It is our understanding that Department of Conservation and Recreation Commissioner Ed Lambert will be coming to our fair city and will be escorted on a tour of the beach area by our Representative Lori Ehrlich.
He is coming here, no doubt, to explain away DCR’s laxity in scraping the algae from the beach daily for quite sometime which led to a period of horrific stench on the Lynnweay that had men, women and children gagging and passing drivers holding their noses with their fingers.
There have been other difficulties like beach goers on King’s Beach apparently finding multiple hypodermic needles in the sand.
On the first issue, the stench, we hope and trust our capable representative Lori Ehrlich will make sure to explain to to Mr. Lambert that scraping the algae from the Lynn/Nahant Beach everyday or at least as much as humanly possible during the summer months is what it takes to rid the beach and the entire reservation area of a stench that has the essence of 1000 open dumpsters filled with dog mess emanating from it.
Former DCR Commissioner Rick Sullivan spent about three years of his time trying to figure out how to remove the stench. He pored through dozens of reports and scientific inquiries and he looked at dozens of cures and potential fixes only to discover for himself that with hard work and by scraping the crap from the beach before the sun cooked it and caused it to putrify that the stench could be eradicated forever!
This is what Rick Sullivan came up with and until he left and for one year after his practice was followed.
But then came this year and everything stopped.
We are told that there was no money to run machines which sweep the beach of the algae.
So DCR employees at the Lynn/Nahant Reservation just sat on their thumbs and stopped.
No one called to Boston. No said there was going to be a big problem. No one moved a muscle even when men, women and children were gagging on Lynn/Nahant Beach and some people vomiting and everyone holding their noses who passed through the area.
Lynn/Nahant Beach stinks because DCR employees just stop cleaning the place. What occurs when this happens – and it happened for at least 75 years before Rick Sullivan showed us the way – is that the quality of life along the beach dives and the reputation of this city sinks.
We urge Mr. Lambert to make sure that removing the algae in the summer months and into the fall continues – not as a special favor, not as scientific research but rather, as the only reasonable way to keep the stench from coming to life as it did recently.
There cannot be DCR beaches that stink to high heaven.
It is all about pride. It is all about caring. In the end, it is all about responsibility.
We hope Rep. Ehrlich will relay this message among others.