CHATHAM — In what town officials describe as one of the worst violations in the history of local wetlands regulations, a Sears Point Road property owner is accused of driving heavy equipment on the sensitive tidal flats near his home and digging up precious salt marsh vegetation.
David C. Rogers, the owner of 36 Sears Point Rd., allegedly drove a rented 9,000-pound track loader – similar to a Bobcat – on the flats in front of his property on the western shore of Stage Harbor Sunday. Based on tracks still visible on the mud Monday morning, it appears the loader was used to flatten and scrape the flats.
Among wetlands violations he has seen during his career, “this frankly is one of the most egregious, just because of where it took place and because of the – I’ll use the word – arrogance it took to do it,” Duncanson said. While previous violators have run afoul of the law by trimming trees or carrying out other work in a wetlands buffer zone, “this is right in the resource area – multiple resource areas,” Duncanson said.
Holy shit man, way to fly under the radar. I don’t know what Cape Cod you’ve been living in but the one I know doesn’t allow people to just move beaches around with Bobcats. Especially when you need to drive through a salt marsh to get to said beach. Do I think wetland violations are handed out a little loosely on The Cape? Sure, most people do, but finding an Bobcat stuck in the muck in the marsh in front of your house is pretty much the same as this situation.
“David? Do you know who destroyed the wetlands with a Bobcat? Hmmm? Did you have anything to do with that? David?”
I have to admit I like this guy’s style though, go big or go home right? If you’re going to violate some wetlands you might as well violate the shit out of ’em. Next time you come across a beach closed for Piping Plover nesting just call in David Rogers, he’ll come down and bulldoze the whole area. Nests? What nests? All I see is a nice smooooth beach.
thanks to Teddy for the tip
Facebook: The Real CapeTwitter: Hippie - Insane Tony
I’m particularly enjoying the AdChoices ad underneath this article. It’s for a bobcat.
Can we talk about how the author of the source material thinks that an excavator and a bobcat are the same thing?
Yeah that was bugging me too
Let’s call it poetic license. The title is for effect.
Not you, Hippie, the person from the Chatham Enterprise just writes very poorly.
*Chronicle
The fines assessed by the town are so immaterial given the wealth of the violators that it’s created a culture where arrogant landowners on occasion intentionally violate conservation and environmental laws, knowing that they’re likely to receive little more than a monetary slap on the wrist for their transgressions. I will go as far as to say that certain local contractors are believed to have encouraged law violation given the hollow repercussions that accompany such activity. If you go to the Chatham Conservation Commission meeting minutes, the very same lawyer representing Rogers is frequently on record representing other violators, including despised local contractors. Example: http://www.chatham-ma.gov/public_documents/ChathamMA_ConCommMin/09-28-2011.pdf
Another gem for the idiot lawyer:
http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120424/NEWS/204240317
[…] Mil to dump some new sand on a mile of beach? Maybe we can get that David Rogers guy to bring his Bobcat to Sandwich once he gets it out of the mud in Chatham. That could be how he […]
Rumor has it that he may have rented another bobcat after this ordeal from some other company that didn’t know this happened. Supposedly burned through about 11 gallons of fuel. For those of you who dont know, that takes a full day…or night in his case to burn that much fuel. I cant quite get the time line straight so I’m not 100% sure if it was before or after his little highly publicized screw up. I think this guy should be cut off from renting…anything…forever.
MattyB, look at the picture the excavator was there to get the Bobcat unstuck, it orange and under the bucket, that triples the damages.
I have to say I am shocked by how this community has goose stepped with such zeal to vilify and even threaten Mr. Rogers. Did I miss the invite to the town square lynching? My wife&I have been planning to relocate to the Cape to raise our kids but we’re now reconsidering. Are there any voices of reason and objectivity here? Beuller? Has anyone ever thought that maybe it’s not actually crazy or legitimately criminal to smooth out the sand on your property? Even with an evil “bobcat.” I know, I know, I’m talking crazy -landscaping is apparently akin to arson on the Cape. Oh, no wait, arson was the common theme in the “open minded” letters to the editor. “Somebody torch the house,” I think was the quote. So let me see, moving sand around on your own property is a capital crime – got it! Inciting people to literally burn a fellow citizen’s home is just protecting the town from the “new-comers”. Makes sense.
Unless some reasonable voices emerge, you lot can keep your creepy communist busybody town. My family and I are looking elsewhere- somewhere that doesn’t attack and threaten its neighbors for nonsense.
Just how did Mr. Rogers actually harm you people? Please explain- how did the sand he smoothed out objectively hurt you? He may have moved some random shells from 10 ft over here to 10 ft over there… QUICK CALL THE POLICE!!!! SOMEONE’S GOTTA PAY!!!! TORCH EVERYTHING!!! You all sound ridiculous, and scary. Has anyone ever thought that perhaps many of the so-called conservation laws have actually become agenda-serving and nonsensical at best?
Rational voices, I’d speak up or leave town before your comrades turn on YOU next. Who knows, you might decide to plant flowers by your mailbox but Katy bar the door when your neighbors see that you displaced an endangered earthworm…
First off, Rational Libertarian, nice choice of handle. It’s not often you see one that’s such an amusing oxymoron.
No one is criticizing Mr. Rogers for moving sand around on his property, as far as I have found. Fouling the waters, destroying a public shellfish bed on conservation land, literally stealing beach from his neighbors — THOSE have been roundly criticized, though, and rightly so, I think. He was not simply “smoothing out the sand on his property.”
Lots of people do get up in arms in Chatham over minor violations and infractions — the zoning board and town council meeting minutes are filled with such items. But I think by minimizing Mr. Roger’s crimes (for they are crimes, which is why he’s being fined) you do Chatham residents a disservice. We’re not jackbooted Nazis or Communists, as your post implies. There’s a great deal of public wealth in Chatham — commonwealth — and we must share it. When one person starts bulldozing that public wealth around as if it were his own, we are, in fact “objectively hurt.” My neighbors who make part of their living by shellfishing actually have their bottom line hurt. Stage Harbor is a protected area, and Rogers spilled toxic liquids into it. The area might be unfit for shellfishing for quite some time — years.
Finally, Rogers’ crimes were evidence of an equal measure of idiocy and arrogance. Even he has admitted that he made an enormous misjudgment. No, the incident speaks much more poorly of Rogers than it does of the people of Chatham, who are understandably appalled by his actions.
RationalLibertarian please do stay off Cape. At the very least if you purchase a house on Cape, stay west of Bass River. Keep you nasty little offspring far as possible away. The fact you added to the gene pool is in itself depressing, if only your moral compass was to forever lay fallow and your lineage cease in your boat shoes. May I suggest for your seaside living Hampton NH, Seabrooke NH, or even Wareham by the Sea? Fall River? Warwick?