As you may already be aware, Fresh Pond plans to institute a pilot Medallion Program to limit the number of off-leash dogs. You may not know that the ordinance to enable this has not yet passed, and will go before the city council on Monday, April 9.

We are including below an excellent letter from member Monica Strauss about this issue. She has carefully researched this issue, speaking with representatives from Fresh Pond, the Water Department, the City Manager's office, City Council, dog owners, environmental experts, etc. Please read her letter and follow up with your own letter to the City Manager by April 5 per her suggestion. Please also attend the council meeting on April 9, and sign up by 5:30 to speak about your feelings on the issue.

All the best,

CDOG

Dear CDOG members and friends,

I've been thinking alot about the proposal of the Fresh Pond Advisory
Board to amend chapter 6 of the City Ordinances, Rules for Off Leash
Areas, specifically c.04.040 and c.04.045, and would like to share the
following thoughts with you.

1. The primary issue troubling me is that:

All dogs, even those who bear medallions, are to be prohibited
from accessing all "mowed grassy areas" at Fresh Pond.

For the reasons I discuss below, I propose that supervised dogs
should be allowed on mowed grassy areas of Fresh Pond.

Sam Corda, Managing Director of the Cambridge Water Department
informed me on 3/8/07 that the rationale behind the proposed
amendments to the city ordinance and the establishment of the Fresh
Pond dog Medallion program is to protect the public drinking water for
the next 100 years from possible contamination due to dogs. He
explained that there is currently no hazardous contamination and the
Water Board has no quantitative evidence of any contamination from
dogs at Fresh Pond. I further queried him regarding erosion of the
surrounding area from dogs; he said there is no quantitative data on
erosion from dogs or from the sledders and other human users.
Regarding incidents involving dogs and Mr. Corda said that they may
happen occasionally, but no more so than incidents involving other
Fresh Pond users such as bicyclists and runners for which he also has
no quantitative data. Further, Mr. Corda verified that the Walter
J. Sullivan Water Treatment Facility purifies the water in Fresh Pond
before it is piped out as the public water supply and the Facility is
more than sufficient to purify out the biological contaminants in this
"raw" (unpurified) water. Please note, what animal waste contamination
is currently found in Fresh Pond raw water is almost entirely
introduced at the upstream sources of our raw water: the Hobbs Brook
(in Waltham) and Stony Brook (in Weston) Reservoirs. More than any
animal and human waste problems, the Hobbs Brook and Stony Brook
Reservoirs have potentially hazardous contamination from plant
fertilizers, traffic and salt, and development related pollution that
enter through "tributaries and storm drains associated with State
Routes 128 and 2, secondary roads, and commercial and industrial
parking areas" (From Fact Sheet FS-056-02, U.S. Geological Survey
prepared in cooperation with the City of Cambridge, MA Water
Department, Storms, Streams, and Reservoirs-- Assessing Water Quality
in the Cambridge, Massachusetts, Drinking-Water Source Area. See
also, Smith, K.P., 2005, Hydrologic, water-quality, bed-sediment,
soil-chemistry, and statistical summaries of data for the Cambridge,
Massachusetts, drinking-water source area, water year 2004:
U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2005-1383, 110 p.).

Contamination makes no sense as a rationale for prohibiting dogs from
the "mowed grassy areas" that are further from the reservoir at Fresh
Pond than the asphalt path where dogs are allowed. Concern about
owners and dog-walkers cleaning up after their dogs can be handled in
much more effective ways than prohibiting dogs from accessing the
grassy areas, which have become most of the reservation in recent
years as the mowed grassy areas have proliferated. There are already penalties for owners and/or dog-walkers not
cleaning up after their dogs. Educational outreach accompanying the
medallion program is a better way to ensure that dog owners clean up
after their dogs. It would seem more logical and straightforward to
require dog owners and dog-walkers to read an explanation of the
importance to the water supply of cleaning up after their dogs and to
include this information in the statement they are required to
sign as part of the Medallion Program.

2. In addition I am troubled that:

the City of Cambridge is creating an unfortunate precedent by
prohibiting dogs and their owners who are not Cambridge
residents from enjoying the privileges of excercising their
dogs at the reservation off-leash. Residents of Belmont who
live next to Fresh Pond will no longer be able to walk their
dogs off-leash there.

For the reasons I discuss below, I propose that supervised dogs
owned by non-Cambridge residents should be allowed off-leash at
Fresh Pond subject to suitable education, perhaps auxilliary to the
Medallion program.

Cambridge is an urban environment and its residents will be deprived
of access to more extensive parks and conservation areas that exist
outside of Cambridge when nearby suburban and rural towns including
Belmont, Lincoln and Concord are tempted to respond in kind to the
prohibition imposed on them by Cambridge. Rather than imposing
exclusivity, those in the Cambridge community and any others wishing
to partake of the benefits of the Fresh Pond Reservation would be
better served by organizing the type of educational outreach described
above for non-Cambridge people. Educational programs of this sort are
already being used in other parts of the country to protect sensitive
bodies of water from non-resident animal and human pollution. For example, a
similar educational program is used at Hanauma Bay in Oahu, Hawaii to
maintain the purity of water in a bay known for tropical fish and
their reef habitat that were becoming endangered by contamination from
swimmers and other human visitors from around the world.

