In News by Nature this week we have suburban flight in Good News, tossing out the tipping point in Hot News and plenty of porous pavement in Watershed News.

What looks like a fairly mundane urban backyard is actually a cleverly disguised stormwater retention system. Rainwater from the roof of NBN’s offices travels down this drain and pools against the terraced landscaping, shown at left. This pooling gives the rainwater a chance to seep into the ground before draining into the Merrimack River about a quarter of a mile away. Such downspouts normally discharge rainwater directly into the street which then drains into the river, carrying all sorts of pollutants with it. The rainwater never gets filtered through the ground. This stormwater runoff is the largest pollution problem we have today. We use this subtle stormwater retention system above to illustrate NBN's theme this week: Little changes making a big difference, some good, some bad.  In Good News we look at an article describing the flight of folks from the suburbs back into the cities as the nation’s economy shifts from manufacturing and agriculture to information-based. In Hot News we have an article saying the dreaded prospect of a tipping point in global warming may not be happening after all. Then, in Watershed News we feature a product called porous pavement that is working much the same way as our backyard brick work to protect the quality of the nation's drinking water. If we have to pave paradise this is the product to use. Have a terrific holiday folks, and thank you for reading NBN.

 News by Nature looks at what’s in the breeze this week. In Wind News we ask if it’s crime or chaos holding back New England’s wind energy industry. Then in Hot News we measure Brazil’s ambition to become a world class oil exporter against prospects that Global Warming is turning shipping into risky business.

Here’s Long Island Sound, about as rough as it gets, shortly before we set off from the dock this past Sunday. The 30-to 40-knot east winds pushed the water into 6-foot swells a few miles off shore. They shuddered through the crepe-paper hull of the Cross Sound Ferry’s flagship, Susan Ann, making the 90-minute voyage marginally entertaining or terrifying depending on your fondness of danger. The unusually windy, mild weather that parked over New England this past weekend illustrates well this week’s breezy theme in NBN: wild weather and the wind it’s producing. In Hot News we reconcile Brazil’s plan to become a world class oil exporter with international shipping’s concern that global warming is behind what everyone agrees are bigger and bigger waves washing over boats like the Susan Ann. Then we attempt to see what’s in the breeze for the nation’s flagging windfarm industry through a round-up of recent news that suggests the forecast is not bright and sunny in Wind News.  We’ve run out of puns so we’ll let you take it from here. Have a great week and thank you for reading NBN.

This week in News by Nature we have Ohio's Mistake on the Lake and places like it becoming the new Meaning of Greening in Watershed News, the Corn Palace is popped in Popular Wisdom, and we look at hysterical news coverage of commercial fishing making things worse and better than they really are in Today's Catch.

Welcome to Bird Island, home to one-third of the US population of endangered roseate terns. Assisted by  volunteers, grant money and government scientists, the population of roseates on this two-acre island in southern New England is doing well. The crew brave furious pecks and deliberate droppings from birds protecting the nests these volunteers built for them. It's dirty, hard work and it’s succeeding. Yet, just this week, residents in a nearby town complained that increased investment in Bird Island would be better spent cleaning PCBs from the Buzzards Bay harbor the island calls home. That’s what this issue of NBN is all about: the choices ahead if we really want to protect the environment, the prospects for success and how we define that success. In Popular Wisdom we use South Dakota’s Corn Palace and a few bad puns to take an unflinching look our wilting love affair with the car and the heartbreaks, and hopes, that lie on the road ahead. In Today’s Catch we take a look at ringing alarm bells over what’s really just a sad story that can limp along for a long time, should we choose to let it. Then in Watershed News we give a quick review of a great documentary on Ohio’s Mistake by the Lake, a.k.a Cleveland, that’s becoming a poster child for environmental restoration. Have a great week folks, and thank you for reading NBN.

News by Nature this week finishes its focus on fishing with a tome on tuna in Endangered News and our answers to overfishing in Today’s Catch.

We attempt this week to show why people need to pay more attention to the problems facing the country’s fishing industry. There is no pending disaster, but there are dramatic regulatory changes afoot aiming to make our oceans a lot stronger by making commercial fishing a lot weaker. And the fishermen aren’t happy. Yet, the only thing that terrifies a fisherman more than increased government regulation is no government regulation at all. That’s the solution we favor in Today’s Catch this week: Let's get rid of all these government regulations. Then, in Endangered News we look at the reams of recent news about blue fin tuna as being emblematic of all the problems facing commercial fishing. The state of commercial fishing in this country is similar to health care, energy and so many other crisis brought about by over-consumption. As we look for answers we come up with more questions. Do we attempt to fine-tune status quo in order to max-out production? Or, do we take a new approach with no certainty of success? Do we improve fishing by protecting fish? Do we improve health care by being healthier? Is taxing oil the answer growing energy demands? On that happy note, have a great week folks and thank you for reading NBN.

In News by Nature this week we own up to bad fishing behavior in Opinion News, we ask if a fish scientist is guilty of same in School News and in Today’s Catch we look at America protecting her natural resources now in order to cash in years from now.

Welcome to NBN’s fishing issue. We’re not going to regale you with stories about the one that got away, mostly because it’s not getting away anymore. We’ve become too good at catching fish. Sadly, that expertise has come at the expense of our ocean environment. As we point out in Opinion News this week, NBN has a special place in its heart for fishing and more so lately fish. Unfortunately, about 80 percent of the world ignores the sport, industry, economy, ecology and animals involved. Yet the serious environmental problems facing, and caused by, this industry are some of the most under reported in the world. As we write in Today’s Catch, our country is in a position where, with significant sacrifice, we can work this problem to our advantage right now. But, as we report in School News, science, society and a government that hasn’t governed, must all collaborate. This is a very important yet poorly understood issue and we hope you can take the time to learn more about it. If not in NBN, read about it elsewhere. But we’d really rather you start your reading here. Have a great week.

News by Nature this week looks at saving money by sending used furniture to Haiti instead of the dump in Recycling News. In Endangered News we have fish getting sunburned and Hot News has global warming putting the pedal to the metal on Darwin’s theory of evolution.

