MARLBORO — A recent news report in The Commons [“A dam's fate,” March 30] describes an analysis by Vermont State officials of safety issues at Sweet Pond in Guilford.
Development of a ”worst-case scenario” assumes flood damage to six downstream residences should the old dam fail. Determining this risk to be unacceptable, Sweet Pond will be either drained or substantially lowered to render it harmless to the downstream structures.
It is worthy (sadly) to note that the $300,000 needed to repair the dam is about two minutes of tax-dollar expenditure in our game of war played in other people's countries.
All that aside, our state officials quickly and absolutely determined that “possible damage to six houses” required official action that clearly would be unpopular with the many people who know and love Sweet Pond. Not an enviable position for anyone, official or not.
Just down the road, a bit to the southeast in neighboring Vernon, is another man-made structure also showing its age through a whole spectrum of failing systems. However, unlike Sweet Pond, its worst-case scenario of failure would have somewhat more of an impact than the flooding of six houses.
The potential loss of everything, including occupancy and the use of the land for decades, is the actual risk here. This scenario would exist ubiquitously across a tri-state region, not just down the flood path of a small stream.
If logic is a component of intelligence, and we are creatures of that ilk, what are we doing?
It's not an elephant in the room; it's a nuke plant.