The Old Town Dump

I spent the better part of today stomping around the old town dump. It was actually quite lovely. The Town I work for has put a great deal of energy into capping the former landfill and restoring the site for use as a public park complete with walking trails, a bike path and picnic tables overlooking the cove. My job was to assess the condition of the plantings we installed to see what needs to be replaced before the warrantees run out. What I found was that a good third or maybe closer to half of the roughly 300 trees and shrubs that were planted last year were dead. No one species had fared better than the others - there was a good mix of everything from sumacs and cedars to dogwoods and white oaks to blueberry bushes and shadblow. Some had clearly been nibbled by deer or other wildlife. Others had been run over by 4-wheelers or other vehicles that weren't supposed to be there. A few were just brittle and bare with no buds or leaves for no apparent reason. Still others were covered with caterpillars and I was thinking gypsy moth while others were covered in ladybugs so I knew some other plant-eating bug was at work. . . . After some discussion with my co-workers, we came up with something that resembles a plan. Someone will get the entire site fertilized appropriately a.s.a.p. Someone else is going to get a pest guy in to spray everything that's still alive with something that will get rid of the bugs but not harm other living things (or the water quality of the cove) and someone else is going install some deer fencing and some boulders and bollards to keep vehicles where they're supposed to be. In the meantime, the dead vegetation will be removed and replaced. There's no magic bullet. We don't have a definitive solution or even a real good grasp of the problem since it doesn't seem to be any one thing, but everyone is going to do their best to address what they can - and we all believe that in a little time, the situation will improve.

The whole scene today kinda reminded me of cancer. When my cousin was diagnosed with breast cancer four years ago, I became increasingly concerned when I realized what a disproportionately high number of people at her work place had also been diagnosed recently. Phone calls to the State's (which shall remain nameless here) Health Department and Cancer Registry produced an astonishingly broad array of speculative "answers," none of which pointed to a definitive solution or even indicated a good grasp of the problem. They said everything from, "these ladies are delaying childbirth too long," to "their stress levels are too high," to "there could be a contaminant on-site but none of our tests have found it yet," to "their water bottles and yogurt containers are phthalate-laden." (Phthalates help make plastics transparent and maleable; they are also endocrine disruptors and estrogen replicators.) So in the absense of any one path to take or singular plan of action, what do we do?! Well, we're all going to do our best to address what we can. We are going to eat well. We are going to exercise and not smoke. We are going to limit our bodies' chemical burden and we are going to get our mammograms. And we are going to Walk. We are going to raise money for research and advocate aggressively for early detection met with a cure. And we will believe that in a little time, the situation will improve.