Letters To Editor

Is it fair? 

To the Editor:  

Is it fair? New Hampshire shorelands are wagered for school funding regardless of shoreland protection. Ironically, over 30 years ago, the Shoreland Protection Act told us that New Hampshire shorelands are among the states’ most valuable and fragile natural resources. It confirmed that even small areas of impervious surface have deleterious impact on our water quality. These impacts were known to reduce property values, recreation and pose human health risks. The current valuation of shoreland property, like the School Fairness Funding Project, perhaps is an alluring deception. 

The manic rate at which shoreland cottages are being converted into residential/rental property correlates with the health risks posed from cyanobacteria blooms and E. coli in our lakes and ponds. New Hampshire has fallen off the protection wagon, and so the addiction rages. 

This shoreland, from which volumes of tax revenue are extracted each year, has been excavated, hauled away and poured into stump dumps. The assessed value of shoreland is unsubstantiated: the land is gone. Often, the revenue collected, like gambling earnings, is lost. 

When the water and soil under buildings is so contaminated by pollutants that only weeds, rather than healthy children and businesses, can grow, without remediating the underlying problems, pouring money into school projects is like backfilling the holes dug in the shoreland with salt. Only by the grace of God, an educated public and targeted remediation, will our land be healed. 

Tanya D. McIntire 

Grantham, NH