We hear of a scheme to drive the remaining liveaboards out of Eagle Harbor.

An expensive “marina” would be built in the bay and only four people would be allowed to use it, at a cost of, say, $400 a month, which is about what I pay in my marina, but my boat has electricity, water and a shore facility.

The marina in the bay would have nothing but a price tag. Logically, such a marina must furnish water and electricity, maybe underwater pipes. That won’t happen.

I suspect the Coast Guard might look hard at such a scheme. The state may own the mud at the bottom of the sea, but who controls the surface?

Would the scheme interfere with free movement of vessels?

It seems our councilors have been listening again to the quiet roar of the immensely rich in their great houses across the bay.

These gentry detest anyone who does not have a manicured lawn or has found a way to live in peace without paying taxes, gambling in the stock market or fleecing customers.

Such must be flushed from their private lake.

The liveaboards are a minuscule pollution problem compared to the gentry, who, during rainstorms allow runoff from leaky septic tanks, leaky cars and sprays to raise the level of pollution.

We see today a brown sludge from algae and the sheen of automobile runoff throughout our near-stagnant bay. And the liveaboards didn’t make it. Get to know them – they’re quiet, decent people.

These people have carried on a century-old tradition of living quietly in their boats; if we lose them, much of the character will be lost from Winslow.

We will become a bunch of boutiques and restaurants through which a stream of cars pass on the way to the ferry or their condos.

Raj Shivapriyan

Parfitt Way Southwest