Environment Newton: the blog: 2005

Friday, December 9, 2005

Wildlife in the city

By M.G. Criscitiello/ Special To The Tab

During the past decade new types of wild creatures have appeared in parks, woodlands and backyards of the city. In addition to the usual skunks, raccoons, squirrels, rabbits, chipmunks, and Canada geese, there are now coyotes, foxes, bobcats, fisher, weasels, river otter, wild turkeys, and an increasingly large white-tailed deer population. Moose have not yet appeared in Newton, but they have had front-page notice in towns nearby, and black bears have reentered the forests of western Massachusetts. Will they be our next big visitors?

Reasons for this change were presented by Colleen Olfenbuttel, staff member of the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife www.masswildlife.org, in her Nov. 15 lecture at the Newton Free Library sponsored by the Newton Conservators. She noted that all of these animals were living in the forests of New England when European settlers arrived in the 17th century. They disappeared after the trees were cut for timber and the land cleared for farming. By 1840, much of the soil was exhausted, farming became more difficult, and people moved to richer lands of the Midwest or sought their fortunes in large cities with the coming of the industrial revolution.

Since that time, our forests have returned, and now an estimated 70% of Massachusetts is covered with second growth. This has led to restoration of wild animal populations, with the exception of wolves and mountain lions, entirely extirpated from the Northeast through bounty hunting. As housing has exploded into rural areas, with developments rising in forested landscapes, human encounters with wildlife have increased. Suburban gardens, shrubs, fruit trees, and bird feeders provide tempting food for many wild creatures, and garbage added to mulch piles or left outside in trash bags spells "dinner" for raccoons, skunks and coyotes. Crawl spaces under porches and garages attract these same animals, also foxes, as dens for rearing young. With hunting prohibited, large predators absent, food supplies handy, and living space provided, why should they forego such comforts?

Living with wildlife in our surroundings is a source of pleasure for most Newton residents, but we find some challenges in our attempt to maintain a healthy and happy coexistence with these new species as they return to their rightful domain. In order that they may be protected and continue normal patterns of behavior in the wild, it is important that they not become dependent on humans for food and living space. To underscore this point, Olfenbuttel introduced a discussion of the coyote, displaying a beautiful mounted specimen of the animal. Many who had never seen one in the wild expressed surprise at its relatively small size - its average weight is only 40 pounds.

She described the territorial behavior of the coyote. Its howling and yipping at night are a means of keeping in touch with other members of its group - and a warning to outsiders to stay away! Coyotes are shy and wary by nature, avoiding contact with people. Their diet is varied, and they can be tempted into neighborhoods where food is available. True omnivores, they prey on small mammals such as squirrels and chipmunks, but they also like fruits, berries, and birdseed. They will eat road kill or any pet food or garbage left outdoors. They have been known to run down unprotected small house pets. Owners of cats and little dogs are advised to keep them indoors. (Because house cats, across the nation, kill millions of birds each year, there is further reason to keep them inside!)

To maintain coyotes in their normal wild state, Mass Wildlife suggests the following:

1. Don’t feed or try to pet them!

2. Put garbage outdoors in strong containers, not plastic bags

3. Feed pets indoors so unfinished food is not left outside.

4. Don’t let cats or small dogs roam freely outside

5. Keep areas under bird feeders clean

6. Close off crawl spaces under porches.

If coyotes become persistent in hanging around, help them to remain wary of humans by scaring them off with loud noises, a bright light, or even water sprayed from a hose if necessary.

Wild turkeys and the Canada Goose are also year-round Newton residents, but these animals will be discussed in another article.

The goal of conservation is to preserve appropriate habitat for those species rejuvenated by the return of our forests, allowing them to live in nature as they were originally born to it. The effort of Mass Wildlife is to reacquaint the public with the particular needs and behaviors of these animals, so they can remain as wild creatures while sharing much of their territory with the human population.

Modestino Criscitiello is Professor of Medicine, Emeritus, Tufts University School of Medicine. He is a Board member of the Newton Conservator and host of the Conservators’

Environmental Show on NewTV.

These teens relish Envi-Sci

By Patricia G. Goldman/ Special To The Tab

In our busy suburban world kids don’t get to experience nature much unless it’s planned into their schedules. That’s why Newton’s Environmental Science Program for teens is special. You can see this program in action during December on NewTV, Newton’s community cable television channel.

This episode of The Environmental Show travels along with teens as they go hiking, biking, canoeing and climbing, and visit woods and ponds, the Charles River, parks, a salt marsh, and mountains, winding up with a stay at the highest peak in the northeast (Mt. Washington). They also participate in a hands-on environmental cleanup project each year. As several of the teens point out, they make friends and have fun while they’re out there.

The summer program was started by Newton teachers 38 years ago with a Ford Foundation grant designed to get kids out into the environment instead of learning about it only through books and labs. The program now operates under the Newton Conservation Commission. Many of the students eventually become leaders in the program, trained to teach their younger peers what they have learned about plants and animals, geology, and ecology.

In fact, many of the participants go on to careers in science. All carry with them a lifetime appreciation for our natural environment.

To learn more about enrolling in this July program for teens, visit http://www.newtonenvisci.org or call David Backer, Exec. Director, at 617-969-0288.

To watch this show, tune in to NewTV’s Blue Channel (Channel 10 for Comcast subscribers and Channel 15 for RCN subscribers). The show will run repeatedly through December on Saturdays (10 a.m.), Mondays (3 p.m.), Tuesdays (1:30 p.m. and 11:30 p.m.), Wednesdays (11:30 a.m.) and Thursdays noon, 4 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.

This episode of the Environmental Show is produced by the Newton Conservators. Learn more about the organization’s programs and view beautiful photographs at www.newtonconservators.org.

Patricia Goldman is a former Executive Director of the Asthma & Allergy Foundation of America/New England Chapter, a former member of the Newton Human Rights Commission, and is currently a board member of NewTV helping to produce The Environmental Show.

Insulation: A wise investment

By Paul Eldenkramp/ Special To The Tab

The Kyoto Committee of the Green Decade Coalition/Newton has been investigating insulation quality in Newton houses and has been finding lots of missed opportunities.

A well-insulated house is comfortable and treads more lightly on the environment - and it is a good investment. Let’s say you spend $4,000 on an insulation upgrade and anticipate saving $500 in fuel costs per year. If you expect to live in your house for 15 more years, and assuming a 5 percent annual rate of increase in fuel costs, the rate of return on your weatherization investment will be 13.7 percent. That’s an excellent investment from a financial perspective, aside from the benefits of increased comfort and decreased carbon emissions. (For a simple on-line tool to calculate investment return for energy improvements, see www.energytools.com/calc/EnerEcon.html).

We found three basic types of insulation problems - let’s call them investment opportunities - in our initial studies of older Newton homes: no insulation, old insulation in need of an upgrade, and new insulation done badly.

Many older Newton homes have no insulation at all. Some homeowners believe that adding insulation puts an older house at risk of moisture problems, but if you have no moisture problems now, adding insulation willnot create them. If you have existing moisture issues - roof or window leaks, relative indoor humidity above 60 percent in the winter, or standing water in the basement after a rain - then adding insulation may complicate the problem, so address those issues prior to insulating.

Some homeowners are not aware that they have no insulation. If you are one of them, check the attic first. If you have no insulation there, you probably have none in the walls, because the attic is the easiest place to insulate. To check if the walls have insulation, drill a 1-inch hole in an out-of-the-way place (like the back of a closet) through the plaster and lathe (no deeper) and shine a flashlight in. If you’re looking into an empty cavity, you probably have no wall insulation.

In one of our "Kyoto case studies" we looked at a house that had no insulation, but which had new cooling and heating equipment that was roughly twice the capacity that would have been required had the house been insulated. That extra heating and cooling capacity cost several thousand dollars - money that would have been invested more wisely in insulation, which would have significantly reduced operating costs.

Many homeowners insulated their houses during the spikes in energy costs in the mid-1970s or early 1980s. Since then, we have learned more effective insulation methods and new products and technologies have been developed. An area of your house that may not have been cost-effective to insulate in 1980 may offer good payback now.

Air-sealing is as essential to insulating a house as insulation itself. There are two good methods for achieving this. Dense pack cellulose involves blowing cellulose insulation into walls to a density of about 3.5 pounds per foot, a density at which the material is packed solidly enough to inhibit air leakage but not so solid as to promote heat loss through conduction. To achieve the proper density, the installer’s equipment needs to be well tuned and he or she needs to know where to drill holes for maximum coverage and precisely how to insert the hose into the holes. Don’t take these prerequisites for granted - ask questions.

Spray-foam insulations, such as two-part polyurethane foams and Icynene, have established track records for safety and performance. They’re best used in open bays - as in walls prior to the application of the drywall and in attic rafters. Some contractors will spray foam into closed cavities such as finished walls but in that application cellulose is usually safer, cheaper, and equally effective.

