The dire forecast for the future of the Vineyard environment, signed onto by the Island's major conservation groups 10 years ago this week, was wrong. Dramatically, happily wrong.

Among other things, the 1997 white paper predicted the Vineyard would be built out within eight years, and that only a little over 25 per cent of Island land would be protected by 2005. History has proven these figures to be way off the mark.

Sarah Mello has stepped down as superintendent of the Chappaquiddick properties of The Trustees of Reservations to return to her former position as director of education at the organization’s Island properties.

Chris Kennedy, Islands regional director for the trustees, said Mrs. Mello relinquished the post for personal reasons.

In its management of Norton Point Beach, which is owned by Dukes County, the Trustees of Reservations produced a net surplus of $16,785 in the last fiscal year.

The county will receive more than $3,000 of that money through an agreement with the conservation group. Two years ago, the county enlisted the help of the Trustees to manage Norton Point beach with an agreement that the county would receive 20 per cent of what the group earned at the public beach.

Sarah Mello Trudel of Oak Bluffs has been named superintendent of the Chappaquiddick properties of The Trustees of Reservations.

Mrs. Trudel will succeed David F. Belcher, who leaves the job after 19 years on May 11.

The announcement was made Monday by Chris Kennedy, Islands regional director for The Trustees of Reservations.

The Trustees own some 784 acres on Chappaquiddick, including Cape Pogue Wildlife Refuge, Wasque Reservation and Mytoi, a Japanese garden founded many years ago by the late Mary Wakeman.

A bomb squad from the Massachusetts State Police detonated several pieces of unexploded ordnance left over from World War II on Chappaquiddick last Wednesday, sending a thundering boom across the island and rattling foundations from Cape Pogue to Sampson’s Hill.

The explosion prompted concerned calls to the Island communications center and Edgartown police department, and was the subject of speculation all across the tight-knit Chappy community for several days.

The continued discovery of unexploded practice bombs from World War II has forced the immediate closure of Little Neck on Chappaquiddick to all public access.

The Trustees of Reservations, which owns the property, announced Friday that approximately 60 acres along the western edge of Cape Pogue Bay will be closed indefinitely.

The Chappaquiddick superintendent for The Trustees of Reservations has resigned and Trustees are taking full responsibility for an incident late last month where an unfledged nest of least tern chicks was nearly run over by a Trustees-owned four-wheel-drive truck that was on the barrier beach conducting a natural history tour.

Shorebirds nest on our beaches every year. As of June 23, The Trustees of Reservations were monitoring three piping plover nests on the Elbow, three pairs of recently hatched piping plover chicks on Leland Beach, and two large colonies of least, common and roseate terns on Norton Point Beach Edgartown.

As required by state and federal regulation, The Trustees are monitoring these nests and chicks and are providing the birds with adequate habitat to feed their young. The chicks can move around the property and are difficult to see.

The Trustees of Reservations announced this week that a major staff restructuring will take place around the management of their Vineyard properties with a shifting emphasis toward more staffing in the summer months and less year-round.

Seismic Shifts, Trustees Too Silent

The announcement last week by The Trustees of Reservations of major staffing and organizational changes on the Island operation is unsettling less for what it said than for what it did not say. Ordinarily personnel changes may be taken as matters of ordinary business — a new manager is named here, a position is eliminated there. But the changes announced by the Trustees in a garden-variety press release that arrived by electronic mail are anything but ordinary.