As residents of Shutesbury, we feel compelled to write this letter to offer public support in favor of preventing the Cowls-Lake Street Development solar array installation that will destroy 30 acres of pristine forest enriched by Native American ceremonial and burial grounds within the Wheelock Tract off Pratt Corner Road.
We wish to offer a perspective not often presented in the media. The humans whose remains lie beneath a sizable burial mound upon this sacred hill inhabited this area for thousands of years before any of us were ever even here. We feel the urgency to honor their existence. We do not agree with the disturbance of the souls resting there or the decimation of places of worship and ceremonial stone landscapes.
Solar energy, in its proper form, may be the hope for our future, but this is hardly cause to disturb the final resting place of human beings, and destroy the traditional cultural properties we know exist there amidst this sacred land. Long before any development or high-rise buildings, Native Americans nourished our land and lived in harmony with nature. We must not ever forget this fact.
The environmental damage, and damage to the Native American souls lying in their final resting place, have not been taken into account. Religious practice is being trampled. Ceremonial stone structures were not placed there by accident. They are as holy to a vast majority of people who go to them to pray, as the church in downtown Amherst, St. Brigid’s, is to Catholics on a Sunday morning.
This plan, if allowed to go through, will have a long-lasting impact on the character of our community. We will become guilty of adding to the erasure of Native American history.
This array will cause irreparable harm to the wildlife habitat currently inhabiting our forest community. The trees will be rapidly sliced up by huge, destructive machines, the earth dug up and torn apart with human remains being thrown in every direction with total and absolute disregard. Ceremonial stone structures will be tumbled and crushed by heavy machinery.
And the tax revenue is not significant at all, as some have sadly come to believe. It is less than 1 percent of the total town budget per year spread over a 20-year period.
Mary Lou Conca
Shutesbury
This letter also was signed by Ezzell Floranina, Leslie Cerier, Miles Tardie, Rolf Cachat-Schilling, James Schilling-Cachat and Jade Alicandro, all of Shutesbury.