Rail line d?j? vu
By Brian McGrory, Globe Columnist | April 25, 2007
EASTON -- Here we go again.
That's what I was thinking as I drove around a town called Easton looking for a place known as the Hockomock Swamp, which is evidently such an important body of water that local residents are marching in protest and running to court to protect it.
Protect it from what? Excellent question. Protect it from the state's proposal to build a commuter rail line from Boston to New Bedford and Fall River. Suddenly, everyone in town is an environmentalist, a champion of lizards and other creepy-crawlies that squirm in the muck.
In other words, we've seen this movie already, saw it on the South Shore in a town whose name I can't quite remember, where some minority of petulant prima donnas held up the commuter rail proposal for more than a decade, costing the people of Massachusetts hundreds of millions of dollars in the process.
In that town -- Gingham, was it? -- they were all historians, carping about the impact of the train on their ancient village. There was undoubtedly some body of water they were also trying to protect.
Here in Easton, the locals have been blocking the push for commuter rail through town to New Bedford and Fall River for years. Maybe it's important to note that a rail bed already cuts right through the heart of Easton -- and the swamp -- and there's even a thoroughfare known as Depot Street. I don't think that's slang for "court deposition."
Doesn't matter. The townspeople want another slew of environmental impact studies. They've picketed planning meetings. As recently as last month, a respected local selectman, John Haederle, was quoted in this paper saying, "The swamp has so many benefits."
John, it's a swamp. Aren't swamps supposed to be filled in? If it were a nice place, worthy of protection, wouldn't it at least be called a marsh?
But wait. There's something else. The Hockomock Swamp, I find out, is considered to be, according to this very newspaper, a "hotbed of reported supernatural events and strange sightings and experiences" that date back hundreds of years.
How else to put this? People have seen large, half-man, half-ape creatures wandering the swamp. Others have fled the wrath of monster-sized dogs. There have been reports of brightly lit UFOs hovering over it.
"It could all be completely natural," said Chris Balzano, a local specialist on the paranormal. "There are supposed to be areas of quicksand. There's the risk of falling through thin ice. Or being attacked by a large, pterodactyl type of bird, or being chased by massive dogs with glowing red eyes."
I ask again, citizens of Easton: This is what you're trying to protect?
So I'm riding around looking for it, when I pull up at a fire station and ask paramedic Chris Mills for directions.
"You're in it," he said. He's joking, sort of. He says the swamp is all over, then shows me a map with roads cutting through it, as well as the old rail bed.
"My house is so close to the tracks that it will rattle when they bring the train," he said. "And I could care less. My wife and I are fine with it. The train helped build this town."
Which is what Scott Lang is hoping, down in New Bedford. He's the mayor of a city with an unemployment rate over 9 percent, and he's desperate for rail to Boston. He gave me his Chamber of Commerce speech about how great his city is and then said, "If you told me they're trying to build a nuclear waste dump in Easton, I'd say that's not right. But, it's rail. It's a fact of life."
Back to the swamp. I found it, north of the local dogtrack, just off Route 138. Maybe it wasn't the exact part of the swamp designated for protection by the state, but part of the swamp nonetheless. And here's what else I found: trash, old bottles, discarded wrappers, sun-baked boxes.
Maybe it's not the train that's the real threat to the Hockomock, but the residents of Easton. Or maybe most people here aren't really that worried about the swamp at all.
Source:
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/04/25/rail_line_dj_vu/