Accomplishing a good insulation job in an old home can be difficult and counter-intuitive. Insulation crews tend to target easy spaces that maximize the amount of material they can install in the least amount of time. Sometimes this works, but sometimes it misses the mark.

One home we audited had had major insulation work done under a utility-company rebate program in 2001 at a cost of several thousand dollars, but the house was one of the worst performers we documented. The job had been done with a poorly tuned blower that did not generate sufficient nozzle pressure to force enough cellulose into the walls, resulting in settling of material and insulation voids. No attention had been paid to air-sealing, so there were major cold spotson interior walls because of cold air leakage into the basement, up interior chases and out through attic eaves.

To prevent such missed opportunities, the Kyoto Committee has concluded that it’s worth spending $250-350 for an energy audit that includes a blower door test and an infrared scan of your house. Audits can be arranged through Keyspan if you have gas heat and NSTAR if you have oil or electric heat. If your house has little or no insulation, do the audit as you are nearing completion of the insulation job. Prior to then, the audit will mainly document that you have a leaky house - something you knew already. After most of the work has been done, however, the audit will tell you exactly where to focus the final efforts - the infrared camera will reveal specific insulation voids in walls, and the blower door test will pinpoint areas of leakage that should be sealed, usually with spray foam insulation. If the house has been insulated with cellulose, you can use a few cans of lumberyard spray foam to provide enough air-sealing to make a big difference. However, given some of the tricky roof configurations of these older homes, you may need to hire a spray foam crew to finish the job.

In conclusion, we can say with confidence, based on our audits, that for older homes where insulation work was done in the 1970s, it’s time for an upgrade from an energy savings perspective. We have equal confidence that homeowners will reap financial benefits from these improvements.

Paul Eldrenkamp is a Newton-based remodeling contractor and chair of the Green Decade Coalition’s Kyoto Committee.

Wednesday, December 7, 2005

Bats and EIDs

By Tigga Kingston/ Special To The Tab

Gently, I reach into the holding bag and pull out the first of the night’

s catch. 65 million years of evolutionary perfection - a beautiful trefoil horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus trifoliatus). Her grayish-fawn fur is long and fluffy and she has yellow ears, elbows and knees and tan-colored wings.

With over 1,100 species, bats account for 20 percent of mammals and are found on all continents except Antarctica. In the wet tropics bats comprise more than half the mammal species, and in South America over 100 species can coexist at a single locality. This species richness is matched by unparalleled ecological diversity- bats eat fruits, nectar, leaves, insects, small terrestrial vertebrates, and fish. Despite popular myths, there are only three species of vampire bats, restricted to Central and South America.

Tragically, nearly a quarter of all bat species are threatened by extinction, mainly due to habitat loss, hunting, disturbance at roost sites and pesticides. Conservation has been greatly impeded by a lack of understanding of these animals. Demonized and feared across cultures for centuries, shrouded in myth and prejudice, bats now face another challenge to their unfairly tarnished image - their role as natural wildlife reservoirs in the emergence of new and sometimes fatal infectious diseases.

In 2005, scientists identified three horseshoe bat species (genus Rhinolophus) from China as the probable natural wildlife reservoir for the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) virus. SARS first emerged in China in 2002, infected about 8,000 people around the world in 2003 and killed more than 750 people; the cost to the global economy was more than $50 billion. SARS is one of several infectious diseases that emerged in the last decade in which bats have been identified as the probable wildlife reservoir. In the late 1990s, Nipah virus spilled over from pigs to humans in Malaysia, resulting in the death of 108 people. Old World fruit bats in the genus Pteropus (flying foxes) appear to be the original hosts of Nipah virus, the related Hendra virus, and probably Ebola virus.

From a conservation perspective, this would seem to be the final nail in the coffin of bat public relations. The health and economic impacts of Emerging Infectious Diseases are a global concern, and it is critical that outbreaks are controlled and minimized, but we must protect bats while addressing these diseases.

Large-scale culling programs - often the first response of beleaguered governments- are the last thing biologists and conservationists wish to see. Bats are a major and unique component of global biodiversity, and provide critical ecosystem and economic services as pollinators, seed dispersers and predators of insects. For example, in the Old World, more than 500 economically important products are derived from these plants pollinated or dispersed by bats - including favorites such as durian, petai, mango, banana, guava, figs, carob, cashew, avocado, dates, jackfruit and papaya. The durian trade alone is worth in excess US$1.5 billion annually.

Insectivorous bats consume a least half their body weight in insects every night. In a six month period, a single colony of Mexican free-tailed bats may consume over 2,450 metric tons of insects, which include the most damaging agricultural and forestry pests.

Ethical and conservation issues aside, eradication of host species is ineffective in managing disease. Seventy years of aggressive campaigns to eradicate vampire bats (sometimes deploying draconian methods such as poison gas or blasting) did little to control bovine rabies in South America but resulted in the destruction of millions of bats of many species. Eventually, ecological and behavioral research led to selective control methods that are now proving effective. Policy must be based on solid research.

In the wild, host bat species show little signs of infection by the viruses they harbor. These viruses have been present in bat populations for 1000s -maybe millions - of years, but have only emerged recently. Understanding why bat-borne viruses are emerging now is the key to predicting and minimizing future outbreaks.

Although bats can pass some diseases directly to humans, such as rabies, in many cases (including, Hendra, Nipah and SARS) there is no direct transmission of the virus from bats to people. The viruses usually infect an intermediate "amplifier" host that is in contact with both bats and humans. In SARS this host was the masked palm civet. These are naive hosts with little or no resistance to the pathogens, resulting in rapid replication of the virus. This promotes transmission to other individuals of the same species, and can lead to genetic modifications that enable the virus to jump to humans. In most cases transmission to humans has occurred only among people closely associated with an amplifier host. In China wildlife traders and restaurant owners were the first to become infected with SARS, which reached epidemic proportions because of human-human transmission.

Historically bats had very little contact with spillover hosts, certainly not enough to sustain an infectious virus. Civets are generally solitary; it was the unnatural aggregations in crowded wildlife markets supplying the wildlife meat trade in South China that enabled them to become potential hosts. Neither pigs nor horses are native to Australia and farm pigs in Malaysia are far removed from their wild boar relatives, so all these represent naive hosts. Intensive farming practices then promote the rapid spread of pathogens within local populations.

Introducing domestic livestock into remote areas, coupled with intensive animal husbandry practices, have created opportunities for these diseases to emerge. In the live markets of China, bats and bat products are widely sold for food and traditional medicine, bringing them into direct contact with other wildlife traded for meat such as civets. The outbreak of Nipah virus in Malaysia was similarly precipitated by human actions. Fruit bats throughout South East Asia and Australia have declined dramatically due to hunting and habitat loss; these stressors have led to changes in foraging behavior that can directly impact viral dynamics while bringing bats into close proximity with people and livestock. Pig consumption of fruit pulp spat out by the bats seems to be the route by which infected saliva and urine passed from bats to pigs in Malaysia, and the mode of transmission from bats to horses is probably similar. Infectious diseases have emerged due to human actions that affect the availability of amplifier hosts and the ecology of reservoir hosts. These diseases will not be controlled by controlling bats, but the risks could be minimized if links between reservoir species and spillover hosts are broken. In the short term, trade in wild animals for medicine and food increases the risks, and it is clear that domestic livestock should not be housed near fruit bat feeding trees. In the long-term, research on the interaction between host ecology, species-species transmission and human modification of the environment are the most likely means by which the emergence of new infectious diseases will be controlled.

Tigga Kingston, PhD, Sr Res Assoc, Geography & Environment Dept, BU, Director of the Malaysian Bat Conservation Research Unit, studies bat diversity in the threatened rainforests of SE Asia. Her work focuses on understanding the ecology, conservation biology and evolution of these vital mammals.

Towns work to identify, eliminate bacteria in river

By David Kaplan/ Special To The Tab

The Charles River’s Lower Basin is one of the most heavily trafficked recreation waters in Massachusetts, supporting thousands of boaters daily in peak summer months. Despite marked improvement in the river’s water quality from 1995, bacteria levels sometimes exceed Massachusetts’ standards for safe swimming and boating.

Illicit connections of sanitary sewer pipes to stormwater pipes are a significant source of bacterial pollution and can discharge untreated sanitary waste into the Charles River even in dry weather. "Federal policy requires towns to initiate stronger and more vigilant illicit connection detection and elimination programs," said Anna Eleria, environmental engineer at Charles River Watershed Association. "Watershed towns have responded with action plans to step up their efforts to reduce bacterial pollution in their water bodies."

Eleria cited work in Newton and Brookline involving water sampling and dye testing within the stormwater infrastructure to pinpoint potential sources of wastewater and remove the connections to the stormwater system.

