Outdoor Nova Scotia: "The Best Way to be Informed."
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Lighthouse Lovers
Attack Demolition Plans! by Kevin MacDonell August 3rd, 1998 Halifax, N. S. - A group co-operating with the Canadian Coast Guard to find new uses for Nova Scotia's obsolete lighthouses is at odds with the Coast Guard over one of the province's oldest beacons. "We don't want to let it go without a fight," says Dan Conlin, past-president of the Nova Scotia Lighthouse Preservation Society. Conlin says the society, which normally has a good working relationship with the Coast Guard, cannot condone plans to dismantle the lighthouse. The Coffin Island light, near Liverpool on Nova Scotia's South Shore, has a history dating back to 1812. Not only does the Coast Guard want to switch off the beacon and replace it with a light and sound buoy - but the 54-foot (16-meter) lighthouse, built in 1914 after fire destroyed the original, is in danger of toppling into the ocean from erosion. The Coast Guard says the price tag for shoring up the lighthouse is too high. In just weeks, if the Coast Guard has its way, it will be the waves or the wrecking ball. "They can't just say (the erosion) is unstoppable. All lighthouses in Nova Scotia face erosion problems," says Conlin, who is also curator of marine history at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax. He fears Coffin Island might only be the first victim of many. The Coast Guard has had an "unofficial but sincere" moratorium on the destruction of Nova Scotia lighthouses since the late 1980s, he says, but federal government budget cuts might spur a round of demolitions. Budget-cutters and the elements may be working against preservation, but Conlin notes there is reason for optimism. "Liverpool has a good record of saving lighthouses," he says, referring to the town's Fort Point light, which looks over the mouth of Liverpool's Mersey River and is now a historic site and interpretive center. He says residents want the light to stay, and local businesses have offered to help. The Society is offering to bring everyone together to make it happen. "We think the Coast Guard should give assistance
to any rescue effort."
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