By Bill Forry
Managing Editor

When the Mass Turnpike Authority issued a map of historic Dorchester sites last summer, the seaside enclave of Port Norfolk was barely visible on the document, and for a simple reason: The mapmaker evidently decided that was a good spot to drop the Turnpike's logo, basically wiping Port Norfolk off the map.

It is an apt metaphor, in many ways, for life in 'The Port,' as residents call it. Once home to a bustling shipyard and connected to the rest of Dorchester by trolley lines, barriers of asphalt and automobiles have made life in the Port increasingly isolated over the last half-century. Today, many neighbors have grown used to the relative peace and quiet that comes with that isolation and leery of larger development that threatens to dramatically change the dynamic.

When the owners of the Venezia restaurant floated an idea to build a 13-story residential complex next to their waterfront eatery several years ago, neighbors balked and, quickly shot down the proposal.

It's not the first time the Port rallied to challenge a threat to their village.

In the early 1980s, residents created a human blockade to stop dump trucks from delivering loads to the site of the Shaffer paper company, one of several industrial uses that once crowded the south-eastern coast of the Port. The paper company sat on land once used as a lumber company.

Maria Lyons, a school teacher who'd just moved to the neighborhood with her husband, was one of the protestors who stopped the trucks.

"(Neighbor) Barbara Tankle and others rallied the neighborhood against that. When the neighborhood found out they were storing hazardous waste in the neighborhood, we actually stood in the street to block them from coming in," recalls Lyons. "Shortly afterwards, the state bought the land."

The collection of waterfront parcels- 11 acres in total- were purchased by the Commonwealth in 1986. Later, in 1995, the area: along with sections of Milton and Quincy, was formally designated an "Area of Critical Environmental Concern" by the state's Secretary of Environmental Affairs. The designation, aimed at preserving the fragile ecosystem of salt marsh and wetlands along the coast, came after four years of review, including community meetings in Dorchester, Milton and Quincy.

The designation triggered a round of public meetings aimed at coming up with a plan to re-use the Shaffer site. In 1998, Lyons and others huddled up with state officials and came up with what they thought was a plan of action. The plan included the clean-up of hazardous waste found beneath the ground. The goal, then and now, Lyons says, was to allow the natural coastline to reclaim the land that centuries of industry nearly destroyed.

"Basically, we feel like it's the only wild lands left on the Dorchester side of the river. It supports bird nesting and shellfish and all kinds of species.

"We'd like to protect that for the children," she says.

"Once it's destroyed, it's gone. We'd like it to remain, for the most part, wild lands with a small, stone-dust path and benches where people could sit and enjoy the peace of this place."

Recently, Lyons and other Port Norfolk neighbors have bristled at a proposal, still in its conceptual stages, developed by a group of volunteers in the Neponset area. That idea calls for the siting of a maritime-related youth center on a portion of the Shaffer site. Lyons and other Port Norfolk regulars have spoken out loudly against the idea. Lyons says that a new building on the site is out of the question on such environmentally protected land and argues that tides at that point of the Neponset make it a poor site for boating.

"We've been very patient," says Lyons. "People say, 'How come you haven't done anything for 20 years here?' The first ten years was spent planning. We've been waiting, and in the meantime, its been growing back on its own. Eighty percent of what we want to have happen is happening on its own.

"We've been trying all along, and we've been told there's no money. But it hasn't been destroyed either, which is our main goal."

Wendy Fox, a spokesperson from the Department of Recreation (DCR) which controls the site, told the Reporter last week that a new round of environmental testing must be done to comply with new state laws. Fox said that arsenic and lead are thought to be the major contaminants.

"We had every intention of putting a passive waterfront park there," Fox says. "We're talking a couple of years from now. Plans might change. It is meant to be open space. We bought it to be open space and our policy is not to build new buildings there."

Valerie Burns, whose Boston Natural Areas Network has closely followed the waiting game in Port Norfolk, says whatever happens, there needs to be a community discussion first.

"One thing that needs to happen as the state moves forward is a community process that allows the immediate neighborhood and the larger community to revisit the plan that was developed in 1998," Burns says. "It's time that that be revisited.

"Regardless of what happens at that site, it's got to be cleaned first," Burns says. "At the same time, the DCR should be moving forward with final planning. It shouldn't be seen as consecutive stages."

State Rep. Marty Walsh, who represents the Port Norfolk neighborhood, says he'll ultimately push for whatever the community wants to see there.

"People want to put in a passive park, but I'm not necessarily for putting in just another passive park," Walsh said this week. "We have a shortage of baseball fields, especially a shortage of girls softball fields. If there's room there, I'm for making it recreational space.

"It would probably take $7 million to $15 million to finish off [the Port Norfolk parcel]. The neighbors certainly want to do that because it's a big connector for the whole greenway. But if I had to choose between putting another park in my district or funding special needs, I'm going to fund special needs."

News Editor Patrick McGroarty contributed to this report.