Another hot and humid weekend for Ultimate at Ft. Devens (now known simply as Devens. For those of who don't play Ultimate out this way, Devens is the site of most every major tournament hosted out of the Boston area.
Following last summer's stern warning from Dawn D. about the toxic waste that was dumped in the lakes/ponds near there, I did a little research before deciding if the urge to cool off hits this weekend will outweigh growing gills as a result.
It turns out that after some poor planning on the part of the Army and Natick Laboratories, Ft. Devens qualified as a SuperFund site once it was determined that the ground water tables were being contaminated by any number of lovely inorganic chemical substances.
Toby Mandel of Colgate offers a succint history of the environmental issues at Ft. Devens.
The EPA's rosy description of events.
Finally, I found the CDC's PUBLIC HEALTH ASSESSMENT for Ft. Devens, particularly the ol' swimmin' holes. Their outlook is a reassuring, swim at your own risk.
SUMMARYFort Devens Sudbury Training Annex (STA) is classified as ATSDR's category of no apparent public health hazard. Few exposures have been identified, and those do not exceed health comparison values. However, a few STA study areas are classified as indeterminate public health hazards because limited groundwater data are available.
How do you recoup your losses from cleaning up a toxic waste site? Of course you develop the area as a community for families.
Suffice to say, I will probably still go swimming.
Drea confirms our bid. We are in for Potlatch. 95 out of the 104 team slots were filled. To top it all off, I get to go to Seattle and play Ultimate for the 4th of July weekend! Let the planning mayhem begin. Oh yeah, I really need new cleats.
Paul Batten was in Boston tonight and went to the effort to call and look me up. He's a friend from mySyracuse Ultimate days. He also went to my high school but 4 or 5 years after I had. I still remember the first time I played disc with him and Jason DeMaso...
They had come out to play in our summer league pickup and were the only two high school kids on the field. They had crazy skills and were quick. Young, developing, spirited. Paul now plays for Cornell Ultimate and is a Senior on the squad. He gets all sorts of press in the UPA and will be a stellar club player when the time comes.
I'm glad he went to the effort to contact me. I'm sorry I was unable to connect with him tonight but these Ultimate circles tend to come around again. In fact, had I played in Clambake, we'd have been on the same team this weekend. There will definately be a tourney for us in the future.
And if anyone has any Marketing leads, send them Pauls way. That boy needs a job soon.