UPLAND SPOIL — The Cape Charles water tower in the background provides scale to appreciate the immensity of spoil that has been deposited in the upland dredging site by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. (Wave photo)
County Supervisors Repeal Mid-Year Property Tax, Approve EMS Land Purchase
By WAYNE CREED
Cape Charles Wave
May 4, 2015
When the Northampton Board of Supervisors met April 26, at the top of the agenda was repealing the semi-annual property tax. With immediate consensus, the motion to remove was approved unanimously.
When the topic turned to the fate of the former middle school in Machipongo, and whether to renovate part of it to house Northampton Emergency Medical Service, battle lines were quickly drawn, with historical and cultural preservationists Oliver Bennett and Larry Trala on one side and fiscal pragmatists Granville Hogg and Larry Lemond on the other. Rick Hubbard was caught squarely in the middle.
Engineers from DJG were on hand to answer questions from the Board. DJG had provided the initial estimate for the county last year; that estimate, for a full restoration/renovation, was over $5 million. Supervisor Bennett asked the architect, Donald Booth, what the figure would be if they just focused on a phased approach, possibly looking at just the auditorium and cafeteria as a starting point for the new home of EMS. Booth agreed that breaking the project into phases, using efficient zoned heating and cooling, would be less painful, and in the ball park of $1.4 million to renovate a new space. More efficient, zoned HVAC would also take a big bite out of yearly operating costs by focusing heating and cooling when and where needed.
“We look at costs,” said Bennett. “But the auditorium and cafeteria are not in as bad a shape as many people perceive it to be. We already own the property. It has historic value to many. We’re always talking about this or that that has historic value. Those who are against it, well, some don’t have a relationship with that school that goes back 50 years, and may not understand the historic value. We need to look at the whole picture — we can’t just take away, but we need to leave a piece of our history. I’m not talking about spending too much, but reasonable spending.”
Lemond countered, “I’m not in favor of putting one penny into that old building — we could tear down all of it, except maybe the gymnasium.” [Read more…]
ANNUAL MEETING: CBES, Shorekeeper Pledge to ‘Protect and Defend What We Love’
Spencer Murray received the Suzanne Wescoat award in recognition of outstanding achievements in stewardship of the shore. CBES Executive Director Donna Bozza (right) , recalled Wescoat’s words that “economic success and environmental stewardship are connected.”
By WAYNE CREED
Cape Charles Wave
May 4, 2015
The Eastern Shore of Virginia is considered one of the last pristine coastal wilderness zones left on the east coast. For many, the last few years have seemed like a battle to preserve the quality and well-being of these delicate coastal waters. Maintaining a constant drumbeat, and providing solid boots on the ground in this effort to preserve and enhance the overall quality of life on the shore have been the sister organizations Citizens for a Better Eastern Shore and Eastern ShoreKeeper. Last Tuesday (April 28) these groups met at Little Italy in Nassasaddox for their annual meeting.
“Our waters now have a voice. We are an advocate for our water quality,” said Shorekeeper Executive Director Jay Ford. “Clean water is an economic driver, has economic importance — we have met with legislators, and have brought political scrutiny.”
Ford noted that through grass roots efforts of CBES and Shorekeeper members, they have been able to influence some parts of Northampton County’s proposed zoning changes, such as maintaining Chesapeake Bay Act protections on the seaside and pushing back on shoreline widths. “Also, there will be no chicken-growing in Northampton,” said Ford. “Our waters are too fragile; they cannot handle the influx of that many nutrients. Still, even with our successes, the work is not done,” he stressed. [Read more…]
In Defense of Meat and Other Animal Products
By KAREN GAY
Wave Columnist
May 4, 2015
This contin
ues my previous article about the Weston A. Price Foundation’s dietary principles. I’ll discuss the Foundation’s belief that health is best found in a diet of unprocessed, traditional foods containing some sort of animal product, be it fish, shellfish, fowl, sea mammals, eggs, milk and milk products, or even reptiles or insects. There has been some discussion in the Wave regarding the virtues of a vegetarian diet, and I’d like to provide a gentle rebuttal to those points of view.
