University scientists in this release say we've got to focus more on scrubbing soot from our smokestacks and leave CO2 worries for another day. They use a bizarre analogy of dynamite and blasting caps to drive home the point, saying the sky is full of CO2 dynamite and the soot is the blasting cap part. You'll have to read the release if you want to understand it further. An interesting point is that removing soot is relatively easy and less taxing on economic growth. Since money comes first and health second in driving government action on anything, perhaps this release might get some of the politicians to do something beyond argue about global warming.
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12.18.09
American solar panel manufacturer Evergreen Solar is now putting all its silicon chips into Chinese manufacturing after sucking up a few hundred million dollars in grants and tax incentives to build this unsuccessful plant in Devens, MA. In ONews today we vilify the Los Angeles city council for shooting down a huge solar installation over utility rate concerns. Now, we have the folly of massive government support of solar power on the other side of the country resulting in a failed effort that's ultimately moving jobs to the other side of the planet. When does all this start to make sense? Still, the good news far outweighs the bad in the solar scene and there may yet be work for the Devens plant. This release says solar power in 2010 is going to be 38 percent more profitable than it was 2009. A constellation of dark events, led by an global economic meltdown, dimmed solar prospects this past year. But demand is catching up with supply, according to these headlines taken from today's news.
1) New York is announcing its largest solar project ever is shovel ready. 2) A Sharonville, Ohio woman and her contracting firm are leading construction of the largest solar power array in that state's southwest. 3) This Alamosa, CA school district just threw the switch on solar panels that will meet 75 percent of its power needs. 4) This Old Tappan, NJ, company says it's going to be planting the equivelent of 100,000 trees over the next 25 years through installing rooftop solar panels at its manufacturing facility. Once again the garden state is leading the charge in solar energy. 5) This New Jersey school district is calling its planned solar project a "no-brainer." However there is a huge whole in the story. It says the district will sell the energy back to the power company at a profit. It doesn't say if it's excess energy being sold back. New Jersey is second only to California in solar installations, thanks largely to government regulations. If government subsidy is making the solar panels a no-brainer, that's not the brightest use of sunshine.
Just to put a damper on all this holiday cheer, China will burn more coal than ever this year: 3 billion tons, nearly three times as much as the United States, and about 40 percent of total global consumption.
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12.16.09
In keeping with today's theme of saving species that the tide of natural selection has turned against, the World Wildlife Fund issued this call-to-arms of sorts. Tigers, lions, bluefin tuna, and rhinos made the WWF's 2010 most endangered list. The organization seems to have left out a few thousand more animals in their campaign. Try 47,677 species worldwide that are threatened. The WWF is just going to bat for the rock stars of endangered species, which will doubtless drive up their donations. But, not everyone wants to save the rhino. There are other causes that could use your help. If you want to save the rhino, you need to preserve the land he lives on as well.
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In the survival-of-the-fittest sweepstakes, it looks like the amur leopard lost out, according to this release. The world's rarest cat has been recently photographed, giving hope to conservationists who moved in like a swat team to protect a family of these creatures found in the Russian Far East. It's hard to imagine such militarism needed to protect such rare cats from poachers. You'd think surrounding residents would care enough not to hunt them. Then again, it's just as puzzling to conceive of anyone happily shooting the last passenger pigeon, or eating the last dodo.
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Perhaps some of these happy hunters can be brought over to New England where deer populations are running amuck. How is it possible you can spend fruitless days in New York's Adirondack mountains looking for whitetail deer then go home and see them munching down the hostas in your front yard without so much as a thought to how really delicious venison sausage is. Evolution as Darwin explained it has been turned on it's ear.
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12.11.09
Keeping with the spin-meister message in ONews today, there's this piece on struggling eastern box turtles thwarting an affordable housing project on Cape Cod. Box turtles are God's own definition of helpless. In a landscape of automobiles and backhoes, what better hero to stop a housing development than a hapless creature that rests its evolutionary hopes on a shell. Box turtles used to be all over Long Island, now houses are all over Long Island. The Cape Cod development opponents hope the promise of preventing a similar progression might sway some planning board votes toward the turtle.
Why not just point out the insane glut of houses on the market these days? Does Cape Cod really need another 12 affordable houses? Then again, given the pricey location, it seems some affordable housing might go a long way, real estate slump or no. Which makes one wonder how affordable these houses will be in a dozen years. It also begs the question: is it concern for the turtle or concern for who will move into these affordable units that sparks the opposition? Pictured above is Levittown, NY, from about 6 miles up and a few decades back.
Here's another article about a stalled development in Boston. At some point you get to thinking: how smart is it to keep searching for backing for these stalled development projects? Our buy, spend and/or build economy is not likely to be revived. So, why put all this effort into rejuvenating mired waterfront communities. What Boston needs is more open space and beaches not more development and shopping opportunities.
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12.07.09
The Gulf of Maine Institute just got $200,000 to pay lobstermen to drag the waters there with grappling hooks looking for discarded and/or lost lobster traps and pots. It's hard to guess how useful this effort will be. But, that won't stop NBN from speculating wildly on the subject. The question comes down to; will the lost lobster pots, once the bait they carried has rotted or been eaten away, be a threat any more. The pots have trap doors that let lobster escape, so it's not like the lost pots just keep collecting lobster. The article linked above suggests that lobster might crawl inside looking for a home even when the bait is gone, but lobster tend to find homes where they can't be seen. At least small ones do.
Similar projects like the Gulf of Maine clean-up are ridding the oceans elsewhere of orphaned fishing nets and other gear that's possibly more problematic for aquatic wildlife than lost lobster pots. These folks certainly think lost gear is a serious problem. But this lost gear can also be seen as habitat, meaning nooks and crannies little fish can find refuge in. Habitat can be in short supply in some parts of the sea. Maybe this sort of tangled mess pictured here is good for those areas?
It seems, in some respects, that the more stuff small fish can hide in, the better. Then again this video helps to shed a little light on the downside of discarded fishing gear. As always there are pros and cons, our job is to help folks think about both more. The article linked above is a decent read. A slightly sad note about the article; it's a Boston Globe piece written by the Associated Press. We've got nothing against AP, it's a great outfit with the highest journalistic integrity. But this is a Globe story, in Globe country, yet they couldn't assign a writer or photog. It's sad. Their editorial ranks are being decimated and the result is more homogeneous news. Here's a satellite view of the Gulf of Maine. This 220-mile mouth of North Atlantic Coastline provides all the worlds Maine Lobster. Thanks, Google Earth.
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12.04.09
LET'S HARP ON CARP
Past discussions here about invasive species have suggested a rather radical solution toward these evolutionary accidents: do nothing. This article challenges that idea as effectively as any argument could, but we're not still sure we're wrong. First, the story. It describes using nets, noise, electrocution and poison to stop the Asian carp from getting into Lake Michigan. What? Did they run short on nuclear warheads? That's some serious fire power to stop a fish. Then we read a little deeper. The carp, it turns out, feed on plankton. That's the bottom of the lake's food chain. That's like pulling grain from the national diet. Lose plankton, and you wipe out the lake's entire ecosystem. And as this video suggests these fish are clearly getting a little out of control. Add on the fact these extraordinary measures are restricted to a canal feeding into the lake, and not entire the lake itself, and it seems that not letting nature takes its course in this particular instance, might be the right approach.
Still, you have to wonder. They are talking about involving 300 state workers here. Michigan is threatening legal action if Illinois doesn't do more to stop the carp. What was interesting here is that scientists say it's ok if a few of the carp get into the lake. They just want to stop a mass-migration. Then there is the other expert in the article saying there is probably little that can be done to prevent the carp from eventually reaching and taking over the lake. Perhaps we could just drop a couple of these guys into the canal.
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12.03.09
On the subject of messes left behind (see ONews today), there's this news from the former Union Carbide plant in Bhopal India that is still poisoning surrounding residents. Meanwhile, plans are in place to allow limited tours and erect a plaque to commemorate the mess Union Carbine made out of the place. Perhaps, they could spend the money on cleaning up ground water underneath instead. Nah, that would be too expensive. Cheaper to just let the folks there know how sorry Union Carbine, a.k.a. Dow Chemical, is.
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11.30.09
The world's sharpest investment mind is betting that coal is the fuel of the future. The train line Buffet just bought for $34b devotes about one-quarter of its rails to shipping low-sulfur coal from the Wyoming/Montana region to mid-west powerplants. Coal, that provides about 10 percent of the nation's electricity and a generous portion of its acid rain. It's being seen as a bet by the world's best gambler on the future of fossil fuels in a country addicted to them. Wasn't it Buffet who said: "I'll tell you why I like the cigarette business: it costs a penny to make. Sell it for a dollar. It's addictive."
The reason we raise the issue today is; no sooner does Buffet make this bet on coal, than a frontal assault on global warming theory seems to be gaining traction. It started with the leaked memos from the arrogant scientists last week which this Oklahoma Senator immediate seized upon as the last nail in the Cap and Trade coffin. Then there's this piece in the CSM saying the memo story has reignited global warming debate.
Seizing upon this coincidence of recent anti-global warming media and Buffet's bet on coal isn't to suggest another corporate conspiracy afoot. It's big energy's job to systematically attack global warming theory. They've been doing it for years. What might be happening is opportunism that probably has little to do with Buffet's initial bet, but could now be fueled by it. More so than ever these days, public opinion is easily swayed by careful crafting of media message. Reporters and editors don't have time to seriously research the information they dispense. Likewise, the public has little time to seriously research the information it digests. Increasingly, we take the message that supports our suppositions and those with a vested interested in crafting that message have never had it better. So, the powers that be, and that includes Buffet, might see the memo story as a gift that, properly presented, will kill Cap and Trade. It might even mortally wound the so-called climate summit in Copenhagen this month. It's been a great month for big energy.
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11.23.09
At NBN we don't want to flog a dead horse, but a possibly corrupt politician from Oklahoma? Break out the whip. We came across this February posting by Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn that singled out $1.4 billion for wastewater disposal improvements as an example of wasteful spending in the Stimulus package. Then we came across this piece in the New York Times Sunday which shows people are getting sick all over the country for lack of such improvements. Sounds like a waste of money to us, Sen. Coburn. Just like 60 Minutes, NBN thought we'd take advantage of this Times piece to update this 6.18.09 NBN post on combined sewer overflows.
For Stimulus plan critics this Boston Herald article,that ran in June (it's since been archived) might help show the spending plan is not all wasted taxpayer money. The article says the Stimulus plan has $185 million for clean waterprojects that will most likely go toward containing a chronic problemwith storm water overflow in area wastewater treatment plants. Suchplants up across the nation have to fund tens of millions of dollars inEPA-mandated sewage system upgrades. More specifically, fixing achronic problem called combined sewage overflow.That's where sewer pipes serving some of the country's oldestcommunities gather rain water from street drains and combine it withresidential sewage and send it to treatment plants. When it rains realhard, those pipes get overwhelmed and discharge directly into nearbyrivers like the Merrimack, in MA, or the Hudson in NY, or theMississippi.
That's how the sewer systems in many cities were originally designed, to collect rain and sewage and discharge it right into the rivers. Later, when people started dying from eating poisoned clams, treatment plants were built and those pipes draining into the rivers were diverted to those plants, with overflow drains that still go to the rivers.
Those plants are getting old, the cities they serve have gotten a lot bigger and those overflow drains a lot busier. When state environmental agencies close shellfishing in certain areas, it's over fear the CSOs are dumping sewage where shellfish can suck it up before we suck them down. The Greater Lawrence Sanitary District in Massachusetts has been puzzling over how to get rate payers to finance some $30 million in CSO repairs the EPA wants made. Looks like they just got their answer: the Stimulus. So, for those saying the Stimulus package is excessive tax, have some clams, but wait for a drought.
