Only 3 percent of CMBG’s visitors enroll in classes. Yet the Boothbay Board of Appeals is considering voting on Oct. 4 to confirm CMBG’s false claim that a botanical garden is more like an “educational facility” than a museum.

Why is this a problem? Because the quality of your drinking water may depend on the board’s decision. About 400 of CMBG’s 850 parking spaces will be upstream of Knickerbocker Lake if the board gets this wrong. The Boothbay Region Water District is worried, and opposed to CMBG’s plan. You should be too.

Why is CMBG more like a museum than an educational facility? Here’s a partial list:

• 97 percent of CMBG’s visitors do not take part in any formal education.
• CMBG received $800,000 in grants as a museum from a federal agency whose website states that only museums are eligible to receive funding.
• CMBG's list of activities (tours, exhibits, a restaurant, a gift shop) are identical to those at other museums, and nothing like those of a school.
• A museum like CMBG is funded by ticket sales, donations, grants, and memberships, but educational facilities are funded by students paying tuition.
• If CMBG is an educational facility, then so are the Coast Guard, the Boothbay Region Land Trust, the Railway Village, and every place which offers a few of its clients a class, lecture, or tour.

Why has CMBG made this false claim? Because botanical gardens/museums are not allowed in the Watershed Overlay Zone. So CMBG invented this “educational facility” label for the first time in their history, even though it puts your drinking water at risk.

Boothbay ordinances can’t otherwise protect Knickerbocker Lake from CMBG’s parking lots, so the only way for the Board of Appeals to protect your drinking water is to deny CMBG’s permit because botanical gardens/museums are not allowable.

Tell board members now that previous approvals of CMBG permits are not relevant here. This is a new application which, for the first time, includes the Watershed Overlay Zone.

Contact the board members now and tell them to ignore the 3 percent and state the facts: CMBG is a museum. Send emails to code enforcement officer Jason Lorrain (jlorrain@townofboothbay.org) to pass on to the board.

Jason Anthony

Bristol