DEMOLITION, SUNNY OPEN SPACE AND NATURE
BY DON DOUCETTE
Not too many years ago, I observed the demolition of the Swank factory building which was once located in Attleboro on O’Neil Boulevard or nostalgically known by locals as “The Speedway.”
I traveled yesterday to Sturdy Memorial Hospital for health care and noticed the lushness of the weed/wildflower community now inhabiting the former Swank footprint.
The vacant lot is within the Speedway Brook floodplain related to the larger nearby Thacher Brook.
Thacher Brook is a main Ten Mile River Watershed tributary originating at the Attleboro/Rehoboth boundary close to Brigg’s Corner.
Speedway Brook has held a long reputation of environmental abuse i.e. for the filling of and ill advised industrial development activities within wetlands, culverting of the main water course and was also used as a notorious and handy dumping ditch for direct flow storm waters and for some pretty bad commercial chemicals.
Some of us yet remember tainted brook water at Maple Street flowing with bazaar colors from unknown upstream origins.
What’s done is done, and we should perpetually seek, during time, to encourage opportunities as a municipality and caring public to help correct this situation.
And so, we stopped yesterday to observe our vacant greening lot and were amazed how forgiving nature can be, especially for a site where not too many years ago adverse industrial activities held sway.
To our utter surprise, several fluffy and fuzzy camouflaged and well adapted killdeer chicks browsed on food matter in amongst the green developing wild flora and fauna.
Only observed by us a that particular moment because “we had stopped to smell the roses.”
Give nature a chance and it…and we, will win every time.
Don Doucette
“Ten Mile River Rambles”
Citizens of the Narragansett Basin