This is a proto-type of the Magniwork generator that’s lighting up dark corners of the World Wide Web with notions that the elusive perpetual motion machine has finally been discovered. It’s a wonderfully simple idea: magnets perpetually push away from each other until The Three Stooges come to life on our TVs. Sadly, we did a little research and found the Magniwork runs hard afoul of the first law of thermodynamics, among other complications. But, while researching the Magniwork, NBN got to thinking about the worldful of resources surrounding us as we busily ruin the planet looking for more. For instance, in Recycling News this week we have a Massachusetts company delivering a schoolful of used education equipment to Haiti while saving the district a ton of money that it would cost to landfill the items. Then, in Endangered News we have whales getting sunburn from increasing amount of ultraviolet energy raining down from the sun. Finally, in Hot News we ponder the prospect that, as the world heats up from global warming, will the rate of evolution  speed up to help animals adapt. Since we’ve already brought up The Three Stooges, we figure we’d send you off in the wilds of NBN this week with this walk down memory lane. Have a great week folks. Thank you for reading NBN.

News by Nature celebrates the elections this week with a look at ecology through the lens of politics in Watershed News, we contrast hunters and fishermen in Today's Catch and in Popular Wisdom we ask: What's so funny about plastic pollution.

If ever there is a picture of hope for a heavily polluted river, fishing in the shadow of Manhattan’s George Washington Bridge embodies is it. Not only are you leaving the afternoon’s entertainment to the vagaries of finicky creatures you can’t see, but you’re also assuming this section of the Hudson River is getting clean enough to have fish enough to be entertaining. About 10 blocks south of this fishing hole, the North River Sewage Treatment Plant is disgorging 125 million gallons of Manhattan’s sewage into the river every day after it’s been filtered and disinfected. What does this Hudson River fishing hole share with that national standard of seaside recreation spots known as Cape Cod? A government agency built the North River plant and now a government agency is undertaking similarly ambitious steps to rein in waste-water pollution in a similarly polluted Cape Cod. Everybody is happy to sign off on projects like North River, but as we discuss in Watershed News this week, folks on the Cape are carping big time that their rights are being dismantled through the pollution protection measures government is passing restricting how big your house can be. Then in Popular Wisdom we autopsy a clash between noise pollution and plastic pollution and why there is nothing is funny about cancer. Then in Today's Catch we return to our fishing theme and the story of the real Captain Quint who, we argue, was less of a fishermen than this big guy here. Have a great week, folks. Thank you for reading NBN.

NBN this week marries an odd science called ethology to Wikileaks in an even odder explanation for war in Weird Science. In Watershed News tidal flow becomes a convenient way to clean up the creeks while we're polluting, them, and we proposed doubling food prices to make the future less costly for our kids in Down on the Farm.

This is no ordinary road construction site. The cement channels being eased into place here will reduce road flooding while improving tidal flow to the salt-marsh-turned-swamp in the background. It’s a win-win: the road stops flooding and the influx of revitalizing ocean water brings a greater diversity of life to the monoculture of reeds you see here. The same expectations have government funded tidal flow enhancement projects going in all along our coasts. Bulkheading and dredging a stagnant marsh do the same thing, and are often embraced as a means of cleaning up a creek befouled by boating and road runoff. But as we argue in Watershed News this week, bulkheading and dredging can profoundly alter a marsh’s complex ecosystem, scouring its innards like a high colonic. Then, in Weird Science this week we ponder Wikileaks and how it illustrates the role of a scientific concept called commensalism in why we wage war. Lastly, in Down on the Farm we propose doubling the price of some foods to reduce the ecological cost of putting them on the table. Yes, we’re in the middle of a recession, environmental and economic. We need a win-win here, too. Thank you for visiting NBN and have a great week!

This week in News by Nature we propose a plan to save the planet in Popular Wisdom, we ponder the powers profiting from corn power in Down on the Farm, and in Today’s Catch we deep fry a Washington wannabe wonk making mountains of money to have an opinion on everything and expertise in nothing.

These people are working on an experimental wave energy converter that bobs up and down in the ocean generating pneumatic power for fishfarm cages placed too far offshore for more conventional power sources. After getting a little local news coverage two years back, these fellows haven’t been heard from since. They’d have not been heard from at all if they hadn’t received some $100,000 in government grants. For anyone concerned with plummeting wild fish populations in the North Atlantic, those are tax dollars well spent. For the plumbing subcontractor in Phoenix, AZ, it might be a colossal waste of his plummeting annual income. That’s what we devote this issue of NBN to: government’s ballooning efforts to spur environmental and energy innovations and equally expanding private interests in stopping them. In Popular Wisdom we have NBN’s impossibly expensive government programs to save the planet and how we can’t possibly afford not to pursue them. In Down on the Farm, a tax-exempt, corporate-interest group fights for questionable corn power policies that are making them very rich, and in Today’s Catch a questionably-financed but even richer non-profit defends small businesses' right to imperil North Atlantic ecosystems. No matter which side of these politically charged issues you come down on, we can all agree these are amazing times in an amazing country. Have a great week folks and thank you for visiting NBN.

This week in NBN we leverage a Vermont hiking trip into one piece in Biodiversity News on how best to manage the nation’s remaining forests and another piece in the Opinion Page on extreme backpacking.

This was the scene this past weekend from about 2,500 feet up along the Appalachian Trial in Vermont. The dry summer season meant the leaf peeping was a little bland, but the weather meant there were few activities this past weekend quite as rewarding as hiking. That’s the focus of a piece in the Opinion Page this week: the love-hate experience of hiking up and down mountains for about eight straight hours. In measures of sheer physical exhilaration,  hiking is a sport on a par with alpine skiing and four-wheeling on ATVs, but it causes a lot less damage to the environment and is a lot less dangerous. Then in Biodiversity News we look at the new logging industry and the feathers being ruffled in Maine’s Unorganized Territories by those practicing it. Have a wonderful week folks.

 Irony and oddities rule this week in News by Nature. In Recycling News we rejoice over our Happy Meal, in our Opinion Page we party like it’s not 1979, and in Today’s Catch we use no “fillet” puns to gut a story on a recent award for jaundice journalism.

