I am writing to explain the recent mowing at the Farm Pond Preserve along South Circuit avenue. The Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank has managed the preserve since 1997 for the town of Oak Bluffs, within conditioned parameters including annual mowing. The mowing controls invasive plants such as Japanese knotweed and phragmites and also inhibits littering — people used to throw rubbish in the grasses before they were regularly mowed.

The recent mowing right up to the pond shore was a result of bad communication on my part plus a very low tide. The land bank has on other properties worked to remove the phragmites grasses, which is a state-listed nuisance species. We may in the future file for fresh permits here to accomplish that, but until then I apologize for my staff’s mistake.

Matthew Dix
Edgartown

The writer is conservation lands foreman for the Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank.