2023 in Review

The Plymouth County Observer No. 126

Dear Readers,

The year 2023 has nearly run its course, and therefore I thought it proper to consider some of the issues this publication has covered over the course of the past year. I wrote a lot of articles for the Plymouth County Observer in 2023: I researched, reported, wrote, edited and published 55 articles (a portion of one was contributed by a reader, as described below), totaling more than 163,000 words, or 673.7 pages (at size 12, Times New Roman font, double-spaced). Since its founding in April, 2022, The Plymouth County Observer has published 126 articles, including this one, for a total word count of 263,462, or 976.2 pages. 

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Here is a roundup of some of the events and issues this publication covered in 2023:

(Looking westward from Duxbury Beach across the upper reaches of Duxbury Bay, Dec. 31st, 2023; credit — J. Benjamin Cronin.)

In January, we covered issues that have been the longstanding concerns of this publication, namely, procedural fairness and the physical preservation of, and continuance of democratic control over, our common natural resources.

Specifically, we looked at a heated Plymouth Zoning Board of Appeals meeting on Jan. 4th in which the Chair, Michael Main, berated an Attorney appearing before him, Meg Sheehan, in an action relating to earth removal on a parcel off Long Pond Road.

We also looked at the continuing saga of Lake Nippenicket in Bridgewater, and the attempts of the real estate developers, Claremont, to develop the shoreline of the lake — a Great Pond of the Commonwealth, and a significant fluvial resource for the Towns of Bridgewater and Raynham. The Office of the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act found that Claremont’s proposal did not adequately comply with the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act (MEPA); however, after Claremont submitted a revised Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Report (SDEIR) in September, the MEPA Office found that the project did comply with the Act. The project will now again come before relevant bodies of the Town of Bridgewater, such as the Planning Board and Conservation Commission. (The Bridgewater Planning Board meets virtually on Wednesday, January 3rd, 2024, at 6:30 pm, to consider the matter.)  

In February, we looked at flooding on Robbins Pond in East Bridgewater, and at a proposal by Plymouth Selectman Harry Helm and Planning Board Vice Chair Stephen Bolotin for a land bank in that Town. We argued against an attempt by a non-resident property heir to rewrite Duxbury’s Zoning Bylaw to make AirBnbs and other short term rentals a by-right use in every residential zone in the Town, which would have inevitably exacerbated the effects of our already severe housing crisis (as I noted at the time, economic research by Barron, Kung, and Proserpio demonstrated that short term rentals exerted an upward pressure on rents and housing prices). Reasonable people of good will may disagree on the desirability of such changes of course, and I should note the article’s proponent, Charles J. Husk, is a very amiable fellow; nevertheless, in my view, Mr. Husk’s proposed article was dangerous for the entire Town, and particularly for renters, for working people, and those on limited incomes. It was defeated at a high turnout Special Town Meeting on February 28th called by Mr. Husk, by a vote of 50 in favor, with 840 opposed.  

In March we covered a number of issues, including runoff in estuaries and the alarming die-off of eelgrass across the region, a discussion of issues around planning in the Town of Plymouth, and beyond, with Selectman Harry Helm and Planning Board Vice Chair Stephen Bolotin, including their idea for a Land Bank in Plymouth, similar to those already existing on Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. We also looked at the significant Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decision Barron v. Kolenda, in which the Commonwealth’s highest court found that even rude and uncivil speech directed at government authorities (in this case, the Select Board of the Town of Southborough) was protected by the Massachusetts Constitution.

In April, we covered the Annual Town Meeting in Carver, as well as the race for Kingston Town Treasurer between Kingston Selectwoman Jess Kramer and advocate for the commons and Treasurer Ken Moalli (Mr. Moalli was elected). 

