CAPE CHARLES MIRROR

Reflections on Cape Charles and the Eastern Shore

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Ken Dufty: Response to Northampton County’s Planning Chairman

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While the Chairman of the Northampton County’s Planning Commission’s defense of the ongoing effort to rewrite our 2009 Comprehensive Plan is rather interesting, it reminds me of something my dad said to me in my youth while watching me trying to fix my bike with all the wrong tools. “Son, you can glue feathers to your arms and flap to beat the band, but you simply are not going to
fly.”

Protests to the contrary, this new attempt to reshape Northampton County into something it was never meant to be should never have gotten off the ground. It’s goals and visions nearly identically match the 2014-2015 zoning fiasco perpetrated by the majority of the same Planning Commission, calling for; high density development of our waterfronts; commercial and industrial development around incorporated towns and along the Route 13 corridor; paving over of the only permeable soils that recharge our sole source aquifer; encouraging “by right” development in which no notice is given to adjacent landowners on future projects; creation of Planned Unit Developments (where anything goes); and many other arbitrary changes.

Contrary to the Code of Virginia which dictates the proper procedures governing land use planning, this new plan for OUR future seems to be fatally lacking in any evidentiary basis supporting the abrupt right turn for this county’s previously charted path. In fact, the new draft Comprehensive Plan being spoon fed the taxpayers of this unique peninsula seems to directly rebuke the
recommendations of the 2014 Competitiveness Assessment Study which warned against encouraging new industrial parks (like the failed STIP in Cape Charles which was a classic fleecing of our county coffers) and high density development (seeing there are nearly 7,000 vacant properties available in the county now). The study also warned that our sole source aquifer is our primary asset and overpumping of that resource only invites salt water intrusion (our freshwater “bubble” floats on saltwater, and as we over-pump, the freshwater is replaced by saltier reserves lapping at our coasts) the death knell for our sustainable future.

The Competitiveness Assessment Study charts a course for economic development that is sustainable, organic, and preserves and enhances the qualities of this lower Eastern Shore that attracts investors and encourages our real estate tax base to grow. Simply put, people invest in this county not because we are Virginia Beach or Ocean City, but because we are not. We encourage all to visit the Northampton County Planning Department website and pull up this study and compare it with the draft plan seemingly crafted by a handful of special interests that appear to be the tail wagging the majority of the body known as the Northampton County Planning Commission. See which one you think deserves to have lift beneath its wings.

Permits for New Poultry Grow Houses do not require Nutrient Testing

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The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) is preparing to issue the first permits to Poultry Grow Houses in Accomac County. These are the first permits issued for this type of activity—at issue, the drafts contain no nutrient testing, as well as neglecting to account for pollution coming from the large fans used in poultry houses.

Links to the draft permits can be found here on the Virginia Eastern Shorekeeper website.

The new facilities will be discharging into Bulbeggar, Assawoman, and Pitt Creeks.

Poultry operations are still a major source of excess nitrogen and phosphorus reaching the Chesapeake from the lower Eastern Shore of Maryland and Virginia. Setting a precedent with these permits by not forcing adequate nutrient and airborne pollution testing is not in the best interest of the lower Eastern Shore which is becoming more economically dependent on having a clean coastal environment.

Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) will be accepting comments until October 20th.

Email comments to DEQ:
robert.smithsonjr@deq.virginia.gov

Mail Comments to DEQ:
Attention: Robert Smithson
5636 Southern Boulevard,
Virginia Beach, VA, 23462

Chicken Wars: Poultry Industry goes after Shorekeeper

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This letter was sent to editor of the Cape Charles Mirror:

I am writing you because the Eastern Shore of Virginia is in trouble and no one is paying attention. Our community is being assaulted by hundreds of new poultry houses growing millions of birds and newspapers are just ignoring it. Our waters are our lifeblood and they have no protection from these factory farms.
Things are so bad they are trying to arrest the only person talking about these issues. I heard that the young man who is the Shorekeeper was arrested and his wife was brought to tears in a restaurant by poultry farmers yelling at them. She is a teacher at my child’s school and is a lovely woman. These poor people are being attacked for protecting our home and the bay. Someone needs to tell people about the disaster that is happening out here. I have contacted the Virginian pilot and they ignored us when we told them these houses were built next to our horses. What’s happening is not right and we are begging someone to tell the story.