According to Newton’s quarterly report to the US EPA, the overseeing body, on their progress in detecting and eliminating illicit connections, the city is in the process of mapping and sampling stormwater catch basins and outfall locations to determine areas of concern for future analysis and action. In their report, Brookline officials estimate that nine illicit connections and nearly 3,500 gallons per day of wastewater flows have already been removed from the stormwater drainage system.

The Charles River also receives bacteria and other pollution from raw sewage released from combined sewer outfalls during heavy rain events. Combined sewers are antiquated systems originally designed to collect and convey a combination of both stormwater and sanitary wastewater directly into a lowland waterbody.

The Massachusetts Water Resources Authority collects combined wastewater in interceptor pipes and pumps it to the Deer Island Wastewater Treatment Plant in Winthrop. To prevent sewers from backing up into homes, combined sewer overflows are activated when inflow exceeds the treatment plant’s capacity, dumping millions of gallons of treated and untreated sewage into the river each year.

Boston and Cambridge still have combined systems and are working towards their eventual separation, which will reduce inflow to the treatment plant and decrease the frequency of CSO discharges. Cambridge recently separated sewerage in the Cambridgeport area and has more projects on the horizon. Separating systems is both time-consuming and costly, but must be done to secure the future health of the Charles River and its boaters.

Acknowledging the public’s need for better, "real-time" water quality information, CRWA, with financial aid from federal, state and local government programs created and implemented a water quality monitoring and public notification project in 1998. The program completed its eighth successful season in October 2005 with its assessment of bacteria levels for the Head of the Charles Regatta.

"Samples taken from the Charles are analyzed for fecal coliform bacteria, which signals the presences of human and animal waste and is also an indicator of other, more harmful bacteria," said Ariel Dekovic, who manages daily notification of the flag colors. "The models predict daily fecal coliform bacteria concentrations, and the probability that these concentrations exceed the Massachusetts state water quality standard for safe boating conditions."

The program relies on a combination of water quality sampling and the use of statistical models developed by CRWA in 2002 in collaboration with U.S. Geological Survey and Tufts University.

David Kaplan, MA (Environmental Mgmt, Duke University), was a CRWA intern in 2000 and is now one of their Watershed Scientists. He is proficient in GIS, and has worked extensively on water quality projects.

Opinion: Chicken Little was right

By Lois Levin/ Special To The Tab

Your childhood fears were not irrational. It’s a dangerous world. Marvelous medical and technological innovations bring us many comforts, information at lightning speed, and can rescue us from the jaws of death, but we are nonetheless becoming more vulnerable to environmental collapse and to pandemics.

These two looming threats are interrelated. The planet can support billions of people, but some of them, and enormous quantities of goods and natural resources, travel rapidly around the globe every day. Toxic substances are dispersed unrelentingly into the air, water, soil; the planet warms, disrupting all of Earth’s ecosystems.

There have been many pandemics in human history. Viruses mutate and cross into human populations from contact with wild animals, moving as rapidly as people and goods around the planet, as hitchhikers. They include: Avian Flu, West Nile Virus, SARS, Ebola and HIV/AIDS. We have no natural immunity to these viruses, which spread wherever people congregate.

Avian flu, in particular, threatens the entire planet as fast as our efficient transportation systems are moving passengers. We have the knowledge today to develop vaccines and to implement immunization programs against these diseases, but not rapidly enough to prevent large numbers of deaths and great human suffering. Viruses spread like wildfire after escaping from a wild population and mutating.

We cannot keep apace of Emerging Infectious Disease (EIDs). It took nearly two years for SARS viruses to get to the first human trials, and it will take another two years before safe general distribution is possible. And immunizing all at-risk individuals is impossible.

The underlying problems are: (1) Deforestation – humans are unrelentingly invading and destroying wildlife habitat, and (2) inadequate control of wildlife commerce. Even a crash program to produce enough vaccine for everyone within our borders would not solve those dilemmas. And we cannot, like Osama bin Laden, all move to caves in remote mountains.

EID is a global issue. The major burden of its costs to the environment and to human health are borne by the public. Most national governments have limited resources, but the rich nations and big corporations can afford to underwrite immunization programs in countries where cases of bird flu are now occurring. Such programs, albeit reactive measures, could immunize all the farmers who handle poultry as well as their families, and could closely monitor the local people who are at greatest risk. This is an approach that requires a shift in thinking beyond the current focus on domestic interventions. But immunization programs are not enough.

We have much work to do to convince our own government and multinational corporations to take proactive actions to address this looming crisis. That means looking at the big picture. It means implementing tried and true conservation measures to stop deforestation and to control illegal wildlife trade – the reasons that these diseases are emerging in the first place.

Lois Levin, PhD, a Green Decade Coalition board member, coordinates the Environment Page of the Newton TAB.

Toxic confusion: a thousand points of … dirt?

By Jill Hahn / Special To The Tab

Do you think you ought to be able to find out what toxic chemicals are being released in your community?

So did the U.S. government after the 1984 Bhopal disaster, when chemicals released from a Union Carbide plant in India killed thousands of people. That’s when the Toxics Release Inventory program was created. The TRI program requires companies and federal facilities of a certain size to provide annual reports of their releases of toxic chemicals to the Environmental Protection Agency, which then makes the information available to the public.

For example, let’s look at our own county, Middlesex County. The TRI informs us that from 1988 to 2002 (the period for which reports are available), Middlesex County scored in the top 20 percent of dirtiest counties in the U.S. for pounds released into the air of recognized carcinogens, developmental toxicants, and reproductive toxicants on the TRI list (Scorecard: the Pollution Information site, http://www.scorecard.org/env-releases). Useful information.

However, the EPA now seems to be backing away from its almost twenty-year commitment to keeping the public well-informed about toxic chemicals. It has recently proposed three changes to TRI reporting (http://www.epa.gov/tri/)):

1. Move from annual reporting to every-other-year reporting. But many facilities show huge shifts in emissions from year to year, so every-other-year reporting could be misleading.

2. Allow facilities to release 10 times as much pollution before being required to report. This provision would raise the maximum Annual Reportable Amount from 500 to 5,000 pounds.

3. Permit facilities to withhold details on low-level production of persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic chemicals like mercury, lead, and dioxin. But PBT chemicals, which the EPA has identified as "chemicals of special concern," can travel long distances, remain dangerous for long periods of time, and are particularly harmful to children and developing fetuses.

Why do these changes matter? Federal and state policy makers need access to adequate information in order to make decisions that protect our health, safety, and environment. Every regulatory program at the EPA relies on the TRI for data on specific toxic chemicals released to the environment. These data need to be as accurate (able to track the year-to-year variability) and comprehensive (requiring reporting on chemicals of special concern) as possible.

The EPA, in announcing its proposed changes, only cites as its rationale for the changes the burden reporting places on industry (http://www.epa.gov/tri/). It does not offer any health justification, or show any evidence that less than 5000 pounds of toxic output annually is not harmful to the environment. Is the lightening of this reporting burden, which the EPA itself says has been made significantly less costly through improvements in reporting software, a trade-off that benefits the public?

The comment period for the TRI Burden Reduction Proposed Rule extends until January 13, 2006. If you are interested in learning more, a good place to start is the web site of the Union of Concerned Scientists, (http://ucsaction.org/campaign/11_30_05_toxic_release_inventory/explanation), or the EPA’s web site, (http://www.epa.gov/tri/).

Jill Hahn, a Newton Highlands resident, is a biologist, a writer, and a mom. All three roles contribute to her passion about environmental issues. She can be reached at jkkhahn@comcast.net.

Wednesday, November 9, 2005

The squirrel’s dilemma: acorn or tulip bulb?

By Bruce Wenning/ Special To The Tab

Last fall did you loose a lot of your precious tulip bulbs to the gray squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis), chipmunk (Tamias striatus), and meadow vole (Microtus pennsylvanicus)? I did at Habitat, the Mass Audubon sanctuary in Belmont where I'm the grounds manager. We plant 2,000 tulip bulbs every November for beautifying our formal gardens each spring. Last fall we lost close to 600 tulip bulbs to the above mentioned rodents. They were dug up and eatened for a highly nutrious meal and adequate moisture source during the droughty weather that prevailed. The meadow vole was very successful at feeding on our tulip bulbs even under the pristine snow cover. Those bandits!

What caused this change in feeding behavior to become so drastic and satisfying to them and troublesome to gardeners? The droughty years that began in 1993 and lasted more or less until 2004. Acorns are the fruits (and seeds) of oak trees and the main staple of squirrels while still on the tree. The calories stored in acorns is in the form of fat and other organic compounds that help squirrels, and other animals, get through the winter months. Squirrels prefer to feed immediately on the acorns of White Oak (Quercus alba) and will bury the high tannin content acorns of Red Oak (Q. rubra) and Black Oak (Q. velutina) for eating at a later date. Acorns are buried at shallow depths for better olfactory detection. Experiments have proven that squirrels find their buried acorns by smelling them and not by memory.