As every business in the world looks for ways to cash in on the green craze, NBN has taken on the task for look for hypocrisies like the solar bra, the recycling theme jewelry marketing scheme and our latest personal favorite this little jewel here: The New Green Ecology home building company. The address is that of a trash hauling company out on Long Island, NY, that has apparently gone into the construction business. We know these people, and they happen to be some of the nicest in the community. That doesn’t soften our stance that using scorched earth landscaping as the first step toward building a green home is not exactly an environmentally sensitive business model. No doubt the home, once built, will be insanely energy efficient. But road runoff in this neck of the woods is a chronic problem and this house will only make matters much worse in a nearby creek that can’t afford it. Ah well, the world is full of irony and we attempt to pick apart a few this week. In Today’s Catch we have a beauty: A journalist writing about dramatic restrictions imposed on the nation’s commercial fishing fleet is recognized by that fleet for his objectivity. In Recycling News we have the poster-child of pollution, the Happy Meal, setting the example for other eco-conscious mass-meal providers to follow and in the Opinion Page we digress a bit with an examination of the mid-term elections and why regardless of outcome, renewable energy is here to stay. Drill, Baby, Drill, is Dead, Baby, Dead.

This Week in News by Nature we reconcile electronics recycling, and Frankensfish with the "Pledge to America" in Popular Wisdom and in Weird Science we question MIT's building castles in the sky without foundations in Abu Dhabi.

 In News by Nature this week we fillet bottom trawling in Today’s Catch, we channel Joni Mitchell and spots on our dishes in Watershed News, and in Popular Wisdom we have government green groups missing the boat big time and innocent tax payers who got hurt in the process.

 In News by Nature this week we bash the global warming blame game in Hot News, we clarify an earlier story on the piping plover problem that we messed up in Endangered News, we have a superhero saving a mild mannered turtle in Biodiversity News, and we have an all points bulletin for an invasive stinging ant in Invasive News.

 In News by Nature this week we go after The Gipper in Popular Wisdom. Opinion News examines who pulls the Tea Party’s purse strings, and why. Banks back away from polluters in Good News and Weird Science lives up to its name with something we call The Rainman Theory.

In News by Nature this week we have: Cape Cod dead zones in Bad News; bringing ocean ecosystems back to life is killing commercial fishing, in Biodiversity News; using water to watch the Flintstones poses challenges for the Smart Grid, in Alt E News, and a supposedly  “green” coffee company's prolific profits from plastic products use has us seeing red in Recycling News.

Welcome to the Alpine Zone of the Presidential Range of New Hampshire’s White Mountains. It’s hard to find plants and animals quite as determined as the handful of species that grow in this most inhospitable of climates. There’s little dirt, tons of rain, an average temperature of 24 degrees and the  strongest winds ever recorded. This place spends about eight months of every year encased in ice. Yet, the world's sweetest cranberries and blueberries are slugging it out with the elements up here, along with a few moths, sparrows and the occasional black bear. The Alpine Zone is a testament to nature’s resilience. This week in NBN we discuss various ecosystems facing even greater adversities about 5,200 feet below this place. In Bad News we have cesspools turning Cape Cod  waters into dead zones (not the cell phone kind). A supposedly “green” coffee company profits and procrastinates over its plastic problem in Recycling News. (We have a solution they're sure to ignore.) In Biodiversity News, plans to protect national marine sanctuaries put fishermen in harm's way. Finally, we have water turbines complicate the Smart Grid in Alternative Energy News.

This week in News by Nature we sing the biodiversity blues in Biodiversity News. Opinion News holds out hope  for those who kill little critters for a living, and we have oil spill preparedness and the disappearing eel grass in New Hampshire’s Great Bay in Good News.

This week’s NBN is devoted to biodiversity as illustrated here by a trip Saturday out to Plum Island in Massachusetts. These are the plums the island is named for. Without any help from fertilizers, pesticides or herbicides these bushes pushed out this bumper crop of tiny plums that are every bit as sweet as the kind produced in orchards helped along with all those chemical inducements. Next to these beach plums was this flock of summertime visitors, the tree sparrow. This is their time apparently, and they swarm all over the island eating insects and bay berries that will fuel their migration south.

After the sparrows, we swam out into the north rock field at the end of the island and found lobsters and striped bass all over the place. We pulled a five pound lobster from under a rock only to discover it had eggs and we had to let it go. Sorry no pix. Heading home we caught this picture of  another summer species: the Plum Island Bonehead, sunning themselves on a sandbar in the Parker River and hoping like heck the tide has turned. Everybody was snapping pictures of these poor people. It looks like they made the best of a bad situation. 

We only laugh because NBN has been there as well. Parker River's shoal water is treacherous. All the above added up to a great day of wildlife viewing and experience. In a time when it’s all too easy to focus on the sorry state of so many coastal ecosystems, it was a joy to see the riot of plant and animal life out and about on a late summer day. That’s what this week’s issue is devoted to. Biodiversity. We look at the subject somewhat scientifically in Opinion News, then there’s the downside of all these animals in Biodiversity News. We also have oil spill protection drills in New Hampshire and a shockingly sustainable approach to recycling electronics in Good News.

In News by Nature this week we have oyster reef resuscitation restrictions in Watershed News and in Wind News we ask: are bird watchers getting help from Big Energy interests in windfarm flap?

Here’s where it all starts. High up on mountaintops rainwater collects in crevasses in the bedrock and gravity takes it for a long journey into and along our streams, brooks, creeks, rivers and eventually oceans where it evaporates into the air and rides the clouds back into our mountaintops. Sadly, half that cycle—the journey from mountain top to ocean—is becoming the No. 1 source of pollution in the country. It’s called storm water runoff also know as non-point source pollution. Runoff starts pristine, like the crystalline stuff shown here cascading down Zealand Falls in New Hampshire’s White Mountains. But every inch of the trip from there involves an ever growing complexity of chemicals that turn runoff into a nasty brew of oil, fertilizer and bacteria that’s discharged into the nation’s salt marshes. As we report in Watershed News today, there is a possible cure for this insidious form of pollution, but overly cautious government restrictions are hobbling those efforts. Then in Wind News we revisit the controversy of Big Energy’s opposition of windfarms by way of a famous mountain ridge in Pennsylvania known as a hangout for hawks.

This week in News by Nature we have instructions in our Watershed Science section on how to clean up a river. Not the water part of the river, the earth surrounding it. In Hot News we have a study that suggests some solutions for Global Warming may only be making matters worse.

