NUCLEAR WARNING

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

Limbo Living

Lent, for those who observe, is traditionally a period of waiting. But one does not need to be a churchgoer to feel a sense of being caught in a holding pattern at this time of year.

Thinking Forward

On Sunday the Vineyard Conservation Society held the last of its winter walk series at Pilot Hill Farm on Lambert’s Cove. The theme of the walks this year was education around the local impacts of global climate change. For the past few months those attending the walks have trod on ground already affected by the changes due to the warming of the planet.

David White, by his own admission, was a terrible dancer. Just as well.

Plans are under way to raise 50,000 juvenile winter flounder in Vineyard waters next year. The work on the two-year $308,000 National Sea Grant project has already begun but the biggest hurdle won’t happen for another year.

The pinkletinks have reported their survival of another winter. The feat’s miraculousness does not wane with repetition, converting, as they must, their blood into antifreeze each winter through ramped-up glucose production, reaching something like a state of suspended animation. With each peep they hear, Islanders are reminded that they too have survived another winter, if only barely, and without the aid of antifreeze blood.

Editor’s note: Alex Baynes, a class of 2000 graduate of the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School, recently arrived in Yokosuka, Japan, near Tokyo, where he is serving as a Naval officer. The Gazette asked Mr. Baynes for an account of his experiences of last Friday’s devastating earthquake, and the impact of the tsunami and the nuclear facility concerns that followed.

Since it was signed 10 years ago, the state’s Community Preservation Act has seen more than $12 million spent on housing, historical preservation and conservation on Martha’s Vineyard. But now there is growing pressure for Vineyard towns to reconsider their commitment to the CPA.

On Tuesday this week, Tisbury selectmen voted to attach a question to this year’s ballot, asking voters whether they want to maintain the town’s current commitment to the program, wind it back, or drop out completely.

West Tisbury is one step closer to owning and preserving the Field Gallery and sculpture garden this week, after the community preservation committee agreed to fund a large part of its acquisition.

Lagoon Pond is in trouble. Island residents heard a familiar story on Wednesday from representatives of the Massachusetts Estuaries Project about another degraded coastal pond on the Island, but town officials say that they are determined to find a solution.