Rhode Island LNG Proposal Appears Dead

The LNG terminal proposed for Weaver's Cove, in Rhode Island, is dead, in the opinion of Narragansett Baykeeper John Torgan.

Good news for residents of that area, no doubt. But is it bad news for those of us who oppose Broadwater's LNG terminal in Long Island Sound?

The Weaver's Cove proposal was shot down by the Coast Guard. In Long Island Sound, the Coast Guard thinks Broadwater can be operated safely, if a lot of conditions are met.

Also, Broadwater opponents have argued that there are enough other LNG terminals in the works to make Broadwater unnecessary. One less terminal makes that argument less compelling.

Make a Phone Call for a Clean Long Island Sound

Connecticut Fund for the Environment is trying to turn up the heat on the leaders of the Connecticut Senate and Assembly, by asking supporters to make phone calls in support of full funding for the Clean Water Fund.

You remember the Clean Water Fund and Connecticut's dismal performance. As CFW put it in an e-mail from this morning:

Please add your voice to the numerous clean water advocates from across the state who will be calling President Pro Tempore Don Williams and House Speaker Jim Ammann to say that the recommended $110 million in general obligations bonding for the Clean Water Fund is a must if we are to protect the health of our citizens and environment. ...

In recent years Connecticut decimated the Clean Water Fund - at one point the legislature not only failed to invest, it actually took away $80 million. But this year our Governor and state Legislators recommitted themselves to a healthy future by allocating $110 million in general obligation bonds to the Clean Water Fund.

So call them: Senate President Don Williams (800) 842-1420

House Speaker Jim Amann at (800) 842-8267

If you need more background, scroll through this link (in particular look for the post in which Amann dismisses clean water funding by saying that sewage plants aren't sexy), or read this.

Citizens Campaign for the Environment Moves into Connecticut

Citizens Campaign for the Environment, which is based on Long Island and has offices in a number of places throughout New York, has moved into Connecticut, in particular into the neighborhood currently occupied by Connecticut Fund for the Environment/Save the Sound.

CCE has a staff of canvassers, a part-time program person (Emmett Pepper, who also works in CCE's White Plains office), and within a couple of months will have a full-time program person.

I'm sure there might be some competition for funding between CFE and CCE, but assuming they can avoid steping on each other's toes, having another energetic environmental advocate in Connecticut can only be a good thing, yes?

To the Beach

Beaches opened over the weekend and the New Haven Register did us a favor by summarizing the access policies and fees in a lot of Connecticut towns (Long Island's beach policies are a mystery to me but then again the beaches are stony and, I think, don't draw as many people as Connecticut's).

I learned that there might be a decision soon on the lawsuit that Stamford's Paul Kempner filed against Greenwich because of the town's restrictive beach access policies. And I learned that Madison's public beach is called the Surf Club and that it's now a relative bargain for out-of-towners to go there:

In Madison, where nonresidents in the past had to pay a parking fee and separate per-person admittance fee to enter the Surf Club and use the beach, visitors will find a new policy in place this summer that charges only a per-vehicle fee. That means the cost of going to the beach for a family of five just dropped from $60 — 10 bucks for the car and 10 per person — to $15.

Scott Erskine, director of recreation in Madison, said the change has nothing to do with the lawsuit from Greenwich.

"We're trying to make it a little more user-friendly," he said.

Anyone who enters the Surf Club on foot or on a bicycle will no longer be charged. Erskine admitted the old policy of charging those people sometimes led to confrontations at the gates.

The $15 car fee is a dollar more than the weekend, out-of-state fee for Hammonasset Beach State Park, but the fee for Connecticut residents is only $9 per car.

Lots of details are on this Connecticut Coastal Access Guide, which is worth bookmarking.

Speaking of access of sorts to the water, the Stamford Advocate writes about why it's so hard to establish more ferry service on the Sound. The one-word answer is "parking." (My former employer, the Gannett corporation, has backed out of its agreement to buy the Stamford Advocate and Greenwich Time, mainly because Gannett is as anti-union as a newspaper company can be and some employees at the Advocate are represented by the United Autoworkers. My first inclination is to say the decision isn't a bad thing for local news coverage, because Gannett makes money by cutting operating costs to the bone; on the other hand, at my old paper there are still four reporters whose main assignment includes coverage of the environment, which isn't bad at all).

And finally since we're talking about beaches and public access, here's a funny and appropriately unfair account of Greenwich's old access policies, as seen through the eyes of Michael Moore's TV Nation show.

