Gus Ben David on one of his early excursions to Noman's Land.

Let No Man Mess with Noman’s Land

Augustus Ben David 2nd
[Print options: w comments, w/o]
[Related stories side scroll]
MLA
Author Last Name, First Name. “Title of Article.” Title of Newspaper, Day Month Year, URL.

Once again there is pressure to spend millions of dollars to clean up Noman’s Land. And once again I say, leave it alone.

Once again there is pressure to spend millions of dollars to clean up Noman’s Land. And once again I say, leave it alone.

Noman’s was first leased by the Navy from the Crane family in 1943. In the early years they used explosive ordnance for target practice, but eventually moved away from explosives to smoke-emitting projectiles when the federal government bought the island in 1953.

In the 1960s, the public would look out and see planes strafing the Island and there was a great concern about the wildlife being destroyed. So in 1973, Henry Beetle Hough, the editor of the Vineyard Gazette and one of my great mentors, asked if I would go over there as a biologist, assess the situation and give an honest opinion of what it was like. What I concluded is that it was an absolutely unbelievable place for wildlife — totally protected.

To this day I have been a hawk on no human visitation to Noman’s. Can’t we end up with one incredible place that we leave alone?

During the 1970s and 1980s, I continued to make regular visits under the auspices of the Navy. No private individual has been to Noman’s as much as I have. I have crawled on my belly across that island, overturning every stone. I’ve camped out there. I’ve been for three days in a row studying wildlife. I know it intimately.

It is a migratory bird stopover for the ospreys, eagles and peregrine falcons that frequent our shores. It has probably the largest and healthiest spotted turtle population in the commonwealth — along with two other species of turtle. There are four species of reptiles, including garter snakes, extraordinary for their greenish-blue coloration. Virginia rail nest there along with white egrets and Leach’s storm petrels.

The wildlife on Noman’s is extraordinary. Everything is in harmony.

In a letter to the Navy after one such expedition in 1987, I wrote, “I concede that it is an irony that an island that is actively used as a military target range can also remain a wildlife paradise. However, that is the present condition and should I be allowed to continue my inspections I will be the first to report any change in these conditions.”

After using the west end of Noman’s for target practice, the Navy conducted a massive cleanup of residual metal and other stuff. Fuel tanks, pipelines — everything was taken out. For the first cleanup, which I was there for and watched, they were meticulous and did a good job.

Now people want to go over there and strip everything which will just destroy so much wildlife. They want to open it up for public access, which would be totally detrimental to the habitat.

The art of managing wildlife and a piece of land is to use it proportionally. Wildlife is a product of habitat. You reach points where it’s all you can handle so that’s all we’ll allow. And that’s the way it is because of our population.

If we were talking about Chernobyl and there was a possibility of cleaning up nuclear material, of course you would, but on Noman’s there’s none of that. I’m not a chemist, but you’ve got more natural organisms now that are just now showing themselves. To me it’s the most romantic, mysterious place on earth.

Since the 1970s, I’ve stated in my reports that if this island and its control were relinquished by the Navy, it was going to be the beginning of the degradation of Noman’s. And damn if that isn’t starting to happen.

We should leave it alone and let it be a wildlife refuge, with public access tightly controlled. Perhaps there could be a planet-earth style documentary so that people could experience it without physically going to it.

It just seems in society we can’t take certain pieces of land and just leave them alone. It is such an extraordinary place. It would break my heart to see them go over there and tear that Island up again.

I hope that the good powers that be in the federal government use their knowledge to do the best that they can to maintain the biological integrity of Noman’s Land.

Gus Ben David is a longtime biologist and naturalist who lives in Edgartown.

Comments

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 10/16/2020 - 06:23

Permalink

Wilson Kerr Vh

As always, your voice is a voice for conservation, for letting nature be wild and uninterrupted. And for teaching others the wisdom of this approach. There are precious few truly wild places left. Let it be.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 10/16/2020 - 09:00

Permalink

Jane Tisbury

Will we never learn?!? It is unbelievable to me that we are even discussing this! I do not know exactly who will make the final decision, but I can only hope that the decision will be the right one-leave this lovely sanctuary alone!

