.
--- Overuse. Being loved to death? A 1998 US Geological Survey environmental fact sheet on the "unusually clear" Walden Pond that, however, points out that it is receiving a nutrient load, concentrated during swimming season, which may be sufficient to degrade it. (Colman, J.A., Waldron, M.C., 1998, "Walden Pond, Massachusetts: Environmental Setting and Current Investigations," U.S. Geological Survey Fact Sheet 064-98.) Download this 250k Adobe PDF file.
--- Mercury monitoring in the pond.
--- Walden is on state's "section 303(d)" list of critical water bodies as endangered by organic enrichment and low dissolved oxygen. (See USGS report on nutrient input from swimming.)
--- The glare-whiteness of the Walden bathhouse as an example of unnecessary, creeping, scenic blight.

* "Concord River" issues.
--- Recent designation of Concord-Sudbury Rivers as federal Wild and Scenic River & follow-up issues.
--- Current efforts to re-establish anadromous fish runs in Concord (cf., HT writings about conservation of salmon and shad in journal and "A Week").
--- Current pollution abatement issues (e.g.,  upgrading of wastewater treatment plants to prevent eutrophication).
--- Current bans on consumption of fish from Concord and Sudbury Rivers, due to mercury contamination (in part due to Superfund Nyanza site upstream.)
--- Water chestnut invasion of Fairhaven Bay--participation in abatement efforts. Invasives.
--- Historically appropriate reconstruction of the recently-collapsed Lee's Bridge (Route 117) provides an opportunity for a Walden Woods-Conantum-9 Acre Corner loop trail. See below.
---Hazardous waste sites and leachate: Nuclear Metals-Starmet, and WR Grace Superfund sites.

* Protection of Easterbrooks Country from encroaching development (including the plan of the Middlesex School to build deeply into the woods). Permit under appeal.

* Of course, the increase in commercial commuter flights from Hanscom Field is a noisy threat to the historic park and community.

* The future of the Thoreau birthplace. What happens now that the Concord selectmen have inexplicably disrupted this thoughtful opportunity for a low key educational center at a preserved Thoreau birthplace?

* Issues involving the eventual public preservation of Thoreau's Main Street house. That house and its attic (when restored) ought to be a public shrine. Some advance planning might be useful, to avoid the scrambles that have characterized past efforts.

* A Biodiversity Protection and Stewardship Plan for the Sudbury- Assabet- Concord River Basin. (A cutting edge example by Frances Clark of an effort to think regionally about biodiversity, using some of Thoreau's wild areas as parts of wildlife corridors.)

* Thoreau's mountains -- current controversies --
--- Ktahdn & a Maine Woods National Park. (A recent poll showed a majority of people in Maine favored this as a alternative vision for what is becoming an industrial tree farm managed by multinational corporations.)
--- Expansion of ski area development to summit of Mt. Wachusett -- recently stalled by a Superior Court judge.
--- Proposed large commercial development at Mount Greylock -- recently deflected by Gov. Swift.

* Participation in the effort in Lincoln to help restore the American Chestnut.

MORE DETAILS on some of the above.

1. Relocation of Route 126 and opportunities for Walden Pond protection. A series of meetings involving the DEM, the neighbors, TTS, the Walden Pond Advisory Board and others have developed a set of alternatives for the RELOCATION OF ROUTE 126. Some of these alternatives offer great protection for Walden Pond and do not seriously impact neighbors. (They move park facilities north and relocate Route 126 slightly to the east.) A breakthrough. The DEM will start the formal environmental evaluation process. This development (as well as a new vision for the adjacent old dump) offers great potential for Walden Pond protection.

2. Lee's Bridge. Another "road" issue has the potential to be a link in a loop trail for Thoreau Country benefit. The first steps appears to be on track, but one never knows.

As you know, Lee's Bridge has collapsed and will be reconstructed authentically, with safety improvements, and with only minor wetland incursion. Good. And it appears that, after some dispute, the two towns' selectmen have agreed that there should be a modest pedestrian passage over the bridge. Good. (For a while, some Concord selectmen saw no need for such a safe pedestrian passage, for there was no nearby "sidewalk" on the Concord side.) In fact, the unsafe-for-pedestrians Lee's Bridge was the only major safety break in a little-known  Thoreauvian loop trail that runs from Walden Pond to Mt. Misery to Lee's Bridge, and thence through quiet Garfield Road and Conantum streets and trails, to Heath's Bridge, to Walden Woods trails, and back to Walden Pond.

And scenic upgrades to this loop are possible: such as reopening the traditional, superb riverside trail (on the west side of Fairhaven Bay) from Lee's Bridge, past ex-Brooks', past Lee's Cliff, past ex-Mrs. Lowell's, past Martha's Point, to the Conantum trail system.

Steve Ells, scribe pro tem
steveells--at--earthlink.net