Peregrines, Long Island Sound and Rachel Carson's Centenary

Peregrine falcons have been nesting on the Throgs Neck Bridge for more than 25 years but for some reason the Times chose today to write a brief story about it.

To me, it's noteworthy for two things.

First, the story says the Throgs Neck Bridge is at the intersection of the East River and Long Island Sound. This is tiresome but ... a "sound" is a relatively narrow strip of water between an island and the mainland. Therefore Long Island Sound is the strip of water between Long Island and the Bronx, Westchester and Connecticut. Since Queens is on Long Island, the strip of water between Queens and the Bronx is Long Island Sound. It is not the East River. The East River separates Queens and Brooklyn from Manhattan, and it ends at Hell Gate (not Hell's Gate). As I've said before, I think this partially explains why people in Queens and the Bronx don't care that much about Long Island Sound -- because they're continually told that they live not near the Sound but near the East River. Oy.

Second, the story (which is so inconsequential it's apparently not even on the Times website, hence no link) refers to the connection between DDT and the decline of peregines, which reminds me that Sunday is the 100th anniversary of Rachel Carson's birth and also reminds me to link to this commentary about Carson and the Bush administration that Elizabeth Kolbert wrote in the current New Yorker:

As much as any book can, “Silent Spring” changed the world by describing it. An immediate best-seller, the book launched the modern environmental movement, which, in turn, led to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, the passage of the Clean Air, the Clean Water, and the Endangered Species Acts, and the banning of a long list of pesticides, including dieldrin. Depending on how you look at it, Carson’s centenary couldn’t come at a better time—or a worse one.

Six years into the Bush Administration, it’s basically the ant wars all over again. At key agencies, a disregard for inconvenient evidence seems today to be a prerequisite. A memo prepared by the Democratic staff of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in mid-March, for example, revealed that officials of the White House Council on Environmental Quality had made more than a hundred and eighty changes to a status report on global warming, virtually all of which had the effect of exaggerating scientific uncertainties and minimizing certainties. (The official responsible for most of the changes, Philip Cooney, had come to the White House from the American Petroleum Institute and now works for Exxon Mobil.) A second report issued in March—this one by the Inspector General for the Department of the Interior—chronicled numerous instances in which a high-ranking department official, Julie MacDonald, had pressured government scientists to alter findings on threatened species. MacDonald, the report pointedly noted, had “no formal educational background in natural sciences, such as biology.” (MacDonald has since resigned.) As it happened, the report on MacDonald was released the same day that the former second-in-command at the Interior Department, J. Steven Griles, pleaded guilty to lying to Congress.

Meanwhile, the Administration has done its best to gut the safeguards put in place after “Silent Spring.” When, for instance, the E.P.A. proposed new rules on mercury emissions from power plants, the proposal turned out to contain several paragraphs lifted, virtually verbatim, from an industry lobbyist’s memos. (With minor changes, those regulations are now in effect.) Just last month, the Administration proposed new rules on the retrofitting of old power plants. The more or less explicit purpose of the rules is to accommodate a power company, Duke Energy, that the E.P.A. had itself sued for violating the Clean Air Act. Also last month, the E.P.A. announced that it would once again delay taking action on two drinking-water contaminants, perchlorate, an ingredient of rocket fuel, and M.T.B.E., a fuel additive.

Fox

On our way down to the school bus at 10 to seven this morning, my daughter and I came upon a dead fox (Vulpes vulpes). We had seen an adult running through our yard a week ago; the dead one was much smaller.


There was no blood and when I touched the cadaver with my foot, it wasn't stiff yet. Our road is not much wider than a driveway and gets very little traffic. My guess is that the guy who delivers the Times hit the fox maybe 20 minutes before we saw it.

Modern Houses Saved, Destroyed, Bought, Sold

[Read 'Modern,' our new blog about mid-century modern houses, here.]

For an example of what could have happened to Paul Rudolph's Micheels House, in Westport, had the owner not been bent on destroying it, read this, about a Rudolph house on the beach in Rhode Island. From what I heard a few weeks ago, the owners made it available for free to anyone who wanted to pay to have it moved.

It was interesting, by the way, to see a quick reference to the death of modern domestic architecture in the Times Magazine over the weekend:

“Home buyers’ affair with modernistic design is over,” Witold Rybczynski declares in a new book, “Late Harvest,” on the creation of contemporary suburbs.

This is probably true. The only buyers nowadays who are interested enough in modernistic design to want to buy a modern house are well-off, if not wealthy, and they've turned modern houses into something to be collected, as I wrote here. That's not a bad thing, in and of itself, except that modern houses originated as efficiency houses -- easy to heat, easy to cool, easy to care for. They were "green" before anyone worried about houses being green.

