Water Conservation: Get Used to It
On behalf of local water utilities throughout Massachusetts, I urge the public to use water wisely, especially during the remaining summer season.
Despite abundant precipitation earlier this year, minimal rainfall in recent weeks, coupled with continuing high temperatures, is taxing the water supplies of a number of communities across the state. Recent drenching downpours have been confined to certain sections of the state, leaving many communities with little appreciable rainfall.
The National Weather Service is currently forecasting above-normal average temperatures and a 33 percent chance of below-normal precipitation in southern New England during the next three months.
As hot, dry weather continues, more and more communities may be forced to impose voluntary or mandatory restrictions on outdoor water use.
Such restrictions are imperative not only to provide uninterrupted delivery of drinking water to homes and businesses, but also to assure that sufficient water pressure and supplies are available to fight fires and protect public safety. I strongly encourage residents, in communities with or without outdoor water restrictions, to conserve their vital but limited local water supplies indoors and outdoors during this summer and throughout the year.
To learn more about how the public can conserve water every day, contact your local water department or visit newwa.org.
Raymond J. Raposa
Executive Director
New England Water Works Association
Poets Series Flourishing
The Collected Poets Series (CPS) ended its third season with a bang this July 1st with Lee Sharkey and Kristin Bock. We are hard at work planning for our fourth season and I would like to thank the people that make this series such a resounding success.
The citizens and businesses of the surrounding towns, and especially Shelburne Falls, put their community effort behind us as we maintain the growth of this amazing nationally—and now internationally—known poetry series.
Chris and Bruce King and the staff at Mocha Maya’s have graciously hosted the CPS each month. Our gratitude to Carolyn Armstrong of Plants for Pleasure, Ollie’s Downunder, the West End Pub, the Gypsy Apple Bistro, Caf? Martin, Boswell’s Books, the former Jeffrey Amherst Bookstore, the World Eye Bookstore, James Sullivan, Elijah Rottenberg, the Shelburne-Buckland Community Center and especially Marion Jones, the Dancing Bear Guesthouse, the Bird’s Nest Bed and Breakfast, the Shelburne House B&B, the High Street Oak, Mo’s Place, Kerry O’Keefe, the Wellspring House, Buckland Local Cultural Council and the Shelburne Local Cultural Council. I know there are others that I inadvertently missed, but know that the CPS is grateful for your support.
The Collected Poets Series (www.collectedpoets.com) began as a fledgling brainchild of Lea Banks and the advisory board. We strive to bring talent, personality and an awakening to the area. It brings us pleasure when we hear that non-poets are in the audience or that people who “haven’t really paid that much attention to poetry before” are taking part in this special first Thursday of the month.
Thank you to all for making this a grand success!
Lea Banks and the Collected Poets Series
via email
What Was Dodd Doing?
The Senate passed a 2,300-page financial “reform” bill. Senator Dodd of Connecticut—who has been sitting on financial oversight committees in the Senate for many years—had a few things to say about this massive law:
“The American public expects nothing less of us than to fashion proposals that will minimize great risks to them. None of us lost a job or a home in the last two years. None of us has watched our retirement account evaporate overnight. None of us will worry about whether our children can get a higher education. That all happened to the people we represent across the country.”
He continued: “They are asking that we do our best. They don’t ask for perfection. They know we have not solved every problem and that we are not going to bring back their homes and their jobs; but they expect us to respond to the situation that brought us to the brink of financial disaster. This is our best effort to do so.”
These are words only a senator who is retiring would utter.
For all those years, sitting on financial oversight boards, was he overlooking all these blunders on purpose or because he is incompetent? In either case he has contributed in a big way to the new mess.
“They know that… we are not going to bring back their homes and their jobs…” Is he talking about us, the American people?
Am I to read this that “they” aren’t going to restore what “they” took?
Alfred Brock
Wayne, Mich.
Tough Times, Irate Taxpayers
Taxpayers and voters should be reminded that Shakespeare & Company got a $300,000 check borrowed from China via our federal government thanks to an earmark by our spendthrift Congressman Olver [as a grant, announced last year, to Shakespeare & Company Educational Programs]. My granddaughter will be paying for that (plus lots and lots of compound interest) for many years to come. She is two months old today.
John P. Saccavino
Granby
Beyond Strawberries
We need more articles like this [“Food Starts Here,” July 8, 2010] to remind us that the simple pleasures of life are what will keep us in touch with the important things in life as well: working together, being out in the fresh air and in nature, spending time with our loved ones having fun, and doing as little damage as possible to our environment at home and in the workplace.
This is a rich article, excellently written and a pleasure to read, which takes the reader way beyond strawberries, but rather gives us pause about the way we live our entire lives. I look forward to reading more articles by this gifted writer.
Laura Schieb
via online comments