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11.16.09
All parks are not created equal. Some are greener than others, which prompted this rating system for parks. It notes that carefully managed parks may look pretty and are certainly better for the overall health of the planet than shopping malls. But grass expanses in place of forests is not always the highest and best use of open space. Take this picture here. It's two homes side by side, one with a neon green lawn. The farther one opted for a natural setting. Both homes look equally attractive in their their own way. (You can hardly see the natural setting home, but it does look nice.) The point being, our conventions about what's nice landscaping can be challenged here. It's just as nice walking through the wooded areas of Brooklyn's Prospect Park as it is walking in the huge lawn in the center of the park. However, the lawn is a little better for playing catch. Still, the lawn section requires all kinds of money for fertilizer and maintenance, not to mention having to clean up after your dog there. Maybe, if we could just have fewer, smaller lawns in this country. You won't have to clean up after Fido as much.
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11.13.09
OYSTER OPERATION ODDITY
Something doesn't add up with this New York Times piece. Oysters are famed for their water filtering abilities, yet the National Parks Service wants to shut down this oyster farm in a California national seashore. The NPS say the oyster farm's boats are damaging seaweed beds and spooking mother seals with cubs. These arguments seem a little contrived to NBN. But, what other motive could there be for getting rid of the oyster farm? Communities across the country are embracing oyster farms as a means of cleaning up marine environments. These folks in California are figthing them? Could there be other reasons for objecting to the farms? Perhaps the NPS doesn't like the oyster shucking buildings, the cars, the noise or the piles of shells that come with the business in its marine sanctuary. Could this be a battle over allowing businesses in national sanctuaries and parks? Why else would anyone discourage an industry that's applauded elsewhere in the country for its pollution cleaning qualities? These baby oysters shown above are nature's own vacuum cleaners. It's estimated the oyster reefs in Chesapeake Bay at one time filtered all the water in the bay, 18 trillion gallons worth, every week.
Are oyster farms too ugly? Isn't the same thing stopping the Cape Wind wind farm in Massachusetts? Government folks who work in, and run, these national preserves, tend to put esthetics after the environment. It's hard to imagine they'd fight this oyster farm for appearance reasons.
There are other things to consider, that put us no closer to an answer here. Oysters, don't make the best neighbors. When settlers came to this country, many of the bays and creeks were encrusted with oyster reefs; centuries-old walls and shoals of shell and living oysters cemented together into something of a razor-sharp, sea-side steeplechase. Not great for shipping and boating, then or today.
The other thing to consider is oyster reefs make spectacular ecosystems. Like tropical coral reefs, oyster reefs promote all manner of marine life in the nooks and crannies these reefs eventually form. If we want our bays and estuaries returned to their former glory, re-establishing oyster reefs will be a huge step in the right direction: cleaner water, greater biodiversity. The University of New Hampshire has been working on such a project in the Great Bay for years and are starting to see some results. People will just have to be more careful waterskiing if there are oyster reefs around.
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11.11.09
APRIL SHOWERS SOUR TURKEY HATCH
Any fan of wild turkeys might find this disheartening. Rainy spring weather resulted in the lowest ratio of young turkey poults to nesting hens in Massachusetts' history. Some of the birds managed to build a new nest and reared young anyway, but the state says the 2009 numbers are way down. Everyone knows Wild Turkey and water don't mix. Apparently, the season wasn't much better for bald eagles in New Hampshire for the same reason. The 2009 eagle chick count was down 33 percent from last year in New Hampshire. Nonetheless, 2009 was still the third best breeding season for New Hampshire's bald eagles. The birds have only recently returned to northern New England in large numbers, so any numbers are good numbers. Of course, bald eagle nests are a whole lot higher off the ground than turkey nests.
Piping Plovers on Salisbury Beach also had a rough year. Plovers, like turkeys, are ground nesting birds. This release says that of 20 eggs laid out at Salisbury, just two plover chicks made it to maturity. Worse, human intervention is thought to have played a role in the mortality there this year. One nest impoundment, similar to the one at right, was broken into by some egg-heads. Another nest was too close to human beach traffic which ignored the fenced-off area and spooked the parents off the nest several times, according to the release.
Speaking of scarce birds, the Santa Marta parakeet of Colombia, South America, was discovered only six years ago, and is already on the endangered species list. Its habitat in southeastern Colombia's jungle at the base of the Andean mountains is also home to the largest anti-government terrorist group in the Americas. The only habitat that supports Santa Marta parakeets also happens to be supporting a civil war.
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11.06.09
TRADING PLANTS FOR POWER
A New Zealand energy company is happily proclaiming plans to set up all kinds of renewable energy projects in Guatemala. It looks like most of this power will be coming from three hydro-projects which means dams. This country's people are desperately poor while living in some of the ecologically richest lands in the world. Rather than pursue tourism opportunities to help these folks, the investment is going after energy production.The releases suggest Guatemala has resources enough to meet energy needs in surrounding countries. Is this really a good use of renewable energy technology, flooding increasingly rare rain forests that can provide a tourist attraction for the whole world? What will the hydro projects mean for river fish or the flooded valleys? Guatemala has the highest GDP in Latin America, why don't they work a little harder on distributing the wealth they have rather than creating more in the hopes that money will eventually trickle down to residents. It's sad to see, once again, irreplaceable resources like rainforests being traded for energy which can be extracted in so many different ways that are less damaging to the environment.
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11.04.09
SACRED SUNRISE STALLS WINDFARM
The Wampanoag Indians are on the warpath regarding the Cape Wind, wind farm project in Massachusetts' Nantucket Sound. An unimpeded ocean sunrise apparently is to the tribe's spiritual values what it is to the Nantucket Island waterfront home-owners' property values. We only make light of this breaking news because this is the first such news of this tribal claim in eight years the wind farm has been deliberated. The Globe article linked above says the issue was raised in 2004, but doesn't specify how or where. This is the tribe's website. Read their news. It appears the tribe has been too concerned with casino prospects to worry about the violation of its sacred sunsrises. We here at NBN take a jaundice view of any Indian affairs in the Northeast after reading Without Reservation. It's a book that pretty clearly shows there was no Mashantucket Pequot Tribe until a clever lawyer managed to leverage a vindictive streak in then-Connecticut Gov. Lowell Wicker into a billion dollar casino. Great book, awful casino. While the Wampanoag appear more substantial than the Pequot, it's suspicious that they are just now using their very legitimate disadvantage as Native-Americans to leverage government regulators into hearing their cause. According to the various articles on this, the Indian claim could significantly delay a project that's already cleared significantly higher hurdles. What else can it be but an abuse of a very well-intended deliberative process. Here's a piece about Bay State legislation that will streamline the wind farm approval process in the future.
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11.02.09
The environmental movement can make strange bedfellows. In this case, the pile drivers union is joining Greenpeace supporting the Nantucket Sound Cape Wind wind farm project. If the 130 windmills proposed for the project get approved, no doubt the pile drivers union will be driving some piles into Nantucket Sound. This may be real disruptive to the ocean bottom ecology at first, but it's possible, in the long run, it's good for Nantucket Sound. Fish will be hanging around those piles once they are driven and the windmills are sitting on top of them. Blue mussels and all kids of seaweeds will be growing on them. Those piles underwater become substrate, which is a marine biology term for “home sweet home” for little sea creatures that might not otherwise find shelter from big fish looking for a meal. Substrate can be a limiting factor in sandy bottom marine ecosystems. So the partnership between the pile drivers union and Greenpeace can be thought of in another ecological term called mutualism. That's where unrelated species cooperate to their mutual benefit. In this case, even the environment benefits with reduced air pollution and enhanced underwater habitat. So, why the picture of ants, caterpillar and flowers? This is mutualism. The ants drink some kind of nectar from the caterpillar which feeds on the flower. Both animals help pollinate and protect the plant. Image and text from Diane Wagner, American Museum of Natural History Southwestern Research Station.
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10.28.09
Is it possible the president is among NBN's four or five readers? Or is it just coincidence that he's proposing this smart grid after we've been harping on the same idea here for the past few months. Actually, there's a lot in this $3.4b stimulus proposal Obama announced yesterday that goes against the decentralized power grid that we've been pushing. But one of the main features, new smart-meters, better measure power flow into and, presumably, out of a home. The meters also will let customers switch to renewable-energy sources at the push of a button. The smart meter seems to embrace the idea that the nation's electricity should not just come from massive power plants carried over transmission lines stretching across several states. What's disappointing about the president's proposal is it doesn't go far enough toward decentralized power production.
NBN's power plant of the future is not a bunch of turbines propelled by dirty or dangerous exchanges of energy, like Chernobyl here. The power plant of the future is an accounting firm that measures who generated what amount of electricity and how much they should be paid for the power they dumped into the “smart grid.” That money will come from those who consume more power than they produce, thus encouraging efficiency. The net deficit of average household consumption versus production will start to drop with greater energy efficiency, thanks to the smart meters. Big business energy demands will start to drop with more folks working out of their homes, all the cars in the US can burn natural gas because we don't use the stuff for power plants any more. Global warming will end, endangered species will rebound and fishing will improve. Yes, it's utopia. But we here at NBN tend to be a little over-optimistic.
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10.26.09
Here's a rare example of agreement on an environmental issue. The Energy Independence and Security Act requires electronic devices to have “stand-by” modes for the myriad electronics we tend to leave on when not in use. Such “standby” modes help save energy, but can be dangerous when it comes to home security devices, which should never be on standby. Green groups and a security electronics trade groups all agree, and new laws are now being drafted. Good to hear that zealotry doesn't always rule the roost on environmental issues.
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10.23.09
The NRDC wants your help lobbying Washington to stop wildlife poisoning in national forests. They make an impassioned plea on behalf of all the little critters, without explaining why they are being poisoned or where. They just say wildlife is being poisoned through toxins left apparently for other animals, but they don't say which. If you're going to ask for money, take the time to thoroughly explain why. After slamming this group like this we were just about to add some boilerplate graph about how we don't want to disparage this hard working, dedicated group. Then we thought we'd take a quick look at their IRS 990 forms. Turns out they take in $107m a year, of which almost $450k goes to pay the president. Nice gig. What the hell is Frances Beinecki doing that she deserves $450,000 for. What is financial director Judy Keefer doing for her $270,000, other than looking the other way while NRDC hands Beinecki $450,000 each year. Look on page 16 of this link for the rest of them. What are any of these folks doing to earn these 6-figure salaries. Peter Lehner signed the tax form, that should be good for the $250 he's pulling down. We hate to disparage any green groups, but do these folks really need, or deserve that kind of money? It kind of goes against the grain of the cause they promote. Wouldn't $150k do the job? If not, I'll take it.
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10.21.09
Speaking of Sewage
Imagine drinking sewer water. It's happening more and more these days and this release suggests getting into the water reuse business is a smart move. The release points out that there are already systems in place that completely recycle sewer water into drinking water. It also notes that there are communities in the world in such need of drinking water that will have to eventually build such systems. However, the release only pays lipservice to what has customarily been a very expensive process. Primary, secondary and tertiary treatments are usually used before sewage is discharge into the environment, and these are expensive systems. (I always thought tertiary treatment was the final step for drinking water conversion but this link says otherwise.)Taking waste water the final step to drinking water costs a fortune. Sorry, couldn't find any firm cost numbers, but there is a reason why nobody is doing it and it's got nothing to do with marketing problems. Yet, this study says new microfilters and reverse osmosis is driving the price down. Here's a 2-minute video that explains the study decently. Here's another video from Orange County, CA, where they are already turning sewage into tap water. What do you want to bet when this system went in, Poland Spring built a new national headquarters in Orange County.
Another study says London is one town where it might pay to go into a career in waste water. (Sorry, we lost the link) Apparently, London is supposed to start running real low on the wet stuff by 2025. Funny, how that date seems so far off. Even a drinking water shortage isn't important enough to be taken seriously when you have 15 years to fix the problem. And that might be why there are so many jobs in the industry now. Why do today what you can put off until tomorrow? Then again, we've talked here before in the 9.02.09 INews about the dangers, real or perceived, from drinking water that's not completely purified. However, this knucklehead is just asking for it. You have to think that one easy fix that hasn't gotten too much attention would be to have in-home recovery systems from your sink, dishwasher and shower. Ski resorts are doing it. This home waste water, called greywater, can be collected and diverted to your toilet. Might look kinda funky, but shouldn't smell too bad with all the soap in it. Maybe it could bleached along the way.
