The Vineyard is set to get a new radio station and the town of Tisbury to get an integrated information system following a couple of last-minute approvals this week.
On Tuesday, selectmen Tristan Israel and Denys Wortman (Thomas Pachico was absent) approved an easement at the department of public works site for a 70-foot pole which will be used by the station for its broadcasts and by public works to communicate with other town departments and the Tisbury school.
Edgartown wastewater authorities believe a plan to sewer hundreds of homes in the watershed of the Edgartown Great Pond can achieve the 30 per cent reduction in nitrogen pollution required to restore it to health.
A draft report of the Massachusetts Estuaries Project, obtained and published by the Gazette last week, finds the Great Pond’s water quality is significantly affected by heavy nitrogen loading. The biggest single contributor to the problem is household septic systems, the report found.
If the Edgartown Great Pond is to be restored to environmental health, town authorities must find a way to cut nitrogen pollution coming from household septic systems by at least 30 per cent, according to a comprehensive scientific study of the pond’s water quality.
Geraldine Brooks has never written an entirely fictional book. She does not even think she could. She spent too many of her writing years, she says, “in service of the facts,” practicing journalism.
In a way she still does practice journalism, for her novels are born of news judgment rather than imagination. The initial inspiration for every book is invariably a true story, and a particular sort of story, in which only a few compelling facts are known, but the detail is missing.
Shortly before he voted with two other Steamship Authority governors to give himself free ferry travel for life, New Bedford governor David Oliveira on Tuesday defended the perk by noting the world was an unfair place.
So employees of the boat line could not travel free after they retired, but governors could? That’s just the way it is.
At least, that was the message Mr. Oliveira, who is the chairman, conveyed, although what he actually said was:
Winter high-speed ferry service between New Bedford and the Vineyard is expected to be sharply reduced, and may be abandoned altogether unless passenger numbers increase.
In the face of rapidly falling ridership, the ferry’s operators intend to cancel all weekend runs and reduce weekday trips by a third. The changes are expected to be formally approved by Steamship Authority governors at their monthly meeting in New Bedford on Tuesday.
