CPA Funds Critical To Bogs

In his recent letter to The Enterprise, Kenneth Buesseler seems to have forgotten the details of the plan he advocates.

The current plan was based, in part, on the participation of the now-former cranberry grower. The only reason we need to put sprinkler heads and pumping stations back is because that grower decided not to participate, and took his equipment when he left. This put Falmouth in a difficult position; without the above ground irrigation equipment, the bogs cannot be farmed, and the plan falls apart.

We have already begun to suffer the results of this situation; Falmouth couldn’t find a grower this past year and so the annual cranberry festival was canceled because there was no harvest.

We now have two potential bidders for next year, but they won’t supply the irrigation equipment.

Enter the Agricultural Commission and the Historic Commission, who believe that because these bogs are a historic landscape, we can use Community Preservation Act funds to preserve them. It’s basic common sense; the only way to preserve cranberry bogs as cranberry bogs is to farm them, and they cannot be farmed without irrigation equipment.

This irrigation equipment would allow Falmouth to support the current plan, which consists of at least three phases. Phase One is the demonstration project on the Middle, Lower and Flax bogs; Phase Two includes the bogs along the upper Coonamessett River; Reservoir Bog has been left for some undetermined later phase. While the demonstration projects in Phase One are being completed, the bogs in the other phases are to be farmed. This is the plan.

Without the irrigation equipment, these farmers will not participate and we will lose all of the bogs to neglect. Indeed, the two bidders have stated that if no maintenance (i.e., farming) is done soon, there will be nothing left to farm. If that happens, the plan that Mr. Buesseler is advocating will fall apart.

I agree that we need to build on the progress that has been made. To do that, we need to support the request that is before the Community Preservation Committee.

Unless someone can come up with a better idea.

(This post was also published as a letter in the Friday, December 14, 2007 issue of the Falmouth Enterprise.)