Mitt Romney and Fox News references the presumed Republican candidate's 1981 arrest for disregarding the order of a park ranger by launching his boat at Lake Cochituate in Massachusetts.
Fox actually, goes with Eric Erickson's (a Republican party operative at CNN at least as much as Hillary Rosen is a Democratic one since both are commenters at the news network.) propaganda (Nothing to see here citizen!") about Romney's arrest.
Erickson and Romney pooh pooh the arrest
Erickson:
Romney said yesterday that the park ranger had overstepped his
authority in arresting him and said the reason the case was dropped was
that he had threatened to charge the officer and his agency, then called
the Department of Environmental Affairs, with false arrest.
“He did not have the right to arrest me because I was not a
disorderly person. This was an obvious case of false arrest,” Romney
said. “The officer obviously agreed because he agreed to dropping the
case.”
It must be good being the son of a very wealthy and powerful Republican and having a nice gig for yourself. That six nice salary sure makes the law enforcement back off fast.
In fact though Lake Cochituate has been under near constant attack from pollution and invasive weeds for decades, which possibly led to restrictions on boats that could be launched onto Lake Cochituate. Of course, Romney is not going to tell us what he really did wrong, just strike the same posture that Bush did over his arrests, though in an even more arrogant tone. How dare we question his right to put his boat where ever he wants.
Were there restrictions until a boat could be checked and certified to be free from pollution or aquatic weeds, or was it just a matter of swimmer safety. Mitt Romney isn't going to tell us and we should just shut up about it.
You have your marching orders, America. The man who has promised us more war, says so.
See some facts on how locals have struggled to clean up Lake Cochituate and keep it unpolluted and unclogged with invasive weeds.
Taking a whack at weeds about the constant struggle to keep the water open on a local treasure and connected ponds in the Lake Cochituate watershed.
Trust fund payment to help clean up former GM property around Beaverdam Brook that is in the Cochituate watershed as noted in the piece as entering the lake waters from the south. Looking at a Google map it appears to enter what is named Fisk Pond which seems to join with what they call Lake Cochituate via water path under a road. So pollution from old GM property is likely to be a problem for the lake. Even in 1981 the people in the area and/or who recreate on the water would be right to be concerned about whether pollution or weeds or boat traffic is endangering the waters or the people swimming in their local lake.
But apparently those kinds of concern aren't supposed to interfere with the fun of people like THE ROMNEYS.
Don't you know how well educated (ie rich) they are?
Gallery of old pictures of Lake Cochituate
Panaramio pictures of Lake Cochituate. Gee too bad that Romney can't speed his motorboat through this pretty area.
I'm guessing that Beverdam brook is the brook near Bever Dam Rd in Natick, Massachusetts on Google's map which runs into what they call Fisk Pond, if you want to look for it.
Flickr had no pictures of Lake Cochituate available for sharing though you can search and find plenty of views held under copyright restriction or Getty License.
Horace Boothroid III at Daily Kos Expanded on this and did a fine report at
Romney's Views on Environmental Protection-Arrested for Violating Law
I'm an old meanie and make people go read other reports. I think what Mr. Boothroid selected from different reports was extremely well done giving the story all right there.
I now have two screen grabs of maps for you. The first is a grab of Beaver Dam Rd and presumed Beaverdam Brook next to it. Look for the curved line by BDR that then becomes a visible watercourse lower near Fisk Pond. I have zoomed in on the map at the point where the land is thin between Fisk pond and what I found from scrolling around the real map to apparently be the lower portion of Lake Cochituate (see the wake of the boat that is apparently zipping around the spit of land down there? Right at the narrow portion of land a couple of inches (or so because I don't know how big your screen is) west of that boat where the land narrows and 135 and W Central St appears again there is an opening between the two bodies of water). There also seems to be a floating barrier of some kind possibly to keep trash or other stuff from flowing from one to the other. I cannot for some reason save the picture zoomed so closely, but I saw it.