That seems like it should be job No. 1 for the wasterwater jobs available above, recycling greywater in-house before sending it to a treatment plant. Such systems, like solar panels and small wind turbines, should be built into municipal building codes, don't you think? I know, who needs more government regulation. Here's acouple of Brits taking one for the team. How do you get people to dress up like a toilet? I'd rather be the faucet, any day. Is that supposed to be pink toilet paper on her head?
Here's another of those waste water job opportunities opening up right now. These folks are using cellulose screened from sewage to help brew ethanol, a fuel that can be used in cars and such. Ethanol made from corn is already in widespread use. More and more, it seems, mining the gold, even brown gold, from our waste stream is becoming a driver in this economy. And that's a good thing.
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10.19.09
Here's a good CSM piece on commercial fishing and government restriction. The article suggests the restrictions are working, with a very affective counterpoint that they may not be. Good, solid journalism. Highly recommended.
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10.16.09
New Hampshire is putting $12 million in stimulus funding toward cleaning up oil leaks underground. We know that some of this stimulus money is doubtless going to be wasted, but with other stimulus money going to sewage treatment plant improvements and the money here going to clean up oily earth, it looks like a large chunk of the Stimulus is doing the dirty work needed all over the country. Leaking fuel tanks are threatening ground water supplies under half the pre-1970 gas stations in America. (Just made the number up, but it's probably not too far off.) If left unattended these oil plumes will just disperse with ground water flow, making a small problem huge. It's like placing a drop of oil on a puddle: it fans out fast. In the world of underground storage tanks, a.k.a. USTs when the leaking fuel hits the water table it hits the fan STS, contaminating more and more soil. To meet EPA cleanup standards very shovelful of that contaminated earth has to be sent to special disposal site. It's insanely expensive. Removing the tank and surrounding soil through the Stimulus package is a very good use of taxpayer money. Might be interesting to find out which gas stations get that money. You can bet those topping the list made plenty of campaign contributions to one party or another
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10.12.09
Here's another Gloucester Times story slanted in favor of the commercial fishing industry. Not only is it very short on news, but it uses an unnamed source in the fourth sentence. What? Is the GT breaking CIA secrets? Just because it's Gloucester, doesn't mean objectivity gets the old heave-ho on commercial fishing stories. Yes, it's sad what's happening to these fishermen. A wonderful long-standing tradition is on the ropes, and likely out for the count. However, the newspaper is not going to save it by writing one-sided stories, and that's what they appear to be doing. Here's an interview with the author of this and all the other genuflections on commercial fishing coming out of the Gloucester Times. The reporter has been on the commercial fishing beat for a year and he challenges science that's been compiled by dozens of experts over generations. This is the tail end of the lead sentence of the story about herring, above: "strength of the fishery which is considered strong and stable." There is no attribution for "strong and stable." It's just declared as fact. Yet the story is about catch restrictions imposed for fear herring numbers are not strong and stable. This kind of reporting is a huge disservice to readers. Fortunately, the GT has only a few more readers than NBN.
Bay State Congressman Barney Frank wants the government to pay for posting observers aboard scallop boats. The government doesn't want the boat captains shucking the scallops then jiving the government, so observes are brought along to tally the catch independently. Just the thought of being a boat captain having to pay for the government stooge being dragging along to keep you honest is more than can be asked of any man, or woman at the helm. Sounds like Barney's onto something. These poor fishermen are already making enormous concessions to the government for their chosen profession.
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10.09.09
Want a change of life? Want to get away to a tropical desert island for a few years and still pay the mortgage back home? Then the National Parks Service wants you. Out on Dry Tortugas National Park, to be specific. The Parks Service is accepting vendor permit applications for snorkling, fishing, sailing, birding, and diving guides who might want to set up shop on one of the most pristine islands in US waters. All the activites just named are AAA+ quality out on the Tortugas. Tortugas is to nature what New York City is civilization: one-of-a-kind and wild. There are 30 slots open for vendors, however these are the qualifications you have to meet. Anyone with a fondness for solitude, sunsets and sunrises with a keen eye for making a buck should be all over this. The coolest thing about this prospect is every day a ferry drops a boatload of tourists off at the Island and then brings them back to Key West four hours later.
There are also about a dozen campsites on the island, but no running water or groceries of any sort. Anybody who wants to camp, has to schlep their own water out. You could sell the stuff for $15 a gallon and your customers would still thank you. Even if you do have a conscious, opportunity abounds on the Dry Tortugas. The release came out Oct. 5. There is a catch. A report just out said Dry Tortugas is one of 25 National Parks threatened by global warming. Hurricane Charley also made a mess out of the place. Parks Service is also accepting applications for seaplane service vendors out to the islands.
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10.7.09
Little is more upsetting than brutish bullying of the delicate and defenseless. The victim this time is a flower called the western prairie fringed orchid, the bully is an invasive plant called leafy spurge. The knight in shining armour, an insect. The insect is doing the dirty work of the Plant Sciences Department at North Dakota State University. They've taken a two-tiered approach to knocking off the unfortunately-named weed. Actually, click on the link above. It's not such an awful looking plant. However, it's making few friends around the Midwest prairies, which is it taking over at the expense of native plants like the orchid. Two things are noteworthy here. The two-tier approach involves using poisons and pests. In the case of the latter, an insect called the Aphthona spp. that eats only leafy spurge. It's the pesticides we object to. Read the 8.26.09 ONews to see why. The good news however, is the two-tiered attack seems to be working. The school scientists say they've cleared over 800,000 acres of prairie with the program and the orchids are making a comeback. However, it would be nice to know how much pesticide they've used in the program. Clearing 800,000 acres is quite a feat. It makes it seem like invasives control could actually work. There's been some success using another beetle to control another invasive called purple loosestrife. However, if the orchid program requires sustained pesticide application, why bother. As soon as you stop spraying, the spurge comes back and you're adding more chemical to the environs along the way. If however, it's the beetles keeping things in check, that's a rare success story in the war on invasives.
One battle just lost in that same war involving the same plant, was in Lincoln, Nebraska. A fellow was using the threatened orchid as a defense against plans to put in power lines. The fellow, and the flowers, lost in court. So, the delicate and defenseless take a back seat to the bully, again. Perhaps such a court loss would be easier to swallow if the lines were transmitting solar power. Not a chance. Centralized power wins every time. Burning coal to power the toaster ovens. Orchids or no.
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10.2.09
The Gloucester fishing fleet is upset about rule changes again. This time it's the scallop boats.We're not on the government's side on this one or the fishermen's side. We're on the environment's side. Here is some youtube footage of a scallop dredge. It's wiping the ocean floor clean ofscallops and just about every other life form unfortunate enough to be hanging around with the scallops. Dredging is a very destructive fishing method, but that doesn't even enter the conversation in the article above. Instead, it's all about how much are they allow to catch.
Juxtapose those dredges against these folks in the video below working Washington's Puget sound. Anyone familiar with canned salmon may think pink salmon is revolting. Any fish is revolting when it's cooked in a can and full of tiny bonesthat make a nauseating sort of half/crunch when you bite down on the vertebra. Bones aren't meant to be eaten. However, fresh-caught pinksalmon is supposed to be delicious, at least it is according to these people selling the fish caught in Washington's Puget Sound. We don't know anything about pink salmon but we like the eco-friendly reef-netting approach to catching them. Why does it always seem the Pacific Northwest and Alsaska fisheries are all manged so much better than those on the east coast?
Speaking of sustainable fishing, are red crabs going to go the route of the chilean sea bass? Never heard of red crabs? Nobody ever heard of patagonian toothfish until some clever fish marketer out of Califorinia dubbed them Chilean sea bass. Now Chilean sea bass is everywhere. Everywhere that is,except the coast of South America where they were discovered in huge numbers about 15 years ago. They were virtually wiped out all in the course of a decade or so. Now the Cape Cod Times is reporting a red crab bonanza off the Altantic continental shelf. Jackpot! Someone dicovered red crab is great to eat, and now massive hauls are being brought in, year-round. Lets hope these poor things don't get wiped out like the toothfish, rather the seabass. Read Hooked:Pirates, Poaching and The Perfect Fish, to get some perspective on how an entire populationof fish can get wiped out through factory fishing and aggresive marketing. It's a good read.
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9.30.09
Here's a conference you don't dare miss. Clair Cagnolotti will be speaking in Russia on ways to streamline energy use in ethylene production. In case you've been living under a rock, ethylene is the most produced organic compound in the world; global production of ethylene exceeded 107 million metric tonnes in 2005. That's an awful lot of something that most folks know nothing about. What do they use it for? Who knows? You can, by clicking on the link above. The reason we bring it up here is this: it can't hurt to acquaint ourselves with a little bit more of what the industrial world is about. For example, it helps our perspective here in the Northeast to know that millions of tons of coal ash are piling up along side millions more tons of pig waste in places like Tennessee and North Carolina. Speaking of pigs, this article will make you sick. And I was just about to put some bacon in the toaster oven. Ah, what the heck! Be right back.
Speaking of coal did you know that the coal-fired power plant in Salem, MA, is only running at half power? Dominion power bought this place in 2005 for $656 million. Think Dominion wants to bump up coal consumption in this country? Think they aren't perfectly happy to help elect a couple dozen politicians who will be perfectly happy to help pass coal friendly legislation so Dominion can sell another 745 thousand megawatts of electricity for cooking, among other things, the bacon in my toaster over? Meanwhile, folks, like James Worden over at Solectria, are slugging it out selling solar systems that don't create an ounce of coal ash or global warming gases. Dollars to donuts, he's not making any political contributions. What's the point, he can't compete with Dominion. (By the way, it looks like James is hiring.) Above is just a sample of how much coal is left in the world. Mountains of it.
By the way, world coal production is up about ten-fold since the dawn of the industrial revolution. From roughly 800 million tons in 1900 to just over 7 billion tons in 2005. More futile fun facts to follow. (My morning coffee is starting to kick in.) In global warming terms that's been a nearly 100 percent increase in CO2 produced from coal smoke since 1980. From 6,581.6 million metric tons of CO2 emitted in 1980 to 12,064.64 million metric tons in 2006.
Great news, Dominion! We've got 930,423 million tons of coal to burn that's still in the ground. Sorry, couldn't find any recent numbers for the total amount of coal ash that's produced in this country, the pursuit of which started this statistical rampage. That's the coolest thing about the internet. You can reference stuff instantly. You don't have to take anybody's word for anything. Look it up yourself. Best I could do in the coal ash department is 652 million tons produced world wide in 1989. This is coal ash at right.
On another note, a couple of alternative energy companies may have found the answer to all the problems with wind turbines. These projects have run into headwinds both inland and offshore. Now these folks want to take windfarms really offshore. Intuitively, it seems like a great idea. Denmark just fired up the world's largest wind project 18 miles offshore, according to this NY times piece. But anchoring these things in such deep water has got to be expensive. And what about hurricanes?
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9.28.09
Anything about oysters is great news and this is all about oysters. The Massachusetts Oyster Project apparently is having great results with the seeding program in the Charles River. The baby oysters seeded this summer grew from dime-sized spat to full half-dollar-sized young oysters in 45 days. These projects are going on every where across the country and hold out the promise of significant improvement in struggling marine estuaries. The thing about oysters is they filter up to 5 litres (1.3 US gal) of water per hour. Here's a brilliantly written piece that goes into a little more detail. Here's a picture of the Charles River oysters. They may seem small but it's a big deal around Beantown.
Here's a sort of sad twist to some good news out of the Mekong Delta in southeast Asia. A number of new species of animals have been discovered there and the WWF has some really cool graphics linked to the above release. They sum up this release with the cheery qualifier that these species will be endangered by global warming. No-kidding? Everything is going to be endangered by global warming. In the meantime lets celebrate the biodiversity still around and hope like heck global warming isn't as bad as some folks, NBN included, think it's going to be. Couldn't find an image of the frog, but here's a video.
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9.23.09
Here's an intrepid writer daring to go where we all will quite likely end up being dragged as our war with the elements grinds to its inevitable failure. She suggests maybe it's time to give up the battle on beach erosion. This columnist is not likley to make many friends along Massachusetts' Plum Island or Long Island's Goldsmith Inlet. But as the writer notes, in this day of potentially devastating hurricanes, it seems more and more likely that nature will force our hand here.
