Monet is Coming
Editor: On behalf of the Baltimore Museum of Art, I'd like to thank the thousands of Baltimoreans who have already called to express excitement about the museum's upcoming exhibition of Monet. We have anticipated that a quarter of a million people will come through the BMA doors when the exhibition is here from Oct. 13 of this year through Jan. 19, 1992. If our calls are any indication, our estimations are right on target.
An exhibition of this magnitude requires extraordinary measures accommodate and ensure the most comfortable viewing experience for our visitors. As is common with "blockbuster" exhibitions, viewers will be admitted through advance reservations timed to the half hour. For that reason, and only after carefully looking at a number of options, did the BMA judge it crucial to work with experts in the area of advance ticket reservations; we are pleased to offer the option of reserving tickets now through Ticketron. Beginning June 1, tickets will also go on sale at the museum.
Exhibitions of this magnitude also require significant expense. The fact is that we simply could not bring Monet/BMA to our city without charging a modest admission fee.
We hope most of our viewers will agree that the chance to view this exceptional exhibition is well worth the admission price and we look forward to bringing Monet to the BMA this fall.
Arnold L. Lehman.
Baltimore.
The writer is director of the Baltimore Museum of Art.
Shifting Targets
Editor: Where have the Vietnam war demonstrators gone? They have joined the environmental movement. The more radical have formed ecoteur groups, such as Greenpeace, Earth First, Sea Shepherds, Robin Wood and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Their attitude is the same, anti-establishment.
They are making false and half-truth statements to their members and the general public. Their actions are based on emotion, not facts. All of us care about the environment, not just them. Thousands of us invest many hours of labor and money in our forests to improve the quality of air, water, aesthetic, wildlife, recreation and timber for the future.
The Sierra Club is trying to halt or significantly reduce logging in our state forests. If successful, county ordinances restricting the private forest landowner is a real possibility. Westvaco is under attack by this group. If that company is forced to close, where will the landowner sell his pulpwood? The Sierra Club states, "public forests should not be tree farms."
I own and manage a 178-acre tree farm and cannot believe the following false statements issued by the Sierra Club: 1. We intensively manage our property for maximum timber production. These managed woodlots are not forest and have little recreation or ecological value. 3. A managed forest uses selective cutting practices, for example all trees more than 12 inches in diameter.
Not knowing what a tree farm is shows a lack of knowledge on forestry and forestry practices, yet these people want to dictate how our forests are to be managed.
Since the Sierra Club, a low key anti-hunting group, networks with other groups, it would be wise for the sportsman to be on the alert.
C. W. Newhall.
Oakland.
Off w/ Pklot View
Editor: Your recent editorial about the use of the Camden Yards warehouse as a headquarters for the State Highway Administration is as unfair as it was inaccurate.
Contrary to the misrepresentations of your Valentine's Day editorial, the view from the SHA end of the warehouse would not be the ball field but parking lots, highway ramps and railroad tracks (a view only a transportation person could love).
You should also tell your readers that the use, jointly proposed by the Stadium Authority, the Maryland Economic Development Corp. and the State Highway Administration, will provide the following benefits:
* A projected savings of at least $15 million in taxpayer's money to house the SHA headquarters over the next 25 years.
* Retaining in Baltimore City 1,200 jobs that might otherwise seek to relocate to a more suburban location.
* 100 percent occupancy and full rental payments for a site that will not reach its full economic potential for the state for some years to come.
Aesthetically, you fail to mention that some professionals see the proposed addition as a plus for the total site. It will complete the vista from the city side looking south so that the viewer will now see an urban backdrop rather than elevated highway structures and the large, yellow tanks of industrial South Baltimore.
The addition also enhances the usefulness of the warehouse's unusual configuration: it is 1,100 feet long and only 48 feet wide inside, yet it has columns every 17 feet. The addition will provide the kind of column-free space which will permit the conference rooms, training centers and computer rooms that modern tenants require.
Bruce H. Hoffman.
Hal Kassoff.
Baltimore.
The writers are, respectively, the executive director of the Maryland Stadium Authority and state highway administrator.
Spikerush and Loblolly
Editor: The Sun's Feb. 3 editorial about the Ward Museum project in Salisbury was a great disappointment.
The Ward Museum site is on the bank of Schumaker Pond, a freshwater impoundment formed by a dam on Beaverdam Creek. Upstream from Schumaker Pond lies another dammed impoundment, Parker Pond. On the museum site, a narrow strip of nontidal wetlands separates waters of the pond from fastland. Given these facts, the museum proposal touched on three responsibilities of the Department of Natural Resources: safety of construction in potential flood areas; minimizing the loss of nontidal wetlands and protection of endangered species.
We are advised that architects for the Ward Museum initially proposed use of only the fastland area, but were directed by the foundation to design a dramatic building that would extend into Schumaker Pond. The expense of design was undertaken at the foundation's direction before approvals were sought from the department.
When we finally got a look at the plan early in 1990, we saw a proposed building in the waters of Schumaker Pond, downstream from the Parker Pond dam which was then being reviewed for dam safety. We saw plans that would obliterate more than half of the nontidal wetlands at the site. And we found that the proposed building would occupy one of four remaining sites in Maryland of Robbins' Spikerush, a listed, endangered species.
DNR staff then worked quickly and cooperatively with the Ward Foundation and its architects. The compromise plan moves the museum building out of the pond (save for a deck that preserves some of the drama of overlooking the pond), prevents the destruction of most of the nontidal wetlands and leaves all parts of the building 40 feet from the Spikerush colony. Only after a year had passed did the department learn, to its complete surprise on Jan. 30, that foundation director Ralph A. Bufano took exception to the final plan.
Instead of simply repeating Mr. Bufano's views, The Sun should have more accurately editorialized that the $70,000 redesign cost to the Ward Foundation could have been avoided entirely had state protection measures been factored in from the outset by the foundation.
The Sun's concern that one and a half acres of pine trees have been cut down as a result of the modified design was inaccurately reported. In fact, one acre of loblolly pine would have been cleared under the original design, and the redesign caused an additional three-eights of an acre to be cleared. The Sun asked the editorial question, "which was the greater environmental loss, Robbins' Spikerush or the wonderful tall pines?" Indeed. Loblolly pine is fast growing and ubiquitous on Maryland's Eastern Shore; any loblolly pine lost on this project site can be readily replaced. An endangered species, once gone, is gone forever.
In my view, Lem and Steve Ward would have applauded the efforts of public servants like DNR ecologist Kathy McCarty to respect nature's wonder, much as the Wards did in their lifetime.
Torrey C. Brown.
Annapolis.
The writer is secretary of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.