Some of you may have heard of the major pesticide violation that happened a couple of years ago, and is back in the news in Camden, ME, as more settlements start to happen, The news was all over national media,<\/p>\n
A family \u201cfrom away,\u201d that owns a summer house in Camden, decided they wanted a better view of the water. The $3.5 million house has a nice view, but due to a few trees blocking some of the picture, I guess the owner wanted more removed to improve their view a bit. The residents are Amelia and Arthur Bond from St. Louis. She is the former CEO of the St. Louis Foundation, with more than $500 million in assets in the non-profit foundation.<\/p>\n
The large oak trees that were causing a slight obstruction of the Bond\u2019s Camden harbor view were on the property of Lisa Gorman, Leon Gorman\u2019s widow. Leon passed away a few years ago. He had been the CEO of L.L. Bean and was L.L.\u2019s grandson. I occasionally used to see Leon Gorman walking his dogs here in Yarmouth. He lived here in Yarmouth (and Lisa still does) in a beautiful old Georgian colonial about a 8-10 houses from where we live. Obviously our duplex is on the other side of the tracks from Gormans, but they are not showy people, and Leon was always one to say hello when I spoke to him, despite being a bit shy,<\/p>\n
As I mentioned, the oak trees were blocking the Bond\u2019s view of the harbor, but helped serve as a screen for Lisa Gorman\u2019s property. Bond had asked Lisa about removing the trees and Lisa said no thanks, she liked the privacy screening, All of a sudden, all four oaks looked quite sickly and soon died, Lisa Bean had her tree care company take down the sick, defoliated trees and asked her arborists to have tests done to determine the cause for sudden defoliation and death. I think she may have suspected a suspicious death. Amelia Bond was so generous that she offered to split the costs of the tree removal! Bean\u2019s tree care company sent samples to the state and labs found that Bond had spread Tebuthiuron on the ground around the oaks that were blocking her view. This is an herbicide, not sold in Maine, that she had purchased and transported from Missouri. By this time, the issue was in the hands of Lisa\u2019s attorneys.<\/p>\n
So, Amelia Bond now has a nicer view of the harbor, but the EPA considers Tebuthiuron an herbicide that does not break down in the soil. Most of the Bond property is on a hillside that drains into either Camden\u2019s only public beach or a town park where the chemical in draining water will kill all plants on those properties, As a result the state is requiring all plants and the soil to be removed and trucked to a toxic waste dump about 70 miles away. Soil must be excavated down to ledge. I assume Amelia Bond will also be required to plant trees to replace the oaks that were killed on Lisa Bean\u2019s property.<\/p>\n
If you do some of the math it seems like a rather expensive method for improving your view: $180,000 penalty for shoreline violation, $30,000 environmental testing and monitoring, and $4,500 unlawful application of herbicide. Not included in this price is the cost for disposal of toxic soil and replacement of soil and plants on the town beach and park areas, which will be quite costly. There was also a lawsuit at the start of this whole issue for something like $1.5 million for Amelia Bond \u201cremoving\u201d Lisa Bean\u2019s trees. There are probably other costs I\u2019ve overlooked or that have yet to be settled. This is a rough \u201cguesstimate.\u201d<\/p>\n
I know Lisa Bean certainly wasn\u2019t suing the Bonds for financial reasons, and for the most part I feel people have gotten way too \u201claw suit happy\u201d and sue over the smallest things. I have, however, seen a significant increase in people \u201cfrom away\u201d coming to Maine (and I know the same is true in New Hampshire), avoiding setback and other regulations on lakes and the ocean. Many people think they\u2019ll just do as they please \u2014 cut down trees or sometimes build docks \u2014 violating code and then just pay a $20,000-$30,000 fine for a better view or whatever, Finally towns are cracking down a bit more. In the case of the Bonds, several residents in Camden were not too happy, and I doubt they\u2019ll be going to the yacht club very often in the future!<\/p>\n
\u2014 by Phil Caldwell, a frequent contributor to the NHLA Newsletter and a past president of NHLA (1989) who now lives and works in Maine.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Some of you may have heard of the major pesticide […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":5657,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64,24,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-64","category-commentary","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n