As sandbags provide a rickety bulkhead for teetering homes on Plum Island, the folks on Long Island are starting to wake up to nature's ways. As the article above indicates, they are talking in earnest of removing the stone jetty that's causing the problem. That will restore the natural flow of sand with the tides which may or may not be good for the houses around Goldsmith Inlet. It will however return things to the way nature designed. A much easier argument to defend when resident's losing their homes come clamoring for six- and seven-figure taxpayer rescue efforts to save their vulnerable properties. If that appears insensitive to the PI folks above, whose homes are quite literally falling into the ocean, all you can say is: their's are not the first homes lost to the elements. Hurricane Katrina did a tune on New Orleans. We're not rebuilding those homes. One could argue the entire city should be left to fend for itself. It's a risk you assume living next to, or near, the water. This is the jetty on Plum Island causing all the erosion undermining the homes in the picture above. That's not to say these homes will be saved if the jetty is removed. But those sand bags we're not placed there by volunteers. Before any more talk of restoring this beach, the US Army Corps of Engineers should pull this jetty.
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9.21.09
Here's a release that's sure to depress. An Hawaii aquarium is growing rare species of corals in expectation that all sorts of the half plant/half animal will be going extinct in the years to come. It's hard to figure how much abuse a reef can take before it starts dying off. What's not so hard is understanding how long it will take to replace these things. They grow at a glacial pace. The reefs lost in this generation will not be replaced in the next, next or next after that. That's for sure. This press release sort of reminds you of this ELP tune and movies like Soylent Green.
Perhaps, that's being a little too pessimistic about the future of such intricate ecosystems. Especially, if you walk around in woods like those found in Appalachia. These magnificent things were clear cut a few generations ago, and today they are nothing short of majestic. But with that great unknown called global warming, you can't help but feel that we should be taking all things environmental a lot more seriously, particularly against the backdrop of this kind of news. More oil and gas exploration when there should be less. And, lest we forget, once again for your viewing pleasure, we present the mantra of the past presidential election that half the country embraced as patriotism. Think I'm gonna start my own coral collection. Start with a nice elkhorn, maybe. Opps, too late for this one, it's dead.
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9.14.09
Who said seaweed can't kill you. In France a truck driver died behind the wheel while disposing of three tons of seaweed. Apparently, the beaches of France are getting choked with sea lettuce from too much farm fertilizer. The sea lettuce in the water is harmless, but when it starts to rot it gives off gasses that can kill. At least it can kill when you've got this much of the stuff. A horse being ridden over one lettuce-filled beach died in mid-gallop. The rider was found unconscious. Might have been two casualties if people hadn't gotten to the rider first. We first wrote about this in the 8.14.09 Mailbox. NBN joked that the seaweed story sounded a little fishy. Nothing funny about it, now.
Here is a rather chewey announcement that NOAA is putting together a national policy on ocean fish farming. The idea of open ocean fish farming sounds pretty good. The biggest problem so far from fish farming closer to shore is pollution. All those fish concentrated in such tight quarters means more parasites and disease which are wiping out wild fish unfortuate enough to swim near these farms. That's part of the reason for the push to place these things off shore. Maybe this policy will promote that. This is an image of a fish farm up in Maine. The fellow here is feeding them pellets made in large part from ground up fish that don't taste as good as salmon. A lot of those pellets settle on the botton uneaten. Add on the feces from all the fish above and the bottom starts to get pretty funky. Now, look at how many nets there are. Now look at how conctrated these farms are getting. And how they are tucked into the streams and coves for protection. That link is the Pacific NW. Only one we could find in a hurry. Move these operations offshore, where the deeper water tends to harbor less life on the bottom and you're going to have fewer fish farming foul-ups. In fact it's possible al the nutrients could be good in those nutient starved waters orff shore. Here's a Time magazine piece on the subject that might be useful. Here's another well-written piece on the innovations to end inshore fish farming being proposed in Massachusetts.
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9.11.09
Here's a bewildering piece on new legislation in Massachusetts regarding what is and is not biofuel in the Bay State. There are already gas stations around the country that mix biofuel in with regular fuel. Biofuel is pretty much diesel or gasoline made from anything not pumped out of the ground. This article above deals with biodiesel, which is filtered from vegetable oil, algae, and/or animal fat. Ethanol, the stuff distilled from corn, sugarcane and other plant matter is mixed into gasoline and an occasional college student's digestive system.
Here's the rub. The state passed the Clean Energy Biofuels Act last year to comply with federal clean energy initiatives. That act mandates that at least two percent of the diesel fuel sold in Massachusetts be made up of biodiesel. Every state in the country is moving along the same lines. In fulfillment of the Act Massachusetts legislators last week, proposed that only biofuel made from used oil—and that's cooking oil, for the most part—can be blended into commercially sold biodiesel.
The state's move to restrict biofuel to waste- oil products has folks planning to make biofuel from other sources, most especially algae, feeling left out. Biodiesel can also be made from rapeseed, palm, soy, peanuts and other oily plants. The algae technology is perhaps the most promising of the biodiesel technologies because algae is the most oily and can be most easily mass-produced. Waste oil, on the other hand, is limited to the amount of fried food eaten in the country, a robust industry in it's own right. The problem with the algae fuel is the feds haven't said exactly how it should be commercially produced nationwide. While it's potentially an unlimited source of oil, there are still a few bugs to be worked out of the production process. Here's a good explanation of the state of the industry now.
Massachusetts is saying that, until the feds do give algae-oil the green-light, it can't say it's OK to include the stuff in the two-percent equation. The folks making algae-oil and biodiesel from other stuff like rapeseed, (look at INews 8.5.09 for that) say that without state approval for their product, grant and investor money needed to further develope the production processes will dry up. Worse, they say, the Bay State's decision to leave out algae biofuels sets a bad precedent for the other states which are mulling similar legislation.
Sounds like the algae folks have got a point. What would it hurt to greenlight algae biofuels for mixing into commercial pumps? This is not the FDA. Does this process really need such stringent regulation? If algae biofuel isn't commercially viable, won't the marketplace keep it out of production. You're not going to go back to a gas station that sells you bad biofuel. Do we really want the government to regulate the industry that tightly? Here is another company upset over the proposed policy.
The comment at the end of the story is most telling. It quotes the state saying algae-based biofuels can still be sold, retailer just can't add it to the 2 percent formulations required by law. If they can be sold to the public, why not include them in the 2 percent formula? There is doubtless more to this story than provided here. But, you can't help but wonder: what? Hopefully, there will be an answer soon. In the meantime, here's a powerful argument against higher education.
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9.09.09
Bay State fishermen are signing onto a federal plan that sounds a lot like farming for the beleagured groundfishing business. Federal regulation has increasingly strangled this business to where fishermen who scrape the ocean bottom in search of catch are spending more time at dock than in the water.The latest plan will have commercial boats joining coops of sorts.
These coops are given a certain share of the total catch the federal government sets for a particular fish. The coop will decide how to catch those fish and when. When the coop reaches its share of the total allowable catch, they are shut down. It's a practice also know as fish shares, a policy that's worked with mixed results elsewhere in the world but is now being seen as the hope to keep certain stocks from getting wiped out. Many US fishermen fear the practice will result in the big boats buying up all the shares and monopolizing the industry at the expense of the smaller vessels.
The scenario they envisions is this: Shares of the annual quota of fish are divided among currently licensed fishermen. So each fishermen can only catch a pre-set number of fish each year, no matter how hard they work. That limits how much money a boat can make in a given year. The thought among fishermen is, those shares will become quite valuable, compared to how much money can be made any given year filling them. The temptation to sell them to larger operations will be too much for mom-and-pop fishing boats. Essentially killing off an iconic American industry much like what industrial farming has done in the midwest thanks to government meddling there.
However, if the quotas work as they should, fish populations should go up and then annual catch per-boat will also go up. The hope is those shares could go up considerably if the fishery is managed properly. When the quota's go up, the number of fish per share goes up and share-holding fishermen make more money.
There are other potential benefits for the fishermen. Through the fish shares program, the fisherman is not compelled to catch all the fish he can as fast as he can. Under the current quota system fishermen are in a gold rush to fill as much of the annual quota as possible before fishing is shut down. The more fish you can catch before the season shuts down, the more money you make. Under fish shares, you can only catch a percentage—a share of the fish. Once you've caught your share you're done.
Accordingly, government agencies argue, fish shares should also stabilize fish prices. The gold rushes often glutted the market and depressed prices. That shouldn't happen with the coops. Fishermen within a coop can cooperate, so there is a steady supply of fish, and not too much on the market at one time. With fish shares there's not the same advantage to being first to market with your catch
If this sounds a little like communism meets Captain Quint, it is. There is little room for ambition for fishermen when the government says how many fish you are allowed to catch. It's the same as saying how much money you're allowed to make. Read the fish shares link above for a good evaluation of the pros and cons of fish shares. The coming year will be a telling one for commercial fishing if the coops go into effect and it looks like they will.
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9.04.09
Here's a fish story everybody has to believe. A federal study just out says mercury is in fish everywhere, not just next to coal burning power plants. What's most interesting about this study, and largely overlooked by the hundreds of stories written on it, is this excerpt: “The highest concentrations among all sampled sites occurred in fish from blackwater coastal-plain streams draining forested land or wetland in the eastern and southeastern United States...”
As far as could be determined from a scan of the study's findings—and we might have it wrong, but it seems logical—the reason mercury is just as prevalent in undeveloped areas as it is in developed areas is this: mercury is in the air anywhere downwind of smokestack. Plants downwind are sucking up that mercury and sending it hundreds of miles downstream. It's another way this highly-poisonous metal makes it way into fish and animals and eventually us: through the plants. So, you don't just have to live downwind of these smoke stacks, being downstream is also bad news.
The downwind part of this we already knew from the acidrain problem in the Adirondacks. It comes from sulfur emitted from coal burning plants in the Ohio Valley. The prevailing winds carry coal smoke into the mountains where the sulfur it contains mixes with the clouds, creating acid rain. Now this study is suggesting that plants downwind of these smoke stacks are absorbing mercury and sending it downstream to coastal areas.
Here's how it works. Plants—the green kind—breath-in mercury drifting downwind from those smoke stacks. Coal burning power plants are the largest emitters of mercury into the air. More plants on the ground, more mercury taken in from the air. Forested areas have more plants. Forested areas have more mercury. It's that simple. Here's where it gets complicated. The plants rot, releasing the mercury into the streams and rivers which carry it to coastal deltas and estuaries many, many miles from the smoke stacks. These are areas, that may not be downwind, but are downstream from the smokestacks. That's how mercury ended up in undeveloped coastal environments from Florida to New England. Look at this map below of power plants and trash incinerators that emit mercury and you realize the reach of this powerful poison. You'll also realize that mercury laden emissions are everywhere.
There are a few holes in this explanation above, but the reasoning, I suspect, the study scientists would say is intuitive. The Economist completely missed this point, as did the Virginia Pilot, which offered up this jewel of a first sentence for its version of the story. "The fish are talking - and we're not referring to the musical novelty items." Both publications focused on the well-established role coal burning power plants are known to play in mercury levels in fish. The papers didn't discuss how the study found high mercury levels in such unexpected places. This is importartant to publicize because we've got new coal plants being proposed in this country—read 8.12.09 ONews—and the Chinese are building these plants a mind-numbing pace. They've even started building them in Indonesia. These are supposed to be clean-burning plants, but take a look at the ONews piece, clean coal isn't that clean. At least not as clean as solar, wind and water power. And anyone who thinks those new plants now being built in Asia are an Asian problem, this study should make them think again.
If you want a view from the other side of this argument look at this link. They say it's "our God-given right to burn coal." Isn't it also our God-given right to eat fish that aren't tainted with Mercury. Yes, coal keeps a lot of people working at a time we can ill afford to have more folks filing for unemployment. But couldn't those same folks find work building windmills and solar panels?