We spent a great deal of time and ink — or pixels — on the Plymouth Select Board race last May. This was prior to the launch of The Plymouth Independent, and in the absence of a well-resourced local newspaper covering town politics in Plymouth — the shire-town for the entire region — I thought it important to cover this race in some detail; indeed, I thought it my civic duty: even though I am not a Plymouth resident, as someone who lives across the bay in Duxbury, I think it is fair to say regarding Plymouth what Canadians say with regard to the United States: that when you are neighbors with a giant, you have no choice but to pay attention to what it does. On issues from Holtec and the decommissioning of Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station, to the possibility of a casino/race track on the old County Woodlot, or the preservation and guarding of the Plymouth-Carver sole source aquifer (with an area of 199 square miles, and stretching across seven Towns, touching the surface via hundreds of ponds, streams, and wetlands, and providing drinking water for, by my calculation using 2020 census data via Mass.gov, over 218,000), what happens in Plymouth matters greatly not only to the Town itself, but also its neighbors.

Pursuant to that, I reported and wrote profiles of all six candidates for the two seats that were open at the election — Precinct 15 Town Meeting Member Wrestling Brewster; then-Chair of the Finance and Advisory Committee Kevin Canty; School Committee Member Vedna Heywood; Precinct 2 Town Meeting Member Everett Malaguti; then-Planning Board Member Frank Mand; and Selectman Richard Quintal, then the Vice Chair of the Select Board. Mr. Canty and Mr. Quintal were elected.

We also spent some time looking at a constitutional issue that arose in the Plymouth School Committee race, in which certain candidates suggested that the Town consider banning certain books in public school libraries. However, as existing case law demonstrates (see, e.g., Board of Education, Island Trees Free School District v. Pico (1982), such bans are unconstitutional.

In June, I covered the Canadian wildfire smoke which blanketed the region, alongside much of the rest of eastern North America. I covered the attempts by citizens of Halifax to seek injunctive and declaratory relief to stop the ongoing destruction of The Whaleback, a prominent glacial esker and historical/archaeological site in that Town which these citizens allege is being mined under the pretext of agricultural activity. I also argued that Cape Cod Bay should be designated an Outstanding Resource Water under Massachusetts regulations, and explored the unique area of New England common law, the Great Pond — any body of fresh water over ten acres is common to all for purposes of fishing, fowling, and navigation in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine, and this singular legal-political situation has roots deep in the 17th century, and beyond.

In July, I defended the role of Magna Carta and the Charter of the Forests as the font of the Anglo-American commons tradition (spurious assertions to the contrary notwithstanding), looked at Claremont’s continued efforts to get its lakeside development in Bridgewater, and the fact, as discovered and brought to my attention by Precinct 2 Plymouth Town Meeting Member Richard Serkey, that the Plymouth County Commissioners waived and postponed a $150,000 progress payment due on July 1st from the lessees of the County Wood Lot, erstwhile casino developers Boston South Real Estate and Development, LLC. I also examined the concerning proposal for an industrial warehouse on priority habitat and wetlands in Middleboro, which has alarmed residents and activists. 

One of the most important stories of the year broke on July 24th, when MassDEP issued its tentative determination to deny Holtec’s application to modify its permit to allow discharge of the formerly 1.1 million gallons (now approximately 900,000 gallons) of radioactively- and chemically-contaminated industrial wastewater into Cape Cod Bay. MassDEP adopted arguments which have been made by opponents of discharge, including this publication and myself as an individual citizen, and which originated with James Lampert, of Duxbury (with whom I serve on the Town of Duxbury Nuclear Advisory Committee): that the proposed discharge of industrial wastewater into Cape Cod Bay plainly violated the Massachusetts Ocean Sanctuaries Act (M.G.L. c. 132A Secs. 12A-16K and Sec. 18).

In August, I was very happy indeed to publish an article I conceived of the previous summer, on the continuation of a tradition at Duxbury in the form of J’s Ice Cream truck, and its owners since 2021, my friends Josh and Emily Peters. It may seem a small thing, but these human embodiments of community — ice cream and seaside summer days — are very fine examples of “why we fight” in defense of our oceanic and landward commons alike against any private interest which would seek to despoil them — to claim rights over them which they simply do not possess.

