Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

To the Editor:

I urge the Dare County Planning Board, the Town Planning Boards, and everyone living in Dare County to watch the documentary Poisoned Waters on PBS. We all know the Chesapeake is being poisoned to the point of harmful genetic mutations in the aquatic life, but the largest contributors of the poisons are the storm water and concrete runoffs. It was from lack of planning and over development of the land usage. Tyson Corner has been so overdeveloped from farm land to metropolis in just 45 years that it is in traffic gridlock now.

I see that happening right here in Manteo. We went from traffic gridlock in the 80’s before the new bridge was built, to making that happen again from overdevelopment.

I remember when all the traffic from Raleigh had to come through Manteo to get to the beach. We are heading there again. Who is spearheading all this development on the Island? Just where is all this concrete runoff going to go? Who is going to take responsibility for these decisions being made now when the next generation is going to ask why no one stopped this raping of Manteo and Dare County? This area cannot sustain itself without the trees to drain, filter, block the wind, and hold the soil especially in a storm. It is going to take the people we have voted in to represent us in these critical environmental issues. There has to be responsible growth before our sounds and all the marine life here are decimated and the island is clear-cut with devastating results. Once the damage is done, it is too late. What I garnered most from this powerful documentary is that there is no price tag one can put on our estuaries. They are our lifeline. If people realized how important they are, they would protect them like the family jewels. So, please watch this documentary and vote very carefully.

We need the voices and the fortitude once again of the people in power who understand the meaning of “Preserve and Prosper.”

I got here around ’78. Growth was just really starting to kick in. When the largest growth did take place, John Wilson and his team created a fabulous downtown revitalization that made Manteo what it is today. I don’t understand the vision of the planning board for the Island anymore. It makes me feel that no one cares. People on these boards used to. They did protect the environment. They seem to all have been replaced with folks whose only vision now is their own Pirate’s Cove and the rest of us be damned.

Patty Callum

Manteo

READ ABOUT NEWS AND EVENTS HERE.

SUBSCRIBE TO THE COASTLAND TIMES TODAY!