The battle to close the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, as detailed in the documentary “Power Struggle,” has a lot of parallels with the effort to close the Pilgrim nuclear plant in Plymouth. But the Pilgrim story has significant differences, noted filmmaker Robbie Leppzer. Whereas the voices of citizens and the Vermont legislature played a major role in the closure of Vermont Yankee – although Entergy, th...

Susanna Graham-Pye, a learning specialist at the Cape Cod Lighthouse Charter School in Harwich who also teaches creative writing, has just published her debut novel, “There Is A Season” (Hound Hill Press, 2017). “I believe there is magic in the natural world if we pay attention, and that it is a part of our stories,” Graham-Pye said in an email interview last week. “I like to think there are glimpses of that m...

The Chatham Board of Selectmen may have been premature in choosing a preferred design for the Crowell Road-Route 28 intersection improvement project. Although discussions about the intersection have been ongoing for at least two years, it wasn't until consultants presented detailed plans for the three alternatives – a roundabout, new signals or no action – in August that interest was piqued enough to elicit the s...

Cape Cod Is In Peril Editor: Do not close your eyes or it will be too late, if it isn’t already. The Cape is a strip of finite land with a sole source aquifer. Its beauty is both the asset and the vehicle towards its destruction. Do you think sewering is just about wastewater? It is absolutely tied to growth. There is an orchestrated multifaceted push to grow the Cape using paid employees to do so. Pleas...

We just escaped October, National Depression Month, or did we? Daily we see more and more people complaining about their dissatisfaction with what’s swirling about them politically, socially, corporately and religiously. There are plaintive cries to advice columnists and letters to the editor reflecting a clear and present disgruntlement with the society in which we live. For some, it appears as anger borne out ...

In 1920, when American women were given the right to vote, Florence Seldin’s mother was a 15-year-old for whom this historic victory was of vast significance. “She voted religiously and taught her kids to vote religiously,” Seldin recalled during a telephone interview last Saturday. “Maybe my roots in activism start there.” Seldin, now 86, served from 2009 to 2015 on the Chatham Board of Selectmen and is cu...

ORLEANS — Volunteers handy with a hammer and saw built a garage for the town's fire truck on Main Street back in 1925. H.K and Theresa Cummings donated the land and town meeting chipped in $7,000. The police department moved in in 1954, and both departments moved to their new building in 1967, at which point the recreation department started using what had become known as the Old Firehouse. After some period...

ORLEANS — In planning their budgets for the fiscal year that begins next July 1, department heads can propose up to a 4 percent expenditure increase over the current year. Selectmen set the standard, which applies to town and school budgets, last week. “Last year, I told the board we were at a crossroads,” Town Administrator John Kelly told selectmen Nov. 1. The standard 2.5 percent annual increase was becom...

CHATHAM — Ocean Protection Advocacy Kids, a new nonprofit that teaches children about the ocean environment and how to advocate for it, has just received a substantial corporate grant. U.K.-based Lush Cosmetics has awarded OPAK $17,676 to expand its “Plankton and Plastics” program across Southeastern Massachusetts. The program, which explains the evolution of the marine food web, will be made available to as...

CHATHAM – A World War I-era grenade discovered Thursday at the Chatham Historical Society's Atwood House and Museum was found to contain no explosives and deemed safe for display. The grenade was found while museum officials were updating a recent exhibit on “Chatham in the Military.” It had apparently been stored in the museum's basement archives for decades. “The first thing we wanted to know was if it is...

CHATHAM – About a century ago, Chatham’s town historian William Smith wrote, “No more graceful act could be performed by the grateful descendants of the Pilgrims than to erect… at Chatham a simple monument to this unhonored, but most deserving, friend and protector of their forefathers.” Smith was referring to Squanto (also known as Tisquantum), perhaps the most famous Native American to greet the Pilgrims. Sq...

CHATHAM – A proposed capital improvement plan for the Chatham Municipal Airport calls for more than $7 million in expenditures through 2025, with almost all of the funding coming from the state and federal governments. Among the big-ticket items in the plan are the reconstruction of the airport's parallel taxiway, a new airport administration building, and an update of the airport's master plan. Most of the...

CHATHAM – On a recent Friday afternoon, airport commission member Tom Wilson was in his backyard when he saw what he described as a metal frame with wings flying overhead. The experimental aircraft, known as an ultralight, had taken off from the town's airport. There are no requirements that ultralights be registered or that pilots be licensed by the Federal Aviation Administration, and they are free to operat...

CHATHAM – While it's clear that the sharks that patrol the waters along the Cape's shore are here to stay – seasonally, at least – the sharks that visit Kate Gould Park every summer will not return after one more season. The popular Sharks in the Park art display, sponsored by the Chatham Merchants Association, will be held for the last time next May. In 2019 and beyond, the exhibit will continue, but instead ...

An early-autumn storm with tropical characteristics dumped around an inch-and-a-half of rain on the Lower Cape Sunday night into Monday, bringing strong winds that caused localized power outages. Harwich public works crews remove a fallen tree from Brooks Park, Harwich Center. ALAN POLLOCK PHOTO An official w...