August 31st at 5 pm was the due date for all public comments on Holtec’s permit application, and I spent a lot of time researching and writing my own comment, which turned into a 72-page paper arguing against Holtec’s application. It took a good amount of effort to then format the document into such a form as could be published (transferring the footnotes proved very difficult) here, which I did on September 7th. 

In the meantime, I had long intended to write about a little-known episode in our regional history, the convulsive cranberry strikes of the 1930s, primarily in southern Plymouth County, and had been working on it intermittently. The resulting article examines the origins, outbreak, and results of the violent strikes which spread across cranberry-growing Towns like Wareham, Carver, and beyond; and the larger resolution of the crisis, which saw the authority of the cranberry bog-owners as a class increased and consolidated, though tempered with the enactment of certain labor and public health reforms. That order held in the southern half of Plymouth County until recent decades, when cranberries declined in value, and owner-growers expanded their economic focus from cranberry agriculture to increasingly using their vast holdings for real estate development, sand and gravel mining, and, to an extent, seasonal tourism.

In October, we took a look at the ill-considered and frankly somewhat ludicrous proposal by a developer to expand private jet facilities at Hanscom Field in Bedford, and a number of forest-related bills that were being considered on Beacon Hill. Coverage that month also included the Fall Town Meeting in Plymouth, including its nip ban article; a conversation with Precinct 13 Plymouth Town Meeting Member Lauren Nessralla, and an interview conducted by reader and passionate outdoorsman Jeremy Gillespie, of Halifax, with Brad Chase, of the Division of Marine Fisheries, regarding the restoration of diadromous fish runs, especially alewives, across the region.

I was very excited by the arrival of the Plymouth Independent, including an informative and enjoyable conversation with the new publication’s Editor, Mark Pothier, a veteran of both The Boston Globe and The Old Colony Memorial. In addition, the Claremont/Lake Nippenicket issue was examined once more, as well as the petition effort by Plymouth liquor stores to call a referendum election on the nip ban passed by the Fall Town Meeting.

In November, in significant part because of starting a new job teaching English to adult learners, I didn’t publish much — for which I apologize. I did send out a Thanksgiving note and photo essay, replete with Lincoln and Seward’s original Thanksgiving Proclamation, so I hope that is some measure of recompense.

Finally, in December, I looked at issues of evaporation of wastewater at Pilgrim, which was revealed in August by an anonymous whistleblower letter sent to the Harwich-based Cape Cod Downwinders organization and to officials of the State and Federal Governments. I also looked in some length and depth at the issue of low voter turnout, trying to provide answers to a question recently asked by the Plymouth League of Women Voters: why is turnout so low in local, Town elections across the region, the Commonwealth, and the entire country? It’s a really significant problem, and one I still feel I only partially understand; but this was my initial attempt at answering the question.

(Two vessels off of Green Harbor; looking northeastward from Duxbury Beach, Dec. 31st, 2023; credit — J. Benjamin Cronin.)

When we consider where we were in the region at the beginning of 2023, and where we are at the end, I think there have been a number of positive developments, though certain setbacks have occurred. Nevertheless, I’m cautiously optimistic for 2024, and wish you all a health and very Happy New Year. Here’s a selection, again, from Tennyson, this time his 1850 poem “Wild Bells,” to close (and apologies if the stanzas are, for some reason, formatted incorrectly):

Ring out the old, ring in the new,

Ring, happy bells, across the snow:

The year is going, let him go;

Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind

For those that here we see no more;

Ring out the feud of rich and poor,

Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,

And ancient forms of party strife;

Ring in the nobler modes of life,

With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,

The faithless coldness of the times;

Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes

But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,

The civic slander and the spite;

Ring in the love of truth and right,

Ring in the common love of good.