One more modern house thought. Terry Teachout writes on his blog today:

After Fallingwater, Mies van der Rohe's Farnsworth House, built in 1951, is probably the best-known modern house in America, if not the world.

Seriously? Farnsworth House is better known than the Glass House? That's a subjective judgment, I realize, but I'm dubious.

Here's a really subjective scorecard: Google "Farnsworth House" and you get 110,000 hits; Google "Farnsworth House" + Mies and you get 43,700. Google "Glass House" and you get 1.29 million; Google "Glass House + Johnson and you get 283,000.

Glen Island, Glenn Miller

I used to listen to WNEW years ago, when AM radio still played music and when WNEW was pretty serious about what my wife now calls boo-boo-boo music -- Sinatra, Crosby, Tony Bennett, Nat Cole. WNEW's playlist was heavy on big bands like Benny Goodman, Woody Herman, the Dorseys and Glenn Miller, and its DJs (William B. Williams, Jim Lowe and especially Jonathan Schwartz) liked the music for more than just nostalgic reasons and seemed to know what they were talking about.

One recording in particular of Glenn Miller and his orchestra, broadcast on the radio probably in the early 1940s, started with an announcer introducing Miller to the listeners and the dancers and club-goers at Glen Island Casino in New Rochelle, overlooking Long Island Sound. The song was probably "Moonlight Serenade," and the tone of the announcer's voice, the easy pace of the music, and the invocation of "Glen Island Casino" and "Long Island Sound" were as evocative of an era I never knew as anything in Gatsby.

If you're in the area, go to Glen Island tonight to hear our friend Barbara Davis, the New Rochelle City Historian, give a presentation about the history of Glen Island. She'll talk about the Glen Island Casino and the Swing Era, as well as the island's place in Native American and Revolutionary War history, and lots else. It's free, at the Glen Island Harbor Club (which unless I'm mistaken is the updated and tackier version of the Casino) from 7:30 to 9:30. Two County Legislators, Jim Maisano and Vito Pinto, are sponsoring the talk.

I don't know if Barbara has a copy of that Glenn Miller recording. If she does, it'd be a great way to start her talk. Here's a version that unfortunately doesn't include the radio intro that I remember.

Madison Landing, Development and Alternative Sewage Treatment

A few people were unhappy that I endorsed the use of alternative sewage systems for projects such as Madison Landing. The details are in the comments to yesterday's post, here.

What I should make clear -- and what I thought went without saying -- is that I endorse the use of alternative sewage technologies if they work. I endorse the use of alternative sewage technologies for projects that make sense. I do not endorse them for typical suburban sprawl subdivisions or shopping centers, and I do not endorse them for projects that couldn't otherwise be built because the land on which they are proposed has true environmental constraints.

One of the things I said yesterday to a fellow from Madison who is leading the opposition to Madison Landing is that I would no sooner take his word on the effectiveness of alternative sewage technologies than I would take the developer's word. As if on cue, Sally Harold, of the Nature Conservancy's Saugatuck Forest Lands Project (in the Saugatuck River watershed) sent me a link to a study, with lots of good recommendations, that the Nature Conservancy did on alternative sewage technology after a number of questionable developments were proposed for the watershed.

The paper is here and is worth reading.

Yesterday's Broadwater Pseudo Event

If you're interested in the publicity stunt/pseudo event part of the debate over the Broadwater proposal to put a huge liquefied natural gas terminal in the middle of Long Island Sound, you can read about it here (in Newsday) or here (in the New Haven Register) or here (in the Connecticut Post).

FERC Gives More Hints That It's Ready to Say Yes To Broadwater, Which Puts the Onus on New York State

I've been saying for a while that if you think the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is going to say no to Broadwater's LNG proposal for Long Island Sound, you are naive, at best. Although FERC may occasionally reject big energy proposals, they're in the business of regulating, not rejecting, and so they need something to regulate. Add in the Bush Administration's scandalous pro-business attitude and there's virtually no way FERC will say no to Broadwater.

Judy Benson of the New London Day, used the tried and true techniques of actual reporting (as opposed to the quote-gathering that passes for reporting among the other newspapers), to find these telling details (Robinson is J. Mark Robinson, director of the Office of Energy Projects for FERC), here:

On May 7, Robinson spoke positively about the Broadwater project in testimony to the U.S. House of Representatives Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee. He said the project's offshore location reduces any safety risks, and many safety and environmental concerns would be reduced by the 79 conditions FERC would impose on the project. The conditions were listed in its draft report. He also countered concerns about negative impacts of the LNG tankers using The Race and of the terminal's visual impacts.