During droughty years, oak trees, as other tree species, become stressed due to a lack of adequate water for growth and reproduction. Part of an oak trees carbohydrate root reserves are allocated to the reproductive cycle of the tree each year. When plants are stressed by un-seasonal temperature extremes, nutrient deficiencies or prolonged drought, particularly during their flower development and pollen dispersal, seed production can be greatly reduced. During drought the threat of death increases which prompts many trees to allocate close to 50 percent of these reserves to leaf and root production to ensure survival and away from energy depleting reproduction (producing seeds). This was the scenario last fall with oak trees. Successive years of prolonged drought shifted these reserves away from acorn production. The acorn population simply crashed. In addition, when drought occurs early in the growing season the flowers of oaks are fed upon by squirrels preventing their fate of development into acorns in the fall. Therefore, drought was the culprit that turned the squirrels, chipmunks and voles from acorns and other natural foods to tulip bulbs. Tulip gardens showed the damage this past spring with incomplete blooms or no tulip flowers at all.

This year I see acorns! Hopefully, many of our rodent friends will spare our tulip bulbs and stick with their natural foods. To protect tulip bulbs from squirrels and other rodents, I have found two non-toxic strategies. The first is covering your tulip bulb beds with unsightly hardware cloth (wire) with quarter inch holes. Secure the edges with bricks, logs or other heavy objects. Planting your tulip bulbs closer to Thanksgiving gives squirrels and chipmunks more time away from your attractive tulip bulbs and more time caching acorns and other nuts and seeds.

The second strategy is spring protection. When tulips are emerging from the soil, apply a wax-based hot pepper spray to the foliage to deter rabbits, squirrels and chipmunks from seeking moisture by nibbling the tulip stems that support the bloom.

There are hot pepper spray concoctions on the market, but not wax-based. To buy the longer lasting wax-based pepper spray contact Ben E. Daniels Company in Plympton, MA. www.benedaniels.com, (800)-854-7988. I have tried this spray and it works.

Bruce Wenning, a plant pathologist and entomologist, is property manager of MA Audubon Society's Habitat Education Center and Wildlife Sanctuary (Belmont). He is on the Board of Directors of the Ecological Landscaping Association, www.ecolandscaping.org.

Green meets blue in an urban environment

By Pallavi Mande / Special To The Tab

While many people are aware of the importance of reducing the environmental impacts of new development on green, open land, there is less emphasis placed on the environmental impacts of development in cities. Yet the relationship between the environment and development is equally important in urban areas. The impacts of urbanization on water are pervasive. Because little rainwater can penetrate the impervious surfaces that cities create, those surfaces deplete groundwater reserves, which in turn depletes the amount of water in our rivers.

"CRWA, known for its work in protecting, preserving and enhancing the Charles River and its watershed, is creating a new approach to urban redevelopment," said Bob Zimmerman, executive director of Charles River Watershed Association. "We want to build 'blue cities' - cities that are designed to sustain and restore water resources."

City infrastructure, comprised of roads, buildings, sidewalks, parking lots, and more, is often designed without taking into consideration the natural flow of water, which often aggravates flooding problems. Because there is nowhere else for water to go, urban rivers are overwhelmed with polluted runoff during rainstorms, exacerbating flooding and pollution problems in the river.

"Urban redevelopment projects present tremendous opportunities to improve the environment, reverse degradation, and correct mistakes," said Kate Bowditch, senior environmental scientist and project manager at CRWA. "The most successful urban renewal incorporates environmental restoration, because of the proven economic benefits as well as because it generates widespread public support."

Existing policy and regulations already require redevelopment projects to reduce polluted runoff, increase groundwater recharge, and conserve water. In many cases, especially in Boston, where Mayor Thomas Menino and the Boston Redevelopment Authority are adopting Green Building standards, redevelopment projects are also adopting practices such as green roofs, water reuse, and incorporation of public open space.

"While these building-scale efforts are a huge step in the right direction, there is much more that can be done at the neighborhood level," said Bowditch. "Redevelopment provides the opportunity to encourage developers to look for ways to participate in improving the neighborhood, and can leverage other public and private investments as well." She added that larger infrastructure improvements to the water and sewer systems, transportation systems, open space and pedestrian amenities, and the urban ecosystem should all be considered whenever large-scale urban development is occurring.

As a case in point, over the next 50 years Harvard University intends to develop over 200 acres it now owns in North Allston to create a new campus south of the Charles. The project presents an opportunity to change current development practices, and create a new approach to planning that is environmentally sensitive and "water friendly".

CRWA has developed partnerships with the participants involved with the Harvard project- Harvard University, the BRA and the residents of the North Allston community. As the Institutional Master Plan for the new campus begins to take shape, CRWA is working closely with each participant group to further the goal of environmental sustainability.

A parallel opportunity exists on Newton's border, as Boston College (BC) plans to develop the 43 acres of land in Brighton that it purchased in 2004 from the Archdiocese of Boston. Like all colleges in Boston, BC must participate in the Boston Redevelopment Authority's institutional master planning process, which requires the school to keep a master plan on file with the city. Changes to the plan, such as major development on new land, require not only city approval but also neighborhood participation. Thus, there exists a tremendous opportunity for large institutional development projects to incorporate measures for environmental restoration and resource conservation. This will have both short-term benefits and will help to achieve sustainability in the longer term.

One of the country's first watershed organizations, CRWA was formed in 1965 in response to public concern about the declining condition of the Charles River. CRWA has figured prominently in major clean-up and watershed protection efforts that have dramatically improved the health of the Charles.

Pallavi Mande is an urban restoration specialist with the Charles River Watershed Association.

Improving ocean management

By Michelle Portman/ Special To The Tab

One of the most controversial projects of the decade in our region is the wind farm proposed for Nantucket Sound. This project has environmentalists, longtime Cape Cod property owners, politicians, energy experts and concerned citizens throughout the state and the entire country taking sides. Should private companies be given a license to profit from marketable commodities produced on seabed that is public domain? Should the impact to unspoiled ocean vistas outweigh the potential benefits from the production of renewable energy? And should the authority of the federal government trump that of landside states simply because a project barely lies across an arbitrary line of jurisdiction?

These questions have prompted the state's renewed interest in ocean management. Offshore use projects are becoming more common and varied. Recent technological advances are making new ocean uses possible. Also, many types of projects are becoming increasingly difficult or impossible to site on land. Available land is scarce while limitations as to what can be built where are increasing. For years there has been controversy around offshore oil production in other parts of the country, for example, in California and Florida. In Massachusetts, recent offshore proposals include not only wind projects but wave energy developments, liquefied natural gas pipelines, fiber optic cable lines and sand and gravel mining.

In an effort to develop proactive governance to replace what has traditionally been a "first come, first serve" approach, state administrators convened an Ocean Management Task Force in 2003. Charged with developing a new Ocean Management Plan, the Task Force met approximately 30 times over 10 months, held six public meetings and received more than 300 public comments.

So, what does the Task Force have to show for their efforts? A report called Waves of Change was produced and made available to the public in March 2004. It recommends strengthening state agencies to address environmental, planning and public trust issues in both state and federal waters, establishing an ecosystem-based protocol to improve management of offshore areas, and initiating ocean education and stewardship initiatives.

In the area of governance, the task force recommended strengthening the Ocean Sanctuaries Act and the Public Waterfront Act (also known as Chapter 91) two existing regulatory programs, currently of questionable effectiveness. Earlier this year, Governor Romney filed the Ocean Resources and Conservation Act that would allow the state to assert greater control over its ocean territories and would implement some of the Task Force recommendations aimed at more proactive governance.

As for management tools, the Task Force recommends convening a work group to address the designation of marine protected areas, increasing enforcement of existing environmental laws pertaining to the ocean and waterways, and developing inventories of the uses and resources of the state's marine waters. To manage potential impacts of new projects, the Task Force recommended developing methodologies and standards for the analysis of visual, cultural and aesthetic impacts of projects proposed for state waters.

Some of the most interesting and far-sighted recommendations of the Task Force have to do with improving scientific understanding of our marine environment. These include establishing a marine and fishery scientists group to advise the state, developing an ocean monitoring and research plan, a seafloor mapping program and standards for review of data submitted by project proponents. The Task Force also recommends that the state commit to developing an ocean literacy and stewardship "ethic" among Massachusetts residents, outreach mechanisms and greater dissemination of marine data collected to the public at large.

Certainly, our knowledge of the ocean, marine ecosystems and resources are so lacking that these steps are necessary at a minimum. But, the question remains whether the work of Ocean Management Task Force will contribute to wise proactive conservation of sensitive public resources in the near future. We now know, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the consequences of debating coastal issues ad naseum, postponing conservation measures and neglecting what goes on in the less visible, submerged domains of our environment. Will the conclusions of ocean experts make significant contributions to wiser ocean use, lead to further unfunded mandates or get slogged down while in their infancy and buried in the mud flats long before the tide rises? This remains to be seen.