When we read this letter, we immediately contacted Jay C. Ford, the Executive Director of the aforementioned Shorekeeper to validate this account.

According to Mr. Ford, the account is true, but with many moving parts. Ford told the Mirror that he was walking along a creek with an Accomack property owner, following it along to the source of contamination that had been detected. As they traced the path, they unknowingly crossed onto property owned by Tyson. Ford was later served a warrant for trespassing, and was warned not to enter the property in the future.

Sources tell the Mirror that there were also efforts to have Ford arrested, and that calls were made to the Virginia Eastern Shorekeeper Board asking that he be removed from his post as Executive Director. Later that week, Ford and his wife were accosted in an Onancock restaurant by poultry farmers that claimed he was attempting to destroy their livelihood.

These encounters, while disturbing, also highlight the fact that Ford and Eastern Shorekeeper’s success in holding Tyson accountable for its clean water violations has hit a nerve with poultry industry. This may also be a serious counter-volley in what could be the Eastern Shore’s version of the ‘Chicken Wars’. [Read more…]

CBES Candidates Forum Scheduled for October 24th

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Continuing its tradition of fostering an informed electorate, Citizens for a Better Eastern (CBES) will hold its Candidates Forum on Tuesday, October 24 at 6PM at the Northampton High School in Eastville. The public is invited to learn more about the candidates for the contested seats of the 100th District House of Delegates, Northampton County District 1 Board of Supervisors, and Northampton County At-Large School Board.

In attendance will be: 100th District House of Delegates candidates; Rob Bloxom and Willie Randall, Northampton District 1 Supervisor candidates; Jacqueline Chatmon and John Coker, and Northampton At-Large School Board candidates; Randall Parks & write-in candidate Kevin Schwenk.

CBES presents the candidates with several questions in advance and their responses are included in the forum. At the event written questions are solicited from the audience and screened by a moderator for duplication and appropriateness. The candidates will also have time for opening and closing statements.

CBES is partnering with WESR Radio 103.3 who will be covering the event live.

This event is free and open to the public. For additional information info@cbes.org, 757-678-7157

Orchestra of the Eastern Shore to Present Fauré Requiem

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The Orchestra of the Eastern Shore will be presenting Fauré Requiem, featuring soprano soloist Bianca Hall and baritone soloist Lou Negretti on October 27th at the Historic Cokesbury Methodist Church in Onancock. The Requiem will include brass, woodwinds and organ in addition to strings.

Gabriel Fauré composed the Requiem in D minor, Op. 48, between 1887 and 1890, but finally completed it in 1900. In seven movements, the work is scored for soprano and baritone soloists, mixed choir, orchestra and organ. Different from typical Requiem settings, the full sequence Dies irae is omitted, replaced by its section Pie Jesu. The final movement In Paradisum is based on a text that is not part of the liturgy of the funeral mass but of the burial.The choral-orchestral setting of the shortened Catholic Mass for the Dead in Latin is the best-known of his large works. Its focus is on eternal rest and consolation- source wikipedia

Charles Landis: The Existential Excesses of Political Correctness

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Special to the Cape Charles Mirror by Charles Landis

Ideology is a comprehensive set of beliefs or ideas held by a dominant group or elites. As a political tool, it is used to advance goals and interests by distorting political or social realities. Existentially, political correctness is an ideology.

My personal experiences with the excesses of political correctness began a few years after WWII ended when a German friend, then living in Geneva, invited me to visit his parent’s home in a small village in the Black Forest near Freiburg. His father, a retired general from Silesia, had fought on both fronts in both World Wars. He was of the quintessential Prussian military officer class with conviction of the absolute correctness of that heritage. He was a soldier and soldiers obeyed orders. He insisted the cause of WW II was the terms of surrender imposed at Versailles after WW I and need to resist Russian communism. This is the penultimate of political correctness; second only to the true believer of an ideology. [Read more…]

Eastern Shore Health Officials Provide Foodborne Outbreak Investigation Update

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(Accomac, Va.) –The Accomack County Health Department and the Foodborne Disease Team from the Virginia Department of Health continue to investigate an outbreak of gastro-intestinal illnesses that may be related to the Chincoteague Chili Chowder Cook Off held Saturday, September 30, 2017. Late yesterday the Division of Consolidated Laboratory Services (state laboratory) in Richmond, Virginia identified Salmonella in specimens that they have received that are associated with the event.

