Looking Back on the Bogs

I was at the ice rink the other day when an older gentleman approached me. "You should write a letter thanking Virginia for what she did to the bogs," he said. "I grew up near where you live and those bogs were pristine. Now they're a wreck."

I could submit such a letter to one of the local papers, but I doubt it would be printed. As one editor told me, "attack issues, not people."

However, sometimes the issue is a person. Everyone I know who favors farming the town-owned Coonamessett River cranberry bogs puts most of the blame for the current mess - if not all of it - on former selectman Virginia Valiela. It may be deserved. Publicly, Virginia was both a selectman and the head of the Coonamessett River Restoration Working Group, the committee charged with developing a management plan for the river. Sources tell me that privately, Virginia told people close to her that she was determined to fix the bog issue.

As one of the abutters of these bogs, I can attest to the current, sorry state of affairs here. The Falmouth Fisherman's Association kiosk has been vandalized several times since the town evicted Henry and his family from the house on Lower bog. Trash accumulates around the bogs until the occasional volunteer group arrives to cart away truckload after truckload to the dump. Grass on the access roads is overgrown most of the time, and the bogs have become host to a variety of invasive plants such as loostrife, autumn olive and knotweed. Indeed, the two growers who recently submitted bids to farm the bogs have said that unless something is done soon, there won't be anything left to farm.

Perhaps this is the outcome that some in Falmouth wanted, but I doubt this is what Virginia envisioned.

In her defence, Virginia was the only selectman to put her foot down with the Coonamessett River Park Coalition. The Coalition, now known as the Coonamessett River Trust, repeatedly refused to accept anything but complete abandonment of every one of the town-owned cranberry bogs along the Coonamessett. It was Virginia who told the Coalition/Trust that unless they compromised, the status quo would prevail.

Unfortunately, the alternative to the status quo - the current plan - is not based on facts or science, and does almost nothing to address the real problems along the river. Those problems - Dutchman's Ditch, road runoff, bad culverts, no shade, Pond 14, no buffers - could be fixed without closing a single cranberry bog. Yet we still closed cranberry bogs in the name of "compromise."

Like the gentleman who approached me, many wanted a different outcome here. However, the problems along the river remain and now our cranberry bogs have been abandoned and neglected too. Virginia may have done good things for Falmouth, but this part of her legacy is an embarassment to our town.

I, for one, am not afraid to say it.