BOG IS NO POLLUTER

The following letter - which was inadvertently omitted from last week's issue - was sent to the town's marine and shellfish biologist Keith Conant and is reprinted here at the author's request.

Dear Mr. Conant:

I am writing to you in regards to a statement attributed to you in the Wednesday, September 19, 2007 Nantucket Independent in an article about Sesachacha Pond and the other ponds on Nantucket. You stated that the water quality was degraded due in part to "…surface water runoff [that] is from fertilizers from the golf courses and the cranberry bogs."

The cranberry bogs are not polluting Sesachacha Pond. Every few years someone raises this issue. Every few years the grower and the owner have to tolerate the ensuing questions from a misinformed public. Because of just such information, the owner, which, by the way, is the Nantucket Conservation Foundation, has a long-standing arrangement to provide periodic, random water testing that is available to the Marine Department and to the Town Biologist.

Water from both bogs is contained on the bog property in reservoir ponds. Even a hundred years ago, the builders of the bog were aware of the need to conserve and control water. Milestone Bog's water is channeled back to Gibbs Pond, which is a healthy and diverse ecosystem supporting a wide variety of fish stocks, including white perch, yellow perch, chain pickerel, sunfish and crappy. The Windswept Bog off the Polpis Road has two large reservoirs and dynamic water containment system to prevent unwanted outflows to Polpis Harbor.

Water from the cranberry bogs is not polluting Sesachacha Pond, and it is unfair of you to say so in the paper. You owe the grower and the owner an apology in print.

Sincerely,

- Karen Gibbs