LETTER: Pieces of Tangier Conveys Unique Island Life
August 11, 2014
DEAR EDITOR,
What a treat it was to attend the July 19 screening of Pocomoke City native Jenny Roberts’ documentary Pieces of Tangier in Onancock. It is her 2013 MFA thesis which, more than that, reveals her personal effort, at much of her own expense, to convey the unique life of Tangier residents as erosion nips the island.
Betty Martin (unrelated to the writer) attended last year’s screening at the Mar-Va Theatre and was equally impressed. In fact she undertook a nine-month volunteer effort to coordinate the sterling screening presentation which garnered significant generosity and participation from the Accomac community.
As we continue to mark the bicentennial of the War of 1812 for another year a charming prelude to Pieces of Tangier by the same artist can be enjoyed here http://vimeo.com/48050485
Luckily for those who’ve missed the boat thus far, Jenny’s DVD is now available at the Book Bin. Northampton residents look forward to a screening in the not-too-distant-future.
WENDY MARTIN
Eastville
Letters to the Editor are welcome, and a diversity of opinions is encouraged. Send submissions to [email protected].
COMMENTARY
Retired Teacher Recalls ‘New Math’ Hoax
By ANDY ZAHN
August 11, 2014
In 1957 I was an MP in the 4th Infantry Division and Fort Lewis. One of our Captains at Fort Lewis was in Germany at the end of WW II. His sole assignment in Germany was to get Werner Von Braun to the United States in case the USSR should attack.
Before the war Dr. Goddard was ahead of his time and was studying rocket science. He told the government of the possibilites but our leaders paid no attention. The Germans heard and they began work on jet engines and rockets. They had several outstanding scientists working on the program and by war’s end had jet fighter aircraft and V-2 and V-12 rockets with guidance systems raining destruction on London. It was agreed that half these scientists would be in the Russian Zone and half in the U.S. Zone.
Those in our zone came to Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, and worked on a rocket that would escape earth’s gravity and orbit the earth. That group, led by Dr. Von Braun, had such a rocket on the launching pad at Redstone but because of politics were not allowed to attempt a launch until the Air Force made a few tries ending in failure.
In the meantime the Russians launched Sputnik and thus were first to orbit the earth. When the army at Redstone was permitted to fire their rocket we were successful but in 2nd place. The American school system got the blame. Sound familiar? It had nothing to do with our schools nor with the Russian schools. The entire program was German!
In 1958 I was teaching math and science to 7th and 8th graders. We had wonderful textbooks written by three authors who knew not only the math but the readiness of the students, and it was written at their level of understanding. The 8th grade text took up where the 7th grade left off, and the 7th grade book prepared them for next year. There were always revews of the basics already learned, lots of practice problems, thousands of word problems dealing with all manner of everyday useful practical math, and here the students were also learning about borrowing, investing, compound interest, bonds, stocks, measuring, weights, volume, dry measure, geometric constructions, perimeters, areas, volumes, and a few new concepts such as the 3rd type percent problem, positive and negative numbers, and basic algebra. [Read more…]
WAYNE CREED: Give Blue Crabs a Chance to Rebuild
By WAYNE CREED
August 4, 2014
Last year’s winter dredge of the Chesapeake Bay alarmingly indicated that the number of harvestable blue crabs has fallen to levels (lowest in 25 years) we haven’t seen since before current restrictions went into effect more than five years ago. With prices for big jimmys over $200 a bushel at the dock (try close to $300 retail), we don’t need the dredge to tell us something’s wrong. The abundance of spawning-age females was 69 million, declining just below the minimum safe level of 70 million. The pressures of overexploitation and declining habitat has certainly been a factor, but the drastic decline is still baffling. The last winter around the Mid-Atlantic may also have had an adverse effect; however Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences disease ecologist Jeff Shields feels there is another cause.
A National Science Foundation grant provided funding to research the missing blue crab, and Mr. Shields has discovered that the existence of a single-celled parasite called Hematodinium may be a major factor in the blue crab’s decline. Hematodinium was first reported along the East Coast in the 1970s and found in the Chesapeake’s blue crabs in the 1990s. The infection is almost always fatal.
According to the NSF report, Hematodinium infects young crabs, which usually die before they can make their way out of spawning grounds to local tributaries. There are several factors that may lead to epidemics like Hematodinium, such as stressful environmental conditions caused by loss of habitat (diminishing grasses), pollution, and overfishing.
According to what Mr. Shields told the Washington Post, “We hope to develop best practices for managing, in particular, the Chesapeake’s wild blue crabs. There’s a perception among resource managers and fishers that diseases aren’t important to the fishing industry, or that little can be done to manage them.”
Virginia Marine Resources Commissioner John Bull also noted, “This is disappointing news. We are now in a position to focus on the depleted adult females and move forward to increase protection of the next generation.” [Read more…]
LeMond, Dufty Trade Shots on County Zoning
August 4, 2014
EDITOR’S NOTE: Last week the Wave published a commentary by Ken Dufty on “Northampton Zoning’s ‘Man Behind the Curtain.'” (CLICK to read.) Northampton County Board of Supervisors Chairman Larry LeMond reacted to Dufty’s commentary at a Board meeting July 28. In turn, Mr. Dufty has asked the Wave to publish his reply to Mr. LeMond’s reply. Both gentlemen’s statements appear below.