“Due to the distance from shore,” he said, “the (terminal) would be visible but would appear to be about the size of a paper clip held at arm's length...”

Even though the Race is a narrow passage, he said, it could still be used by other vessels when the tankers and the required security zone are them are moving through.

“In conclusion,” he said, “LNG is a commodity which has and will continue to be transported safely in the United States.”

Which means that if anyone is going to stop Broadwater it's going to have to be New York State, in particular the Department of State, which oversees use of the coastal zone. The department has hired the Battelle Memorial Institute to study whether the Atlantic Ocean is a better place for an LNG terminal than the Sound, as Newsday reported, here. As I wrote here, the Department of State has already indicated that Broadwater might not be consistent with state policies for use of the coastal zone.

Broadwater, meanwhile, is ferrying reporters out to the proposed terminal site today in two boatloads, one from Connecticut, one from Long Island. I would have taken two Dramamine just for the chance to hear what the flacks and mouthpieces had to say, but my invitation must have gotten lost in the mail.

How Much Are Environmental Resources Worth? As Much as Development

Back in the early 1990s the U.S. EPA asked an economist at the University of Connecticut to study the economic value of Long Island Sound. The economist, Marilyn Altobello, determined that the businesses the rely on the Sound being clean – fishing, beaches, marinas, etc. – contribute $5.5 billion a year to the economy of Connecticut and New York. That figure has become a permanent part of any debate about the Sound and its future (although Altobello spoke at SoundWaters a few years ago, said she was updating the work, and also said that $5.5 billion was probably low; I haven’t heard if that revision has come out yet). In New Jersey they did something different. Instead of estimating the value of the state’s environmental assets to local businesses, economists tried to value them for what they are – beaches and dunes and wetlands and forests. It turns out the the environment is worth as much as the development industry. Here’s what the Times reports: The researchers analyzed studies of wetlands, forests and other aspects of the environment. They also assessed the cost of providing artificial equivalents of services the natural world provides, like flood protection. The study also considered the costs necessitated by damage to the environment and the price people would be willing to pay for outdoor recreation…. Dr. Costanza and the other researchers concluded that New Jersey’s total natural capital is worth about $18 billion per year. Nature, he says, turns out to be about as economically valuable to New Jersey as the state’s construction industry. Developers on one side are doing studies showing that development brings jobs and economic growth, and municipal officials are eager for anything that could keep property taxes down,” said William J. Mates, a project manager with the Department of Environmental Protection, who worked on the report. He continued: “What’s been lacking on the other side is a quantified picture of natural resources. We can make the case qualitatively till the cows come home, but now we can say, ‘Hey, there are economic losses if we convert farmland to housing.’ ”

Sprawl, Sewage, and Madison Landing

There’s an old saying among land use planning types: zoning is your destiny. If you zone for strip and sprawl development, you’ll get strip and sprawl development. Which is why much of Connecticut has turned into hideous, characterless strips and suburban sprawl.

So if you live in a town whose zoning calls for sprawl-type development and you try to fight it by arguing against improved sewage treatment technology, you’re either being disingenuous or ignorant. But that’s what’s happening among people in Connecticut who call themselves environmentalists. What’s more, they’re using that argument to try to stop projects (Madison Landing, a new urbanist development proposed for an old airport in Madison, near Hammonasset State Park) that are not suburban sprawl.

I’ve written about Madison Landing here, here and here. And here’s a New Haven Register story about the issue. Typically though it asserts that some people think that the improved sewage treatment system is flawed but never actually discusses whether it is or not. It shouldn’t be that hard to gather the evidence, should it?

(Environmentalists in Connecticut, by the way, have argued to me that Madison Landing is a bad idea because it’s next to Hammonasset, which has a great public beach on Long Island Sound and a big salt marsh. That might be so but if it is, the solution is to buy the land from the Madison Landing people; by arguing that the sewage system is inadequate the only result will be 30 typical McMansions with individual septic systems rather than 127 houses in a traditional neighborhood design. So by all means, persuade the state to buy it. But don’t settle for more suburban sprawl.)

Horseshoe Crabs (and Red Knots)

In the everything-is-connected-to-everything-else department, there’s a species of shorebird – the red knot – that is almost completely dependent on horseshoe crabs, consuming uncountable numbers of horsehoe crab eggs during migratory stops in spring, particularly along Delaware Bay (there's more info here). The bad news for the red knots is that the Bay’s horseshore crab population has fallen.

