Concord Journal
Thursday, July 11, 2002

Celebrities to help Save Our Heritage lobby for federal legislation

By Marty Pepper-Aisenberg
SAVE OUR HERITAGE

Three members of Save Our Heritage’s advisory board huddled with its executive director last week to map out a new strategy: a push for federal legislation to rein in the growth of the Hanscom Field airport. The group contends that increased commercial and corporate aviation at Hanscom harms nearby historic and natural sites.

"Massachusetts doesn’t appreciate what it has here," said actor and environmental activist Ed Begley Jr. "It has ignored its duty to protect nationally important places like Minute Man National Historical Park and Walden Woods. It’s time for Congress to do the job by limiting aviation here, as it has over Grand Canyon National Park."

There are more than 2,600 private and charter jet operations a month at Hanscom — triple the 1996 level — and Massport has approved up to 84 commercial operations a day, carrying more than 659,000 passengers annually, in its new Environmental Status and Planning Report.

"This airport is out of control and out of balance with its surroundings," said recording artist and Walden Woods Project founder Don Henley. "Some things have to be sacred, some things simply have to be off-limits and simply cannot be sacrificed for the sake of commerce and convenience. The state government apparently doesn’t understand that, so we will be taking our case to Congress."

Naturalist Edward O. Wilson (whose newest book, "The Future of Life," opens with a letter about the environment sent across time to Henry David Thoreau) cited the unique importance of the area as the reason for his involvement.

"I’m not much of a grassroots activist," he said, "but this case is special. Walden, where the conservation movement was born, plus the birthplace of the American Revolution, plus the home of America’s first great literary tradition, give the area value of national and even international scope incompatible with an expanding airport and attendant commercial development. The growing noise pollution and widening destruction of natural habitat run counter to all that these national treasures represent."

Save Our Heritage executive director Anna Winter pointed to Massport’s Vegetation Management Plan as the latest example of why environmentalists as well as historians are supporting the group’s efforts.

"This so-called ‘vegetation management’ is nothing less than a wholesale alteration of ecosystems," she said. "Massport wants to cut down thousands of trees and use pesticides to keep them from growing back, to cut whole areas of saplings and shrubs to the ground and pull out their roots to keep them from growing back. Breeding populations of two rare grassland birds have already collapsed at Hanscom because Massport has failed to protect their habitat. Its latest promise to use ‘vegetation management’ to create new habitat for these birds, and to manage it properly, is unworthy of belief.

"Massport’s plans go far beyond the FAA’s appropriate requirement that protected airspace be kept clear," Winter continued. "Massport wants to cut trees far below the protected airspace — for the obvious purpose, in our view, of opening the short runway to more and more flights by noisy corporate jets that need a longer, lower approach path. This is a direct violation of the generic environmental impact review that authorizes airport tree-cutting in the first place. The GEIR calls for minimizing environmental effects and maximizing the protection of environmental resources — the exact opposite of what Massport is doing."

Begley, visiting the area from his California home, took time to tape an interview for a video that Save Our Heritage is producing. "We are so grateful to Ed and to all the other board members who are helping us with this project," said Winter, who had previously taped interviews with Henley and Wilson, as well as with actor Christopher Reeve, author David McCullough, historian Douglas Brinkley, and National Trust for Historic Preservation President Dick Moe. Interviews with documentary filmmaker Ken Burns and historian James Horton are on tap. The video will also contain footage of the sites that Save Our Heritage says are threatened by airport expansion, including natural resources like Estabrook Woods and Great Meadows Natural Wildlife Refuge.

"We are going to send a copy of this video to every member of Congress," said Winter. "It’s going to be a real eye-opener for them when they see what ’s at stake here."

Marty Pepper-Aisenberg is the projects director for Save Our Heritage.

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