Sullivan Cove threatened by pier
My family moved to Old County Road in Severna Park in 1958 and moved away in 1976. Each of my three brothers can probably tell a tale or two of some adventure that took place in or around the swamp near Sullivan Cove - muskrat hunting, losing shoes in the muck, seeing my first blue heron, ice skating on a connecting marshland.
We would never have even considered building a pier across the swamp (The Sun, June 8).
As kids, we would haul and dump logs to move from one pad of grass to another, but the damage to the swamp wrought by the construction of a pier can never be rectified.
I do not see how someone can get any construction equipment into the marsh without causing a major disruption. And as hard as we may try sometimes, man can never reconstruct a swamp to Mother Nature's specifications.
One of the homeowners who filed for a pier permit said, "We are exercising our right to our water."
I guess the difference between me and them is I look at the water as belonging to the muskrat, the turtle, the carp, the blue heron, the grass. My only right to their water is as an observer.
If everyone of the owners of waterfront property exercised their right to their water, we will soon talk of the beauty of the Chesapeake Bay only in the past tense.
Steve Schwarz
Hurlock