Horseshoe crabs live in Long Island Sound too, and there’s an effort now, during the horseshoe crab’s mating season, to both protect them and get a better idea of how well they’re doing.

Connecticut has tightened controls on the number of horseshoe crabs that can be caught for bait, and prohibited taking horseshoe crabs at three beaches where they are particularly numerous – Milford Point, Sandy Point (in West Haven) and Menunketesuck Island (in Westbrook). Judy Benson, of the New London Day, explains, here.

On Saturday, SoundWaters held its annual horseshoe crab count. And the Nature Conservancy is holding a workshop on Monday evening for people interested in helping with a horseshoe crab survey. The workshop is at at 7:30 p.m. at the Westport Library, with Professor Jennifer Mattei of Sacred Heart University.

To Sea Cliff

Even though the Andersen clan used to vacation at Rocky Point 50 years ago, the list of places on Long Island's north shore that I've never been to is long. Sea Cliff sounds like one of the nicer spots I've missed, according to this story in Newsday, which was written by a photographer named Kathy Kmonicek, who was a colleague of mine at Gannett in Westchester back in the 1980s.

Norwalk's Shellfish Commissioner Thinks a New Sound Cable Will Damage Oyster Beds

The underwater cable that Bryan Brown wrote about, here, a few of weeks ago, is the subject of a Stamford Advocate story, here. In particular, John Frank, Norwalk's Shellfish Commissioner, isn't convinced that the project won't damage the area's oyster beds. He says he'll force a public hearing -- all he needs is 25 signatures on a petition, he says -- unless Northeast Utilities works a little harder to minimize the damage.

New Canaan's Modern Houses and the National Register of Historic Places

[Read 'Modern,' our new blog about mid-century modern houses, here.]

The people who want to put New Canaan's modern houses on the National Register of Historic Places (which I wrote about last Friday) say they've already been in touch with more than 80 homeowners and that, so far, the reaction has been good.

The project seems to be a collaboration among the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism, the Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation, the New Canaan Historical Society and the National Trust for Historic Preservation (which owns and operates Philip Johnson's Glass House). And there's an advisory committee of John Johansen, John Black Lee, Toshiko Mori, Theo Prudon and Robert A.M. Stern. (Johansen is the only survivor of the Harvard Five architects (Johnson, Breuer, Noyes and Gores were the others); John Black Lee designed a number of New Canaan moderns, including one of my favorites, on Chichester Road, which Toshiko Mori, the chair of the Department of Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, re-did a few years back (Lee also supervised the construction of my in-laws' house in Pound Ridge, although he didn't design it); Stern is the dean of the Yale School of Architecture; I don't know who Theo Prudon is, although I probably should).

Here's the idea behind the project, from the Glass House website:

The knowledge gained from this project is not only intended to shed light on the individual importance of this community in its greater influence outside of CT, but it is intended to inform other Modernist communities across the United States that wish to embark on similar studies. The recognition of mid-century Modern homes and their role as an asset within real estate investment is growing, however the formal recognition of this architecture is still necessary for a proactive approach to preservation. The thematic National Register Nomination of a number of these homes will serve this purpose.

I haven't heard about any modern houses in New Canaan being razed lately, which not long ago was a huge problem. I'm sure there are still threats, and I think the town government itself still takes a hands-off attitude about it, as if tear-downs were merely a function of the free market when in fact, with all the zoning regulations in New Canaan and elsewhere, real estate and development are almost completely under government control and tear-downs could be regulated too if the town thought it important enough.

Listing on the National Register in itself won't prevent tear downs. But it will be one more way to put encourage owners to preserve modern houses and, with any luck, discourage the spec developers from buying them and tearing them down. I think it's a terrific and very ambitious idea.

Which prompts this thought: while the list is being prepared for the National Register, someone ought to come up with a complementary list of developers who buy and tear down modern houses. Maybe they'd be less willing to do it if we make their names known (like this guy, in Westport).

