Friends of Alewife Reservation (FAR)
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Cambridge Chronicle on Silver Maple Hearing
January 3, 2011 original at www.wickedlocal.com/cambridge/news/opinions/letters/x2135342314/Letter-Power-of-the-corporate-world-at-work Letter: 'Power of the corporate world at work' Posted Jan 03, 2011 @ 11:55 AM Cambridge – Ms. Davis, Councilor Sam Seidel, city officials and many citizens of Cambridge and Belmont held a hearing Dec. 14 concerning the project that includes Alewife Reservation and the rare silver maple forest. Ellen Mass of the Friends of Alewife Reservation gave a wonderful PowerPoint presentation, including maps and with pictures of the wildlife — the ecology of the area. I gave a presentation of the dangers of E. coli, raw sewage and heavy rainstorms to any building in the proposed site. But we heard that the developer has met all the legal requirements to build 257 units and there is apparently nothing we can do to stop him. Even the Environmental Protection Agency, whose mission is to protect wetlands from the powerful developers, cannot stop them. We asked the City Council of Cambridge if they had any way to stop this project until after the Superior Court hearing against O'Neil Properties, which is to be held in the spring. We saw the power of the corporate world at work against the rights of citizens, not to mention the "rights" of birds and animals. WILLIAM C. ACKERLY, MD
Cambridge |