To read more on Massachusetts' Ocean Management Initiative see: http://www.mass.gov/czm/oceanmanagement/index.htm.

Michelle Portman is a Ph.D. candidate studying marine conservation policy at UMassBoston and she works as an environmental analyst.

A great catch!

By Emily Long and Luke Johnson/ Special To The Tab

New England is certainly linked in peoples' minds with lobsters. On a mid-western college tour, we were informed by our tour guide sporting shorts with little red lobsters that he was from New England. Lobsters are commonly found here in a big boiling pot or on a bib covered in buttery lobster juice, but how much do we really know about them? Do we ever stop to think what kind of lives these crustaceans might live outside of the plate in front of us?

Trevor Corson's "The Secret Life of Lobsters" offers an intellectual awakening on an anecdotal plate. He interweaves stories of lobstermen and scientists, offering a hint of the friction between the two groups, while demonstrating their common love of lobsters. Having spent his childhood summers on Little Cranberry Island, Corson developed an early interest in lobstering and he gained a general appreciation of the village's economic dependence on the lobster industry. Later in his life, he spent two years working full-time aboard a lobster boat and gained a much deeper appreciation of lobstering: "I wanted to be a marine biologist when I grew up, but also a commercial fisherman."

The non-fiction book takes the reader directly into the lobster's world. We travel into the traps at the bottom of the ocean, to a scientist's make-shift lobster town equipped with video cameras. Occasionally, Corson takes us back in time to discuss issues of over-fishing and to speculate about future generations of lobsters and lobstermen. Corson's witty parallels between humans and lobsters make the book especially interesting. In one section he dramatizes the mating rituals of lobsters by making allusions to their human counterparts, as when he described a female molting before mating: "a few minutes later, she fell over on her side, unzipped the back of her shell, and began to wiggle." In another chapter, Corson graphically describes male lobster fights in parallel with descriptions of the battles between lobstermen and scientists regarding lobster conservation.

The book provides insight into lobster politics, discussing how people use lobsters as a resource. Scientists are constantly working for the preservation of lobsters, while fishermen are juggling the preservation of lobsters with the preservation of their livelihood and their families. In the book, you hear these two groups really listening to each other. In one scene, scientists, skeptical of the lobstermen's preservation efforts, witness a lobster haul and are amazed by the large number of lobsters tossed back into the sea. Throughout the book, the two groups are always learning new things about each other, resulting in a new level of mutual respect.

The writing style is laid back and Corson conveys his message in a playful manner. He has an informative voice, but the scientific information and historical references are not overemphasized, so the story narrative flows. He takes basic biological and behavioral facts and shows their complexity. At times it is like a lobster soap opera.

You might say that Corson has a talent for conveying lobster personalities. He describes the drama of lobsters that have been placed into artificial environments with a clarity that keeps you wanting to read more. There were moments when our minds drifted from the page, especially when nautical jargon was involved - yet we yearned to get back to the action underwater!

There's a profound conservation lesson to be learned from this book.

Studying lobsters is a window into our environment. Lobstermen do not set out to catch every lobster they can. They are aware of the impact of their actions on the lobster population so they set standards to control overfishing, standards that exceed those set by scientists and lawmakers. This book enriched our knowledge of lobster fishermen and of the workings of the lobster fishery. As the title implies, there's more to lobsters than most of us know. The author makes us see why scientists and fishermen care about lobsters. If you read this book, you, too, will understand the fascination and intrigue of lobsters.

Emily Long and Luke Johnson are seniors at Newton North High School. They wrote an opinion piece for the TAB last year based on a year-long Biology project. Having discovered that the TAB is a useful link to the community, they will continue contributing to the Environment page because they want to increase public awareness of environmental issues.

More dangers of mercury

By Gilbert Woolley/ Special To The Tab

Mercury, even in very small amounts, is a potent neurotoxin (poison) for the rapidly developing nervous systems of young children and the fetus in the womb. In a previous article we warned that mercury can be ingested by eating some seafoods.¹

Another direct route into the body is from dental amalgam used to fill our teeth. Often referred to as "silver," 50 percent of amalgam is actually mercury. Saliva gradually erodes the amalgam so that mercury is absorbed into the bloodstream. Also, mercury vapor is emitted from amalgam and inhaled. Mercury from amalgam is suspected of causing certain neurological conditions.

For many years polymeric (non-metallic) compounds have been used widely and successfully to replace amalgam. If you are thinking of having your amalgam fillings removed, this must be done with extreme care, in order to limit the amount of mercury entering your body. Make sure that your dentist knows about this. Women who are pregnant or anticipate becoming pregnant should not have amalgam fillings removed.

Mercury in the environment

Mercury enters the environment in several ways. Dental amalgam is a major source. It is estimated that forty tons of mercury are used every year in the US in dental amalgam and much of that will eventually be removed when fillings are replaced and either flushed into sewers or disposed of in the trash.

Some uses of mercury are dangerous to people and the environment only when they break or are disposed of after the end of useful life. A common example is the mercury in glass thermometer, often disposed of in regular trash and, as it is in Newton, incinerated. Mercury vapor from the incinerator condenses and falls on gardens, fields, lakes and streams. Alcohol (in glass) thermometers and electronic thermometers are widely available and offer inexpensive replacements.

Many older fluorescent light tubes and some other types of bulbs contain mercury and should be recycled and not disposed of as solid waste.

Another use of mercury is as an electrical contact. It is the only metal that is liquid at room temperature and is also a good conductor of electricity. It is the switching element in the familiar thermostat on the wall of your house and also in "tilt switches" such as those that let a driver know that the trunk lid is open. Mercury for these switches is also enclosed in a glass tube and is no danger to the user. However, unless the switches are removed from a device or appliance when it is no longer in use it is very likely that the glass tube will be broken and the mercury released into the ground - or, worse, in vapor from a trash incinerator.

Temperature controllers in homes mostly last as long as the house is standing, but automobiles have a short life and are usually crushed and turned into scrap metal. It is safe to assume that mercury switches are not commonly removed before crushing, so that mercury vapor is released in the smokestack of the steel furnace. Today, solid state switches can replace mercury in almost all applications, and often at a lower cost.

Recycling

Mercury is very costly and is easily recycled, but in many applications, the quantity used is minuscule and the cost of recapturing it far exceeds its value.

A precautionary approach suggests that mercury should be used only if it can be positively shown that there is no substitute. If this principle were followed, there would be very little mercury in the waste stream. Requiring manufacturers to take back components containing mercury at end of a product's useful life is probably the most effective way to get them to use the many available replacement materials for this environmental toxin and it would stimulate discovery of new replacement materials.

To learn more about this subject, try Google.

¹A recent Harvard School of Public Health study claims that the 2004 FDA/EPA advisory warning pregnant women and young children not to eat certain fish species and to limit their consumption of albacore tuna, may have done more harm than good, by discouraging people who are not at risk from eating all kinds of seafood. However, the advisory clearly warns against only a few fish species and specifically targets pregnant women and young children. Some of us have questioned the part of the advisory that recommends eating as much as 6 oz of albacore a week. We also feel that the advisory is not well written and takes too long to get to the point, so it is confusing, and suspect that it has not always been reported accurately in the media.

Gilbert Woolley is a retired engineer. He has been a very active member of the Sierra Club since 1971, and he served on the Sierra Club National Toxics Committee for six years.

Fish is still good food

By Lois A. Levin/ Special To The Tab

Many species of fish that were once abundant have become scarce. In fact, there is increasing evidence that wild fish stocks are collapsing all over the world.

Fish is an extremely healthy food, despite the serious problem of mercury contamination of many fish species. (The US government has issued warnings that some types of fish are especially risky for pregnant women and children.)

How are responsible shoppers supposed to know which types of fish are harvested sustainably, so that we can all continue to enjoy this healthy food?

In our area, we are fortunate to have markets and restaurants that offer environmentally-responsible fish options. Here is the list of "best Eco-choices"from Environmental Defense's Oceans Alive Campaign:

Abalone (US farmed)

Anchovies

Arctic char (US & Canadian farmed)

Catfish (US farmed)

Caviar (US farmed)

Clams (butter, geoducks, hard, littlenecks, Manila)

Crab (Dungeness, snow from Canada, stone)

Crawfish (US)

Halibut (from Alaska)

Herring (Atlantic sea herring)

Mackerel (Atlantic)

Mahimahi/dolphinfish (US from the Atlantic)

Mussels (farmed blue, New Zealand green)

Oysters (farmed Eastern, European, Pacific)

Sablefish/black cod (from Alaska)

Salmon (wild from Alaska)

Sardines

Scallops (farmed bay)

Shrimp (Northern from Newfoundland, US farmed)

Spot prawns

Striped bass (farmed)

Sturgeon (farmed)

Tilapia (US)

For more information on these and hundreds of other fish, visit www.oceansalive.org/eat.cfm. Pocket Seafood Selector (c)September 2005 Environmental Defense, New York, NY

Permission to reprint this info given to GDC's Marcia Cooper (marciac@aol.com) on Oct. 6 by Kathleen Goldstein (KGoldstein@environmentaldefense.org).

