Guest Opinion: Stormwater Treatment Facility Will Betray Public Trust and Good Faith

By Sadie Bailey

You’re at the Farmer’s Market or enjoying Music in the Park on a Sunday evening. When you look toward the Band Shell, what will you see? Blinding sun in your eyes and a backdrop denuded of trees except for a few – IF they survive the bulldozers and lack of supporting microclimate. This is what Public Works will do this autumn in order to give us badly needed treatment of some of Eastsound’s stormwater. Their rationale? “We had two workshops this winter; the public had plenty of time to comment.” Plenty of time? This thing has been in the works since the 1980s! Public Works got a grant for this project several years ago- the kind where PW spends money from the County coffers and receives payback when the project is completed.

The public was NOT included in this process until too late. In our UGA wind tunnel, the forested backdrop to the Stage on the Green, and tree habitat to many creatures, will be gone. The new plants will mostly be 2 – 4’ tall – in an area heavily infested by deer, and worse, rabbits. An aesthetics committee was asked to join in at the end, and they effected some better changes because they had ground experience with the existing wetland in question. In order to make this “constructed” wetland, most of the supporting habitat to the existing one will go.

Just think what we could have had if citizens had been included all along. Another part of this deal is a new shopping center just north of the Gym and West of the Post Office – directly abutting Eastsound Swale – a category 2 regulated wetland. The owner granted Public Works some easement. PW will pipe his stormwater to the facility, and he can build whatever he wants in an area in which he should not be allowed to build. More of our Critical Areas in town get trashed in the tradeoff.

People – get involved! We need to hold the County accountable for bad planning. They keep saying they want our involvement in planning; if we don’t get involved early and keep the pressure on, this is what we’ll keep getting. When the public sees this stormwater facility and what was sacrificed to have it, they will feel betrayed and outraged – again – with ample reason.

Sadie Bailey is a landscape gardener, activist and blogger in Eastsound. Her websites are :
eastsound-habitat-matters.blogspot.com
and we-the-people-11.blogspot.com