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 10/16/2020 - 09:34

Permalink

Chris Daly Aquinnah

Thank you, Gus. As I read this, I am looking at Nomans Land from the dining table. I can't think of a better thing to do than to leave in alone.
Let it be.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 10/16/2020 - 09:52

Permalink

Sarah Chilmark

I could not possibly agree more! Just let it be and enjoy knowing that the wildlife there can continue to live in harmony.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 10/16/2020 - 11:34

Permalink

Annie Cook Chilmark

It's great to have the Vineyard's pre-eminent wildlife expert speak to this issue. It seems the term "public access tightly controlled" pretty much sums up a reasonable consensus. However, that some people of one generation have been able to experience the beauty of Noman's and now insist that younger generations should be prohibited from the same responsible, respectful types of visit risks translating as selfish and conveniently paranoid as far as only a certain caste of Vineyarders qualifying to witness, at least once in their lives, the island as naturalists - which is certainly as doable through permitted/scheduled visits under the auspices of Fish & Wildlife as it has been for the two groups I have heard have been allowed on the site: members of the Wampanoag tribe and a small circle of Caucasian males of a certain generation.

What of ordnance washing up on Vineyard shores, as recently occurred in Edgartown? I'd be interested to hear more about that risk, which speaks not simply to potential sub-surface UXO clean-up under the ground, but to the devices littering the sea floor, which the currents carry to Vineyard beaches as an ongoing threat to public safety.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 10/16/2020 - 12:50

Permalink

bill wolf Aquinnah

To what problem is "another cleanup' the solution? Noman's is fine as is - agree with Gus!

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 10/16/2020 - 16:06

Permalink

Cynthia Chappy

Totally agree. Who are the powers that be that we all can appeal to? They’ve probably never even heard of or seen the island! Much as I’d love to go there, I’d prefer to see it protected.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 10/16/2020 - 18:23

Permalink

Andrea Rabinowitz and Peter Rabinowitz West Tisbury and Seattle

When will humans learn to live with nature, wild and domestic? This must be one of the few wild places left in the state and should remain that way for the sake of the animals that call it home. Would you like your home invaded?

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 10/16/2020 - 22:26

Permalink

Ginny WT

There are certain folks who, when they speak up and speak out, should be listened to, respected (enormously) and their advice followed. Gussie is our local David Attenborough (who I was watching being interviewed by President Barack Obama back in 2015 yesterday; it was an extraordinary meeting of minds and we should all listen/watch that program which is on the White House website, I believe). We need more respected voices, and less feet on the ground over there -- even gentle feet! There are plenty of places that most, if not all of us will never visit. Frankly that is OK because I know that the island will be wild and for the wild creatures FOREVER and that is truly the best possible outcome.

Leave Noman's Land alone and do not let the excavators and heavy duty equipment and drivers ashore! Please heed the voice of Gussie, our village elder and expert!

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sat, 10/17/2020 - 15:35

Permalink

Brian Vineyard Haven

Do not be fooled - while the the environmental wrong presented to the public is surface level UXO's - the real danger is degrading munitions entering our water table (an EPA designated sole-source aquifer). I would hope everyone is aware of what carcinogens and heavy metals in the water can do to a communities health.
It's dissappointing to read all of these comments and see how poorly informed our community is,and how easily we blindly follow the opinions of others. Sadly, those with little or no background of conservation, and no factual knowledge of Noman's were those able to speak up the loudest during the hearing.
In my opinion, munitions dumping along the east coast and Cape Islands maybe among the worst environmental disasters to be kept from the public eye (as reflected by high rates of autism and cancer) among nearby residents.
Let's hold the Navy responsible for their wrong doings, get these munitions out of our water table, and begin mending our local resources. For those worried that removing munitions will harm the ecosystem, please remember that the bird habitat thrived throughout the years of actively being bombed, with the whole island often left in flames. Two towns, a school, 400 residents, poof. We can't expect future generations to shepard the land if we don't allow them to connect and fall in love with it.