The photo at left may look like a seagull flying over a tiny stream, but that’s the Ipswich River in Ipswich, MA, at 9:30 am on August, 4, 2010.  The river was putting out 1.4 cubic feet of water per second. That’s right, you could capture the entirety of the Ipswich River in a spackle bucket for  about two seconds. Yet, just four months earlier the photo at right  is what the Ipswich River looked like about 25 yards upstream from this seagull. How do we get such radical shifts in our rivers? A few thousand dams, a few hundred thousand drinking water wells, and some ominous weather patterns vis-à-vis global warming and viola'. This nation's rivers have taken it on the chin for centuries. So, in Watershed Science we have a primer on how to clean up a river—really clean it. We prepared the article to drive home the point that our rivers are integral parts of our inland and marine environments. Correspondingly, the nation will be amply rewarded when it takes on the sometimes gargantuan tasks of restoring them. (Sadly, the Ipswich may be beyond hope.) You will be amply rewarded for reading this gargantuan piece with a better understanding of just how polluted some American rivers are. We also have a pretty cool anecdote about Ted Kennedy getting his nephew off on that Florida rape charge at the expense of the Merrimack River in Massachusetts. Then we do a quickie critique in Hot News of a study saying man’s efforts to fight Global Warming could just be making matters worse.

 This week in News By Nature we have piping plovers problems aplenty, and a possible solution, in Endangered News. Extreme NIMBY in the Mojave Desert in Wind News, and we have a New Jersey marsh on the mega mend along with other great news in Good News.

Welcome to the Good News issue of NBN. In Biodiversity News we discuss the alarming drop in demand for rainforest lumber, in Good News we have the Northeast’s brand new old-growth forests and in this week’s digression we look again at Catch Shares, a little-known battle unfolding in New England that could improve marine environments across the world. That's in Today's Catch. Hey, it's all good: in News by Nature this week.

 In News by Nature this week we have wind farm foes file law suit in Wind News, arguing with a redneck and losing in the Opinion Page and what air conditioners and antibiotics have in common in Popular Wisdom.

In News by Nature today we have wild explosions in wild animal populations in Biodiversity News, we have a disease dilemma in Watershed News and we have a few laughs at the expense of a businessman turned global warming critic in Hot News.

In News by Nature this week: the private sector getting in the way of a very public industry in Wind News, government bureaucrats helping private development in Watershed News and singing the power blackout blues in Popular Wisdom.

News by Nature this week: Ever wonder why Stimulus plan critics always single out the educational and environmental programs in the bill as being the most wasteful? We do, this week in Popular Wisdom. Then we wonder if those criticisms are warranted in Good News.

Signs of fading times? Stimulus is on the outs and budget anxiety is in. Obama's $50b to keep America working is hitting a congressional stonewall as the bitter pill of tackling run away government spending is starting to sound more palatable to politicians looking to get re-elected this fall. So which projects will most feel the funding shortfall? No doubt science programs like the much-criticized Viking-era pollen study in Iceland. Great fodder for political critics of the program, but what do you want to bet the results of that study went to better understanding global warming? Doesn't have quite the cache of road work does it. That's what we look at in NBN today. As the country mulls another $50b in stimulus money why is it the shovel-ready projects avoid the scathing criticism while thousands of educational and scientific projects are held up as examples why the Stimulus didn't work?

 News by Nature this week has a new section called Down on the Farm in which we ask: is organic beef a cure-all for mid-life crisis? In Biodiversity News have behavioral disorders as an organic means of pest control and in Popular Wisdom we ask: is anything, really organic? Sense a theme here? Living with less and enjoying it more in News by Nature this week. Enjoy, and please don’t hesitate to leave favorable comments.

We use this pastoral New England scene off Interstate-95 to illustrate NBN’s theme of this week: “Simple Living During Complex Times” or “How to Not Poison Yourself When Surrounded by Chemicals.” We’ve been getting entirely too depressed over the Gulf oil spill lately so we thought we’d tackle a lighter subject this week. Outside of presenting wonderful opportunities for abuses of alteration—and an occasional tasteless joke and link to off-color website images—this week’s issue gives us pause to ponder the poisons permeating pretty much most mucus membrane in our bodies. You can add these cows and the marsh grass they eat to that list of chemicals. These are organic cows. No growth hormones, antibiotics or agri-farm corn in their diets. Just good old American grass from these meadows in northeast Massachusetts. However, about 15 miles to the east there’s a trash incinerator and 10 miles to the south the Salem Power Plant is spewing smoke from 10,000 tons of coal it burns every day. The mercury and sulfur emitted by those plants, and other goodies, like car exhaust from I-95 coats, the grass these animals incorporate into wonderfully marbled steaks that cost $16 a pound. Still, it’s a lot better than what goes into the mystery meat making up Big Macs. We can’t run away from all these chemicals in the world around us, but we can walk. In NBN today we attempt to explain how.

  News by Nature this week has: seal snacking sharks poses people problem, in Endangered News; the nation's marshes are no stranger to environmental assault, in Watershed News and reality TV courts Paul Bunyan and Capt. Ahab in a new section called Popular Wisdom.

06.01.10 in NBN In this issue of News by Nature we use biodiversity to argue in favor of Stimulus spending on strange science and we use the Gulf oil spill to argue in favor of paying environmental regulators salaries reflective of their responsibilities.

News by Nature this week indulges in really wishful thinking about the Gulf oil spill. We rail against Louisiana plans to hold the 75th annual Shrimp and Petroleum Festival despite that spill, and and we visit Atkins, VA, unsung steward to some of this country's most amazing woodlands.

NBN this week intended to use a recent Appalachian Trail hiking trip to coal mining country to argue that the independent-minded citizens from the Red-State south might be better stewards of the environment than the green-group types populating the northern coasts. However, Louisiana's plans to move ahead with the 2010 Shrimp and Petroleum Festival in the face of the Gulf oil spill fiasco complicated this theory somewhat. We end up with an amalgam of stories that paints a picture of an Old South wrestling with emerging limitations on natural resources just like the Old North is. Whether it's ground fishing in Georges Banks or mile-deep oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, there's something in the air everywhere these days reminding us that there's always a touch of gray in all these matters we try so hard to paint black and white.

This week we look at time travel and gremlins, cavemen and Manhattanites and draw conclusion accordingly.

News by Nature this week looks for silver linings in the Gulf oil slick, ponders life after catch shares, we look at building the sun outside San Francisco, and recruiting an ugly beetle to beat back a beautiful flower.

