No Interest in Cleveland Ledge Lighthouse
By Sue Clark on Jul 15, 2007 in Opinion 
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The Cape Cod Times says no local town wants to take on the responsibility of applying for and maintaining the excessed Cleveland Ledge Lighthouse, located eight miles offshore in Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts. It will take a non-profit group to step up and apply for the lighthouse if it’s to be saved. Due to its location and the cost of restoration, estimated to be $100,000 USD, along with maintenance costs estimated by Bob Trapani, executive director of the American Lighthouse Foundation, to be $15,000 to $20,000 per year.
This is actually one of the newer lighthouses, built in 1943 and named for President Grover Cleveland. It’s still an active aid to navigation, but the Coast Guard has neither the time nor money to maintain it any longer. I believe we are going to see lighthouses being excessed at a higher rate than ever before. And if the local towns have no interest, and non-profit groups are running low on donations, where does that leave these lighthouses? Especially ones like Cleveland Ledge, out so far offshore and hampered by asbestos, lead paint, historical preservation guidelines and no discharge zones. Does that mean these Guardians of the Sea will deteriorate and fall, with no one caring?
I don’t know the answer, as some will say there are far better reasons to dig into our pockets for charity. And while I don’t disagree, if everyone gave one dollar a year to non-profit organizations that have lighthouse preservation as their goal, many more of these historic beacons will be saved from crumbling into the sea. With that in mind, I’ve decided that all profits from this site will be donated to the American Lighthouse Foundation. I have a paypal donate box in the sidebar. It only costs me $4.00 a month to pay for this site, so any monies over and above will be donated to ALF. Please consider kicking in one dollar. That’s only one third the price of a gallon of gas.
What do you think? Should these offshore wonders (and they are engineering marvels) be saved, or left to crumble? Leave your thoughts by posting a comment.
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