Preserve our heritage

Dear Editor:

I want to tell you a true story of a native Morgan Countian who grew up in the western part of Morgan County. He loved to fish in the Cacapon River where smallmouth bass were abundant, where the rocks were shiny and clean and you could even drink the water straight out of the river. You could hunt just about any place you wanted, without the fear of shooting toward a house or cabin in the woods and large bucks and turkeys were abundant.
Then in the mid-1960s and 1970s, development started to change the face of Morgan County. Our streams began to slowly become more and more polluted and our hunting land started to be replaced with subdivisions. At the time, Morgan County had no regulations to control these developments so our county was sold to the highest bidder with no thought given to how it would impact the fishing and hunting rights of the native Morgan Countian.
Today, we are paying the price for these developments in higher taxes due to the need for more schools, police officers, fire equipment, etc.

Now our streams are so polluted that our male bass are producing eggs and covered in sores. The rocks in the streams are covered in silt due to the runoff from poorly constructed roads in these early developments. Not only can we not drink the water from the streams, our hunting and fishing guidelines tell us to limit the amount of fish that we eat.

Our hunting land is just about gone and to see a large buck in Morgan County is a rare thing. How do I know that this story is true? Because I was that young man some 60-odd years ago.

I am asking all native Morgan Countians to think about the heritage that they want to leave for their children and grandchildren. Do we want them to be able to fish in our rivers and hunt in our woods, or do we want them to look out on a sea of houses.

It’s our decision to make on November 2. I hope that, like me, you will decide to vote yes for zoning so that we can save what’s left of the rural character of Morgan County.

Steven E. Hutchinson
Great Cacapon