An Anthropological Visit to a Neighborhood Where Preserved Cabbage with Pig's Blood is on the Menu

I took the train down to Grand Street, to go to a meeting on the Lower East Side, yesterday. I’m not sure what I was expecting but I was amazed to walk up the stairs from the subway and find myself in China. Every person was Chinese, almost every sign was in Chinese, every spoken word I heard was Chinese. The first couple of blocks – past Forsythe and Eldridge streets – were lined with food markets, their doors wide open. There were at least five fish markets. They had bins of whole fish on ice, pink and gray and blue, the color of coral and the color of the sky, razor clams bundled in rubber bands, mussels, milky white squid, giant clams, tuna the color of the ripest strawberries. Blue-claw crabs were $75 a bushel, and fish mongers were grabbing them with tongs and dropping them into a paper bag. Nearby, a whole roast duck was $8.25. The fruit and vegetable markets were crowded with shoppers. The sidewalks were mobbed.

I walked east into a warm wind and crossed Allen Street, which was divided by a paved esplanade. At Orchard and Ludlow Streets the neighborhood was not quite so Asian. On the north-south streets, apartments in the tenements were being renovated. Things widened at Essex Street. The tenements had been removed and replaced with housing projects and strip-mall like stores – low, one-story, uninteresting, set far back from the street. The sidewalks were still busy, the neighborhood was clean and seemed safe, but the neighborhood lacked the busyness and pleasant congestion of the blocks of tenements.

I walked almost as far as the site of my meeting, the Henry Street Settlement – just to make sure I knew where it was – and then headed back, turning north on Orchard and west on Delancey. Delancey was as broad and almost as busy as Houston Street, but with an esplanade down the middle. There was little action on the sidewalks. At Forsythe Street, the Sara D. Roosevelt Park was green and pleasant, wisteria blossoms hanging from vines. I turned south on Bowery and apparently entered the lighting district, because literally every shop sold lights and bulbs and fixtures.

Back on Grand, I came upon the Hester Street Playground, which is basically a southern extension of the Sara D. Roosevelt Park. It was mobbed with people, including a couple of dozen men and women playing handball against both sides of a big concrete handball wall. Next to the courts there was a confrontation. A young, angry man wearing a tee-shirt over his brown arms and shoulders was in the face of a young man who was carrying a video recorder and a young woman who was carrying sound equipment. They had apparently been filming the handball games. “I don’t care, man,” the angry guy said, “that’s real nosy.” I was 30 feet away, but there was enough menace in his voice to make me uncomfortable.

I moved on. On the next block a man who was not Asian or apparently of Asian descent was standing on the sidewalk talking rapidly in what sounded like Chinese. In front of him was a hand truck stacked with couple of copier paper boxes; another box was on the sidewalk next to him and on top was a stack of self-published booklets he was hawking called “New Immigrants Guide and Manual of Spoken American English.”

By now it was past 12:30. I still hadn’t eaten and my meeting was at 1. The sidewalks were crowded with people presumably looking for places to eat, but I managed to pick a restaurant that was completely empty. It was too late though to be choosy. I read the menu and decided to forego the preserved cabbage with pig’s blood, the pork intestines with soy bean sprouts, the lamb stomach with black pepper sauce, the duck’s palm with Chinese mushrooms, and the frog with ginger scallions. I ordered fish fillet and tofu, for $4.95. It came with a small soup that was too hot too eat, a bowl of white rice, and a stainless steel pot of green tea, some of which I poured into a tiny cup and let cool. The meal itself was chunks of fish lightly deep fried, pieces of very soft tofu also lightly deep fried, a few greens and a light brown sauce. It wasn’t bad but it was so hot that I had a hard time eating it before I had to leave.

Audubon Magazine Takes on Long Island Sound and Strikes Out

The first time I read through the story in the current Audubon magazine about Long Island Sound, I thought it was OK – hardly inspired, nothing that people interested in the Sound don’t already know, but not a bad introduction for people who are new to the issues (you can find it here).

Then I read it again. While the story has most of its facts right, I found three that are wrong. And more importantly, whether some facts are right or wrong, it’s my impression that the author can’t quite decide what to make of them. The result is a story that is confusing at best. For example, the story says the Sound is:

… one of the most heavily used estuaries in the United States, pumping at least $5 billion into the region’s economy every year through power generation, recreation, commercial fishing, and shipping. But unlike, say, Chesapeake Bay, restoring Long Island Sound has yet to attract widespread popular support.

My minor criticism of the passage is that while the Sound does contribute more than $5 billion a year to the local economy, the study that came up with that figure (by UConn economist Marilyn Altobello, about 17 years ago) looked only at the businesses that need Long Island Sound to be clean. It was specifically a study of how the economy might be affected if the Sound were seriously contaminated. Power generation and shipping most definitely were not included and to say that they were is an error.