Wednesday, October 5, 2005

Mega-malls in your future?

By Rachael Lax/ Special To The Tab

Imagine spending the weekend at a five-star hotel powered entirely by renewable energy, dining at top-end restaurants in the glow of solar-powered light, and passing a perfect spring day kayaking along a calm river running through the Adirondacks. Sound like an environmentalist's dream vacation? Probably not, if this getaway is Robert Congel's proposed mega-mall, DestiNY U.S.A.

Scheduled to begin construction this summer in Syracuse, N.Y., the $20 billion "retail-and entertainment complex" of 1,000 shops and restaurants, 80,000 hotel rooms and a 40,000 seat arena will be powered completely by alternative energy sources. Congel envisions this shopping haven to be the world's biggest attraction, bringing in millions of people from around the globe. Not only will guests find all the top-of-the-line shops and major chains, they will also enjoy the biosphere-produced spring-like climate, an artificial mountain peak and a river for kayaking. Moreover, not a single tractor or crane will use fossil fuels in the construction of the complex. Although it sounds like a valiant effort to model and promote mass use of renewable energy, DestiNY may actually be as false as its faux ponds and mountain peaks.

How environment-friendly can a mall really be?

For starters, by encouraging and embracing consumerism, DestiNY defies the environmentalists' motto: "Recycle, Reduce, Reuse." Regardless of its energy sources, a mall is a mall; its primary purpose is to attract consumers to consume more material goods, which will therefore pollute the environment, epitomizing and magnifying the problems of our growing disposable culture. Furthermore, DestiNY is boasted as a post-fossil-fuel project and is expected to attract millions of visitors, but ironically, the only means of transportation to upstate N.Y. is fossil-fuel powered cars and planes, further encouraging fossil-fuel use and pollution. And doesn't the term environment-friendly imply some appreciation for nature? DestiNY will be located in the Adirondacks, one of the most naturally beautiful regions of the United States, yet visitors to the resort will be encapsulated in a fake climate, encouraged to appreciate only the synthetic mountain and artificial river.

Congel, a commercial real-estate developer, is currently owner of 25 malls. He is a businessman, not an environmentalist, and his motives are suspect. He claims that DestiNY, which will be bigger and better than Disney, will save upstate New York's declining economy. The locals are skeptical, like the architect who said: "He is hardly interested in the environment or the well-being of anything in the city aside from his financial interests." Because Congel is expected to receive significant government funding and enormous tax breaks from the state, his professed concern for our planet looks more like a thinly disguised effort to exploit growing public environmental concern.

On the other hand, perhaps DestiNY offers a unique opportunity for public education. Promoting alternate energy sources through a multibillion-dollar project will surely bring environmental issues to the public's attention. And beyond merely modeling the use of alternative power sources, the project has enormous potential to encourage mechanisms for mitigating the destructive effects of consumerism. Could there in fact be ways to meld consumerism and concern for the environment? Imagine: electronic retail stores that encourage trading in old items to be refurbished and resold; clothing stores that promote clothes drives, supermarkets that sponsor food drives, and DestiNY could choose to give an enormous boost to the use of shopping bags, shipping boxes and receipts made from recycled materials. In theory, a mega-mall could stimulate change, but DestiNY U.S.A., regardless of its proclaimed virtue, may sadly be just another example of unsustainable growth.

Rachael Lax, Wesleyan University 2006, is a Newton North graduate. A psychology major, she spent this past summer working as an intern for the Newton Office of Volunteer Services and volunteered for the Green Decade Coalition.

The writing’s on the water

By M. G. Criscitiello, MD/ Special To The Tab

Book Review

“Confluence: A River, The Environment, Politics, & The Fate of All Humanity," by Nathaniel Tripp, 161 pages, Steerforth Press, Hanover, N.H. 2005 - $21.

"Buzzards Bay: A Journey of Discovery," by Daniel Sheldon Lee, 229 pages, Commonwealth Editions, Beverly, MA 2004 - $24.95.

Newton environmentalists have welcomed recent improvements in the water quality and general health of the Charles River and of Boston Harbor. Reduction in pollution, restoration of fish life, and the addition of waterside pathways, parks and other amenities have added up to a large plus in the lives of Greater Bostonians. Only a little removed from us are two other important bodies of water, the Connecticut River and Buzzards Bay, both deserving of our attention. Recently published books by two journalist/naturalists have shed light on the unhappy history of environmental challenges to these major waterways. Nathaniel Tripp, author and part-time farmer in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, has served on the Connecticut River Joint Commission, also on municipal zoning boards. This has brought him into regular contact with power company officials, loggers, dairy farmers, scientists, fishing interests, real estate lobbyists, property owners and many advocacy groups. He describes the interests and actions of each of these parties, viewed against the background of his own intimate knowledge of the river, one of New England's major watersheds.

He recalls the 1930's era of dam construction, focusing especially on those built in the Fifteen Mile Falls region along the upper reaches of the river. The creation of large reservoirs above these dams allowed the New England Power Company to control the release of water in order to generate electricity in response to peak demand from cities and factories, many of them farther south in Massachusetts. This was quite profitable, but these daily alterations in river flow interfered with the usual seasonal cycles, resulting in marked changes in the downstream riverbed, its vegetation and its fish life. As the power company bought land along the river valley, many people were forced to leave the region, and there was a marked change in the economy of nearby rural regions of Vermont and New Hampshire. Also, the remaining dairy farms and woodlands came increasingly under the ownership of large conglomerates, and as outside ownership increased, life in the small villages along the upper river changed markedly. Tripp does inject much local color into his story, included, for example, are his accounts of instructing local school children in the ways of the river, of his annual canoe trip downriver with Gov. Howard Dean, and of his trek into Quebec to investigate complaints of the Northern Cree over the building of power lines in their territory.

For many years there has been an attempt to restore Atlantic Salmon as a breeding species in the Connecticut River. This effort appeals even to those environmentalists who don't fish, but Tripp offers words of concern about its impact on other native fish species. He also notes that salmon restoration is viewed by many to be of benefit primarily to wealthy sportsmen, with neglect of some less glamorous species important to the dinner table of local fishermen. He warns us - "One of the greatest vulnerabilities of the environmental movement is its elitist reputation. This characterization finds an especially ready ear among the rural American farmers, woodsmen, and mill workers who live close to the outdoors and are already being stressed for economic as well as for social reasons."

This slim volume contains many interesting anecdotes about people and places along the Connecticut, told in an informal style. Underneath it all, the author doesn't try to hide his anger at human greed, and he admonishes those who "came along and tried to subjugate nature without really understanding the long-term consequences of what they were doing". Only in his final chapters does he use the fate of the Connecticut River as an example of what is happening in larger scale around the world - a brief fulfillment of the book's somewhat ambitious-sounding subtitle.

Daniel Lee's story of Buzzard's Bay is more wide ranging in its scope. For example it includes an historical account of how the Bay was used for food and transportation by Native Americans of Southeastern Massachusetts in the era before Bartholomew Gosnold's 1602 arrival. Each chapter covers a single topic such as the attempt to preserve threatened bird life on shores and islands, the impact of hurricanes on towns around the Bay, the status of commercial fisheries, the role of the special summer school for boys on Penikese Island, and the changing patterns of wildlife around the Bay. Conservation issues are discussed in each case, and the author includes much information gained from interviews with various environmental experts as he accompanies them in the field.

He acquaints us with the "Coalition for Buzzards Bay," a key watchdog group which monitors water quality and provides an annual "report card" for each bordering community, listing its level of success in controlling the release of pollutants. He reports on the effects of the oil spills of the past few decades and the continuing hazard of transporting two billion gallons of oil through the Bay each year! He reminds us, however, that the greatest overall threat to the water is from sewage generated by the increasing population around Buzzards Bay. Conventional septic systems and wastewater treatment plants do not prevent nitrogen derived from these sources from reaching Bay waters. Released from such human waste, and also from heavy use of fertilizers on farms, lawns and golf courses, nitrogen leads to overgrowth of algae and subsequent drop in oxygen content of the water. It is feared that this will fall to levels no longer permitting marine organisms to survive.

Both of these books, short as they are, provide easy reading and much useful information for the environmentally-minded.

