The Griswold land tract is causing widespread arguments. The Garvin property caused widespread arguments. Can anyone imagine what Madison in the spring, summer, and fall would be like without the Surf Club and Garvin Point? Can anyone imagine what the Griswold area would be like year round with between 50 and 100 dwellings sprouting near the marshlands that finally have teemed with wildlife for several years and will be marked PRIVATE PROPERTY-NO TRESSPASSING-DELIVERIES ONLY?

The Hammonasset River now looks as it did decades ago when pollution hadn't taken over. The species of birds have increased so that now a visitor to the marsh can see the egret, heron, ibis, oyster cracker, osprey, mallard, bafflehead, common and red-breasted mergansers-all species that were sparse or missing 30 years ago-and half of the world's salt marsh sparrows nests here every spring.

Blue crabs of record proportion, eels that have made a remarkable comeback, menhaden and herring, winter and summer flounder that return every year, and clams, oysters, and mussels that once made the river productive have returned. I remember my youth 60 years ago in the Hammonasset area; it was like another world, a section of earth worthy of a Wordsworth poem, but now a few among us would turn this into a piece in the Real Estate Gazette.

Nature in this place does not need expensive houses to bring down the neighborhood. Let's keep this area for the entire town and future generations, in particular for my new granddaughter Mia, not develop it for future transients.

Dan Mulvey

Madison