Harvard econ prof: should be paid for taking manure all these years :: The Boston Globe

Weitzman said, he has been doing Rockport a favor by removing the manure -- from town-owned land and Lane's property -- because the waste was piled too close to vulnerable wetlands and was leaching into a nearby pond.

''I am a professor of economics, and my specialty is environmental economics," Weitzman said. ''I ought to be thanked by them for removing a potent pollutant."

The Harvard professor has been trucking the stuff 10 miles away to his $970,000 Gloucester home, a 13-acre spread on an island surrounded by marsh and wetlands.

Weitzman said he carefully stores it behind his house, several acres away from sensitive waterways.