Do the Boothbay Botanical Gardens Hold The Key to The Clay Pancake Mystery?

In my last post, I published a map of the area around the Boothbay water supplies, which includes four construction project,

The Boothbay Harbor Country Club displays a small mountain top, where I have heard rumor that condominiums will (or are?) to be built as if offering an elite view of the kingdom, like castles on a mountain top, where water streams down the hilltop.

Then there is Muirgen, the high end real estate development where Lepage picked up his home in a sweet deal in 2014 and now is reported to  be offering it for sale at $300,000.00 below market value.

There is also the Botanical Gardens, with an ongoing 30 million dollar expansion. The Botanical Gardens was cited for environmental violations in the spring. Last spring Andersen Design could mix clay casting slip with Boothbay water, which is no longer possible, for the first time since 1958 when we began mixing casting slip on our location. 

Connecting them all, we have the public-private transportation project with special exits to lead the visitors to the cultivated landscapes of the Boothbay Harbor Country Club and the Botanical Gardens, popular man- made escapes from the wild untamed nature for which Maine has been identifies for far too long, at least according to some economic development players.

 There is an excellent article in the Boothbay Register, explaining the violations for which the Botanical Gardens was cited :

DEP issues violation notice to Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens

In the Boothbay Register article, The officials of Maine's cultivated landscape wonderland blame nature for the problem of vernal pools and muddy waters

Botanical Gardens officials blamed heavy spring rainfall for problems with controlling soil erosion and turbidity. Executive Director Bill Cullina said most of the inspector’s reports had shown CMBG was working towards “100 percent compliance” with federal, state and local ordinances. ,,, ... Cullina said. “We’ve only had a couple instances with a small amount of turbidity getting through the erosion control and everything else is flowing free and clear. We’ve had an extremely wet spring on the construction site making total compliance difficult. It’s a construction site, things happen like Mother Nature.”DEP issues violation notice to Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens

Really ? Are you serious? The Gardens can't be expected to plan for Mother Nature?

In David Enery's rebuttal, he reminds us that there is a trade- off in the works, Another View: Story on Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens requires clarification When complete, this project will bring up to an additional 140 year-round jobs and more than $120 million in annual economic impact to Maine. Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens is first a botanical garden centered on stewardship of the environment, long-term sustainability, and educational programs.
David Emery wrote this behalf of the building committee of the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in Boothbay Harbor.

Maybe the man-made gardens violated environmental code but in closing Mr Enery reminds us that the cultivated gardens gardens will create 149 local jobs and bring more money to the state of Maine, joining the Boothbay Water District, in sounding more like an economic development council than environmental stewards. I submit this as testimony to the Maine constitutional view that it is not the business of government to centrally manage the economy or form special interest relationships with private industry.

In 1876 when Article IV Part Third Sections 13 and 14 were added to the Maine Constitutionm. Governor Seldon Conner had just taken office. His inaugural address railed passionately against special interests and abuses of governmental powers which Article IV Part Third Sections 13 and 14 of the Maine Constitution were intended to cure.

Maine Constitution Article IV.Part Third.

Section 13: Special legislation. The Legislature shall, from time to time, provide, as far as practicable, by general laws, for all matters usually appertaining to special or private legislation.

Section 14: Corporations, formed under general laws. Corporations shall be formed under general laws, and shall not be created by special Acts of the Legislature, except for municipal purposes, and in cases where the objects of the corporation cannot otherwise be attained; and, however formed, they shall forever be subject to the general laws of the State.

Governor Seldon Connor's Speech

 Section thirteen presents a discretionary field of action which your own honor will impel you to occupy to the fullest extent. ‘The title of 'Special and Private Laws,' which includes so large a portion of the laws of former Legislatures, is an obnoxious one, conveying suggestions of privilege, favouritism and monopoly; though happily these evils have not in fact, stained the character of our legislation, they should not be suffered to have, even in the form of our laws, any grounds of suspicion that can be removed. Other weighty objections to special laws for private benefit are, that they are obtained at the public expense, and in their passage distract the attention of legislators from matters of public interest. The opportunity is now afforded, and the duty enjoined upon you, by the amendment, to restrict the necessity for such laws to the narrowest possible limits. An analysis and classification of the private and special laws upon the statute books, will inform you of the objects or which it is desirable to provide by general laws, if practicable. 'Many objects have been hitherto specially legislated upon although they were amply provided for by general laws. I have distinguished authority for the statement that sixty or more of the corporations created by a special act for each, by the last Legislature, could have been created and organized under general laws. The reason why the general laws have not been resorted to a greater extent, is not, so far as I am informed, to be found in any insufficiency or defect of those laws, but in the greater ease and simplicity of the method of application to the Legislature and in the fancied higher sanction of an authority proceeding directly from it. Section fourteen, relating to corporations is compressive and peremptory. It relates to all corporations, except only those for municipal purposes. It clearly prohibits their creation by special acts if the objects desired can be secured under existing general laws.'  From Governor Seldon Conner's Inaugural Address 1876 (emphasis mine)

The Anthony Family Appeal to the expansion of the cultivated landscape has been moved back to consider the evidence ofa 2014 Wolfeboro, New Hampshire lawsuit involving Topsham engineering firm Wright-Pierce, the same consultant form being used by Boothbay Botanical Gardens.


Meanwhile, the clay made from Boothbay water has still not dried in a month of sitting on a plaster bat outside in the sun. There is no drying action taking place from contact with the plaster, Very slow drying action appears to be the result of evaporation only. The clay has a very high water content and yet poured  as 1 inch + think pancake form onto the plaster. After a torrential rainm dimples on the surface  indicate that the water did not penetrate into the body of the pancake. Perhaps this is why clay is associated with vernal pools, which are often spoken about as having clay linings to retain the water. While the Boothbay water supply is newly useless for making ceramic casting slip, it would make an excellent lining for a vernal pool to retain the water. The next hearing on the Anthonies appeal is tomorrow night, Sept 21 at 6 p.m at the Boothbay Town Office. I plan on being there with a sample of our clay pancake.

Part two of the rebuttal centered around arguments regarding possible phosphorus contamination of Knickerbocker Lake from runoff created by hundreds of additional paved parking spaces in the watershed. Last month, Kevin Anthony contended two studies, one commissioned by the town of Boothbay and one by BRWD, showed that the Maine Department of Environmental Protection used “faulty and outdated methods” in calculating allowable phosphorus runoff into the watershed. <Appeals board considering more evidence in CMBG hearing

These two articles are about the use of flocullated clay as means of controlling harmful algal look relevant to the issue of the mysterious clay pancakes:, but I do not have the time to read them today.

Controlling Harmful Algal Blooms Through Clay Flocculation

MECHANISM OF CLAY AGGREGATION BY POLYELECTROLYTES., R. A.; WARD, D. W.