Modestino Criscitiello, a retired cardiologist, is Professor of Medicine, Emeritus, Tufts University School of Medicine. He is a Board member of the Newton Conservator and host of the Conservators' Environmental Show on NewTV

1-2-3’s of Recycling Plastics

By Ira Krepchin and Barbara Herson/ Special To The Tab

What to do with all that plastic! In the hit '60s movie "The Graduate," the one word career counseling that Dustin Hoffman's character, Benjamin Braddock, heard was "Plastics." While Braddock didn't follow that advice, plenty of people did, so that today that material, the antithesis of biodegradeable, is everywhere in the environment. And one word doesn't cover it.

However, seven numbers go a long way towards understanding plastics, at least from a recycling perspective. We're all familiar with the "chasing arrows" symbol - the set of arrows arrayed in a triangular pattern around a number that ranges from one through seven. Contrary to popular belief, that symbol does not indicate recyclability; it's simply the industry standard way of denoting the type of plastic that a container is made of. The plastics represented by the different numbers have different characteristics, such as different melting points and different additives, which affect the way they can be recycled.

In Newton, we're fortunate that we can recycle all seven types- - our processing plant in Charlestown has markets for all of them. The company puts the recyclables onto a conveyor belt and sorts and cleans them before sending them on for remanufacturing. (To see the process in action, join us on a recycling tour on Oct 27. See calendar for details.) Types 1 and 2 are the easiest to handle and many communities limit their programs to those items. Type 1, known as PET, for polyethylene terephthalate, is typically used for soda bottles; it is easy to sort and clean, and can be used to make a range of products, including carpet fibers, fleece and plastic film. New PET material is expensive, which increases the incentive for recycling. Type 2 plastic, HDPE for high density polyethylene, is used for milk and detergent bottles - it's a little harder to clean, but it can be recycled into a number of products, including pallets, compost bins and detergent bottles.

Numbers do not tell the whole story. Take those plastic bags that you carry your groceries home in. They are usually made of #2 plastic, but they contain various dyes, plasticizers, UV inhibitors, softeners and other chemicals required to make them into a film. This mix of additives changes the properties of the plastic and make it incompatible with the plastic used to make bottles. Therefore, it is important that you place only stiff plastic containers numbered 1-7 in your green bin for recycling. Those grocery bags can either be reused or brought back to the store for recycling. They can also be woven together to form a durable tote bag that keeps the plastic out of the waste stream (contact Barbara Herson at 617-7961000 for instructions and patterns).

Then there is Styrofoam; although it may have arrows on it, and it is labeled #6, in fact is not plastic, so Newton cannot recycle it.

Recycling is only one part of the environmental picture for plastics. Plastics degrade through the recycling process, and unlike glass, typically can't be reused for their original purpose unless they are mixed with new materials. Recycling plastics in these products also does nothing to reduce the demand for making new plastic packaging. If, instead, manufacturers would reuse plastic in their packaging, the need for resource extraction would diminish. The rug industry, for instance, uses both recycled and virgin plastic to make polyester fiber. Some computer manufacturers are working to redesign their products for easy dismantling, reuse of components and recyclability. (For now, you can recycle old computers at Newton's Rumford Avenue facility.)

From the consumer perspective, source reduction is far preferable to recycling for many types of plastic, and it isn't difficult to do. So whenever possible, please use refillable containers, buy in bulk, buy products that don't need much packaging or products that come in recyclable and recycled packages.

Ira Krepchin is on the board of the Green Decade Coalition. Barbara Herson is Newton's recycling coordinator and is on the Board of Advisors of the Green Decade Coalition.

Useful chemical or dangerous toxin?

By Lucia Dolan/ Special To The Tab

More than 80,000 new chemicals have been created and released into our environment since World War II. Many of these chemicals, such as pesticides and flame-retardants, are in our children before they are even born. Rising rates of asthma, autism and cancer beg the question: Who decides which chemicals are safe?

Under our laws chemicals are innocent until proven guilty. It took many years, many deaths and many lawyers to prove the case against tobacco. In 1951, the first study linking smoking to cancer was published. The study motivated its author, Dr. Richard Doll, to give up smoking, but few others. Smoking was so ubiquitous; no one could believe it was truly harmful. Twenty-five years later, Dr. Doll published another study, which showed 1 in 3 smokers died from their habit. In 1998, California passed the first laws restricting smoking.

The Environmental Protection Agency has the ability to ban the manufacture and import of chemicals that pose an unreasonable risk. The last chemical the EPA banned was asbestos in 1989. In 1991, the asbestos ban was overturned and compliance made voluntary. We know many of the chemicals we use pose a risk. The question remains: when does a chemical's risk outweigh its benefits?

In 1989, Massachusetts became the first state to tackle this question with the passage of the Toxics Use Reduction Act. Instead of innocent until proved guilty, we are attempting to follow the Precautionary Principle, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The Precautionary Principle recognizes scientists often cannot fully predict the impact of toxins on our health. It calls for us to seek out the safest alternative within the limits of our knowledge. TURA seeks to reduce the use of toxins by either replacing them with safer alternatives or eliminating their need by redesigning a product's production process.

TURA was a compromise between environmental groups who wanted toxins banned and industry groups who used chemicals in their business. Our law is recognized as a success worldwide. TURA met its original goal to reduce toxic byproduct generation by 50 percent in 1998. Since 1990, toxic byproduct generation has been reduced another 58 percent and industrial toxic chemical use has dropped by 40 percent. TURA led to the creation of the Toxic Use Reduction Institute at Lowell. TURI researches and promotes safer alternatives to known toxic chemicals. One of the top toxic chemicals TURI is working to replace within our state is formaldehyde.

Formaldehyde, the embalming liquid, is a common source of indoor air pollution. It keeps more than frogs in jars looking fresh; it is used to make wrinkle-resistant clothing and draperies; it is in glues and in some paints (as a preservative). It is in prefabricated wood products all around us, flooring, tables, cabinets and chairs. These products release fumes into the air in quantities we can't smell but can detect in blood samples. Formaldehyde has been linked to both cancer and reproductive problems.

TURI is funded by industries who use toxic chemicals and by our state government. TURI's annual cost to the state is quite small, $250,000 for 2006, but often under attack in tight budget times when pennywise becomes toxic pound foolish. Fortunately, TURI receives strong support from our legislators, representatives Ruth Balser, Kay Khan, Peter Koutoujian and Sen. Cynthia Creem. Together with public support, they have helped keep TURI working towards a healthier tomorrow. For more information on safer alternatives to toxic chemicals, contact the Alliance for a Healthy Tomorrow at 617-338-8131 or www.healthytomorrow.org.

Lucia Dolan has a bachelor's degree in economics from Columbia and master's degree in library and info science from Berkeley. She is the mother of three young children and is district coordinator for the Alliance for a Healthy Tomorrow.

Fish good, Mercury bad!

By Gilbert Woolley/ Special To The Tab

Fish and other seafoods are excellent foods, low in fat, but rich in protein and Omega 3 fatty acids. Nutritionists advise that eating seafood regularly is good for your health and parents should encourage their children to eat this healthy food.

A number of seafoods, however, are heavily contaminated with mercury. Unfortunately, one of the most popular and affordable fish products, canned albacore tuna, is one of them. Mercury is a potent “neurotoxin”(it poisons the nervous system) and is especially harmful to the developing brains and nervous systems of young children and of the fetus in the womb. This can cause learning difficulties, delay mental development and the effects may be lifelong. To be safe, small children, pregnant women and women who may become pregnant (mercury persists in the blood for up a year) should not eat canned albacore (white”) tuna or tuna steaks. Moderate amounts of “light” tuna are OK.

The website of the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) advises that these sensitive groups should not eat swordfish, shark, king mackerel, grouper, tilefish and other large “predator fish” (fish that eat other fish) The Advisory states that pregnant women may eat up to six ounces of albacore tuna per week. Since the effects of mercury are so serious, several non-governmental organizations say that this far too high. So, why risk the brain of your child or unborn child? “Light” tuna has five or six times less mercury than albacore but it is still significant.

Mercury pollution of the oceans is a worldwide problem. The US contributes to it but is not, by any means, the only offender.

Fresh water fish may also be contaminated by mercury and Massachusetts advises pregnant women not to eat freshwater fish caught in the waters of the state. This mercury comes mostly from the smokestacks of coal-burning power plants, many located hundreds of miles away in Ohio and other coal mining states. Mercury is present in much of the coal mined in the US. When burned, it is released into the atmosphere in the form of vapor and carried down wind to the Northeast. Only the federal government can protect Massachusetts, but the federal government is proposing to relax standards for mercury emissions.

How much is too much?

· A 115 pound woman who consumes two cans of albacore tuna a week has a “mercury in blood” level more than three times that recommended by the FDA.

· A 45 pound child eating one can of albacore tuna a week would have more than four times the FDA recommended level

The “Sea Turtle Restoration Project” has a “seafood mercury calculator” on its website (http://www.gotmercury.org)

If you want to know more about mercury in tuna, do a “Google Search” on the two words “mercury” and “tuna”. You will get more information than you may have time to read.

