News
The bacterial contamination in the Oak Bluffs water supply last month that forced town residents to boil their tap water or use bottled water for nearly a week was likely caused by a private contractor who broke through a water line, town water officials said this week.
The identity of the contractor may never be known, officials said. A notice published in today’s Gazette by the Oak Bluffs Water District states that the source of the coliform bacteria found in the town water last month remains under investigation, but the cause was likely a contractor.
As subdivisions go, the plan for Flat Point Farm in West Tisbury could hardly be more carefully balanced between the need to plan for family succession and the desire to maintain the farming tradition, so threatened on Martha’s Vineyard.
Yet it has served to raise a whole raft of questions that go to the very heart of the Island farming methods, which contribute disproportionately to the Vineyard’s most pressing environmental problem, pollution of the great ponds by excessive nitrogen.
Hollywood Video, the video rental store at the Triangle in Edgartown, has closed its doors, apparently for good.
The inside is dark and a closer look reveals rows of empty DVD and video game shelves. The front desk is littered with electrical equipment and empty plastic water bottles, with empty jewel cases piled up on the floor. The front doors are partially covered by three white signs offering handwritten explanations and directions.
Peace Council Meets
The Martha’s Vineyard Peace Council will meet on Thursday, Nov. 5, at 6:30 p.m. at Grace Church in Vineyard Haven. Author David Swanson will visit on Nov. 7, from 4 to 6 p.m. at the Tisbury Senior Center, where he will discuss and sign his new book, The Imperial Presidency, about war era presidents.
The Vineyard’s first experimental blue mussel farm began operating in waters off Cape Higgon in Chilmark this past week.
Two weeks ago fishermen suspended a 500-foot cable 30 feet underwater in Vineyard Sound. Last week they hung lines on the cable that were loaded with juvenile blue mussels, held to the line by a biodegradable fabric called socks.
If the project is successful, by the end of next year the mussels will be marketable.
Halloween, which has its roots in both a celebration of the change in seasons and a day to honor the memory of our ancestors, is not a federally recognized holiday, but this year it falls on a Saturday. It won’t happen again until 2015, so enjoy it.