To The Editor:
I was a little sad to read about the old furnace boiler being removed from the Mad River in Warren Village. During the pandemic, my son and I spent many summer days exploring the river, looking for the best places to swim and figuring out the best hours when the sun shined in A good friend mentioned the swim hole where the tank was located. As is customary, we brought our goggles so we could explore the bottom of the swim hole and know where rocks, trees or other terrain features were. I remember well the day we happened upon the boiler tank. It was laying on its side lengthwise with a big, ruptured hole on its side. The interior of the tank was all rusted out, but you could still make out its interior features. The bottom of the tank was filled with small gravel and a few small fish when we visited. If you could call it a piece of magical trash, it was. The tank had settled into the bottom of the river and nature had enveloped it. To my son and I, it was like a little freshwater reef, always full of fish. We have visited that swim hole and the tank every summer since and always enjoyed the experience of swimming around the tank and watching the fish inside. I know some people viewed it as a hazard, but to us it was a beautiful man-made remnant slowly being claimed back by nature. I will miss seeing it and I know my son will too.
Matt Blood
Waitsfield
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