Marilyn Wellons reports that the Director of the Cambridge Conservation Commission shut down the DCR work site at 3:15 p.m. August 25:
Friends alerted us to the start of work at the BU Bridge on August 25. I forwarded the information to Cambridge ConCom Director Jennifer Wright, assuming she already knew it had begun. In fact this was not the case.
The DCR had failed to give 72 hours' written notice of the start of work, or to comply with other requirements in the ConCom's Order of Conditions. These requirements include the filing of construction documents and copies of various permits. I believe there were 12 conditions for the BU Bridge work.
Ms. Wright accordingly shut down the DCR work site at 3:15 p.m. today. It is closed indefinitely, pending DCR compliance with the Order of Conditions.
By 3:15 all plants within 50’ of the BU Bridge abutment and beyond 100’ from the river’s edge were completely cleared, except for four trees. In this large L-shaped space the soil was bare and dusty, almost sifted of all vegetable matter. Beyond it the White Geese were huddled in the little space allotted to them. It also is, as we know, largely bare.
Near the entrance to the goose meadow where I was standing, a disoriented group of either digging or mining bees was trying to do something to or for nodules I thought might be their larvae’s formerly underground cells. In the hot sun whatever the bees were trying to do seemed impossible to me, but they kept at their task, except for one that walked purposively away toward nothing at all.
I will keep the blog posted with updates as the DCR responds to the stop order.
