On May 1, 2004, eleven Sierra Club members and friends participated in the annual Merrimack Valley Group outing to Hackett Hill. Jim Sconyers, a certified Sierra Club outings leader, assumed responsibility for the group's activities.
It was decided to visit areas directly involved in the preserve-development issue that concerns the City-owned portion of the area. The group met near French Hall, a building formerly occupied by UNH-Manchester. They discussed a current proposal by Easter Seals of NH to purchase the building, enlarge it, and transfer many Easter Seals programs to the new facility. *
It was observed
that several sides of the building are in close proximity to forested
areas, a situation that can be best appreciated when seen in an
aerial photograph of the building taken by Don Welch. (The same
photograph appears elsewhere on this web site in a section that deals
with the suggestion that French Hall be used for environmental
education.)
Millstone Brook appears near the top of the photo. A beautiful stand of pines can be seen between the building and the brook. Only a thin strip of land directly adjacent to the brook is owned by The Nature Conservancy (TNC.)
The group agreed that any expansion of the building should be made in areas where deforestation has already taken place. The pines in this region have unusual beauty and it is highly likely that destroying them would cause a public outcry. (The public was outraged when many pines in Manchester's Livingston Park were cut down, several years ago.)
* At a May 26 meeting of Manchester's aldermanic Lands and Buildings Committee, it was announced that Easter Seals had withdrawn the plans for a Hackett Hill facility.
The outing group next crossed the bridge to the opposite side of the brook, proceeded along its bank, crossed a small bridge constructed there by a TNC affiliate, and crossed the PSNH powerline to visit the giant rhododendron colonies located near the brook. The colonies are protected since they are within the TNC Manchester Cedar Swamp Preserve. However it was noted that colonies are in extremely close proximity to a large building and parking lot labeled "Area A" in a conceptual drawing shown here - an area identified by the City as an initial part of its proposed industrial park. Note the red line that indicate the Preserve limits. (The drawing appears elsewhere on this Web site in a section that provides a critical overview of the City's industrial park master plan.)
The group agreed that the building and parking area (that dwarf an entire condo complex seen as a light rectangular area in the upper right of the drawing) would not only make the area aesthetically unpleasing, but are in too close proximity to the brook. Millstone Brook already is impacted by several major development projects in the area north of Countryside Boulevard.
The hikers next proceeded upward to the Atlantic white cedar-giant rhododendron complex located on the TNC Preserve and then went on to the "phantom parking lots" at the top of the hill. A discussion took place that concerned the inadvisability of the City's plans to place industrial park buildings literally "back to back" with the sensitive swampland.
The outing ended with a walk down the access road that leads to the parking lots. Several members of the group stopped to examine a vernal pool located near the road and were photographed by Jim Sconyers.The pool lies within the boundaries of the Preserve, but is located extremely close to the road. Upgrading and reconstruction of the road in accordance with the City's development plans would certain affect the functionality of the pool. It requires a large buffer zone for those amphibia that make an annual migration here for the purposes of reproduction, and for the recently-hatched, immature life forms that will leave the pool as it begins to dry up for the summer.