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9.02.09
Is it inhumane to allow tourists to swim with Florida's manatees? The arguably overzealous Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) says it is in this release. They are critical of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's recent reluctance to outlaw the practice. Here's what PEER says: “PEER has received numerous videos from citizens showing swimmers abusing manatees. FWS said in the same release it: “identified very few events that warranted the issuance of citations”
This is a very grainey picture of someone riding a manatee.
Let's go to the video tape. YouTube had this video in the first page of searches for “Manatee Abuse.” It seems to pretty much cover the gamut of the complaints in the PEER release above which has: “people poking, chasing, standing on or kicking manatees, as well as separating mothers from calves each year.” The video is pretty sad to watch. But, most of the other YouTube manatee abuse videos had the same footage. Thus, a very cursory search suggests the problem isn't as bad as the problem PEER is named for. They are Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. When this group first started sending out press releases, they were all about protecting whistle-blowers in environmental agencies.
Looking back over the past decade they had their hands full. As mentioned before in NBN, not every new political administration has the same agenda for the environmental agencies they are placed in charge of. The workers in those agencies are expected to tow the administration line, no matter how they feel about it. Look at the June, 23, ONews for the anecdote on Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Now, PEER is protecting manatees. Sounds like environmental mission creep. The real endangered species are the well meaning scientists who just want to do their jobs amidst the shifting political sands that secure their jobs. PEER's efforts to protect them are unique and commendable. There are plenty of others to worry about the manatees.
Editor's note: In this morning's final edit we came across this YouTube of folks who make fun of those defending the manatees. There's no doubt protective measures have spawned a few manatee haters out there. Just like the “Piping Plover Tastes Like Chicken” campaign. But it also suggests government agencies are doing something to protect these animals. So much so, that it angers others who feel they are doing too much. Note the plastic water bottle and where it ends up. In the water.
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8.28.09
Here's a puff piece the Newburyport Daily News did for a likely advertiser. Whale watching is becoming big business, and aside from those times when the boats get a little too close to the whales, it's an industry that probably is better for environmental awareness than it is worse for the whales. Helping people appreciate nature without having to kill it or ruin the habibat it lives in, is a good thing. What's great about this story is, about half way down it mentions the possible role a ban on commercial herring boats this summer might have played in the increased number of whales being sited in the Gulf of Maine.
It would be nice to think, and there is a growing body of evidence suggesting, that when given a chance, nature can rebound nicely from the damage we do to her. Restrict the number of herring being caught and the number of whale sightings goes up. Add on to that the bounty whale watching cruises experience at the expence of the herring boats and, once again, for every environmental door that closes another one opens. Now, we just have to get the herring boat captains to outfit their vessles with seats and cleaner bathrooms.
Seriously, NBN doesn't want to make light of the difficulties commercial fishing is facing. That must have been a truly great way to make a living. Fishermen have undergone radical, painful changes in their industry. Unfortunately, until more of our troubled fish stocks stablize more change and more pain is on the way. NBN has been putting off doing the story on fish shares but it's the way of the future. It's revolutionized Australia's tuna fishery.
8.24.09
This Gloucester Times article challanging the truth of another article three years ago about commerical fishing's threat to world environments, is low on credabilty and high collateral damage. It focuses on a memo sent out by Science magazine staff saying an article by Boris Worm might have had ulterior motives. Aside from opening untold opportunity for bad puns, Worm's fishing article was apparently aimed more at hooking readers than breaking news, according to the memo, which was mistakenly sent out to the public.
The thing here is, the newspaper reporter does the bidding for Gloucester's commercial fishing fleet on an almost daily basis, and this was a very fishermen friendly piece. He accuses Worm of distorting scientific fact to gain sympahty for his cause, protecting troubled fish populations. The sad fact is both writers are guilty and the victim is the reader. Read the piece yourself and see if you don't agree that it's another instance of advocacy journalism. At least at NBN we plead guilty to this at the time it happens. These writers, doubtless see their efforts as objective, do you?
8.20.09
Unbeknownest to the rest of the world, and much of the state's residents, Massachusetts is preparing its final version of its ocean policy. What gives the Bay State the hutzpah to prepare an ocean policy? There's a lot of ocean that's very important to the rest of the country right in front of Massachusetts. What does the ocean policy say, and how will it effect our lives? Here it is. You figure it out. The state has been working on it for a long time. Must be something in there. There is a provsion for building wind farms. Thats a subject that's gotten more ink in New England than the war in Iraq. The policy might be worth looking over when you've got a few days. The reason it's listed here is, Odds on favorite, it becomes a blueprint for similar legislation in other states. The Bay State has a way of leading the nation on national issues, like heathcare and fomenting revolution Pictured above is the treatment plant.
8.17.09
Here's an interesting piece about Russian oil rigs off the coast of Cuba. It harkens back to "Drill Bay Drill" of McCain's failed presidential bid. That was one of the saddest things to have to watch as an American. A stodgy old man grinning ear-to-ear while advocating an environmentally destructive policy in one of the country's most senstive marine ecosystems.
It was a policy McCain once opposed, and probably would have continued to oppose, if it weren't for political expediency. Scrounging for dwindling pockets of oil at the possibly catastrophic expense of a cherished recreational, national and environmental resourse like the Gulf of Mexico makes no sense. Yet McCain and Palin rode it into a national cause that enlisted passionate support from hundreds of millions of Americans. Hopefully, these same folks won't start pointing to Russian oil interests as an excuse to fire up Drill Baby Drill again. Only now, in the interests of National Security.
8.14.09
This Cape Cod Times piece is a fascinating window into the future of sewer system studies. If ever there was a real-life laboratory to study sewage impact on the environment, it's the densely populated towns sitting on the sandy soil of Cape Cod, MA. That's exactly what UMass Dartmouth has been doing for the past few years: studying the collective environmental impact of all the individually-owned cesspools. That study includes the effect building sewage treatment plants would have on the Cape's fragile environment and if such plants might work out better in the long run than having individual cesspools.
These barely discernable images diagram residential septic systems. The left is a newer system with grease trap that can be cleaned out, thus keeping the nastier stuff from reaching the leeching field were, what remains is allowed to seep, or leech, into surrounding soil. The system at right is just a cesspool which takes it all in, lets it seep out much like the leechfield does. Because it has no grease trap, it's more expensive to maintain. Back to the story.
Now, it's time to make use of the information UMass has amassed and, not surprisingly, the college has balked. Town's want to puy the school's work to use, but the DEP has to regulate how the info is used. Reading between the lines, and you may read this differently, it looks like UMass wants to make sure it doesn't lose total control over how it's information is interpreted and put to use. At very least, it looks like they want to be fairly paid for that info.
The wildcard here, is the state's Department of Environmental Protection. These guys have been known to completely screw the pooch when it comes to turning theory into practice. In defense of the DEP, that's a very hard job. But, speak to the folks living alongside Newburyport's Crowlane Landfill about 40 miles to the Cape's northwest. The construction and demolition debris being used to cap the landfill as per DEP policy has befouling the surrounding neighborhood with sulfurous stench for the past few years. Another great idea gone bad, due to poor oversight by the agency asked to put an idea into practice. Read this article for some background.
As has been mentioned before in NBN, environmental regulation is as vulnerable to political corruption as is our national defense. We're entrusting poorly paid people with a very important assignment. It's real easy for people with this kind of power to become wealthy, it's just not always moral. As has also been mentioned here before, environmental regulators are paid five-figure salaries for rendering seven-figure rulings on private properties. The Cape town's are upset with UMass, but reading between the lines, it looks like the Ivory Tower folks are using a little street smarts with their sewer study.
While our minds are in the gutter, just as predicted in NBN on 6.18.09 in the Emailbox, more Stimulus money is going to clean up the sewage overflow problem along the Merrimack River. The CSO problem is plaguing just about every major river in the country. Yet cleaning them up costs many millions for each sewer plant, and there are at least five on the Merrimack. Yes, we are mortgaging our future income to pay for this stuff now, but we have to pay for it sooner or later. It also means that the Merrimack, Hudson, and Mississippi rivers, to name a very few, will see dramatically reduced levels of dangerous bacteria flowing through them. Imagine going swimming in New York Harbor again. Here's more of that money going to another Merrimack River plant in Newburyport.
8.12.09
The eastern Himalayas are teeming with undiscovered plant and animal life, according to this press release from the World Wildlife Fund. This sounds like a great television show they are putting together on this discovery. As always, Global Warming makes it into the conversation. The scientists fear rising world temperatures will upset this ancient ecosystem. Searching the web for a good shot of the eastern Himalayas was like going to Cabelas for fishing gear. In hindsight this isn't the greatest shot, but the place is clearly amazing.
This environmental effort is sad enough to bring it into question altogether. The World Wildlife Fund's latest wild Nepalese tiger count has one preserve in India clinging to a population of four of these ultimate predators. In the bellcurve of biodiversity, tigers, like humans, are outliers. But tigers rely on brute strength for their survival, humans rely on their brains. Got to be a message in there somewhere.
8.10.09
Remember the game telephone, where people sit in a circle and one whispers a story into his neighbor's ear, who then repeats it to his neighbor and so on, until it comes full circle in a form vastly different from what was started? See if you don't think this is a similar devolution of fact. Here's a piece saying the Cash for Clunkers has been criticized as ineffective by “environmentalists.” That sounded impossible. So, on the internet “Environmentalists” and “Cash for Clunkers” produced this link, which cited a Time Magazine article saying the two top reasons that the CFC program is not the boon to the environment that it is to the economy are:
1)The reductions in tailpipe pollution from the more efficient vehicles purchased is miniscule compared to the total exhaust pipe pollution produced each day. 2) The higher mileage cars might mean people do more driving.
Saying CFC is ineffective is vastly different from saying it could be more effective. And gas prices are still too low to discourage anyone from driving anywhere. But the message is sent: “The CFC isn't doing anything for the environment.” Replacing low mileage cars with high mileage cars can only be good for the environment. And the CFC sends a wonderful message to the public, if the articles about it don't. If truth is the first casualty of war journalism, accuracy and impartiality are the first casualties internet journalism. There are, no doubt, a lot of folks who would point to NBN as a prime example of the latter. We hope not. If we're wrong please let us know.
Here's an impossible-to-understand piece saying Obama's the cap-and-trade policy will cost more jobs than it will create. The intangibles not mentioned are the benefits from reduced greenhouse gasses. It's a business story, so the emission omission is understandable. However, the frontpage 9/09 Sunday NYTimes piece about global warming's threat to National Security is an eye-opener. In a nutshell it says: splitting hairs over economic benefits of such legislation now will bewilder folks a generation from now as violent weather and rising seas place massive expense on the world economy. The beauty of the message in the Times piece is; it's coming from the military. Global Warming has reached the frontlines, PTP. That means Cap and Trade in any form will soon be very good for buisness.
8.5.09
Save the whales! And the lobstermen?
Here's a piece quoting New England fishermen saying new whale-friendly lobster gear they are being forced to use is dangerous and doesn't work. The line on the gear sinks so as not to entrap the very rare Northern Right Whale. Now, fishermen are being dragged overboard with the new gear and it's just a matter of time before one isn't dragged back, according to the article. It seems like the lack of familiarity with the sinking line is playing a role. Then again, should the fishermen be forced to use this stuff, at possible risk to their lives, to save whales that may not be endangered at all.
As written in NBN in ONews on 1/03/09 it's not certain the Northern Right Whale is significantly different from the Southern Right Whale which isn't endangered at all. If the northern is not a distict species of whale, than there has been a lot of regulation, including shipping lane changes and speed limits, to accommodate one population of whales rather than saving an entire species of whale from extinction. This is how the old floating rope used to entrap whales like the poor fellow pictured above.
Save the Whales, Sink the Sub Base.
Along the same lines PTP, The Department of Defense is opening a 500-square-mile submarine warfare training ground off the Florida coast. That's ok, they say, it's all well out of range of the Northern Right Whale migration routes.Good luck to anything else that might swim along. Here's a little more detail and another image DOD released. Then again, when it comes to balancing the live of wahles against the human threats to them, like the sub base and the sinking line, you could argue that national security is more important than lobster thermador.
