The latest round in a dispute pitting a landowner’s right of access against conservation values played out like a game of cat and mouse in town hall, the courts and the woods of Edgartown last week.
It began a little before 10 a.m. on Friday morning, when Paul Elliott, the president of the Edgartown Meadows Road Association, found workmen cutting down trees along Middle Line Road.
An electrical failure was blamed for Monday’s collision between the freight ferry Governor and the new passenger vessel Island Home in the Woods Hole slips.
Carl Walker, director of maintenance and engineering for the Steamship Authority, said a circuit board blew, causing the Governor to lose its bow motor and steerage.
The fine equated to only about $1.35 per day for each day Francis M. Palma’s house posed a health threat in Ocean Heights. Even so, over 12 years that adds up to a hefty sum.
And the $6,000 he was ordered to pay by the Edgartown board of health last Thursday is only a small part of the total cost of Mr. Palma’s long defiance of town authorities.
Before Tuesday’s book launch at the Bunch of Grapes, the audience was issued an unusual instruction for such an event. They were asked not to seek to get their copies of the book The Coldest Winter, signed by the man launching it, Ward Just.
The reason was obvious, but sad. Mr. Just did not write the book. His good friend David Halberstam did, but he died in a car accident in April this year.
Sengekontacket Pond will reopen Monday to shellfishing, but the source of the bacterial contamination which led to its closure for most of the summer remains a mystery.
Edgartown shellfish constable Paul Bagnall announced on Monday that new tests of the pond’s water, done last week, showed coliform bacteria counts down to within safe levels, allowing most of it to be reopened.
Edgartown selectmen this week approved a trial dredging project with a new piece of equipment some people hope will address not only the Edgartown Great Pond’s water quality issues but also problems with many of the Island’s smaller ponds.
The $500,000 portable dredge called Nessie now will be trucked in from California and, if all goes according to plan, should begin work clearing deposits of sand which have prevented proper flushing of the pond within a month.