At News by Nature we try not to be too newsy. We prefer to examine thorny issues from all angles to help you draw conclusions accordingly. Kind of like this girl here. That doesn't stop us from recklessly offering opinions from time to time. We do so this week on the exquisitely timed oil spill in the gulf and the implementation, to our shock, of the system of commercial fishing call catch shares in  New England. We stray a little further from shore in a discourse on hot fusion technology and plans to build a sun outside San Francisco. Then we have a little something  about a beetle battling an invasive plant called water hyacinth. At the bottom of this page you'll find a collection of bits and pieces  from press releases and headlines that we think are worth your attention. Enjoy and feel free to comment.

News by Nature has Bay State battles once again setting the nations' future. This time in alternative energy and commercial fishing. Then we pause to ponder prospects for recycling toilet paper.

Bay State battles have always set the course for the rest of the country and now we have two beauties brewing here. The first is catch shares and commercial fishing. This Saturday Obama administration minions will be enforcing new fishing regulations called catch shares that all East Coast commercial fishermen—but particularly the groundfishing fleets in Gloucester and New Bedford—rightly fear could put them out of work and ruin communities steeped in proud traditions. Accordingly, the fishermen and communities are screaming bloody murder with support from Congressional heavy weights like Barney Frank, Olympia Snow and John Kerry. As awful as catch shares will be for fishermen, it's hoped it will give hugely popular food fish like cod and halibut a breather from decades of overfishing. But as we discuss in Today's Catch that's a hard sell in these hard times. Then in Wind News we have a unknown band of Indians leading the charge against plans to place a major windfarm in the scenic waters off Nantucket Island. These New England Indians are touching a raw nerve in a country still trying to atone for taking their homes and land away. However, it seems like outside interests are leveraging national guilt into an agent against change in favor of entrenched coal and oil interests. If the Indians win off Nantucket, Big Coal and Oil wins across the country. Once again Massachusetts is the flash point for new revolutions, some of which we may lose.

 News by Nature seeks to chill Global Warming Rhetoric in Hot News and we put the heat on poor folks to clean up their act in Recycling News.

This week News by Nature tackles the concepts of hope, change, conservation and ignorance. We chose this photo and this MIT video to illustrate these concepts for reasons we hope will come clear later on. The year-old video is eight minutes long, so watch it at your own risk. It talks about something called the Sixth Sense which is where the IPhones and tablets being marketed today are all heading. If they get there, life on Planet Earth will never be the same. Not just for techno-geeks but for farmers and plumbers, too. Incomprehensible amounts of information will be as instantly accessible as your own memory, all carried around in devices that will just get smaller over time. Whether you like it or not, huge change is upon us. Yet, we have a very popular movement a-foot proudly fighting change. They rallied last week about 10 miles from where this video was made. Among the more memorable quotes from that rally: “We’ll keep clinging to our constitution and our guns and religion and you can keep the change.” This fellow here is at the forefront of the Sixth Sense research. This guy isn't clinging to anything. Take a moment and click on the Sixth Sense video and get a real sense of change.

In NBN today: Fish Farming faux pas by fisherman friendly paper in Today's Catch. We also pay homage to the folks in lab coats in the Opinion Page along with a spiritually uplifting message about science

These folks are working on a device designed to generate the energy needed to feed and clean cages full of fish placed far from shore. This device was anchored in the Atlantic last winter, holding the hopes of a few entrepreneurial fish farmers and scientists that it might solve vexing pollution problems with similar installations closer to shore. That was pretty much the last anyone heard about the project. A lot of hard work and $100,000 in federal grant money down the tubes, right? Wrong. The research leads to refinements, the refinements to feasibility, feasibility to implementation. This is what science is all about. A lot of money gets spent finding ways to save generations to follow a lot more money. Not to mention providing a cleaner planet to live in, and a higher standard of living that doesn't come at the expense of that planet. In NBN today we pay homage to the guys and gals in lab coats, taking it on the chin these days by those who feel we're spend too much on such frivolity.

 In NBN today: On gelded pond in Opinion News and the nocturnal allure of Vernal Ponds in Endangered News.

This is a vernal pond, or pool. To most it's a swamp. To all manner of woodland wildlife this time of year it's the boudoir, and normally secretive creatures risk life and limb to get there. It's an au-naturel phenomenon akin to an amphibian orgy that drives frogs, salamanders, a weird little thing called fairy shrimp and a host of equally unusual critters to reproduce in these ponds during the first few warm, rainy nights of spring. To various groups across the country dedicated to protecting these ponds, this is also a busy time. They take local nature lovers on nocturnal visits to see first-hand swarms of otherwise very vulnerable animals answer nature's call in the few weeks after winter the ponds are sure to stay wet enough to hatch their eggs. The hope for many leading these field trips is participants are so inspired by what they see, they volunteer for all manner of undertaking springing up across the country to protect these animals. Venerating vernal ponds in this issue of News by Nature.

In News by Nature today: stormwater runoff. How to stop it in Watershed News, and why we should in Biodiversity News.

About 50 yards from this flooded section of Soundview Ave. in Southold, NY, is Long Island Sound, a water body carved from the continent by the last ice age leaving behind what was once a marine menagerie of boulders, rocky shores, sand flats, crabs, clams, lobsters, and a prized cross section of ground and schooling fish you'll not find may other places. So, why show you this ugly puddle to illustrate Long Island Sound? Because in many respects these days, this puddle is a big part of Long Island Sound. What you can’t see in this picture are the farm fields and manicured lawns stretching for miles to the south and the storm pipes collecting millions of gallons of rain water from same and depositing it all into Long Island Sound. It's called stormwater runoff. It's also called non-point source pollution because it's everywhere. In News by Nature today we discuss how to stop stormwater runoff and and why we should.

04.01.10 IN NBN In News by Nature today: Oyster's everywhere in Good News but the fish are gone in Today's Catch.

Forgive this really boring picture, but it carries a special significance. It's an image of a New England bay bottom that's seeing a very special rebirth. These are oysters, which have rebounded in incalculable numbers in various parts of the country, largely thanks to a constellation of climatological conditions and some dedicated scientists. Together they may have set in motion a rebirth in the nation's salt marshes. Even really funky estuaries, like Manhattan's East River. We discuss this rebirth, and the science that helped it along, in Good News. In Today's Catch we take another shot at a New England newspaper bent on disparaging the same sorts of science protecting similar seafloors farther offshore from destructive fishing practices. Of course we couldn't resist the opportunity to predict the future. Please take a moment at the bottom of the piece and offer us your predictions. Sorry, no April Fools.

In this issue we discuss postulating proposals on piping plover problems in Biodiversity News.

