Waveny.net

There are no brakes on the Park and Recreation’s train of destruction.

A resident quoted in the paper, Mr. Hanson, is correct when he says that the summer theater won’t “desecrate” the cornfield.
That’s true because the town has already desecrated the meadow area. The theater will occupy the cornfield. The concessions for people and vehicles will desecrate more than just 4 1/2 acres of Natural landscape.

Conversations about building a new summer theater in Waveny Park are intensely debatable. Those in favor of the idea want to develop roads into the woods and repeatedly drive 100 cars and trucks into a “cornfield” in the center of our little-remaining forest. With dump-trucks delivering waste products from across town the ‘cornfield’ has already been 100% raized and ruined by the current “stewards of New Canaan’s assets”.

After explaining how they would use newly widened ‘roads’ (existing footpaths) in the woods to allow vehicles to drive into our forest, the man pushing the project forward said: ” We’re not building parking lots, we’re building meadows.” A defensive, illogical statement.

“A meadow is a field vegetated primarily by grass and other non-woody plants. It may be cut for hay or grazed by livestock such as cattle, sheep or goats.”

A cornfield is “a field in which corn is grown.”

The cornfield, before the town decided to obliterate it, was already a meadow.
Residents should be in favor of restoring the ‘cornfield’ or ‘town dumping grounds’ to a meadow status but should we be in favor of driving cars into the woods? The trucks have already deposited piles of crude oil product. The trucks have destroyed and then polluted the habitat area, driving out thousands of animals leaving them no similar habitat nearby. So, yes, please restore the cornfield to natural, wild habitat. But why, why in the world would anyone want to impact the tiny amount of Nature we have left in New Canaan’s greatest park in such an indisputably negative manner? Roads, cars, pavement, structures, run-off, litter, increased traffic… all pollution to the Natural setting.

Unfortunately for local residents;

It turns out that for cultivation to successfully remove the existing weed seeds, has to be done every two to three weeks for 12 to 18 months.  So, maybe this isn’t a project for the low-maintenance crowd.

Maintenance requirements for the first season after plugging consist of about 20 hours a week of hand weeding and weekly watering with a sprinkler unless an inch of rain had fallen during the week. (gardenrant.com)

Will the summer theater group pay for the 20 man hours per week to maintain their “meadow” or will this be more reason Park and Rec needs to cut down more trees for a 2,500 square foot storage shed built nearby?

Let’s build more stuff, let’s cut more trees, let’s have Disney world instead of Nature. Keep going, destroy destroy, destroy. There’s nothing like a good summer theater performance. Let me just suggest the idea that when there is no place left untouched, there will be no place to “get away” from it all and find inspiration in the beauty of Nature. Maybe we can go see a play about the way things used to be, before they paved our world.

BTW: I was very pleased to learn from the newspaper that the town admits to destroying the fields behind the pond. I am glad to know the area is called the cornfield and I’ve added tags to my related posts. I was glad to know that other runners share my disdain for hard surfaces, there is plenty of road for runners, why widen footpaths for trucks and pave. I was glad to hear words like “desecrate” used in the paper! The fact that several minds share the perspective should be enough to cause sufficient consideration.
I think it’s a dreamy setting for a performance tent. Someone will eventually use pesticides to control the bugs since you are parking yourself smack in the center of ticks from your “meadow” and mosquitoes from the pond. With the exception of the bugs, I imagine it would be a great spot to be, especially at night. How idyllic. Yes, that’s my point. Nature provides the idyllic setting and it is Nature that you intend to alter to suit your structures and then you are going to bring automobile traffic and what more? Electricity? Water? Sewage plumbing? It is not the restoration of a meadow or the placement of a tent in a field that is a concern. It is the devastating impact of the concessions for human and automobile traffic.

Walk to the “tent” – no electricity, no lights, no pesticides, no vehicle access! You pack it in, you pack it out!

How many  porta-potty toilets are you required by law to place in the “meadow” for performance visitors? How often will sewage removal trucks be driving past the endangered bog turtle?

This spot is too remote and requires too many concessions.
This will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.