Our Options

At The Tipping Point

To the Editor:

This recent spell of warm weather has been an unexpected pleasure, allowing for lots of fresh air and daily dog walks. However, while we are pretty sure that it is just a statistical glitch that has led to the first December since Rutherford B. Hayes was in the White House that there has been no snow in Central Park, the ominous prospect of global warming lurks in the back of our minds. The polar ice cap is melting, and we only hope that it is not too late to save the entire East Coast from washing away, while the Midwest turns to desert.

The tipping point has been reached where most Americans are now aware of the fact that pollution and emissions have seriously compromised the environment of the whole world. Whether we, as a nation, have the will to do something about it — to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, and to curb the gases that heat the air and drown the polar bears — remains to be seen.

Here in Newtown we are faced with a much more specific set of alternatives: either we take careful steps while we still can to preserve Deep Brook and the aquifer surrounding it, or we succumb to the lure of development revenue, and allow the land around it to be turned into a “tech park” and hope for a miraculous absence of bad consequences.

The rooftops, roads, and parking lots that come with a tech park will mean flooding and heating of the waters of Deep Brook, as well as the visual ugliness that will mar a pristine oasis of open land.

Once this is done, it cannot be repaired or undone. Some people will profit financially from the project, which, of course, is what motivates them in the first place, but the town itself will be permanently diminished.

If we are going to have a new tech park, why can’t it be developed on the parcel of land around Exit 9, which is closer to Danbury and New York State, and which would not bring new congestion to the heart of town? (And which would leave historic Deep Brook and its priceless trout resources alone.)

Sincerely,

Peter and Julie Stern

19 Park Lane, Newtown                                               January 2, 2007