This purple sandpiper was as interested in the camera as the photographer was in the sandpiper. Apparently it's not unusual for purple pipers to pick at periwinkle with people peering. Periwinkles are the little snails at the bird's feet. In this issue of NBN we talk about programs aimed at protecting shorebirds like this fellow that will soon be shutting down beaches all along the East Coast. Of all the conservation efforts out there, this one seems the silliest. It also gets people pretty POed. In Biodiversity News today we look at a dredging program undertaken by the folks building the Nantucket Sound windfarm as a possible alternative to all these beach closures.

 In this issue we look at the undeclared “War on Invasive Species, how and if we should continue to fight it, in Invasive News.

In this issue: stimulation versus investment in Watershed News and knowing north from south when it comes to the right whale in Endangered News.

The last of an enduring breed, these clammers working the mud flats of the Ipswich River in northeast Massachusetts probably can't name three items being funded in the president's Stimulus plan, but they will benefit nonetheless. A few miles from where they're working sit some of the most productive clam beds in all New England, the Merrimack River Joppa Flats. Six waste water treatment plants upstream from Joppa have kept those flats closed pretty much for the last century. When it rains real hard those plants dump raw sewage into the river that shuts down the waters to clamming for several days, sometime weeks. The president's job Stimulus plan provides $1.4 billion to clean up those plants. Yet many officials criticize that and dozens of similar expenses in the bill as not doing enough to stimulate job growth in this country. Short term solutions versus long-term investment and the corresponding payoffs in this issue of NBN.

This is a view of some of the mills buildings that once made a living off the Merrimack River in Lawrence, MA. These, and thousands like them across the country, go largely neglected now as industry moves overseas and rehabilitation effort is stopped cold in its tracks by the slumping housing market. These buildings could be the salvation of the nation's wheezing construction industry and hold out hope for our many derelict inner cities. Instead they crumble, competing for suitors with brand shiny new condos and McMansions built to attract people to move out of the cities. A bright light is $380 million just announced in the latest Stimulus package to jump start inner city rehabilitation projects. In this issue we focus on these mill buildings and the money being made available to develop them.

 In this issue, News by Nature looks at some Recycling News about old mill buildings, an unseen casualty of the real estate slump that hurts everyone. We also have a sad end to a Rhode Island oyster farm saga in Watershed News.

This is a view of some of the mills buildings that once made a living off the Merrimack River in Lawrence, MA. These, and thousands like them across the country, go largely neglected now as industry moves overseas and rehabilitation effort is stopped cold in its tracks by the slumping housing market. These buildings could be the salvation of the nation's wheezing construction industry and hold out hope for our many derelict inner cities. Instead they crumble, competing for suitors with brand shiny new condos and McMansions built to attract people to move out of the cities. A bright light is $380 million just announced in the latest Stimulus package to jump start inner city rehabilitation projects. In this issue we focus on these mill buildings and the money being made available to develop them.

In News by Nature we have those damn dams again in Watershed News; is the tide rising or are the islands sinking, in Hot News; and a tidbit on natural plantings in Biodiversity News.

Shown here is the fish ladder outside a dam maintained by the Santa Clara Valley Water District in California. Everything looks modern and in working order but the dam, like all dams, restricts natural fish migrations even though there's this "ladder" on the left to help the fish get upstream. Sadly, these fish ladders and so many of the dams they are built around  have hobbled or ruined natural watershed function across the country. Worse, many of these dams, unlike this one, were built many years ago to power the nation's industrial revolution. It was during a time when water pollution was unheard of. Pristine rivers were used as cesspools and garbage dumps. Over the years, untold amounts of unknown pollutants have been trapped in the sediments behind these dams. Now that many of these older structures are getting ripped out, those pollutants are once again washing down our rivers and being absorbed by our fish and clams. In NBN today we look at this issue vis-a-vis a Hudson river dredging project that's stirring up long-buried pollution into that water body. Buried tragedy, in NBN today.

 In NBN today ink cartridge insanity and and water bottle blues, in Recycling News

At NBN we frown on using patriotism as a vehicle for populism, but this press release caught our attention. These folks are making American flags out of discarded plastic bottles. Bravo. Recycling should be viewed as patriotic. 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. Polartec is also putting folks to work in the very bowels of America’s former industrial heartland, Lawrence, MA. If that’s not patriotism what is? Buying guns? Click on this link. It’s a handgun repair business. It has more flags than Arlington National Cemetery. Which is better for the country? More handguns or cleaner lakes, rivers and streams? As you can see we’re getting a little carried away about Recycling News in NBN today. But we do hate waste here at NBN, almost as much as we love this country. 

News By Nature today ponders words wasted by NY Times Columnist Thomas Friedman and others in Hot News. In School News there are artificial viruses and Matrix Redux.

Not another similar vernal pond certification effort going on elsewhere, even though there are vernal pond protection groups like the CAVPT in states across the country. Why aren’t those getting folks out and about getting official sanction for these wellsprings of woodland wildlife? Who knows? So, on behalf of those groups not pushing their volunteers harder, NBN wants you to get out and find a vernal pond and see if your state will let you certify it. Check out the video above, it’s a vernal pond near Detroit, MI. Hear the frogs? Visit the same pond at night. It will sounds like you’re under attack. These are truly amazing ecosystems worth saving.

In News By Nature Today we have a quick coupla words on Darwin and unnatrual selection in Opinion News.

In News By Nature Today we have geothermal energy going mainstream in Alt E News and we've got people living in the ocean in Weird Science.

NBN today looks at doing things a little differently. We preached in the past two issues that the old ways won't work any more, so we thought it might helps to give you a glimpse of the future. Not that we have a crystal ball, and the rapid advances in technology increasingly rule out prospects of making a living in the fortune telling business. However, this you can be sure of. With all the amazing science detailed a little bit in this issue of NBN, this girl's going to fit these two together, probably better then what we used to use.

We Promised Monday to get more practical and less preachy in these pages, but a few studies stories out this week leave us no choice. So, we tee-off on feckless politicians and bad Global Warming science as evidence of a greater malignancy threatening this country: its citizens. A while back NBN suggested that JFK's classic quote about “what you can do for your country” was off the mark. The news out this week has us feeling otherwise. Americans are far and away the most wasteful people in the world.  We buy stuff just to show others we have the money, then we throw that same stuff out. To get the country back on track, we're talking more than belt-tightening. We're talking about a whole new way of life American's have to embrace. In last issue we lamented the lack of leadership to show us how. But American's need first to show those leaders the direction.