In Other ENews, the Bay State is taking steps to keep plastic out of babies' blood. Yes, another NBN extreme extrapolation from a kernel of truth. The plastic chemical bisphenol or BPA mimics estrogen which can be real important to a developing body's biochemcistry. BPA is the chemical found in all those hard, clear plastic baby formula bottles, and just about everything else Nestle makes. So, the Mass DPH issued a warning Monday saying, essentially keep clear platic away from babies. Connecticut has banned the stuff from baby products altogether.
This gets back to the point made in the Alan Weiseman book "World Without Us." As we throw out more and more stuff to rot in our landfills and degrade in our septic systems, more and more complex molecules, like BPA, are being diffused into the air we breath, the water we drink and the meat and vegetables we eat. Yeah, vegetables accumulate this stuff too. Warning personal anecdote approaching: A hiking buddy with business in India told me farmers in that country fertilize/irregate their fields with raw sewage. More tabouli, anyone?
July 30, 2009
Bottled Water Blues Most likely some folks have seen this slideshow, please click on it anyway. It's the finest compilation of art, stats and text on the bottle water problem to have surfaced in some time. We don't realize how ingrained in our daily lives these bottles have become. And we're drinking more every day. Then we have groups like this, which are still promoting the bottle water industry and they are doing a good job. In 2007 the total volume of bottled water consumed in the United States surpassed 8.8 billion gallons, a 6.9% advance over the 2006 volume level. That translates into an average of 29.3 gallons per person. The sale of bottled water has increased by 500% in the last decade. The bottle water group says the stuff was critical to the Hurricane Katrina relief effort. Who can doubt that it was. But is that convenience worth the price we're just now coming to realize we're paing. Couldn't we find a way to add the $.05 redemption now being collected on soda onto bottled water. Or better yet, lets make it $.20 and the money generated has to go toward buying these things. If there was one of these filters on every courner in the country, the Katrina argument disappears. After checking out that webpage you might want to look these folks up.
July, 28, 2009
HP donates $500 for Greenwala effort.
Not sure what this means but it says Hewlett Packard is using recycled plastic in its printers. My guess is HP would be pleased to know I'm doing my share, by refilling my HP ink cartridges by hand rather than shelling out $45 dollars for new HP ink cartridges for my $39 HP printer. Seriously, HP should be commended for using recyclables, regardless of their predatory ink cartridge practices. This image came off a website devoted to ink cartridges (And you thought NBN was esoteric!) Is it possible these are all ink cartridges? Ink refill kits are an amazing savings. And don't believe what your local Staples sales person tells you about these kits. I was assured it would ruin my printer. About $750 in savings later, I'm still injecting ink into my year-old cartridges, which, brand-new last about two weeks. It doesn't hurt to think for yourself from time to time.
Concerned about your child's lead intake this link may help
July 24, 2009, Indian's clams give some reservations
Here's an interesting story about some local Indian's with anything but Indian-sounding names selling tainted clams to a Cape Cod restaurant. Once again, bacteria from rain-water run-off tainted the clams. How do we solve run-off? Rain gardens, or cisterns, all kinds of options. One thing for sure, the owner of the Falmouth restaurant The Clam Man has a little PR problem now. In defense of The Clam Man, they say they were lied to by the clammers. Here's an image of Perch Pond in Falmouth, Ma. from about two miles up. (Thanks Google Earth) Look at the concentration of housing surrounding the pond. When it rains real hard, everything in the surrounding streets is washed into the pond. Do you want to eat those clams?
Just to drive the point home, read this Gloucester Times piece. Don't forget, another big contributor to bacteria in the water are heavy rains which overwhelm antiquated city sewer systems. Such weather happenings are called combined sewer overflow events or CSOs. There are stimulus dollars allocated to clean up CSOs, and still people question the necessity of this legislation.
July 22, 2009
This release merits a big picture because it's about the big picture. Besides, when you've got the art you get the placement.Toyota decided a great marketing tool for its solar-power assisted Prius would be a metal flower with photovoltaics providing cell phone and computer recharging stations in Boston. It's an expensive marketing campaign that will doubtless to do more for the solar panel industry than Prius sales. The reason we bring it here is the marketing scheme beautifully illustrates a point that can't be emphasized enough. Solar panels can be fitted anywhere and once they are in, they generate power pretty much forever. It's the use of small, discrete power generation stations that's going to be the most powerful tool against global warming. Toyota is doing a great service with its metal flower marketing campaign. (These flowers were taken down July 19. However, the article said Toyota is also building some bus stops that use solar powered climate control.)
This solar power-internet connection gets into an interesting idea. The biggest weakness in the whole internet phenomenon is the power supply. We at NBN love to take logical leaps of faith, what about this one: Would it be possible to power the internet entirely on solar power? The internet is increasingly becoming the one thing none of us can do without. Ditto for cellular communications. Do we really want these vital elements of our infrastructure powered by coal burning power plants? The advantages are too numerous to count, if you think about it. Suffice to say as the world becomes an increasingly information-driven entity shouldn't we guard our information sources as our most prized resource. Reliability is the Achilles Heel in this argument, but battery technology is improving. Another strong argument for hybrid power of another sort: electricity generation.
This is a little past the time of year that we get fish kills in ponds around New England, but we might as well add this MassWildlife link. It's weird to see these fish kills in ponds; dead fish floating like leaves in otherwise healthy waters. You can read the release for more detail, but here's how it works. Pond plants grow in the summer sun, die over winter, fall to the bottom where bacteria eat them consuming oxygen dissolved in the water in the process, much like we breath when we eat. We need the oxygen to help us turn food into energy, so do the bacteria. More plants, more bacteria, less oxygen more fish die. It's called hypoxia and it's supposed to be a natural cycle of pond life. However when large amounts of lawn fertilizer get into a pond you get more plants and more dead fish. We're killing fish to have green lawns. Here's another story that popped up later on the very same subject.
Keeping with the same theme is this spooky release about a link between Lou Gehrig's Disease and cyanobacteria. Cyanobacteria is blue -green algae, another pond plant that blooms out of control in large part due to too much nitrogen in the rain runoff. Lake Attitash on the NH/MA border get cyanobacteria blooms most summers. It's awful this, gorgeous lake gets shut down to swimming for large stretches of the summer. Pets aren't even allowed in. In the case of Lake Attitash the blooms are thought to come from farms that drain into the lake. This is what the stuff looks like. Last one in...
June 24, 2009
Ever take the NJ Turnpike through Newark and Elizabeth? If so this story will surprise you. The Garden state is fast becoming the solar state, ranking second in the nation behind CA with twice the photovoltaics of Colorado. Turns out streamlining government bureaucracy is at least as important as plentiful sunshine to getting solar from drawing board to rooftop. If first impressions are lasting, New jersey is in trouble. This view of the garden State is pretty much the first taken in by anyone heading south from Manhattan's Holland or Lincoln tunnels. The only more memorable it the aroma.
This from the were-it-were-only-true file. It's long been known that algae produce oil that can power a car. This article makes the additional point that sewage can be used to grow algae. The reality check is quality control according to this piece. It's perhaps naive to think that two massive environmental problems global water and waste water could be addressed through a solution that produces money. But the problems with algae farms do seem simple enough to deserve more research. Maybe even some federal funding. Unfortunately, this image is wishful thinking not reality. I couldn't find any real images such as this because of the problems yet to be solved with using algae oil as fuel.
June 22, 2009
It took about 15 minutes but I finally figured out what this press release is saying and it's pretty cool if they can make it work. They are outfitting street lights with ultra efficient bulbs, called Light Emitting Diodes or LEDs . These are not the tight-pack fluorescent bulbs which I swear by. The beauty of these LED is they can apparently be solar powered. No doubt some sort of photovoltaic panel is part of the package these folks are fitting onto streets—apparently all the old hardware can stay they just replace the bulb and put in some new hardware. However, solar power alone cant run a street light all night, so these units are outfitted outfitted with a relay that switches the device to pull power from the grid when the solar powered batteries wear down. Smaller LEDs pictured at left
Caution! Unsubstantiated prediction approaching. These relays are going to be the way of the future. I did a few stories on one company installing them, Lawrence MA-based Solectia. They helped pioneer this technology that allows power to be drained from solar panels when it's sunny and then switches to pulling power off the grid when at night.
Just imagine every home in the country outfitted with these switching devices and a few solar panels. Add that technology to increased fuel efficiency and hybrid technology in cars and you begin to appreciate the amount of money this county can save on oil costs. It's the kind of money that can make the trillions in debt piling up now to promote these technologies disappear pretty quickly. The savings on the other hand will last for ever. Hopefully someday soon this sight at right will be as common as asphalt roof shingles
This might be worth a read. Some Massachusetts farmers are fooling around with drip insecticide applications instead of spray. Apparently, this application works only for insecticides that work their way up through the roots of a plant, and don't have to be sprayed right onto the fruit or vegetable. Fortunately, the number of these systemic insecticides is growing. My bet is collateral bird or insect deaths will be cut way back if it can be made to work. Caution! Anecdote approaching.
I was working for a cement company putting in curbing in a subdivision in 1977 when helicopters started spraying the surrounding potato filed which were soon to be replaced with homes. It started raining insects of all kinds. I clearly remember seeing a lot of dragon flies dropping at my feet. Dragon flies eat mosquitoes, lots of them. Of course at the time I didn't realize I was breathing this stuff too. I was eighteen and immortal.
June 18, 2009
The feds have granted Atlantic salmon in three southern Maine rivers endangered species protection, which means you can't “harass, harm, pursue, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect,” them. This protection means, in large part, that myriad bureaucratic gears start grinding should you seek permission to do any of the above. What this federal protection doesn't address are other things humans do to these fish. First there are the dams which keep salmon from reaching upstream spawning grounds. The fish ladders and lifts put in place to help the salmon make this journey don't work. That's one big reason why dams are being ripped out across New England, which has over 7,000 of the things. (Another big reason the dams are getting pulled out is dam maintenance is getting too costly.)
This is a sticky wicket. These dams can provide a lot of energy. The Great Stone Dam on the Merrimack River in Lawrence powers some 15,000 homes without using a drop of oil. It's also the reason only 57 salmon made it upstream of Lawrence this year. Hobson's choice, wouldn't you say?
However, there's another big problem the Atlantic salmon are facing. Fish farming. The bulk of the farmed salmon eaten in this country comes from the Gulf of Maine. These three rivers run into the gulf of Maine. The salmon running into these rivers must first swim past the fish farms, and like all farms, fish farms have al kinds of problems controlling disease.
Things like sealice are ravaging wild salmon populations on both coasts. Caution! Personal experience anecdote approaching. When I did this story on an off-shore electrical generator that uses wave energy to power off-shore fish farms, one person involved got very upset because I mentioned the pollution problems with fish farming. The reason they wanted to design the offshore facility was to protect the inshore fish like the salmon from the farm operation pollution problems. Click the link, it's a cool story. Great art.
But again we have a Hobson's choice. Fish farming makes it so less wild salmon are needed to fill markets, but the fish farms are killing off the wild salmon.
June, 15, 2008
Tom Fote, head of the Jersey Coast Anglers Association sent out the results of the organization's fluke tournament. Fluke, a.k.a. winter founder, is a prized game fish both for its flesh which rivals halibut and its size which almost rivals halibut. Little wonder these fish are getting pretty hard to find. This spring I managed to get three trips out to the Green Lawns off Shelter Island in New York. I didn't so much as get a bite in some of the best fluke fishing grounds in the country, in the heart of the season.
Yet groups like JCAA and party fishing boats owner complain constantly of the ever-rising federal restrictions on fluke. It's hard not to sympathize. I went out fluking on a party boat in New Jersey last year and not one keeping came on board. These boat captains are losing money along with their reputations. They say the feds setting these regs don't know what they are doing. The feds are just going with the numbers they see coming over the rail of these party boats, and the commercial guys offshore. These regulators don't have a dog in this fight other than rebuilding the fish stocks. They will have a job no matter what happens to the fluke fishing.
