The unmentionable odor that wafts from Ocean Park from time to time is being confronted by the town of Oak Bluffs. Whatever it is that is seeping to the surface, the state Department of Environmental Protection is not amused. Recently, wastewater commission chairman Hans von Steiger was quoted in the Gazette as saying, “Remember we are dealing with below-ground here. We can guess, but we don’t know what’s down there.”
Frank, Peter and Heidi Dunkl produce Chilmark Spring Water, the Island’s own bottled water. But this winter, the siblings’ attention went beyond water.
They’ve been working on one of the Island’s most revered 19th century buildings, the old bandstand at Ocean Park in Oak Bluffs. From their plant at the Martha’s Vineyard Airport Business Park, they’ve worked on five new oak replacement posts.
The new posts are critical pieces for the troubled 19th-century building.
The storm fencing had been circling Ocean Park for days. No Parking signs had seemed to breed in the seaside streets of Oak Bluffs. By Sunday, cops and volunteers in yellow T-shirts also appeared to have multiplied, and then came the music-lovers (at least for the day), by the thousands, bearing folding chairs and friends from out of town, kids and coolers jammed with sandwiches, gourmet salads and chilled bottles of Sauvingnon blanc.
