Woodlot Alternatives Analysis
of the Wetlands On My Property. |
Woodlot Alternatives, an environmental consulting firm, was hired by Sue Nusbaum to evaluate the wetlands beside my house on the unnamed paper street, in which the Stimsons had cut a swath to reach Silver Lake. The family owns over three acres on which to put a path here, but chose to do so on and off of their land and onto my land. The report of Woodlot Alternatives is contained here in a PDF file (315K- opens in a new window).This is the same area which is pictured on the pages depicting my backyard, (click here - opens in a new window) in the foreground of the panorama, and is, basically, beside my house and in my backyard. The path which was cut through the wetland vegetation is under anywhere from a half to three feet of water in many places, certainly wet along most of the path of this "paper" street, as it has been since late March of 2005. While we have had a wet may, the snow melt had caused this area to become inundated now months ago. As a child I used to build rafts in this area, as did many of my neighbors. We didn't even reach Maine until after school was let out for the summer, in mid to late June. This is not unusual then and has happened many many times in the last 80 years (My 83 year old aunt remembers this happening as a child. |
| At the time of Ms. Nusbaum's hiring of Woodlot Alternatives, she was claiming ownership of all the roads at Popham Beach. We could not at that time contribute to her assessments because we did not and could not support any of her claims to roads, particularly those which did not in any way abut her property. She currently has a law suit against us which is based on those same claims, in which we are trying to extinguish the easement rights on these never used paper streets. The pictures of the area show the impossibility of passage in these areas, and while there was a year in which people tried to get through some of the wetlands in the back, there was never a road built or a particular path followed in those soon abandoned attempts to access property through a swamp. Rising water levels of Silver Lake into a vast area between the lake and the currently used road was always a block to any reasonable attempt to use these paper streets. To see pictures of the Hill cottage built last year standing in three feet of water-click here. also see the discussion of the Wyatt/Hill Notice Of Violation-click here. |