In News By Nature today we get on the soap box and don't get off. In Opinion News we have a half-hearted mea culpa followed by Profiles in Capitulation. In Today's Catch it's political pandering and a call for Ichthyological armageddon. Bad News has good news for corporate corn growers. Today, it's all about playing politics and not doing the right thing.

In 1955, the late John F. Kennedy wrote "Profiles in Courage." The book portrays eight political leaders who crossed party lines and/or defied their constituents back home to do what they felt was right for the country. Even back then Kennedy could find only eight politicians who qualified. Today, he couldn't compile a comic book, and that's not funny. NBN tries to take a lighter look at the very serious clashes between science and the world around us. Today, we indulge in a little righteous anger—everyone else is—and offer up a few of the dozens of examples every day where political leadership yields to political pandering. Worse, in these cases this capitulation is allegedly on behalf of iconic America: farmers and fishermen. Great political theater, disastrous environmental policy with the only really defenseless player, the planet, once again paying the price. In Today's Catch we have politicians disdaining science in favor of fishermen defending ruinous fishing practices, In Bad News we have corn gas making a questionable comeback vis-a-vis the recent election of the Republican US senator from Massachusetts.

n News By Nature today we delve into nano-nature: the tiny little particles that make up the world around us. In School News we have MIT lasers replacing electricity and in Weird Science we have spray glass.

It only takes Wikipedia a few sentences to completely bewilder the reader on the subject of Chaos theory. Something as common as chaos shouldn't be so hard to comprehend. NBN thought it could simplify chaos theory by drawing parallels between plumbing and quantum physics and kitchen work and nanotechnology. What does Chaos have to do with simplicity? Or kitchen cleaning with nanotechnology? They are all part of the same enchilada we call earth and no one should be discouraged from taking a bite. Whether you're a plumber using heat, abrasives and antioxidants to improve capillary action between copper pipe fittings or a physicist doping germanium with phosphorous to make the former give off light energy instead of electricity, it's all just the mechanics of systems. Systems, inside of systems, inside of systems....

NBN today: Composting goes Main Stream Green Groups get Political, (see below). We're working on some other stuff, but that's it for now.

We don't know which of two fictions best suits the political mood in this country today: Alice in Wonderland or the Al Pacino movie “City Hall.” Arguing for Alice, we have the Supreme Court ruling along party lines to open the financial floodgates for corporate campaign contributions, all in the name of free speech. That means the organizations with the big money, Exxon, ADM, Dupont, and their antagonists the UAW, Teamsters and UFT will be setting foreign and national policy for the foreseeable future. It also means the powers that rose to prominence by laying waste the world's resources will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. And that means, status quo for America when the rest of the world is in an information technology and manufacturing revolution. If that's not political jabberwocky, what is?

Still, we're siding with "City Hall," thanks to two stories about environmental groups and leaders being bought off for political or personal gain. For those not familiar with the Pacino movie, it exquisitely illustrates the opportunities available in every good government program for the politically connected make a fast buck. Along those lines, we have this story about a California green group that sold its endorsement of an off-shore drilling project for $100,000. The other story is about the UN glacier expert lying about the rapid decline of Himalayan ice sheets in order to scoop up half a million dollars in research grants. In our eyes, these two stories are worse than the Supreme Court decision for two reasons. First, no one trusts the corporations so they can't betray your trust. We expect them to be self serving. Certainly, no one trusts the politicians they are bribing, it's integral to our political system. Folks tend to be less jaded about the green groups. We expect them to be sincere.  The second,reason we're so upset about the spat of wrong doing surfacing in the environmental movement these days, is their infidelity comes at a time the planet can least afford it. The damage being done to this planet is subtle, but very difficult to reverse. At the same time Global Warming theory and the environmental movement in general is finally gaining global traction. Accordingly,  the powers that pollute are gearing up for a war they will easily win until we start seeing environmental devastation. Unless people are dying, it's going to be very difficult for American's to give up this amazing standard of living we've come to take for granted. NBN firmly believes we're at a crossroads on this planet and these corrupt green groups are doing more damage to our feeble prevention efforts than even the inexplicable court ruling.

In News By Nature today we stray from the environmental beat with a story about an earth-bound asteroid as reported by an asteroid-bound earthling. Then we have: when aliens invade, and a job for Jonahs.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration defines a Jonah as: “those men who have been unlucky in their fishing voyages. The belief in luck is very deep-seated...There are many kinds of Jonahs.” Looks like there are no Jonahs on board this boat. That may change soon. The latest kind of Jonah may be the folks NOAA plans on planting on fishing boats throughout New England this year to enforce a very unpopular law called Catch Shares. We raise this subject once again in NBN because in Today's Catch there's a training program for people who might want to take this enforcement assignment. Do you think there's a waiting list for that job? Are you ready to jump aboard a boat where the captain would like nothing better than to throw you over? Do you have what it takes to be a Jonah? Elsewhere in NBN we have Asteroids threatening Europe in Weird Science and in Invasive News we have a nettlesome issue: Invaders: Loath Them or Leave Them?

Today, it's all about watersheds. We have a desert watershed in Good News, and watersheds shedding dams across the country in Watershed News.

How many folks really know what a watershed is? They are sort of like the earth's gutters: They collect rain and then either store it in lakes or underground aquifers. Along the coasts, much of that rain follows streams and rivers into estuaries and eventually the oceans. Even deserts have watersheds, like this one here, also known as Palm Springs. This watershed collects rain in an aquifer which, like most other southwest water supplies, is running low lately. When you live in New England watershed takes on a different meaning. It's pretty much water, water everywhere, with a few exceptions. For an Easterner, a visit to a place like Palm Springs is an eye-opener. These palm trees pictured here are a real-life oasis, snatching all the water they can from a tiny underground stream that percolates to the surface in a few spots.

That's the magic of watersheds. In NBN today we dabble in the complex world of these waterful wonders, hopefully answering a few more questions than we raise on this vital, if poorly understood, aspect of our environment.

In News by Nature today we argue against windfarms in the Opinion Page and argue in favor of them in Wind News. Can't make up our minds? Sure we can, we just want to hear both sides of the story before we do.

