A selling job. Pitching the fast ferry. This is the main melody
these days at the Steamship Authority, where management activities have
spun into overdrive on the ambitious new service model that has been
under discussion in all the port communities for the last five months.

Federal Agency Cites Packer Firm For Violations of Clean Air Act; Investigation Charges Release Of Tons of Toxic Pollutants

R.M. Packer Co., the 23-year-old gas and oil concern headquartered in Vineyard Haven, was cited by the federal Environmental Protection Agency this month for a long list of violations to the Clean Air Act.

If it seems the inventory of hair color products on Island drugstore and supermarket shelves is growing larger every year - well, it probably is. New data released by the U.S. Census Bureau this week shows that gray hair is the increasingly predominant theme in Dukes County, and for that matter all over Massachusetts, as the population grows older and the number of households with children begins to dwindle.

The Vineyard's outermost lighthouse is celebrating a birthday. The Cape Pogue Lighthouse on Chappaquiddick is 200 years old, and for most of those years it has stood as a constant and reliable sentinel for ships making passage across the sometimes treacherous waters of Nantucket Sound.

Officials Forecast Expanded Air Traffic

By JOSHUA SABATINI

The Martha's Vineyard Airport, with another summer season at
hand, is ready to handle the projected increase in air traffic and would
like to see even more.

Shortages in fuel supply are not expected this season. A new fuel
farm, with a capacity of 60,000 gallons, has recently begun operation.
Fuel trucks come to the Island by barge, empty their supply in the
farm's tanks, and trucks from the farm head out to fill up planes
on the paved strip.

Signaling an abrupt shift in direction on the
ambitious new service model, Steamship Authority general manager Armand
Tiberio said yesterday that the boat line will ax two key elements of
the model, including the controversial scheme to replace all three
ferries on the Nantucket run with one multipurpose high-speed ferry.

SSA Drops High-Speed Ferry Idea

By JULIA WELLS

NANTUCKET - Signaling an abrupt shift in direction on the
ambitious new service model, Steamship Authority general manager Armand
Tiberio said yesterday that the boat line will ax two key elements of
the model, including the controversial scheme to replace all three
ferries on the Nantucket run with one multipurpose high-speed ferry.

"If we are not going to be able to use technology - if
the position is that a high-speed vessel is not okay, then so be
it," Mr. Tiberio said.

MVC Defers Chappy Decision

By JULIA WELLS

After listening to more than two hours of bitterly divided testimony
from an overflow crowd, the Martha's Vineyard Commission postponed
a decision last night on a proposal to designate the entire island of
Chappaquiddick as a district of critical planning concern (DCPC).

"I will tell you that Chappy is a finite place, and because of
its size what happens on this island affects everything else - the
beaches, the roads, the ferry," declared Don Crocker, president of
the Chappaquiddick Island Association.

Edgartown selectmen this week affirmed the use of fire as a land
management tool as long as members of The Nature Conservancy continue to
work closely with the town's fire chief.

Joel R. Carlson, a fire manager for The Nature Conservancy, came
before the selectmen to answer concerns about the risk of setting fires
in wooded areas. The meeting was attended by representatives of the town
conservation commission and the Manuel F. Correllus State Forest.

Island police are looking into the possibility that a brawl involving off-duty National guardsmen on the night of May 10 at the Atlantic Connection in Oak Bluffs is connected to the vandalism of National Guard trucks three nights later in Tisbury.