JULY 28 STATEMENT BY CHAIRMAN LEMOND
There is no “man behind the curtain” in regard to the proposed zoning code. The Code draft is per the direction of the Board of Supervisors and was drafted by a team of seven employees from Administration, Legal, Planning and Zoning. Mr. McSwain was hired at the direction of the Board to provide several functions as Director of Development, including among them streamlining the planning and permitting process and addressing economic development.
The author of these letters suggested that PEMSCO would be allowed under the draft zoning code. In fact, such a use is not permitted in any district. Perhaps the confusion is that the use of burning soil to remove petroleum is not a biomass conversion of any type. In fact biomass conversion, which is only permitted on a small scale in all districts because it is required by Virginia Code, is the process of taking renewable resources, such as wood, and creating some type of energy. So a wood fireplace is a small scale biomass converter. As to the statement regarding the Exmore biodiesel project, the County has no influence over Exmore zoning. Regardless, any industrial operation, if permitted for a land use, must also meet all performance standards regarding offensive activity, U.S. EPA and VDEQ rules.
As to the draft code allowing a prison, the statements made are incorrect. Prison use is allowed in an agricultural district and then only with a special use permit which requires a public hearing. It is allowed by right in industrial, but the largest industrial site in the county is far too small to accommodate a prison, and thus a rezoning would be required with a public hearing to create a prison. The prison use was included to address the topic in the zoning code, not to enable one without a public hearing.
Further, Mr. McSwain on occasion works outside the community to support the economic development profession. He recently served as a judge for the International Economic Development Council 2014 Awards. He has not accepted any new outside compensation engagements since being employed by Northampton County.
KEN DUFTY RESPONDS
At the conclusion of the July 28, 2014, Northampton County Board of Supervisors work session, Chairman LeMond read into the official record a rather lively rebuttal to my “Who is the Man Behind the Curtain” letter that was printed in this newspaper last week. While I try to space the timing of my letters on the proposed zoning revisions, I greatly appreciate this rare chance to respond in a timeframe that this issue demands. [Read more…]
LETTER
Cherrystone Camper Lauds Emergency Response
July 29, 2014
(EDITOR’S NOTE: The following letter was sent by the Riale family of Port Penn, Delaware, in appreciation for the service provided by local law enforcement, fire, and other first responders to the tornado at Cherrystone Campground.)
I am writing this letter in regard to the responses that were made in regard to the EF 1 tornado that struck Cherrystone Campground on the morning of July 24, 2014. My parents and my kids and I were camping there that morning when the tragic storm struck the grounds.
Just a little background on my family: my father has been in the fire service since 1964 and is a Past Fire Chief, and I have been in the service since 1994 and currently serve as my department’s Assistant Chief, and I am a Delaware State Police Dispatcher.
Once the storm started to lift that morning we made sure that my mother and kids were okay, and then my father, my son, and I started checking campsite to campsite for injured people. Within minutes we could hear the sirens of the responding units coming. We first were contacted by a Cape Charles police officer to join in the site checks. He informed us that the next streets over they were getting reports of worse things, so we ran over to that area.
While on the way a mother stated that her 11 year old was missing. Just a couple minutes later we found that girl walking down the street and the officer took her back to her parents. We continued onto the street worse hit and noticed campers removing a young boy from a tent site with a tree over it. We met up with a couple firemen from Cape Charles Fire Company that were assessing two more young girls who were lying next to their deceased parents.
The firemen acted quickly in making backboards out of the tops of picnic tables. My father and I assisted in loading and transporting the one young girl out to a waiting ambulance from the Exmore Fire Company. By the time we did that there were so many police units, ambulances, and fire units on the scene that me and my father’s attention went back to our own family.
In all of our experiences in the fire service I have never seen such organization of a disaster and the willingness to work together for the common good. The Cape Charles Officer, Cape Charles Fire, Virginia State Police, or the Northampton Sheriff’s Officers, never once said get away, we got this, etc. They all asked what we had, what we needed, and asked how they could help. We watched the command structure that was there that day organize site by site searches with no problems. For such a rural area compared to where I work and am from, the responses from these agencies were very fast, efficient, and bar none the very best I have ever seen in such a disaster. [Read more…]
COMMENTARY
Northampton Zoning’s ‘Man Behind the Curtain’
By KEN DUFTY
July 28, 2014
Thank you to the Cape Charles Wave for keeping us all ahead ot the curve regarding the zoning dispute in Northampton County. The complete rezoning of the county into a what several developers hope to be a Disney-like resort retirement destination deserves to be scrutinized, and readers are well-served by the Wave’s reporting.