What You Can Do:

I urge each of you to communicate to the Cambridge City Council
members individually your opposition to the prohibition of supervised
dogs (Cambridge and non-Cambridge) from the mowed grassy areas at
Fresh Pond (See contact list belowy). Further I urge you to ask
them to question the lack of quantitative evidence of water
contamination from dogs or of soil erosion from dogs. I urge you to
advocate that alternatives exist to prohibition that would be more
effective for eliminating contamination from dogs (as opposed to from
wildlife, salt, building development, or pollution) such as educating
the dog owners/walkers as to the environmental hazards of
contamination, especially to their drinking water and requiring signed
agreements to respect the concerns of the City for the integrity of
the water supply, and to supervise and clean up after their dogs.
Further I urge you to impress on the City Council the benefits of
having dogs at Fresh Pond, for example having responsible dog owners
and supervised dogs around Fresh Pond discourages crime and improves
the safety of the area for others. Lastly, I urge you to impress on
them that many Cambridge residents. both dog owners and non dog-owners
get pleasure from being around dogs. Please voice your views through
all of the following channels, most importantly (A) Attending the
hearing on April 9 and (B) Contributing a your comments in a letter to
the Communication List on the City Council Agenda:

A. Attend the hearing on April 9, 2007. Make sure to sign the
attendance sheet between 5PM and 6PM (Please contact the City
Clerk's office at 617-349-4260 for other options to sign up to
speak.)

B. Submit your comments to the City Clerk "to be filed with the
Communication List of the committee report for the City
Council Agenda on Municipal Ordinances". To be added to the
Agenda, the comments must be submitted as a signed, written
letter to be received by April 5 at 5PM, and
addressed to:
The City Council c/o City Clerk
City Hall, 795 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02139

Please feel free to use or modify the following sample letter:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
[Date]

Dear Mr. Healey,

I am sending this letter to be filed with the Communication List of
the committee report for the City Council Agenda on Municipal
Ordinances.

I oppose the prohibition of supervised dogs (Cambridge and
non-Cambridge) from the mowed grassy areas at Fresh Pond. Further I
ask you to question the lack of quantitative evidence of water
contamination from dogs or of soil erosion from dogs. Alternatives
exist to prohibition that would be more effective for eliminating
contamination from dogs (as opposed to proven contamination from
wildlife, salt, building development, or pollution). Better options
would be: educating dog owners/walkers as to the environmental hazards
of contamination to their drinking water and requiring signed
agreements to respect the integrity of the water supply, including
supervision and cleaning up after their dogs. I believe in the
benefits of having dogs at Fresh Pond, for example having responsible
dog owners and supervised dogs around Fresh Pond discourages crime and
improves the safety of the area for others. I am one of the many
Cambridge residents, dog owners and non dog-owners alike, who get
pleasure from being around dogs.

I urge you to reconsider the prohibition of dogs from mowed grassy
areas at Fresh Pond and the institution of the Medallion Program.

Thank you.

[Your name and address here]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

If you have time after A and B (above), other channels with indirect
impact are:

C. Email individual members of the City Council at their
personal email addresses (see contact list below).

D. Make your opinions known on the Cambridge Chronical Blog,
http://blogs.townonline.com/cambridge/?p=3361

E. Join the Cambridge Dog Owners' Group (http://cambridgedog.org/)

Please note that (A) speaking at the hearing on April 9 and (B)
submitting a signed letter filed with the Communications List of the
City Council agenda are the only formal ways to register your opinion.
If you care about continued access of dogs to Fresh Pond, it is
critical that you attend the meeting and sign in: The City Council
will be most influenced by signed attendance at this meeting. The
meeting will be held on April 9 at 5:30PM in the Sullivan Chamber,
City Hall, 795 Massachusetts Avenue.

I've heard from City Councillors that if we work together and can show
a strong opposition we have a good chance.

Regards,
Monica Strauss

Contact Information for Members of the Cambridge City Council

Brian Murphy (Working Group on Dog Parks, Chair)
(bmurphy@cambridgema.gov)
22 Mount Auburn Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
492-7426 (H)
349-4280 (W)

Craig A. Kelley (Working Group on Dog Parks, Co-Chair, Ordinance Subcommittee)
(ckelley@cambridgema.gov )
6 St.Gerard Terrace
Cambridge, MA 02140
(617) 354-8353 (H)
(617) 349-4280 (W)

Michael A. Sullivan (Co-Chair, Ordinance Subommittee)
(msullivan@cambridgema.gov)
42 Huron Avenue,
Cambridge, MA 02138
(617) 547-0777 (H)
617-349-4280 (W)

Henrietta Davis
(hdavis@cambridgema.gov)
www.henriettadavis.org
120 Chestnut Street,
Cambridge, MA 02139
(617) 547-0877 (H)
(617) 349-4280 (W)

Anthony D. Galluccio
(agalluccio@cambridgema.gov)
27 Sunset Road,
Cambridge, MA 02138
(617) 868-4393 (H)
(617) 349-4280 (W)

E. Denise Simmons
(dsimmons@cambridgema.gov)
195 Brookline Street
Cambridge, MA 02139
491-7435 (W)
349-4280 (W)

Marjorie C. Decker
(mdecker@cambridgema.gov)
61 Walden Street,
Cambridge, MA 02140
(617) 349-4280 (W)

Vice Mayor: Timothy J. Toomey, Jr.
(TimToomey@aol.com)
88 Sixth Street
Cambridge, MA 02141
(617) 576-6483 (H)
(617) 349-4280 (W)

Mayor: Kenneth E. Reeves
(kreeves@cambridgema.gov)
340 Harvard Street
Cambridge, MA 02139
(617) 661-1635 (H)
(617) 349-4321 (W)