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.

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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

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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.

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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. 

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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.

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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.

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