The million dollar question of who is the “man behind the curtain” orchestrating the plan to completely rezone Northampton County into an industrial, commercial, and resort-style mecca looms ominously heavy on the horizon. And the Board of Supervisors’ “we need to be business friendly” mantra makes us wonder what businesses our protective Comprehensive Plan drove out of the county, and prompts us to wonder what it would be like if the curtain of resource and environmental protection was drawn fully open.
In our quest to answer these questions, we had to do a little digging. And we unearthed a plan in 1992 by PEMSCO to bring 60,000 tons/month of contaminated soil to a 65 acre tract in Cheriton, formerly home of the KMC Food Processing Plant. There the petroleum-soaked soil would be “cleansed” by incineration and “biological processes” so that it could be spread throughout Northampton County and beyond, used in landscaping and road building. But because it required a Special Use Permit, county residents had the chance to learn about it, research it, and oppose it en masse for obvious reasons. It was defeated.
But under the new “business friendly” zoning crafted by Economic Development Director Charles McSwain, this type of use will be allowed “by right” in any agricultural zone. The public will not be notified and no public hearings will be necessary.
In the same year, it was discovered that a local industrial contractor was importing and remediating “contaminated soil” and adding it to his asphalt product, using it in repaving and road projects. Again, once the act was discovered, it was deemed a violation of the county zoning ordinance, and the zoning department issued a “cease and desist” order, giving the owner 90 days to meet “binding contracts” already in place.
Again, under the proposed “business friendly” zoning ordinance, this process would be allowed “by right,” and residents would not know what was happening until they smelled the stinking fumes from the incinerators. [Read more…]
COMMENTARY
Why the Lower Shore Needs a Community VA Clinic
By JOE VACCARO
American Legion Post 56 Commander
July 28, 2014
On March 4, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln gave his second inaugural address to a war-torn nation that was filled with anger, angst, and uncertainty. Lincoln understood it was the people fighting the Civil War who shouldered the burden for the nation. So he elegantly spoke about the need “to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow, and his orphan.” However, those immortal words that were spoken 149 years ago seem to have fallen on deaf ears in America.
We live in a time where the unemployment rate of our veterans still outpaces their civilian counterparts by three to five points and it’s about to get worse with significant military drawdowns. Another startling fact is that one-third of the adult homeless populations are veterans, and over 70 percent of them have some type of substance abuse issues.
The early recruiting promises and contracts regarding medical, dental, and retirement pensions have also fallen into the abyss. The majority of the broken expectations are due to politically oriented budget-cutting on both sides and elected officials who have little understanding of veterans’ issues since the majority of them never served in the military.
Promises of care for veterans have been around for centuries: in 1776 the Continental Congress encouraged enlistments by providing pensions to disabled soldiers, and some states and communities actually made individual pacts to care for their returning veterans. In 1812 the federal government authorized its first medical facility for veterans that eventually evolved into the establishment of the Veterans Administration in 1930 when Congress authorized President Herbert Hoover to “consolidate and coordinate government activities affecting war veterans.”
The VA has been effective in dealing with some veterans’ needs and extremely deficient in other cases as the media bears witness in Arizona. However, the Eastern Shore has a ray of hope that comes in the form of two very hard-working ladies named Wendy Ainsworth and Jamie LeCates-Brown. Ainsworth is the Veterans Service Representative and Manager for the Accomack Field Office, and Lecates-Brown is her administrator. [Read more…]
EDITORIAL: Drop the Speed Limit to 45
A CAPE CHARLES WAVE EDITORIAL
July 21, 2014
How many more people have to die, how many more vehicles must be destroyed, how many more close calls must there be before VDOT awakes to the deadly danger of Route 13 north and south of the Cape Charles traffic light? If Route 13 is Virginia’s most dangerous highway, we will nominate the Cape Charles/Cheriton area as the most dangerous patch of it.
The traffic light itself is not the problem so much as the multiple turnoffs mostly south of the light. Two of our neighbors had their cars totaled in the past few years — one trying to cross the highway to get to the Corner Mart, the other a victim of someone pulling out from McDonald’s directly in front of her.
Last week we saw something new and scary: a full-size charter bus leaving McDonald’s was trying to turn left onto Route 13. Judging by the line of cars behind the bus, the driver had to wait a long time for a break in the traffic.
Why does the speed limit drop to 45 mph on the bypass around Exmore but not in the Cape Charles/Cheriton area? The danger here is arguably worse than in Exmore (which funds their entire Police budget from speeding tickets).
Our most recent heart-stopper (and the inspiration for this editorial) came from waiting in the left-hand lane on 13 to turn onto Stone Road. An 18-wheeler roared past at full speed only a few feet away, violently shaking our stopped van in the jet stream. We were literally “sitting ducks.” And as everyone knows, a 55 mph limit means it is your God-given right (and duty) to drive 60 — and this trucker was doing his duty.
At least we were encased in a two-ton van; pity the pedestrian who tries to navigate that death-trap. Earl Wayne Spady was hit by a truck last month while trying to cross Route 13 on foot at night. May he rest in peace. [Read more…]
