Boston Globe
May 30, 2003

Airport foes deploy the Minute Man
Activists contend park is threatened

By Joanna Weiss, Globe Staff

CONCORD -- It's a dire-sounding designation: one of the nation's ''11 Most Endangered Historic Places.'' But when a nonprofit group announced yesterday that Minute Man National Historical Park is in deep and imminent danger, the news inspired a celebration.

Beneath a tent on a verdant field, steps from Concord center, 100 locals cheered wildly. A panel of luminaries made approving speeches. There was a phalanx of people in Revolutionary War garb, a fife serenade, and a dramatic reading of a Ralph Waldo Emerson poem.

That it all was punctured by the sound of jets from Hanscom Field, just up the road, only heightened the atmospherics. Because to a group of activists in Concord and neighboring towns, the National Trust for Historic Preservation's announcement -- which covers not just the park, but the entire towns of Bedford, Concord, Lexington, and Lincoln -- was the latest potent weapon in a bid to limit traffic at Hanscom, the regional airport that has been a bane of homeowners, park-lovers, and jet-noise haters around it.

The traffic to and from Hanscom, and the noise from Hanscom planes, threaten to ruin tourists' visits to the park, said Wendy Nicholas, Northeast director for the National Trust, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that is perhaps best known for fighting a planned Disney theme park near a Civil War battlefield in Virginia.

''We are here today on this sacred ground to sound the alarm,'' Nicholas said, and to ''save this treasure -- these few square miles that have defined us as a people and a nation for more than 225 years.''

But closer to Boston, where a proposed new runway at Logan Airport has inspired an equal furor, some officials were less than stirred. US Representative Michael Capuano, a Somerville Democrat, fired off a letter to the National Trust's president, asking why he didn't seem to care as much about the Old North Church, the Freedom Trail, or the other tourist sites within a jet's scream of Logan.

''It's just another NIMBY situation,'' said Capuano, who opposes the Logan runway. But Hanscom, he said, is ''a reality. And that being the case, the next best thing to not having an airport is to try to spread the burden as much as reasonably possible.''

The Trust designation is largely an attention-getting device, aimed at getting local officials to take steps toward preservation. The 11 choices each year range from specific buildings to categories, such as neighborhood schools across the country, or the entire island of Nantucket.

Local activists said they hoped the designation, and the attention it draws, would inspire a new federal law to limit flights from Hanscom. But critics say the selections seem arbitrary, not based on statistical research or established criteria.

Local activists have long fought to cut Hanscom air traffic, and to limit the potential for the airport's expansion. They have drawn support from a string of elected officials and preservationists; a nonprofit group called Scenic America put the four towns around Hanscom on this year's list of top 10 ''Last-Chance Landscapes,'' citing the airport's threat. But officials at the Massachusetts Port Authority, which runs Logan and Hanscom, complain that the airport is being unfairly targeted by opponents and the Trust. Yesterday, Massport CEO Craig P. Coy wrote his own sharp letter to the Trust, and made available statistics suggesting the threat is not nearly so
dire: The number of takeoffs and landings is nearly the same as it was 40 years ago, about 200,000 per year; 4 percent of the traffic on Route 2A at peak times is traveling to or from Hanscom; technology has led to quieter aircraft today.

''The Sierra Club could run Hanscom Field and the impacts would be as benign as they are today,'' said Massport spokesman Jose Juves.

But the tourists and residents who visit Minute Man Park have ample reason for concern, said historian David McCullough, who spoke at yesterday's event along with former governor Michael Dukakis and US Representative Martin Meehan.

''Would we as a nation, if there were 598 flights a day over Yosemite National Park, say, `That ought to stop?' '' he said. ''Yes, I think we would.''

And, like many other speakers yesterday, he invoked the spirit of Revolutionary soldiers.

''They stood their ground here,'' McCullough said. ''They were willing to die. What were they fighting for? They were not fighting for independence, not yet. They were fighting for their home ground.''

The Hanscom debate, like many transportation battles, has long been a question of home grounds, and how traffic and noise should be spread among Boston and its more pristine neighboring towns.

''They want their peace and tranquillity,'' said Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino, another local leader to chafe at the Trust's announcement. ''They want the economy of our state to do well, and Boston is the economic engine, but they don't want to help us at all.''

But Meehan, a Lowell Democrat, said the Hanscom woes point up the need for a regional transportation plan that spreads the burdens fairly.

''Some have fallen victim to the notion that this is a war between residents of East Boston and residents who live in the Hanscom area,'' he said. ''This should not be a debate about class warfare.''

On a day of warring words, everything sparked debate -- even the credentials of the Trust itself. Anna Winter, executive director of the local organization Save Our Heritage -- who emceed the event in a flowing Colonial gown -- called the group ''America's 21st-century Paul Revere, sounding the alarm to every city and town that the very birthplace of patriotism, self-determination, and democracy is being threatened.''

But Capuano questioned how important the Trust's word should be, since its previous ''endangered'' sites have included every Main Street in America and ''Prairie churches of North Dakota.''

''That's wonderful, but come on,'' Capuano said. ''If you want to be taken seriously, you have to balance pragmatism with idealism.''

This story ran on page A1 of the Boston Globe on 5/30/2003.
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