"Tongues in trees, sermons in stones, books in the running brooks, and good in everything." William Shakespeare - As You Like It, Act ii, Scene I
The
2000 Master Plan for a Hackett Hill corporate park calls for roads to
criss-cross the nearly pristine property and for multi-story
buildings to replace heavily forested areas, vernal pools, and other
wildlife habitat. The presence of specialized forested wetlands which
contain rare or threatened species has led the city to establish a
nature preserve - the Manchester Cedar Swamp Preserve - on certain
parts of the property. Yet this supposedly protected land is slated
to be located back to back with areas where natural settings will be
completely destroyed and replaced by buildings, parking lots, and
landscaped lawns.
Instead of directing their efforts towards revitalizing the city's downtown area and millyard, and encouraging businesses to locate in a centralized region, city planners are fostering the growth of a "second city" at Manchester's periphery. This backwards approach to modern city planning encourages "urban sprawl"- slow-moving heavy traffic along routes that soon will be lined with fast food joints and mini-malls.
A major
goal of the Merrimack Valley Sierra Club is to generate public
awareness of the city's plans, and to suggest an alternative "zero
development" plan that would protect the property completely .This
education-oriented plan is in keeping with the interest which
Manchester's citizens have shown in their school system, provides for
appropriate uses of the natural features of the property, discourages
rather than encourages urban sprawl, and could be put into effect
nearly immediately, with little or no cost to the taxpayers. A
moratorium on development plans would permit a pilot environmental
education program to be run and evaluated.
The generalities of the Sierra Club's plan are outlined below. The public and Manchester's elected officials should have had an opportunity to hear more about the plan, but unfortunately, a "public meeting" held by the city in November, 2000 concerned only its Master Plan for development.
The major features of the Sierra Club's plan are as follows:
FRENCH HALL WOULD BE USED AT LEAST IN PART FOR THE TEACHING OF HIGH SCHOOL LEVEL, FIELD WORK-RELATED ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE COURSES, OR COURSE PORTIONS. A number of these courses are already "up and running" at local high schools, as indicated in the on-line course listings for these schools. Therefore teachers, equipment and textbooks for these courses are already in place. Field studies could be conducted at the wide variety of habitats located on the Hackett Hill property.
French Hall, the sole building of the former
UNH-Manchester campus on Hackett Hill, is shown here in an aerial
view. The building contains classrooms, a library, computer labs,
office space and a cafeteria. It would be highly appropriate as a
headquarters for a city-wide high school environmental studies
program. The building is surrounded by ample parking space, lawns,
and forested areas. The proximity of the building to habitats
suitable for ecological field trips is illustrated by the open water
and marsh type wetlands that are seen at the periphery of the
forested areas. The access road which leads to the interior of the
property is shown to the left of the building. Field trips at a
considerable distance from the school could be undertaken by
transporting students along the access road to various sites in the
interior of the property which are nearer to vernal pools, Atlantic
white cedar swamps, the black gum swamp, cliffs, and various upland
forest areas.
THERE WOULD BE A CONTINUATION OF SHORT-TERM FIELD STUDIES OR OUTDOOR PROGRAMS BY COLLEGES AND ENVIRONMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS. FRENCH HALL WOULD BE USED AS A TEMPORARY HEADQUARTERS FOR THESE ACTIVITIES. In the past several years, environmental organizations such as The Audubon Society, The "Fishways", The Nature Conservancy, The Sierra Club and The New England Wildflower Society have used the property for these purposes, as have educational institutions such as UNH-Manchester, UNH-Durham, Springfield College, and Notre Dame College. The French Hall classrooms would be ideal for orientation sessions preceeding field trips and for post-field trip discussions of observations made and/or an analysis of materials collected.
THERE WOULD BE A CONTINUATION OF USE OF THE PROPERTY BY THE PUBLIC FOR PASSIVE RECREATIONAL ACTIVITIES SUCH AS BIRD WATCHING, NATURE PHOTOGRAPHY AND HIKING. The results of recent "birding" on the property are described elsewhere on this Web site. The sections of the Web site that concern Hackett Hill also include many photographs taken on the property.
A THOROUGH INVENTORY WOULD BE DONE OF THE PROPERTY BY COMPUTERIZED METHODOLOGY TO SERVE AS A GUIDE FOR FIELD STUDIES AND PROTECTION PLANS. The city's 2000 master plan for a corporate park pays no attention to the quantity and distribution of plant and animal life forms, and the location of the habitats they occupy. A study that employs computerized methodology is needed in order to determine this information precisely. The findings could be used by instructors of environmental studies courses to plan their field trip activities. The data could also be used to determine which portions of the property contain plant or animal species that might require special protection.
PORTIONS OF THE PROPERTY OUTSIDE THE TNC "PRESERVE" WOULD ALSO BE UNDER THE JURISDICTION OF TNC AND MONITORED BY THIS ORGANIZATION. TNC could keep a "watchful eye" not only on the specialized forested wetlands within the "Preserve", but also on the remainder of the property.
Credits: The aerial photograph of French Hall was taken by Don
Welch.