Pardon us for leveraging a trip to Palm Springs into a few items for a website, but this place has a lot to talk about. And we're just starting to stretch it out. Here are just a few of the windfarms which are the focus of today's NBN. The majestic backdrop is what brings people here. The luxury is what keeps 'em here. In NBN today, we talk about the right places and wrong places to put windfarms and, it appears, Palm Springs is clearly in the former camp. These things are everywhere, churning out electricity which sinks into the blackhole of excess that is Palm Springs. But what would this land be used for otherwise? It's a desert. As we discuss in the opinion page, it's sad that conservation efforts aren't getting quite the warm embrace that building windmills does in this town. But it's a lot better than building coal burning power plants to energize all those golf carts .

In NBN today we look at an unremarkable little bird that is very remarkable when it gets together with a few hundred thousand of its buddies. On the Opinion Page we have someone who loves these birds. In Invasive News we take a look at a few folks who don't. The European starling in News by Nature today.

Joe, on the other hand was an easy man to love, because he loved birds. Homely little birds called grackles and European starlings that flock together in amazing acrobatics few people know about. Learn a little about grackles and starlings, in News by Nature today

The True Cost of Commerce
On our Opinion page we consider the taxes needed to cover the true costs of our high standard of living

Is this a scene from Christmas Past? If not, there's certainly change a-foot in this country suggesting Santa may not be so busy next year. We offer up a pair of recent headlines indicating the country might be cashing in its buy-and-discard economic model for something a little more practical. First we have this ray of sunshine from the New York Times  saying a Miami mother and her six-year-old have discovered a romp in a rowboat costs a lot less than a PlayStation 2 and the boy enjoys it more. Then we have this piece saying the old economic indicators, specifically manufacturing, are not working as economic indicators anymore. Put another way, just making stuff for the sake of making stuff and buying stuff for the sake of buying stuff is no longer an economic driver in this country. Could it be that the country is now switching to an economic model of making stuff that we actually need and not rabidly buying stuff that we can easily be without. By extension, should we, and will we soon, pay a lot more for this high standard of living we've enjoyed at the expense of the planet? All the goods and fine food we eat is made from raw material extracted from Mother Nature. Can we continue to ask her to foot the bill.?Is Mankind going to start paying its fare share? That's a lot of questions. Open the opinion page for a few answers and a lot more questions.

Giant squid and swans in Biodiversity today. In Bad News we have pill pollution piling up.

In News by Nature today we focus on animals adapting to, and evolving in, a world no-longer governed by natural selection. Man sets the tempo of evolution these days, not random mutation. As a result we've got: giant squid terrorizing California beaches; behemoth swans beguiling Northeast bird lovers and Potomic River largemouth bass struggling with their sexual identities. That's just a smattering of the perversions of wild animal populations pulled from periodicals this week. The fact is, just about every animal population on the planet is now marching to a different drummer. Some might see him as the Pied Piper. You see it so much more so in marine environments for two reasons. One: oceans are so much more productive; so many more animals live in the water than on land. Two: man has become so much more prolific, we don't tend to clean up after ourselves and we love to live near the water. In NBN today, we don't attempt to explain these changes in animal population dynamics, beyond these two possibly partially inaccurate postulations. (We tried coming up with explanations when we discussed this issue a few weeks ago and it didn't really add up.) Today, we're just citing odd examples to make people think a little more about this rather scary problem. And that's what NBN is all about. We don't tell you what to think. We just want you to think a little more.

That's not to say the Indians in this country didn't get an awful deal when Europeans arrived. But history is rife with similar, and arguably greater, assaults by one culture on another. The objections of the Wampanoag in this case seem more political than spiritual. Perhaps, they are entitled to some special compensation, but they should not be allowed to interfere with a project that clearly has wide-ranging benefits. Should we invite a few of the Indians up to the Salem coal-fired power plant to see if they change their minds? Judging by this Boston Globe piece it looks like the historic designation eligibility will create such problems if acted on by the federal government that it won't interfere with the Cape Wind project. We write about it here because it's sad to consider that the Wampanoag might be using its political capital against clean energy. Sadder still, to see a group whose shifting arguments against the windfarm happily exploited injustices to which the Wampanoag and all Indians are rightly entitle some redress. This came in Thursday. The Boston Globe is asking Interior Secretary Salazar to resolve the Indian claim as quickly as possible to allow Cape Wind to go forward. Taking a harder look at the politics here, who can blame the Indians. They are just getting what they feel they deserve. If you own the last home in the path of an apartment complex you hold out for the best price. To twist the theme a little. The Indians have political leverage and they are just using it. The Globe is right to criticize the decision allowing the sound to be designated an historic landmark. Can we fault the Indians for cashing in?

Like clean water, you don't really appreciate road salt until you start to run out. Unfortunately, it's appearing increasingly likely you can't have both in some low-lying, northern regions of the country. As Winter introduced himself in earnest this past few weeks, the familiar sight of salt trucks on the nation's highways did as well. But in places like Minnesota and New England, the life saving mineral is killing off equally dear lakes and streams.In southern New Hampshire along Interstate-93, shown here on a less festive occasion, a group called the Conservation Law Foundation was threatening legal action to stop a highway expansion project through a marshy area which had shown signs of elevated road salt in the surrounding waters.

In Minnesota, roads are getting a low-salt diet for the same reason and in western New York beet sugar is substituting for salt as an ice-melt. Outside of presenting plenty of opportunity for bad puns for local writers, these efforts are doing little to address one of winter's most vexing and worsening environmental problems. Some of the waterways around Minnesota and southern New Hampshire have reached salt concentrations approaching sea water.  That bodes badly for fresh water fish. Salt is also a disaster for cars and concrete reinforcement rods in bridges.

But, if we're having a hard time selling folks on the urgency of curbing global warming, what chance do we have of telling them to slow down on the way to work on winter days. Slow WAY down. A couple of preventable deaths, and kiss the low-roadsalt movement good-by. Yet there was a time when we didn't use any road salt and horses had no problem navigating the roads. There has been some good news to report on the subject. The CLF's legal action in New Hampshire was winning state concessions on reducing salt use on ancillary roads in order to get the highway expansion past. The use of beet juice in the Niagara area of New York, and left overs from brewery operations elsewhere in the country, have given discarded sugar a secondary market as a de-icer. There has also been effort to use low salt, liquid “brine” as a deicer. All are more effective than road salt, but also much more expensive. Elsewhere in the country folks are learning to get by on less road salt.