Brian Vineyard Haven

Thank you For Tom. The public doesn't understand that there has been no science. The bombs need to come out, and only then, should it be of limits to the public. There is a saying "when everyone thinks alike, someone isn't thinking", clearly that is the case, as no one has really done any homework, and simple got on board with Gus.

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who said leave the bombs in place.Thanks for your uneducated input, now we are sure to have plenty of heavy metals in the water table for the rest of eternity.

Tim Simmons Merrimac

Brian,
Your passion is well appreciated but your understanding of groundwater dynamics is fundamentally flawed. There is no pathway for contaminants on Nomans to reach Vineyard water supplies.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 10/21/2020 - 09:12

Permalink

Justin Grossman Chilmark

As a Graduate Student of history who has researched Nomans intensively, I wanted to offer a respectful rebuttal to Mr. Ben David. The idea that Nomans should be "left alone" is based on three faulty premises which the Navy has used to justify inaction on just these sorts of projects around the world.

First and foremost, the colonial view that Nomans' "natural state" is to be uninhabited ignores our Native neighbors who were here and used Nomans before Europeans "discovered" the islands. Second, Mr. Ben David asserts that it would be a waste to spend millions of dollars cleaning up the damage that the Navy did to the island. However, this ignores the fact that we as a nation implicitly supported the spending of hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars during the Cold War on weapons testing, practice, and use around the world. To now get concerned over budgets in restoring the land to the point where it can be used again serves the military's rationale for abandoning the island. Lastly, as previous commenter's have mentioned there are health and environmental risks stemming from Naval bombing that remain unexamined. Aquinnah and Chilmark have been cancer hot spots since at least the 1970s, the cause of which is still undetermined. Water table and fowl transmission of pollutants from Nomans to Martha's Vineyard were proposed by the Mass EPA after turnover of the island in 1998, but the Navy never carried out these studies.

Using environmental arguments to justify abandoning poisoned land has been a tried and true method of the US military around the world. In Vieques, the Bikini Islands, and Nomans the bombing and destruction have led to further colonization of Native land. In 2015, I wrote an article that was published in the Martha's Vineyard Museum Quarterly Fall 2016 edition on just this very issue. Do not be swayed by the military's desire to wash their hands of the mess they created.

Tom Up Island

Again, Science! Thanks Justin. Public has a right to know. Maybe Gus is right and maybe he is not. Navy should do the right thing based on science....

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 10/21/2020 - 17:54

Permalink

Carol formerly Chilmark

I completely agree with Gus Ben David. Leave Noman's Land alone. It's fine as it is. Leave it.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 10/22/2020 - 17:56

Permalink

Anon Gay Head

Gus is right. Leave it alone. Maybe there is some room for a middle ground though, where occasionally small guided groups are allowed to visit the island in a controlled way a couple times a year. Like for a Christmas bird count, or conservation educational programs for kids.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 10/23/2020 - 09:47

Permalink

Marilyn Vineyard Haven

It is my strong opinion that every effort despite the cost must be made to clean up Noman's Island. It is our government's responsibility to take care of the harm made to the environment from using it as bombing practice for years. The military should think twice before engaging in such destructive and harmful activity anyplace in the world, let alone in our backyard.

I regret that when our son was a child, he witnessed the jets flying over Moshup Beach Preserve, circling the island, dropping bombs, and flying off in a flash. We witnessed this violence knowing it was not good for any living things. Please clean it up, as thoroughly as possible, so that our grandchildren will know that Noman's has been restored to its natural state. It's the right and environmentally conscious thing to do.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 10/23/2020 - 23:20

Permalink

John Edgartown

Remember that week the Navy had a hearing where it was proposed they remediate the island, but we told them to leave everything as-is, based on the expert advice of a village elder who flat out told you "I'm no chemist but..."(yes, re-read the article)...

Keep drinking the water, we'll check up on you in a few years.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 11/06/2020 - 17:52

Permalink

Skip Tomassian Edgartown

I've only been here since 1973. Since then, I think Noman's has been "cleaned up" at least three times and perhaps more. Gus' admonition has always been the same. Why should anyone listen now, they never did.

Add new comment

About text formats

Plain text

  • No HTML tags allowed.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Web page addresses and email addresses turn into links automatically.