But my bigger criticism is of the assertion that restoring the Sound has yet to attract widespread popular support. The author provides no evidence for that and in fact, a few sentences later, seems to be saying the opposite:

Long Island Sound, though, does have its share of dedicated champions. In the early 1990s a coalition of environmental, industry, and labor representatives formed a campaign to reduce pollutants and restore the sound’s habitat. The unusual alliance caught the attention of Congress.

So, to review, the restoration of the Sound has no widespread support except that is has its share of dedicated champions, an unusual alliance representing often-opposing interests that managed to catch the attention of Congress.

Later, after the author asserts that there’s no widespread popular support, he (or she, I’m not sure whether Jesse Greenspan is a man or a woman) says:

... tenacious civic advocacy has combined with federal efforts to help reverse the sound’s ecological decline.

And then later:

...time is running out for the wildlife that relies on the sound for survival.

So there’s no widespread support for restoration but there’s an unusual alliance that caught the attention of Congress and there’s tenacious civic advocacy. Also the tenacious civic advocacy has helped reverse the Sound’s decline but time is running out. So which is it?

Elsewhere the story says, correctly:

… hypoxia remains a problem and reached near-record levels in 2003.

Yes but that was almost four years ago. What about more recent years? The area of hypoxia in the summer of 2006 was 28 times smaller than the average area from 1991 through 2005. That doesn’t mean the author is wrong about 2003. But it does mean there’s more to the story.

Another wrong fact:

Though the federal government has provided only about 5 percent of the hundreds of millions of dollars that have recently been poured into upgrading sewage-treatment plants, that money has been important to smaller communities, which can’t afford the improvements on their own.

No federal money has gone into sewage treatment plant improvements since Ronald Reagan was president. All of the cleanup money has come from the states, the counties and the local governments.

Another wrong fact:

In 1994, with the support of the states of New York and Connecticut, local and national environmental groups, various municipal representatives, sportfishing organizations, and marina owners, the EPA adopted a management plan that called for a 58.5 percent reduction in nitrogen by 2014.

Actually, they set the 58.5 goal in 1998, which you can read about here on the Long Island Sound Study website.

Read it yourself and make up your own mind. Audubon is an important magazine, with a good reputation. Too bad it did such a shoddy job this time.

(I should add that I did learn something from the article: it reports that David Miller is no longer the head of Audubon New York. Google informs me that a couple of months ago he became the Deputy Commissioner of Innovation and Chief if Staff at the state Department of Education.)

Oysters and Clams, and Where to Find Them on the Sound

It's my impression that there's more interest in shellfishing on Long Island Sound than there has been in a while. Norwalk has always been an oystering center, and the Connecticut Department of Agriculture's aquaculture bureau has worked for decades to help shellfishermen and to improve shellfish beds. But I see more and more stories in the local papers that indicate a growing interest in shellfishing, which might indicate a growing confidence that shellfishing is a proper and safe activity in the Sound.

The folks in Madison, for example, are trying to expand the town's clam beds to make recreational shellfishing easier, which is a great idea, here. And a man who hails from a line of shellfishermen in Greenwich just got a license to harvest clams from the area near the Westchester County border, here.

Alissa Dragan at the Connecticut aquaculture bureau sent me some statistics about shellfish beds in Connecticut's part of the Sound. In 1985 there were 310,000 acres of shellfish beds approved form unconditional harvesting. The number fell to 243,000 in 1990, to 135,000 last year, and to 134,000 this year. Over the same period, the number of conditionally approved beds went from 6,000 acres to 136,000 acres (conditionally approved means the beds are open or closed for harvesting depending on the conditions and the quality of the water, which changes mainly with the weather -- heavy rains mean more bacteria). Here's how Alissa explained the change in the number of acres:

...keep in mind that these changes in acreage, from 1985 to 1990 and 1990 to 2006, do not necessarily correspond to degraded water quality, or conversely to improved water quality. In addition to water quality, there are several other factors that have impacted the classification of Connecticut’s shellfishing grounds over the years. Standards by which areas were classified became more stringent. From 1988 to 1990, shellfishing areas in several towns were downgraded to comply with new growing area requirements. In order to meet the FDA requirements in all 26 shoreline towns, areas had to be prioritized based upon shellfish harvest activity due to a shortage of manpower. Over the years sampling became more frequent, and sampling locations increased, resulting in the revision of growing area classifications in towns for which there previously were no data. The Bureau also conducted shoreline surveys to identify actual and potential pollution sources further contributing to redefining areas. It is more accurate to say the classification changes shown in this historic data are the result of improved knowledge about the areas and the factors influencing them, and a changing regulatory climate.