This is not a keeper. Regulations vary state'to'state, but to take a fluke home these days it's got to weigh close to 4 pounds. That's a big fish and that's the rub. The party boat industry in the Northeast is big business, yet it won't be for long if customers can't take home any keepers. However, without stricter regulations we won't have any keepers to take home. As always, two sides to the story
Back to the story. The fishermen won't have a job if federal regulations are keeping their customers from catching fish. That makes their arguments and interests a little more conflicted. Caution: Mandatory tangential digression approaching. If you want to go fluking, or fishing for anything for that matter, do not ask for reports from WEGO Bait and Tackle in Southold, NY. To hear those folks tell it, the Peconic Bay estuary is teeming with fish and fluke the size of proverbial doormats. it ain't. However, WEGO's prices seemed reasonable. Still, if you want the straight skinny get aboard the Peconic Star, Dave Brennan is one of the best fishermen on Long Island and honest to a fault.
June 8, 2009
This release is sending the right message. Taking plastic bottles and making American flags. Recycling should be viewed as patriotic. And no doubt some of the environmental regulations the editors above are upset about involved recycling. Bet most of you didn't realize that Polartec, one of the finest insulating materials ever sown into the lining of a jacket is also made from old soda bottles. Then we've got this company saying we should watch out for chemicals in our clothing. But they seem to be warning primarily about latex.
Next among the chemically-cautionary emails is this letter from Tom Fote at the JCAA. He's speaking to Congress about the omnipresence of all kinds of chemicals in the water. I spoke with Tom for a few stories on fishing. He's definitely no friend to commercial fishermen. Still, you have to admire his commitment. I don't think he's getting paid for an awful lot of time spent on behalf of recreational anglers. The guy works hard, even if only for one side of a very two-sided argument. I don't know about you, but I like fish markets, it's how the fish in these markets are caught that bothers me. Again, looks like an industry in need of more federal regulations.
This Washington Post piece cautions that the East Coast may be hit harder by global warming sea-level increases for reasons that “could be wrong.” What's wrong is the statement that the Chesapeake Bay could see sea levels jump by two to four feet by 2100. If the endless stream of emails I get are any indication, global sea-levels will rise much faster than being predicted right now. Caution after caution is being issued by scientists that the ice caps, Arctic and Antarctic, are warming much faster that expected. The spooky part is the way those shrinking ice caps have a reinforcing effect that adds to global warming even more. The more ice melts the faster the planets warms up. It's kinds like pushing a car down a hill. Once it's rolling it won't stop. This Rolling Stone piece says it all. I hate to be gloom and doom, and I sincerely doubt this fellow has touched all the bases. Read the RS piece and see if you don't see the same inescapable logic I see.
June 5, 2009
The latest Outdoor Life has a photo essay of fishermen and the monster sharks they've caught. Other than filling a few pages worth of OL copy space with free file footage, the essay seems to illustrate little more than man once again declaring dominion over a dangerous predator. Before you curse me for belittling sportsmen, I've got a a few photos of my own. I'm looking at one now, pinned to my wall with a hairy arm (mine) reaching into the water to hand-feed a frozen mackerel to a six-foot blue shark 20 miles south of Long Island, NY. For years I loved shark fishing. But make no mistake, it's the most wasteful form of fishing this side of gill netting.
Before going sharking, we'd bait-up with three, five-gallon tins of ground up moss bunkers, three flats of frozen butterfish and two flats of frozen mackerel. (A flat is three inches thick and about the size of a small coffee table.) By even conservative estimates, 1,000 or so dead fish were used to entice maybe three or four sharks to our hooks . Bottom line in shark fishing is: the more fish food you throw over the side the better your chances.
About the only thing the movie Jaws got right about sharks, is the thrill of fishing for them. And there was nothing like the feeling of returning home from a successful shark fishing trip: cruising past the packed restaurants lining Shinnecock Canal, wearing shades and drinking a beer, deliberately ignoring the people pointing at the 200 pound mako tied to the bow of the boat. There is no finer definition of cool. Unfortunately there is no finer definition of wasteful, either. Sometimes we have to put away childish things.
In defense of OL they also printed this photo essay of poisonous mushrooms. Take a gander if you're heading out into the woods anytime soon.
This is a cool project. Folks over at New Hampshire's Department of Environmental Services have a program aimed at picking cigarette butts off the beach. New Hampshire has the unfortunate distinction of having 11 miles of gorgeous ocean-front beach that has historically been the playground of blue-collar families from the Merrimack Valley mill towns of Haverhill, Lawrence and Lowell. It's arguably the last vestige of American honky tonk. Get your funnel cakes here. There still a few penny arcades left. Make no mistake, I love the place.
More to the point; lets be honest, blue collar folks smoke more than rich people. Hence, New Hampshire has a Butt's off the Beach Day while the Hamptons on Long Island, NY, doesn't. This sounds incredibly crass, but lets face it, it's true. Anyway, I was doing a story for the Globe once on a similar effort at Hampton Beach and there were folks walking around with these portable ashtrays.
I always assume the last frontier in the Green movement are the less affluent communities, Marlboro Country. Spend a few years living in Washington Heights, NY or Perth Amboy, NJ, before you disagree. But here were these folks on Hampton Beach carrying these portable ashtrays around. They are still billowing unnecessary smoke into the air, but at least the butts are ending up in the trash. And every little butt helps.
June 2, 2009
Talk about recycling, this release about war veterans being retained as building energy conservation auditors is worth a read, despite the subject. What a great idea, taking war veterans and teaching them the ins and outs of making buildings more energy efficient.
Maybe it's just me, but I read this release three times and still don't understand it. Some one was paid good money to write it.
Apparently someone built a school in Hawaii out of bamboo. I only bring this up because Bamboo is an amazing product and it grows so quickly and is so strong. It working it way ever deeper into our homes and habitats. At left you can see the stuff is used for scaffolding in Asia that is stacked hundreds of feet high. I have no idea what it's resistance to rot and wear is but it doesn't hurt to learn a little more about it.
Gravel pit versus pristine wilderness? That's a tough one. In this economy, jobs will likely win out over saving the environment. But read this release and see if you don't experience the same sense of frustration I do that this could even be up for consideration.
Now some folks want to take the wilderness above and turn it into something mroe like this. No doubt jobs hang in the balance and not all wilderness is sacred but lets hope good judgement prevails
Say it ain't so. The nation's dirtiest power plant might be going green. That's the case according to this Salem News piece. The Salem News also has this brief on mosquito spraying. I bring it up here just to point out that this sort of spraying uses a bacteria that kill mosquito larvae, it's harmless to other life forms. Bacteria are just another form of life. Too few people understand that. However if Triple E or West Nile Virus start to surface later in the season the spray used is toxic. This is a thorny subject because the toxic spray really damages the environment. It's potent stuff designed to kill a lot of mosquitoes quickly. However, the viruses can kill old folks and infants. Talk about a Hobson's choice, at least for me. My 86-year-old father may feel differently.
The CSM has a well-written piece on increasing interest in ocean floor mining resulting from increased metal prices. Apparently, a Canadian company is looking to start scratching around some deep-ocean volcanic vents like the ones where those bizarre worms were discovered in the 1970s. As the piece points out, such creatures don't engender quite the sympathy that threatened polar bears and spotted owl muster. So, why not tear up the ocean bottom if there are jobs and money to be made and nobody will see or experience the damage done? It gets back to how much damage do we want to do to the waters on this planet. A while back an image surfaced of the damage being done to the ocean bottom by fishing trawlers. This is subtle damage we're talking about here. The trawlers are just scrapping the ocean floor for fish that I love to eat and certainly many others do too. It's the scrapping part that's the problem. These trawler nets can badly damage a delicate ecosystem that clings to the inhospitable surface hundreds of feet below the ocean. It takes a long time for these ecosystems to re-establish themselves. The idea that such damage could eventually start to add up doesn't seem enter the equation when mining companies start talking to thrid world countries about opening shop off their shores. It's time that it should according to the CSM piece.
It may be hard to see from a satellite, but these lite-colored lines across this photo of the gulf of Mexico are the swathes of ocean bottom being neutered by fishing trawlers. This can't be good for things living on the ocean flloor
The Nature Conservancy has an excellent study just out that illustrates the same point from a slightly shallower perspective. It found that 85 percent of the world's oyster reef have disappeared. You have to stop a moment and consider what an oyster reef is to fully understand the significance of the study. Oyster reefs were the northern equivalent of coral reefs with all the fish and water filtering benefits that come with them. No one knows anything about oyster reefs now because they were wiped out early in this country's history. The oyster reefs protruded several feet off our harbor and creek bottoms presenting ship's captains with a craggy, sharp obstacle they'd just as soon do with out. What's more, the oysters making up the reef were great to eat. Little wonder they've disappearsed. Now millions are being spent trying to bring them back, only they don't seem to be taking too well. Perhaps the underwater vents being threatened by mining are our modern day oyster reefs. We should think very carefully before green-lighting this sort of industry, lest we find a century from now we're much more dependent on these deep water ecosystems than we realize today. The mining, the reefs and the trawling. man's relentless assault on the marine environment, it has to reach a tipping point, if it hasn't already.
In doing a story for the New York Times recently
on a disfiguring lobster disease called shellburn there was an interesting interview that kind of diverted from the thrust of the story. Speaking with a lobsterman from western Connecticut the
fellow starting protesting about mosquito spraying. Lobstermen have
long held that toxic pesticides such as malathion and Anvil, a brand-named
product, are killing the lobster. Long Island Sound
used to be crawling with lobster, but they started dying off
around 2001. Now it’s lobstermen who
are scarce around Long Island Sound. This fellow said there is no
reason for using the toxic sprays NY uses when biological treatments, which use bacteria to kill mosquitoes before the bugs develop wings, are being used in Connecticut and Massachusetts. Is it possible that New York is just being lazy? Vector Control in Suffolk County on Long Island in particularly, embraces outmoded technologies such as
trenching when much more effective, newer control technologies exist. The lobsterman had a good question: Why is New York still using these toxic pesticides when biological agents work just as well and turn into harmless stuff like protein after their work is done.
This slightly blurry image is shellburn on the back of a lobster. It's the orange-colored area. The disease is largely believed to be everyday bacteria eating away at the lobster shell as they would if the animal were dead and starting to decay. The question now is why these bacteria are getting the upper hand while the animal is still alive. It often sets in on parts of the shell that the lobster can clean with it's legs.
Lobstermen have
long held that toxic pesticides such as malathion and Anvil, a
brand-named
product, are killing Long Island Sound lobster. For those who don’t
know, Long Island Sound
used to be crawling with lobster. But they started dying off
precipitously
around 2001. The catch was reduced by almost 80 percent in two or three
years. Lobstermen have long maintained that pesticides are to blame and
they won a court settlement a few years back saying same. This
lobsterman said there is no
reason for using the toxic sprays NY uses when biological treatments
such as
those used in Connecticut and Massachusetts work fine. Is New York is
just being lazy? Vector Control in Suffolk County particularly,
embraces outmoded technologies such as
mosquito ditching largely ignoring very effective less damaging
technologies being embraced in Massachusetts.
People have been using trenching as a mosquito control mechanism since the Great Depression. In fact many of these trenches were WPA project as shown here.
As our fragile shorelines are put under more and
more pressure from overdevelopment and road runoff is it so much to ask that
our government agencies look for ways within their operations to make it a
little easier on Mother Nature? Then again it will probably mean higher taxes. There
is another wrinkle tinkering with mosquito, senior citizens. They are the usually
the first to die from mosquito-born aliments like West Nile
and Triple E. Tell them you want to cut back on spraying. They pay taxes and
they vote. Good luck!
