This is an archived page. Images and links on this page may not work. Please visit the main page for the latest updates.

 
 
 
Read my book, TEACHING BEAUTY IN DeLILLO, WOOLF, AND MERRILL (Palgrave Macmillan; forthcoming), co-authored with Jennifer Green-Lewis. VISIT MY BRANCH CAMPUS AT INSIDE HIGHER ED





UD is...
"Salty." (Scott McLemee)
"Unvarnished." (Phi Beta Cons)
"Splendidly splenetic." (Culture Industry)
"Except for University Diaries, most academic blogs are tedious."
(Rate Your Students)
"I think of Soltan as the Maureen Dowd of the blogosphere,
except that Maureen Dowd is kind of a wrecking ball of a writer,
and Soltan isn't. For the life of me, I can't figure out her
politics, but she's pretty fabulous, so who gives a damn?"
(Tenured Radical)

Thursday, June 16, 2005

HARVARD PROFESSORS:
PROTECTING AMERICA’S
VULNERABLE WETLANDS






His Gloucester trial set to begin June 27, Harvard economics professor Martin Weitzman speaks to the Boston Globe of his “passion for manure” and where it led him. Sadder and wiser but still unbowed, he will fight the larceny, trespassing, and malicious destruction of property charges against him. Not only did he not steal the manure he is accused of stealing, Weitzman says, but for “removing a potent pollutant” from someone else’s farm and taking it to his own environmentally sound property ("I am a professor of economics, and my specialty is environmental economics.") “I ought to be thanked.” Weitzman explained that “he has been doing Rockport a favor by removing the manure -- from town-owned land and [Charles] Lane's property -- because the waste was piled too close to vulnerable wetlands and was leaching into a nearby pond.”








Martin Weitzman doesn't understand what the fuss is all about. And he hopes round two in his now infamous manure caper won't make international headlines. Again.

Weitzman, a Harvard professor who specializes in environmental economics, is charged with stealing a truckload of manure from a 98-year-old Rockport horse farmer. Weitzman, who has pleaded not guilty, is due back in court June 27.

The farmer is Charlie Lane, who traces his family tree back three centuries to the Lanesville section of Gloucester. Lane said he just wants Weitzman to stop pilfering and pay up.




The case has taken on a life of its own since Weitzman's April 1 arrest, ricocheting around Internet chat rooms after it was carried on an international news service. It even popped up on late night television, in comedian Jay Leno's monologue.

Weitzman, who turned 63 on the day of his arrest, said he's taken a lot of digs over the dung.

"I had one colleague from the University of California at San Diego who wrote me an e-mail saying: 'Congratulations. Most economists I know are net exporters of horse [excrement]. And you are, it seems, a net importer,'" Weitzman said.

This, Weitzman does not deny. What is at issue is whether he had permission to remove the manure and how much he took.





Weitzman acknowledged carting manure away from farmland about a mile from downtown Rockport, but said he was given permission to do so about three or four years ago. He said he can't remember the name of the man who gave him permission or what he looked like, but said he was driving a small, golf cart-type tractor and was hauling manure out to the fields at the time.

Kenneth Rowe Jr., son of a late farmer who owned property in the area and who was known for the tiny tractor he used to move his manure, said Weitzman's story does not ring true. The elder Rowe died in December 2001.

"I know my dad; he would never have given it away," Rowe said. "He always sold the manure."

The Rowes' 8-acre property, which they sold to the town two years ago to preserve for open space and recreation, is next to Lane's Sea View Farm property. Weitzman said he was unaware that there was a distinction between the two properties and believed he had permission to take all the manure he carted away.

Either way, Weitzman said, he has been doing Rockport a favor by removing the manure -- from town-owned land and Lane's property -- because the waste was piled too close to vulnerable wetlands and was leaching into a nearby pond.

"I am a professor of economics, and my specialty is environmental economics," Weitzman said. "I ought to be thanked by them for removing a potent pollutant."

The Harvard professor has been trucking the stuff 10 miles away to his $970,000 Gloucester home, a 13-acre spread on an island surrounded by marsh and wetlands.
Weitzman said he carefully stores it behind his house, several acres away from sensitive waterways.




The legal ruckus began when Phillip Casey, Lane's nephew and a part-time farmhand, said he caught Weitzman red-handed.

"The night before, someone called up Charlie and said, 'Someone has been taking manure out of your pile in back.' Charlie called me and said, 'Put some locks on the gate,'" said Casey, 64.

"So the next morning I went up about 9 o'clock and was going to put locks on the gate, and he was up there with a truckload of manure," Casey said, referring to Weitzman.

Casey said Weitzman offered him $20, then $40 for the haul, but Casey refused, blocked Weitzman in with his own truck, and dialed police on his cellphone.

Weitzman was charged with trespassing, larceny, and malicious destruction of property, the latter for the deep ruts his truck tires left on the field.

"It's like robbing a bank and then offering to give the money back if you are caught taking something, and apparently this wasn't the first time," said Sergeant Tony Hilliard of the Rockport police.

While Weitzman has not been accused of taking manure from the Rowe property, which is now owned by the town, Lane believes the professor has taken at least 30 truckloads from his property, worth about $20 each. He has been charged with larceny of property under $250.

Town officials said a large pile of manure is missing from the parcel it purchased from the Rowes, although they have not accused Weitzman of pilfering it.

"The manure was worth around $2,000, at least," said Rockport Conservation Commission member Mel Michaels. '"t was going to be used to fill in the holes in the field."

Michaels said officials do not know who took the town's manure, which started disappearing in 2003.




So what has Weitzman been doing with all the manure he has acknowledged taking?
Gardening, he said.

"I have perennial gardens, a rose garden, a Japanese-style garden," Weitzman said. "If I wasn't a Harvard professor, there would be zero interest in this."

Harvard officials have opted not to wade into the manure.

"In general, we do not comment on actions related to faculty, whether internal or external," said Harvard spokesman Robert Mitchell.

Weitzman would like to put the brouhaha behind him and hopes to reach some sort of financial settlement with Lane. But he said the $600 worth of manure Lane says Weitzman took over time is "artificially inflated."

The larceny, trespassing, and malicious destruction of property charges he faces carry a couple of months of jail time, but Assistant Essex District Attorney Kevin Prendergast said it's unlikely that Weitzman would see the inside of a cell, if convicted.

The Harvard professor said the case has not dimmed his passion for manure, though he won't be planning further runs to Rockport.

"That," he said, "is a safe assumption."




A friend of UD’s who’s an editor at Garden Design magazine tells her they’re preparing a spread on Weitzman’s garden, complete with photos and an interview. “He’s enormously proud of the garden, and, as is clear from his court case, willing to do anything to keep it healthy and fertilized,” the editor told UD. “Weitzman spoke freely to us about how he feels the gardening establishment has dissed him because of his unconventional designs . The irony is that, because of his legal trouble, he’s finally getting the attention he’s craved from the gardening community.”