The investigation is still ongoing with regards to what food or food items may have caused the outbreak.

The Accomack County Health Department continues to try to reach the more than 2000 event attendees from multiple states, not only to ask them to submit information to the online outbreak survey that will help answer investigation questions, but also to advise anyone who is still ill to contact their primary care provider, if they have not already. Anyone still experiencing severe symptoms including but not limited to dehydration, severe vomiting, or diarrhea is advised to go to the emergency room or urgent care center if their primary care provider is not available.

The media, including social media, have been an asset to the investigation by sharing the survey link and helping us to reach many that attended the event. So far, we have heard from over 350 attendees but there are many we still haven’t heard from. We ask all attendees, workers volunteers, and paying customers, whether ill or well, to please complete the online survey if you have not already. That link can be found here: www.vdh.virginia.gov/eastern-shore/. Thank you to everyone who has assisted the Accomack County Health Department in the investigation so far. We have devoted every available resource we have to this Foodborne Outbreak and our staff, as well as the staffs of other state agencies, continue to work hard to answer the questions that the public has asked. We will continue to share information with you as soon as we are able to do so.

Chas Cornweller: On Taking a Knee

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This back and forth is getting beyond tiresome. I cannot begin to count the number of people who have totally and completely missed the point of the “Taking of the Knee” during our National Anthem. Maybe a re-visitation to the 1968 Mexican Summer Olympics is in order for some. But, I imagine the same enraged vexation that was caused when two athletes raised their fists as protest (while standing on the winner’s podiums) would not be cited as the same today. After all, people of color (a very few…not all!) were burning their own cities, forming community groups such as the Black Panthers and political groups such as CORE and SNCC. You know, being all uppity and demanding equal rights in a country that had practiced unequal housing, employment, wages and political access, yet by its very Constitutional bylaws ensured such rights to all free men. So, you still wonder why African Americans are upset? [Read more…]

Paul Plante: On Citizenship!

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Special to the Cape Charles Mirror by Paul Plante

One thing I have learned about America and the people in it today from reading the Cape Charles Mirror, and yes, this is in the light of these football protests, and all the commentary in the pages of the Cape Charles Mirror defending “taking the knee” as the right of the football player’s to do, which of course it is, since people in this country are always protesting about something, and have been doing so since I was born, without end in sight; is that we all view citizenship in this nation of ours quite differently.

For example, this comment appeared recently in the pages of the Cape Charles Mirror, to wit: The latest take on racial prejudices has been brought to the fore by the present occupant at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue through his rhetoric of building walls to keep out People of Color.

HUH?

There aren’t walls being built anywhere to keep out “People of Color.”

We happen to be a nation, like Mexico is a nation, and Canada is a nation, and like them, we have national boundaries, and one of the most basic jobs of our national government is to defend our national boundaries, just as Israel defends hers.

And there is already a wall along that border with Mexico, and has been for some time, because the Congress of the United States of America decreed there would be one in legislation that is now public law.
[Read more…]

Find out more about Mushrooms of the Eastern Shore, Oct. 20th

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Can I Eat That? Fungi of ESVA.

Science and Philosophy Seminar of the Eastern Shore of Virginia has scheduled a seminar, “Can I Eat That? Mushrooms of ESVA.” The free 90-minute seminar will be held at 12:30 p.m. on Friday, October 20 in the Lecture Hall of the Eastern Shore Community College, 29300 Lankford Hwy, Melfa, VA 23410.

Tony Picardi will discuss poisonous varieties, many others he has found locally, and their role in the ecosystem.

Picardi retired to the Shore after a career in the software industry.