Remember Dana, Enfield, Greenwich, and Prescott? The four Massachusetts towns are 150 feet below water, because in the eyes of the legislature, they were expendable…just like Cape Cod is today....

Two years after the completion of the Sagamore and Bourne Bridges the Massachusetts mother lode, AKA Greater Boston, realized it needed more water to sustain itself.

Having already annexed lakes in Norembega (Newton), Cochituate (Natick), and Marlborough, the Athens of the West was growing at such a rate it needed more water.

Sixty-five miles due east of Boston there was a hill in Enfield called Quabbin Hill and a lake in Greenwich called Quabbin Lake that were named for a Native American chief called Nani-Quaben, meaning

place of many waters.

CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE

If you want to see and hear a WBUR documentary that includes interviews with people who lived in the four lost Massachusetts communities click the link;

http://www.insideout.org/documentaries/hauntingquabbin/default.asp

During the Great Depression the Massachusetts General Court decided to create a 36 square mile X 150 feet deep reservoir, along with a new agency, the Metropolitan District Commission (now the MWRA).

Quabbin was formed by inundating the Swift River Valley by damming the river and a valley.

When construction began in 1936 the Swift River was redirected from its riverbed through a diversion tunnel.

On August 14, 1939 that tunnel was sealed with rock.

Over the next seven years the waters of the Quabbin Reservoir slowly rose behind the newly completed Windsor Dam, an earth-filled structure 2,640 feet long, rising 170 feet above the riverbed.

The water gradually submerged the roads that had linked the towns of Dana in Worcester County, Enfield, Greenwich, and Prescott, all in Hampshire County.

Thirty-six miles of the Boston and Albany Railroad's Athol Branch were abandoned.

When the buildings in the towns flooded by the reservoir were destroyed, the cellars were left intact.

The remnants of the buildings and roads can occasionally be seen when the water level is low, and old roads that once led to the flooded towns can be followed to the water's edge.

Town memorials and cemeteries in the four towns were moved to the Quabbin Cemetery, located on Route 9 in Ware, just off of the Quabbin's lands.
Many other public buildings were moved to other locations.

Yes there were court battles before the towns were drowned, but in the end townspeople’s property rights were squished like June Bugs on a hot Fourth of July night to satisfy the thirst of 44 Greater Boston communities.

For the last thirty years Cape Cod has been Greater Boston's sacrificial lamb.

Twenty-four Massachusetts urban cities take $2.8 billion of the $5 billion local aid pool.

Greater Boston took all of the federal and state road construction money for the past 13 years to build the Big Dig construction leaving Cape roads to rot.

Each year Cape communities send $1 - $1.5 billion north to Boston as income, sales, gasoline, hotel/motel, cigarette, and other taxes, but less than 10% is returned as local aid.

Last year the 15 Cape towns combined spent $154 million on the lottery, but only $10 million was returned as lottery aid.

Thirty-four Massachusetts communities adopted a prohibition of lottery games, yet collected $7 million in lottery aid.

Amherst spent $4 million on the lottery but collected as much lottery aid as all 15 Cape communities combined.

Cape communities are choking in their wastewater.

The Cape is forced to crap on top of where it eats, and the residuals are fouling the single aquifer, ponds, lakes, rivers, and bays.

Just last week the Cape Cod Commission reported high levels of pharmaceuticals in surface waters which proves a linkage between ground and surface waters.

Twenty years ago 44 Greater Boston communities built a massive multi-billion dollar waste water treatment facility and outfall pipe to treat waste water using years and years of Cape tax dollars.

To add insult to injury Greater Boston now discharges 400 million gallons a day of wastewater effluent into Cape Cod Bay.

Today Cape Cod needs to invest billions in capital improvements primarily to build sewers, waste water treatment plants, and outfall pipes, but we'll have to come up with the money to pay for it ourselves.

If a massive public works program isn’t underway within twenty years, Barnstable County could be uninhabitable.

The Barnstable County Councilor and Selectmen’s Association needs to commission a study to determine the Cape’s GNP, the exact tax money sent north to Boston, and how much it would cost to replicate state services to Barnstable County.

My numbers indicate that if Cape Cod kept the state income, sales, gasoline, hotel/motel, lottery, and other taxes, we could provide our own state services, and have enough left over to sewer the entire Cape within a few years.

Remember Quabbin, because it looks like we are next.

Fifty years from now folks in Greater Boston will be hard pressed to remember the names of the 15 ghost towns on Cape Cod so WBUR may produce a documentary of Cape Cape Cod to remind them.

A secession study isn’t an option, it’s a necessity.

Comments

[Mueslix]

Oh Gary,
How is the ACLU doing? You now a card carrying member?

Who you gonna call next?

Ghostbusters?
Canadian Mounties?
Underdog?
Superman?

Lamer and lamer all the time ....

[Mueslix]

Gary,
Where is maddog JJ? Why is he so quiet? Did you finally ban him? Is COG down to one member-you?

Oh you are Taryn.

One member just left, but not by choice, huh?

RIP friend.

[Mueslix]

OOPS
I meant you AND Taryn are the last two COG followers.

Unless I am missing someone?

Leghold?
Walsh?
Gonzalez?
Bugsy?
Sheeesh! Even Bugsy found out COG was full of it!

[HUH?]

Mueslix - I mean Janet - The hate is just spilling out of your ears. Get a grip! You look bad, and you are obviously losing it. Better get yourself together, dear, you have a meeting to go to.

[Gary Lopez]

Janet Joakim, who might find an unexpected new audience tonight, forgot to mention the 700-odd readers who log in every day.

Her favorite blog publishes its page view history.

I get more page views in two weeks than the blog received since October 16th, 2007, (Site Meter
7,507)

Have fun tonight Janet.

[Taryn Thoman]

Gary - A man I believe to be John Joakim - the husband of Janet Joakim, followed me into the Star Market on West Main Street in Hyannis at 6pm, pointed his finger at my face and said something about going after his wife and kids. He told me to WATCH MY BACK. In keeping with the bully/coward Swain/Joakim family trait, he would not discuss what he was talking about, but felt like a big man threatening me in front of my six year old son. I recognize his face from the photo on the Janet Joakim resume, and am 99% sure it was him. The Barnstable Police can go ask him about it if/when I get around to calling them. If the market has cameras, they should be able to show John Joakim pointing his finger in my face. I am posting this here for a variety of reasons, one being to tell your readers that Janet is not the only bully in the Joakim family, another being that my personal safety has been threatened by an agent of the President of the Barnstable Town Council. I will be contacting as many Boston stations as possible to tell them just how bad things are here in Barnstable, and that juicycampus.com is not the only website abuse story in the country right now!