To the Zoning Officials in Lisbon NH

Mr. Brian Morgan has brought to my attention the proposed asphalt
manufactoring plant to be built, subject to your approval, at the 
junctions of Routes 302 and 117. I am writing to you in the hope
that my perspective on this project might be of help to you in 
determining whether the variance which you have been asked to approve
would be in the public interest.

Twenty-nine years ago, my family, my wife, my son and myself undertook
systematically to search northern New Hampshire for a piece of land
of especial natural beauty. We looked far and wide. Some of the places
we saw, though spectaclar in appearance, proved disappointing because
they were sullied by emanations from nearby manufacturing plants, for
example, the northern rim of the Presidentials near Berlin NH. In Lisbon
we found exactly what we wanted. The real estate agent whose name I can't
remember took us to the abandoned Cheney Farm, with its broad views
over the Ammonoosuc Valley, of the Town of Lisbon and of the Ammonoosuc
River itself. For me, it was love at first sight. I bought the farm 
immediately. I've never had any regrets.

Although my dream of building a cabin at the edge of the woods did not come 
true, and even though I'm now, age age 84, too crippled to keep open the old
abandoned road to Sugar Hill that runs through the property, too old to 
prevent the watering hole for the cattle that became a summer home for ducks
from drying up, my affection for the land and the landscape is unchanged. 
Every few weeks the mailman brings solicitations for expensive and elegant 
excursions to the rivers of Europe, to the Rhine, to the Moselle, to the 
Elbe and to the Danube, their hilly banks studded with ancient castles. 
As I stand on the our Farm, on the crest of our hill, overlooking the 
Ammonoosuc River, its valley and its Town, I ask myself, why, why should 
I want to go anywhere else? Could there be any landscape anywhere in the 
world more enchanting?

Your vote tonight may change all that. When I imagine a 65 foot high chimney
at the intersection of Routes 302 and 117, belching black smoke into a sky 
that once was blue, you will have made it impossible for me to continue to 
think of the Ammonoosuc Valley in Lisbon's vicinity as a magnificent wildlife 
refuge to which I also want to escape. Your vote will have transformed a dream 
into a nightmare from which I will want desperately to awaken and to escape. 

Before you take your decisive vote, I respectfully invite each of you to make 
one last visit onto our land at the Cheney Farm. There let your eyes scan 
the Amonoosuc Valley from north to south and from east to west. Take the time
to have one last look at what you have been petitioned to destroy, but which
is now your privilege and perhaps your duty to preserve for generations to
come.

Ernst J. Meyer, M.D.