These particular vandals were not particularly concerned about being caught, or subtle about their beliefs. Great stuff for kids in a canoe or at a beach to see.
Trees were hacked up and spray painted with hate language.
An entire shoreline of bushes and small trees was cut down, as were more
mature trees.
Almost everywhere one looked a rock was decorated with a name or hate word. Here a rock band.
Our green spray paint artist did some extra damage of his own while he was there.
Finally, an incomplete job aimed primarily at obliterating names (though not all) and swastikas. And, the artist dumped his paint can in the pond, leaving a very considerable area of green gobs....
We returned on August 17 and 18, a week after we first reported the vandalism, to photograph the scene. We were horrified to find that there had been almost no dissipation of the paint gobs in almost a week. It extends over a very wide area, and seems to be in a layer about six inches from the top of the pond. It was continuing to leech as far as we could tell. Incomprehensively, the local fire chief, asked to investigate by the state environmental police, apparently reported back to them and to the Boylston town administrator that there was no pollution, just 'natural growth'. This is either sheer incompetency given the same color on the rocks nearby, or another effort to simply trivialize the vandalism by town officials. If the pollution could not be seen from the shore a boat should have been used. Why not collect some of the 'natural growth' for analysis, knowing that this would grow into the controversy it is? Perhaps there needs to be a change in state law and regulations.
The above and photo below show pollution over the beach area (easily seen from the shore).
The photo above provides a perspective on the spread of the pollution more than a week after the vandalism. If you look up to the left of the canoe, you can see the beach area near which the paint or a paint can was dumped in the pond. Look at the bottom right and you can see a big clump of paint the color of the paint on the rocks.
Has anyone ever seen 'natural growth' like this?
Look in about 50% of Rocky Pond and you can find the spread of these small gobs of paint.
Here's more 'natural growth', which we have saved for analysis.
We end with another incomprehsible act. According to an official of the New England Forestry Foundation, an area resident painted the rocks (their third painting in just over a week!) on the evening of August 17. Given the knowedge of the Foundation and the relationship of the local resident to them over the years we can only assume that the Foundation approved of this action. Though NEFF would not sign a formal complaint but had given the police an ok to conduct an investigation, which we have been told is now underway, why would permission be given to cover evidence in an investigation, particularly since the vandalism was receiving wide publicity? Why would they seemingly approve of this before they had visited the site, which as of this writing on August 18 -- over a week after the original complaint and reports of on-going pollution -- they had not? What's going on here? On August 23 we encountered two Boylston policemen and they shared our understanding that NEFF has still not visited.
Sure, some would argue that 'boys will be boys' but this is the first such devastation of its kind at Rocky Pond in 12-15 years. And it coincides with what we have been told is a rise in anti-semitic graffiti in the area. We want to know who did it, we would like to see them punished, and, especially, we want to know if they had permission to cross through private land to get to the area. Our information suggests a party of over twenty people which stretched over two days. We want a full explanation of why the event has been so trivialized and there was no attempt whatsoever to stop the on-going pollution, which was reported to NEFF, state and local officials a week earlier. But this is the stuff, we believe, of not only a police investigation, but an investigation by outside authorities who can assure a concerned public that it is objective and fair and helps us understand why it so hard to protect a beautiful place from obscene and racist graffiti, the destruction of part of the forest and water pollution. It's not Buzzards Bay, but to the people who love places like this it is very important.
And, why the evasive and evidence-destroying action that has characterized so much of this case?