Weston A. Price was a dentist born in 1870 who noticed that most people who had serious dental problems also had degenerative health issues. Over the course of 10 years he travelled to study isolated indigenous societies to determine the factors responsible for good dental health. Dr. Price visited tribes in Alaska, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Peru, and even sequestered villages in Switzerland. After analyzing the foods used by these societies he saw that in comparison to the American diet of the 1930s, they provided at least four times the water soluble vitamins, calcium, and other minerals, and at least 10 times the fat-soluble vitamins — from animal foods such as butter, fish, eggs, shellfish, organ meats, and animal fats.
In his travels he had been hoping to find a society which demonstrated good health solely from fruits and vegetables, but he was disappointed. In his book, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, he concluded ”As yet, I have not found a single group of primitive racial stock which was building and maintaining excellent bodies by living entirely on plant foods. I have found in many parts of the world most devout representatives of modern ethical systems advocating restriction of foods to the vegetable products. In every instance where the groups involved had been long under this teaching, I found evidence of degeneration in the form of abnormal dental arches to an extent very much higher than in the primitive groups who were not under this influence.”
What about the cruelty issue?
My neighbor, Wayne Creed, spoke eloquently in the Wave of the confined animal feeding operations that produce most of our meat available in traditional grocery stores. I support Wayne in urging people to boycott meat from animals that have not been treated humanely. However, everyone’s definition of what is humane is different. I believe that meat animals should be grown in the natural environment in which they thrive and in populations that do not overwhelm the natural resources of the land. So, to me, this means that cattle are raised in pastures with plenty of fresh green grass, hay, and shelter in the winter. Chickens should be outdoors in the sun pecking for insects, and hogs should free range under the shade of trees where they can dig for tubers and insects. [Read more…]
TUESDAY 5/5: Town Water System Flush
The Town of Cape Charles will conduct a water system flush May 5, from 9 p.m. until 2 a.m. the next morning. Residents are cautioned not to use water during that time as sediment could be drawn into the home’s water lines. When done, the system should rectify itself fairly quickly. For questions, please call Ron Bailey at 757-331-1018.
THURSDAY 5/7: Meet the Health Care Providers at Bayview
The Northampton County Chamber of Commerce and Eastern Shore Rural Health System, Inc. invite you to “Business After Hours”5-6:30 p.m. Thursday, May 7. Come out and meet the medical care providers at Eastern Shore Rural Health System Inc.’s Bayview Community Health Center.
FRIDAY 5/8: Uric Acid Story of Starvation, Mutation, Survival
Science and Philosophy Seminar of the Eastern Shore of Virginia presents “Uric Acid: A 15-Million-Year Story of Starvation, Mutation, Survival, Gluttony, Gout, and Disease Risk.” The free 90-minute seminar will be held at 12:30 p.m. Friday, May 8, in the Lecture Hall of the Eastern Shore Community College in Melfa. Paul Rochmis will explore how uric acid was key to the survival of our species, but nowadays is known to cause gout and is implicated in the increasing incidence of metabolic syndrome. Rochmis is a retired consulting rheumatologist who specialized in the treatment of arthritis, osteoporosis, and allied disorders.
MOTHER’S DAY 5/10: Eastern Shore Orchestra Concert at Hungars Church
Orchestra of the Eastern Shore to Perform Bach and Mozart for 2nd Friday and Mother’s Day Concerts
The Orchestra of the Eastern Shore will perform a free concert 4 p.m. Sunday, May 10, at Hungars Episcopal Church in Bridgetown. Bach’s Concerto for Oboe and Violin in C Minor will feature oboist Todd Worsham and the orchestra’s Music Director Paul Kim on violin. The second piece on the program will be Mozart’s Symphony No. 29 in A Major. [Read more…]
