To the editor:

I'm responding to the Jan. 21 front-page article headlined "Watershed bypass raises hackles in Gloucester."

I write this as the former chairman of the Rockport Conservation Commission and also to reassure our good neighbors to the south that not all Rockporters support this idiotic destruction of your watershed.

This letter is not about the merits of a "bypass" road. It is however, a rebuttal of political ignorance. The idea of a paved road through Gloucester's Babson Reservoir watershed, particularly following "Old Rockport Road," is the environmental equivalent of defecating in your drinking water. It is so outrageously absurd from an environmental, water protection, and community preservation point of view, that Sen. Tarr, Rep. Verga, Michael Racicot and the Rockport Board of Selectmen all need to be put on alert that any money spent on a "feasibility study" involving the Babson Reservoir watershed route for an access road to anywhere is a waste of taxpayer's money.

I can tell you right now - based on 20 years of experience in permitting projects in close proximity to wetlands, particularly municipal water supplies - that the state's Department of Environmental Protection wouldn't allow it anyhow. When the MBTA proposed building a layover facility for storing trains overnight along Nugent Stretch near the Gloucester-Rockport town line, straddling the headwaters of both communities' water supplies, I asked the MBTA's representative at a public hearing in Rockport if they could guarantee that both communities' water supplies would never be compromised with an oil spill, and of course, the gentleman said no, he could not guarantee that. And then there's the road salt issue.

In the winter of 2001-02, the state dumped 265,000 tons of salt on the roads of the commonwealth to make them safe for winter driving. Where do you think that salt ended up? That's right - in each community's water supply.

When I lived in Beverly years ago, each spring the Salem-Beverly Water Supply Board would mail each water customer a notice saying that if the customer had high blood pressure he/she probably shouldn't be drinking the local water because of the elevated sodium content after the winter (Route 1A passes around the north end of Wenham Lake, Beverly and Salem's water supply, and Route 1A gets salted each winter, as would any road through Babson Reservoir).

All of the preceding is for the edification of local politicians and unthinking (selfish?) individuals who apparently have never given serious thought to the consequences/ramifications of their selfish desire (a road through the Babson watershed).

The Times editorial of Jan. 22, "Proposed bypass through watershed should be drowned," had it right: "... the notion of running any bypass through the Babson Reservoir watershed" is off the table of discussion. "It is neither safe nor feasible from a water-quality standpoint - and there's no need to spend a dime to get that answer."

Gloucester, I'm with you, and I'm not the only Rockporter who thinks at best the idea of a road through the Babson watershed stinks, and at worst is criminal.



ALAN MacMILLAN

Mount Pleasant Street, Rockport