University scientists in this 
American solar panel manufacturer Evergreen Solar is 
1) New York is 
In the survival-of-the-fittest sweepstakes, it looks like the amur leopard lost out, according to this 
Keeping with the spin-meister message in ONews today, there's this 
The Gulf of Maine Institute just got $200,000 to pay 
It seems, in some respects, that the more stuff small fish can hide in, the better. Then again this 
Past discussions here about 
Still, you have to wonder. They are talking about involving 300 state workers here. Michigan is threatening legal action if Illinois doesn't do more to stop the carp. What was interesting here is that scientists say it's ok if a few of the carp get into the lake. They just want to stop a mass-migration. Then there is the other expert in the article saying there is probably little that can be done to prevent the carp from eventually reaching and taking over the lake. Perhaps we could just drop a couple of 
On the subject of messes left behind (see 
The world's sharpest investment mind is 
Seizing upon this coincidence of recent anti-global warming media and Buffet's bet on coal isn't to suggest another corporate conspiracy afoot. It's big energy's job to systematically attack global warming theory. They've been doing it for years. What might be happening is opportunism that probably has little to do with Buffet's initial bet, but could now be fueled by it. More so than ever these days, public opinion is easily swayed by 
At NBN we don't want to flog a dead horse, but a possibly 
Those plants are getting old, the cities they serve have gotten a lot bigger and those overflow drains a lot busier. When state environmental agencies close shellfishing in certain areas, it's over fear the 
All parks are not created equal. Some are greener than others, which prompted this 
Something doesn't add up with this New York Times 
The other thing to consider is oyster reefs make spectacular ecosystems. Like tropical coral reefs, oyster reefs promote all manner of marine life in the nooks and crannies these reefs eventually form. If we want our bays and estuaries returned to their former glory, re-establishing oyster reefs will be a huge step in the right direction: cleaner water, greater biodiversity. The University of New Hampshire has been working on such a project in the Great Bay for years and are starting to see 
Any fan of wild turkeys might find 
Speaking of scarce birds, the Santa Marta parakeet of Colombia, South America, was discovered only six years ago, and is already on the endangered species list. Its habitat in southeastern Colombia's 
A New Zealand 
The Wampanoag Indians are on the 
The environmental movement can make strange 
Is it possible the president is among NBN's four or five readers? Or is it just coincidence that he's proposing this 
NBN's power plant of the future is not a bunch of turbines propelled by dirty or dangerous exchanges of energy, like Chernobyl here. The power plant of the future is an accounting firm that measures who generated what amount of electricity and how much they should be paid for the power they dumped into the “smart grid.” That money will come from those who consume more power than they produce, thus encouraging efficiency. The net deficit of average household consumption versus production will start to drop with greater energy efficiency, thanks to the smart meters. Big business energy demands will start to drop with more folks working out of their homes, all the cars in the US can burn natural gas because we don't use the stuff for power plants any more. Global warming will end, endangered species will rebound and fishing will improve. Yes, it's utopia. But we here at NBN tend to be a little over-optimistic. 
Here's a rare example of 
The NRDC wants 
Imagine drinking sewer water. It's happening more and more these days and this 
Another study says London is one town where it might pay to go into a career in waste water. (Sorry, we lost the link) Apparently, London is supposed to start running real low on the wet stuff by 2025. Funny, how that date seems so far off. Even a drinking water shortage isn't important enough to be taken seriously when you have 15 years to fix the problem. And that might be why there are so many jobs in the industry now. Why do 
Here's a good 
New Hampshire is putting $12 million in stimulus funding toward 
Here's another 
Bay State Congressman Barney Frank wants the government 
Want a change of life? Want to get away to a tropical desert island for a few years and still pay the mortgage back home? Then the National Parks Service wants you. Out on Dry Tortugas National Park, to be specific. The Parks Service is accepting vendor permit applications for snorkling, fishing, sailing, birding, and diving guides who might want to set up shop on one of the most pristine islands in US waters. All the activites just named are AAA+ quality out on the Tortugas. Tortugas is to nature what New York City is civilization: one-of-a-kind and wild. There are 30 slots open for vendors, however these are 
There are also about a dozen campsites on the island, but no running water or groceries of any sort. Anybody who wants to camp, has to schlep their own water out. You could sell the stuff for $15 a gallon and your customers would still thank you. Even if you do have a conscious, opportunity abounds on the Dry Tortugas. The release came out Oct. 5. There is a catch. A report 
Little is more upsetting than brutish bullying of the delicate and defenseless. The victim this time is a flower called the western prairie fringed orchid, the bully is an invasive plant called 
The Gloucester fishing fleet is 
Speaking of sustainable fishing, are red crabs going to go the route of the chilean sea bass? Never heard of red crabs? Nobody ever heard of patagonian toothfish until some clever fish marketer out of Califorinia dubbed them Chilean sea bass. Now Chilean sea bass is everywhere. Everywhere that is,except the coast of South America where they were discovered in huge numbers about 15 years ago. They were virtually wiped out all in the course of a decade or so. Now the Cape Cod Times is 
Speaking of coal did you know that the coal-fired power plant in Salem, MA, is only running at half power? 
Great news, Dominion! We've got 
On another note, a couple of alternative energy companies may have found the answer to all the problems with wind turbines. These projects have run into headwinds both inland and 
Anything about oysters is great news and this is all about oysters. The 
Here's an intrepid writer 
As sandbags provide a rickety bulkhead for teetering homes on Plum Island, the folks on Long Island are starting to wake up to nature's ways. As the article above indicates, they are talking in earnest of removing the stone jetty that's causing the problem. That will restore the natural flow of sand with the tides which may or may not be good for the houses around Goldsmith Inlet. It will however return things to the way nature designed. A much easier argument to defend when resident's losing their homes come clamoring for six- and seven-figure taxpayer rescue efforts to save their vulnerable properties. If that appears insensitive to the PI folks above, whose homes are quite literally falling into the ocean, all you can say is: their's are not the first homes lost to the elements. Hurricane Katrina did a tune on New Orleans. We're not rebuilding those homes. One could argue the entire city should be left to fend for itself. It's a risk you assume living next to, or near, the water. This is the jetty on Plum Island causing all the erosion undermining the homes in the picture above. That's not to say these homes will be saved if the jetty is removed. But those sand bags we're not placed there by volunteers. Before any more talk of restoring this beach, the US Army Corps of Engineers should pull this jetty.
Who said seaweed can't kill you. In France a truck driver died behind the wheel while disposing of three tons of seaweed. Apparently, the beaches of France are getting choked with sea lettuce from too much farm fertilizer. The sea lettuce in the water is harmless, but when it starts to rot it gives off gasses that can kill. At least it can kill when you've got this much of the stuff. A horse being ridden over one lettuce-filled beach died in mid-gallop. The rider was found unconscious. Might have been two casualties if people hadn't gotten to the rider first. We first wrote about this in the 8.14.09 
Here is a rather 
Here's a 
The state's move to restrict biofuel to waste- oil products has folks planning to make biofuel from other sources, most especially algae, feeling 
Bay State fishermen are signing onto a 
These coops are given a certain share of the total catch the federal government sets for a particular fish. The coop will decide how to catch those fish and when. When the coop reaches its share of the total allowable catch, they are shut down. It's a practice also know as 
If this sounds a little like communism meets Captain Quint, it is. There is little room for ambition for fishermen when the government says how many fish you are allowed to catch. It's the same as saying how much money you're allowed to make. Read the fish shares link above for a good evaluation of the pros and cons of fish shares. The coming year will be a telling one for commercial fishing if the coops go into effect and it looks like they will.
Here's a fish story everybody has to believe. A 
Here's how it works. Plants—the green kind—breath-in mercury drifting downwind from those smoke stacks. Coal burning power plants are the 
There are a few holes in this explanation above, but the reasoning, I suspect, the study scientists would say is intuitive. 
Is it inhumane to allow tourists to swim with Florida's manatees? The arguably overzealous Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) says it is in 
Here's a 
This Gloucester Times 
Unbeknownest to the rest of the world, and much of the state's residents, Massachusetts is 
Here's an interesting 
These barely discernable images diagram residential septic systems. The left is a newer system with grease trap that can be cleaned out, thus keeping the nastier stuff from reaching the leeching field were, what remains is allowed to seep, or leech, into surrounding soil. The system at right is just a cesspool which takes it all in, lets it seep out much like the leechfield does. Because it has no grease trap, it's more expensive to maintain. Back to the story.
While our minds are in the gutter, just as predicted in NBN on 6.18.09 in the 
The eastern Himalayas are teeming with undiscovered plant and animal life, according to this press 
Remember the game telephone, where people sit in a circle and one whispers a story into his neighbor's ear, who then repeats it to his neighbor and so on, until it comes full circle in a form vastly different from what was started? See if you don't think this is a similar devolution of fact. Here's a 
Here's 
As written in 
Along the same lines PTP, The Department of Defense is 
This gets back to the point made in the 
Bottled Water Blues
Not sure what 
Here's an interesting 
This 
This is a little past the time of year that we get fish kills in ponds around New England, but we might as well add this MassWildlife 
Keeping with the same theme is this spooky 
Ever take the NJ Turnpike through Newark and Elizabeth? If so 
This from the were-it-were-only-true file. It's long been known that algae produce oil that can power a car. This 
It took about 15 minutes but I finally figured out what this press release is saying and it's pretty cool if they can make it work. They are outfitting street lights with ultra efficient bulbs, called Light Emitting Diodes or 
Just imagine every home in the country outfitted with these switching devices and a few solar panels. Add that technology to increased fuel efficiency and hybrid technology in cars and you begin to appreciate the amount of money this county can save on oil costs. It's the kind of money that can make the trillions in debt piling up now to promote these technologies disappear pretty quickly. The savings on the other hand will last for ever. Hopefully someday soon this sight at right will be as common as asphalt roof shingles
I was working for a cement company putting in curbing in a subdivision in 1977 when helicopters started spraying the surrounding potato filed which were soon to be replaced with homes. It started raining insects of all kinds. I clearly remember seeing a lot of dragon flies dropping at my feet. Dragon flies eat mosquitoes, lots of them. Of course at the time I didn't realize I was breathing this stuff too. I was eighteen and immortal.
The 
Things like sealice are ravaging wild salmon populations on both coasts. Caution! Personal experience anecdote approaching. When I did 
But again we have a Hobson's choice. Fish farming makes it so less wild salmon are needed to fill markets, but the fish farms are killing off the wild salmon.
Tom Fote, head of the 
This is not a keeper. Regulations vary state'to'state, but to take a fluke home these days it's got to weigh close to 4 pounds. That's a big fish and that's the rub. The party boat industry in the Northeast is big business, yet it won't be for long if customers can't take home any keepers. However, without stricter regulations we won't have any keepers to take home. As always, two sides to the story
The latest Outdoor Life has a photo essay of fishermen and the monster sharks they've caught. Other than filling a few pages worth of OL copy space with free file footage, the essay seems to illustrate little more than man once again declaring dominion over a dangerous predator. Before you curse me for belittling sportsmen, I've got a a few photos of my own. I'm looking at one now, pinned to my wall with a hairy arm (mine) reaching into the water to hand-feed a frozen mackerel to a six-foot blue shark 20 miles south of Long Island, NY. For years I loved shark fishing. But make no mistake, it's the most wasteful form of fishing this side of gill netting.
More to the point; lets be honest, blue collar folks smoke more than rich people. Hence, New Hampshire has a Butt's off the Beach Day while the Hamptons on Long Island, NY, doesn't. This sounds incredibly crass, but lets face it, it's true. Anyway, I was doing 
Apparently someone built 
Gravel pit versus pristine wilderness? That's a tough one. In this economy, jobs will likely win out over saving the environment. But read 
Now some folks want to take the wilderness above and turn it into something mroe like this. No doubt jobs hang in the balance and not all wilderness is sacred but lets hope good judgement prevails
Say it ain't so. The nation's dirtiest power plant might be going green. That's the case according to this Salem News 
It may be hard to see from a satellite, but these lite-colored lines across this photo of the gulf of Mexico are the swathes of ocean bottom being neutered by fishing trawlers. This can't be good for things living on the ocean flloor
This slightly blurry image is shellburn on the back of a lobster. It's the orange-colored area. The disease is largely believed to be everyday bacteria eating away at the lobster shell as they would if the animal were dead and starting to decay. The question now is why these bacteria are getting the upper hand while the animal is still alive. It often sets in on parts of the shell that the lobster can clean with it's legs.
People have been using trenching as a mosquito control mechanism since the Great Depression. In fact many of these trenches were WPA project as shown here.