Gilbert Woolley is a retired engineer. He has been a very active member of the Sierra Club since 1971, and he served on the Sierra Club National Toxics Committee for six years.

This article is archived at www.greendecade.org/tabarchive.asp.

Silent, secret invaders

By Bruce Wenning/ Special To The Tab

Throughout human history, people have been the major culprits behind the introduction and use of non-native plant species - often accidentally. Non-natives are termed invasive because they can colonize, spread and crowd out our native plant populations with ease sometimes with greater success than when growing in their native country or region of origin. Most are terrestrial; some are aquatic. This is a silent and secretive process, because there are no plant insect pests or disease symptoms attracting your attention. You see green plants in the woods, fields and gardens, implying that nothing is wrong, but you must look beyond the color green!

I am constantly battling invasive plants that have invaded the Audubon sanctuary where I am the property manager (Habitat, Belmont). These efforts to control invasives are long term, and without dedicated volunteers, they would consume most of my grounds department budget in labor costs each year. Just as an example, for seven years, a small group of volunteers and I have removed more than 25 acres of the invasive, exotic shrub, glossy buckthorn (Rhamnus frangula).

According to William Cullina, New England Wildflower Society (www.NEWFS.org), of the 2,814 plant species growing in Massachusetts, almost half of these (1,276) are introductions from Europe, Asia or other parts of the world. Many of these nonnatives, ranging from trees to shrubs to herbs, were intentionally selected and planted because of their specific characteristics - botanical, medicinal, agricultural, horticultural or ecological. Others were introduced by accident; left to their own devices; some of them simply got established.

Whether intentional or not, the long-term presence of most of these introduced plant species has had both powerful and subtle effects on the landscape. Invasives suppress the growth and establishment of our native flora by changing or influencing native plant succession; changing the quality and availability of pollen for bees and wasps; and altering the feeding behaviors of organisms dependent on native plants, among other things. This can have many detrimental effects on the health of our local ecosystems.

We have only limited knowledge of the destructive actions these nonnative plant species have on the many components of a healthy native ecosystem, and much research is needed to enable us to understand the mechanisms fully.

However, we are pretty good at defining what makes nonnative plants invasive. They have at least some of these seven characteristics (Randall, J M. and J Marinelli (Eds). 1996. Invasive Plants. Weeds of the Global Garden. Brooklyn Botanic Garden. p 95-96):

1. Invasive plants exhibit longer flowering and fruiting periods than native plants.

2. Some invasive plants leaf out earlier in the spring and retain their leaves longer into the fall, providing an advantage over natives by photosynthesizing longer.

3. Invasive plants can reproduce by vegetative growth and seed.

4. Invasive plants are more attractive to birds and mammals that help distribute them longer distances than wind.

5. Invasive plants produce more seeds (sometimes earlier) than native plants.

6. Invasive plants can germinate and establish themselves on a wider range of soil and climatic conditions enabling them to exploit new habitats.

7. Many invasive plants are shade tolerant and can grow under the shade created by both native and nonnative plants.

More and more exotic plants are being introduced into the United States by the horticultural industry, and the public needs to know how to recognize them. Some plant nurseries and garden centers are providing this information - even some that are selling invasive plants! However, consumers need to be more aware that exotic, invasive plants have been, and currently are, contributing to ecological degradation and loss of biodiversity locally, nationally and worldwide.

Why not buy native plants? Why risk creating ecological damage by purchasing nonnative plants that may become invasive? When plants with invasive characteristics escape our gardens they become the silent and secretive pests of our neighborhoods and our nation.

To read more, see Devine, R S. 1998. "Alien Invasion. America's Battle with Non-Native Animals and Plants." National Geographic Society. and: www.invasive.org, invasives.eeb.uconn.edu/ipane, www.invasivespecies.gov, www.hort.uconn.edu/plants and plants.usda.gov. For a free copy of "Invasive Plants of the Eastern United States: Identification and Control," contact Richard Reardon, USDA Forest Service, Morgantown, WV, 26505.

Bruce Wenning ,a lifelong Newton resident, plant pathologist and entomologist, has been property manager of MA Audubon Society's Habitat Education Center and Wildlife Sanctuary (Belmont) since 1993. He is on the Board of Directors of the Ecological Landscaping Association.

Wednesday, September 7, 2005

Life BAC (Before air conditioning)

By Diana Muir/ Special To The Tab

Our air conditioning is on the blink. I am told that there was a time when people used to live without central air conditioning. Really. If you look closely as you walk around Newton, you can still see the physical indications of that long-ago era, like an archaeologist who discerns the lifestyle of an ancient civilization in the contour of a hill or the shape of a stone.

There is a house, just a block from ours, that still has its old sleeping porch. Sleeping porches, built upstairs, off a bedroom, used to be common. Screened from floor to ceiling on three sides, they cooled much faster than the house, letting you have a comfortable night’s sleep even after the hottest days.

Awnings were another effective trick. Shading southern and western windows with custom-tailored canvas reduced the solar-heating effect of the afternoon sun. Only a handful of houses in Newton still have their awnings.

The windows themselves used to be left open on summer nights. This might have been a security issue since housebreaking, as a profession, is even older than air conditioning repair. Double-hung windows on the first floor were fitted with little brass knobs that slid into place to prevent the window from being open wider than about six inches. With the windows open on the first floor, and a whole house fan pulling hot air out through the attic, houses were kept reasonably comfortable in hot weather.

Now that houses have air conditioning, the old round of opening the windows wide in the early morning and rushing from room to room to close them quickly when a thunderstorm blows up is too much trouble. The little brass sliding knobs sit unused, as obsolete as the haylofts in Newton’s old carriage houses now that only horseless carriages are parked downstairs.

Newton homes retain numerous vestigial elements, reminders of how life used to be. A few of them speak to ecological adaptations of an earlier generation that in some ways walked more lightly on the earth.

When we bought our house, outside the kitchen door there was what looked like a subterranean garbage can. Its lid was level with the ground and you stepped on a flange to lift the lid. This was the receptacle for a pig route.

Newton used to have a contract with a pig farmer. Housewives or maids would step on the flange and tip the day’s potato peels and stale bread into the can, which was underground to retard spoilage by keeping the scraps cool. Collectors went from house to house, and drove the kitchen waste to a farm.

I once knew where the farm that turned Newton’s leftover oatmeal into pork chops was located. I seem to recall that it was in Weston, the contrast between a commercial hog-raising outfit that must have been smelly and noisy, and the manicured million-dollar lawns of Weston today is rather funny. The pig farm needed to be reasonably close to the collection route, else the transportation costs would have exceeded the values of the potato peels.

Near the pig-route can there was a rotating clothesline held erect by a huge concrete pyramid. During one period of save-the-planet fervor I hung laundry outside. That, of course, takes time. Plus, sometimes it rains. I haven’t hung laundry on a line in years.

It is hot in the house now, despite the fact that I have every window open. It would be cooler if I set up a few fans, just until the repairman gets here, but I don’t own any fans. I sent them to college when our youngest moved into the freshman dorm at Barnard one hot September. Brooks Hall, a truly beautiful building, was built so long ago that the top floors were designed as maid’s rooms. Young ladies took their maids to college in those days. The wiring was not designed to support air conditioning. It is now being renovated to accommodate a generation that arrives at college without personal ladies’ maids, but with the expectation that air conditioning comes standard.

Which is pretty much true. And which is, of course, one of the reasons why our climate is changing and why our summers are hotter than the summers of our childhood were.

When I was a kid in Connecticut, it was common to hear people say that it was not really necessary to install air conditioning because it was only uncomfortably hot one, maybe two, weeks a year. This was not merely an excuse for not spending the money; it was actually true. Then we all got air conditioning. And now every summer it is so hot that we actually need it. We have met the enemy, and it is us.

Diana Muir is an award winning Newton author whose most celebrated works explore the landscape and history of New England. Her book 'Reflections in Bullough's Pond,' received the Massachusetts Book Award as the best non-fiction book of 2000.

Environment Newton: the blog

Friday, December 9, 2005

Wildlife in the city

These teens relish Envi-Sci

Insulation: A wise investment

Wednesday, December 7, 2005

Bats and EIDs

Towns work to identify, eliminate bacteria in river

Opinion: Chicken Little was right

Toxic confusion: a thousand points of … dirt?

Wednesday, November 9, 2005

The squirrel’s dilemma: acorn or tulip bulb?

Green meets blue in an urban environment

Improving ocean management

A great catch!

More dangers of mercury

Fish is still good food

Wednesday, October 5, 2005

Mega-malls in your future?

The writing’s on the water

1-2-3’s of Recycling Plastics

Useful chemical or dangerous toxin?

Fish good, Mercury bad!

Silent, secret invaders

Wednesday, September 7, 2005

Life BAC (Before air conditioning)

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