FIELDS AND ANIMALS

Dear Town Supervisor Mike Dvorchak:

Proposed paving of Texas Hill Road and Apple Tree Lane

We are writing to strongly oppose the proposed plans to apply “chip and seal” to Texas Hill Road and Apple Tree Lane, due to be discussed at the Hillsdale town meeting on 11 February.

Agricultural and environmental concerns: Our cattle graze the fields running down from Texas Hill Road. The road tar used in chip-and-seal would leach into the rainwater that drains into our fields, polluting the groundwater on which our fields and animals depend. The chip and seal treatment will increase road runoff, leading to more erosion, flooding and pollution in our farm’s streams, and potentially our well water too.

Road safety: Chip-and-seal paving will encourage cars and trucks to drive faster – unsafe on a road where there are many walkers. Moreover, it is completely unnecessary to “improve” the road to speed up the traffic. Texas Hill Road is not a through road and its only users are its residents.

Residents’ wishes: It is extraordinary that the Town is proposing to push through a proposal that is so strongly opposed by the vast majority of people – and taxpayers – who will be affected by it. Your own website links to numerous letters and emails from residents of Texas Hill Road and beyond, all of them opposing this project. I see only one expression of support.

We find it hard to believe that the town values the rural character and natural beauty of Hillsdale so little that it appears determined to press ahead with a construction project so ill-conceived and unnecessary - and so unwanted by the people who will be living with it.

Yours sincerely,

Vanessa and Sam Johnson

Pym Farm