To quote Henry David Thoreau, “ I would speak a word for Nature”. And I
would speak it from deepest opposition to the severely degrading impacts
that would be brought to bear on the Warner River’s exemplary riverine
and riparian corridor, along with its upland buffers, via implementation of
the proposed Rail Trail.

One might think that esthetics alone would be cause to deny construction
of this “vision”, a recreational dream in some views that would become
nature’s nightmare. But not even natural-landscape ethics, or critical
ecological and ecosystem considerations appear enough to derail
implementation.

The town of Warner, ostensibly one that places high value on its natural
features (although I have witnessed continual decline over my fifty three
years in residence), is fortunate to have such an extraordinarily rich extent
of three-part interdependent habitat critical to a notable biological
diversity, plant and animal, resident and migratory.

River corridors (technically the Warner River is a fourth-order stream,
already compromised by its lying between an interstate and state highway)
are vital travel routes and nesting grounds for a great array of migratory
songbirds (in great decline) and other avian species.

One reads and views, and many lament, reports detailing the acceleration
of habitat loss, declines in biological diversity, and even extinctions,
almost daily. And yet such massive causes such as rail trails, so
enormously popular, contributory to all of these realities go unchecked as
they invade and alter natural landscape elements.

There is a great body of scientific literature attesting to the deleterious
negative impacts inflicted by rail trails and all that comes with them.
Of course there are cherished notions and documents that say, or ask,
what harm can come from a fourteen foot wide stone-dust boulevard
flanked by two foot berms augmented by river-crossing bridges, bringing
parades of people, dogs, bikes, and though not here (yet) even ATVs in too
many cases run through miles of the heart of a natural space? And as the
master plan intends to connect Concord to lake Sunapee, is this “trail” not
a major through-traffic conduit?

One (of so many) factoid gleaned from my readings is that one person with
one dog on a leash disperses wildlife from a surrounding area of some 600
m in diameter.

In this river’s case, a gift of the glaciers, over a millennium in the making,
and every living thing within its embrace so deeply dependent upon it,
becomes in a short span of time one more human playground, dog park.
It is a grievous injustice that so many conservation commissions,
agencies, land trusts, et. al., perpetuate this tragic counterpoint to what
any with a heart for nature would see through at a glance.

If this earth-consuming project is put in place it will set down an
extraordinarily landscape-altering grid that will be there through too long a
time. It is a bell that cannot be unrung.

The decision-makers of today will inflict it not only upon the natural world,
dictate its nature, but upon the people of future time. Should a future
populace and its town officials ever come to a more just view of the natural
world, they (and any wildlings) will yet have to live with this desecration.

A recent report testifies that a mere 20% of the world is in the hands of
indigenous peoples. And that that 20% (Pacha Mama et. al.) is the richest
percentage of the planet in true natural-environment health.

In a conversation with a friend aligned with my dedicated opposition to the
Rail Trail, he spoke of its “earth cost”. That should give us all great pause.
However remote it appears, while time may yet be there, I can only hope
that the citizens of Warner can find the determination, ways and means, to
deny this zealous, ill-conceived, unnecessary degradation.

As many deeply problematic aspects of the rail-trail remain under
consideration, it is imperative that the thus far woefully underrepresented
critical matter of the inevitable long-term destructive impacts to the natural
environment of the river corridor be kept in the forefront of the dialog.

David M. Carroll
PO Box 63
237 East Main Street
Warner, NH 03278-0063
(603) 456 – 3947
david@davidmcarroll.com