Where and When to Dump in the Sound

A new agreement on when and where sand, mud and silt dredged from harbors and channels will be dumped into Long Island Sound allows some dumping to continue but also requires that government agencies look for alternatives to dumping.

It's important because a lot of the dredged material is contaminated with heavy metals and other toxins, and if you dig it up from one place and dump it in another you've obviously spreading it around; and because when you dump huge quantities of material in the Sound you tend to smother whatever you dump it on.

On the other hand, to cease dumping would mean to cease dredging, and to cease dredging means the Sound's harbors would pretty much have to shut down.

And by the way, if you ever wonder about the value of newspapers, read this press release, which is a classic case of however government-speak gets in the way of clarity, and then read this Newsday story, which explains in a way we can all understand what the agreement means and why it's important. Newsday also has an editorial about the dredging issue, here.

Corpse Flower

UConn's corpse flower has bloomed, and today's the day to go to Storr's to experience it, according to this account.

The Barred Owl Eggs Have Hatched

News of the barred owls that are nesting near our house, which I wrote about here earlier this month: Three owlets have hatched and are out of the nest. They haven't fledged yet but they've emerged from their nest hole and are perching in the crotch of the red oak just above the hole.

The squealing noise we've been hearing for weeks -- starting low and rising -- seems to have slackened off, but the young birds make a high-pitched squeal, like a squeeze toy.

If you look closely you can see two of them in this photo.

New Canaan's Moderns Might Be Nominated for the National Register of Historic Places

[Read 'Modern,' our new modern house blog, here.]

The National Trust for Historic Preservation is apparently planning to survey New Canaan's modern houses (the trust says there are more than 90 extant) and prepare a "thematic" nomination for the National Register of Historic Places. That information, and nothing else unfortunately, is available on the Philip Johnson Glass House website, here.

Personal Energy Consumption and How to Cut It

One of the hardest things about living in the outer suburbs for someone with an environmental conscience is figuring out how to cut down on the amount of energy we use.

To use the most obvious example: Almost everything we do requires a car. The supermarket is a mile away, along a narrow road with no sidewalks that is downhill going and uphill coming home – just far enough and dangerous enough and strenuous enough to make it inconvenient to walk with a lot of groceries. Most of our kids' friends live in our town but none live within walking distance, and the hills on the backroads and the traffic on the bigger roads are a disincentive to biking, to say the least.

Here’s the amount of driving my wife and I had to do last weekend, to get the kids to and from their social and recreational events: a 3-mile round trip to karate lessons; a 5-mile round trip to a little league game; a 5-mile round trip to a birthday party; a 20-mile round trip to another birthday party; two 5-mile round trips to pick up each kid after the birthday parties; a 42-mile round trip to a dance recital; a 24-mile round trip to pick up kid at a friend’s house after the dance recital; 14-mile round trip to birthday party. That’s 113 miles just to ferry kids back and forth. We drive a 2004 Honda CRV and a 1996 Subaru Outback, which I’m happy to say has about 105,000 miles on it. So I guess we used about five gallons of gas – not outrageous but when you add in the time we spent sitting in the car, it’s an expensive, gas-consuming activity. And considering that my commute is about the same -- 120 miles a week -- running the kids back and forth used as much gas as getting to and from work.

Our house needs a new roof, thanks to a couple of incompetent contractors. The roof is flat and the house is on a hill in a small clearing, so it gets plenty of sun. We thought it would be a good time to look into photo voltaic cells. I haven’t gotten any further than using the energy-saving calculator that the NYSERDA website links to, but based on that it seems as if a solar energy system for our house would cut the amount of energy we buy from NYSEG by almost half, which isn’t bad. To do that, though, we’d have to lay out almost $9,000 for a PV system, and that’s after several state-subsidized incentives that seem both generous and easy to take advantage of (to get the incentives, you have to use a state-authorized PV installer; most of the incentives actually go directly to the installer, so he is responsible for the paperwork; and all the parts and equipment are guaranteed for five years). Cutting our electricity purchases by almost half seems like a lot to me. But the financial savings aren’t that great – almost $600 a year, at today’s electric rates. So it would take us 15 years to make up our $9,000 investment.

Our friends who run the Fountainhead wine shops in Norwalk and Bedford Hills, and the Fat Cat Pie Company in Norwalk, sent out a mailer last week that has the usual promotions and information about their wines. But it also said this:

Save your cooking oil for Fat Cat Car
We are in the process of converting the engines of two diesel cars to use recycled vegetable oil to facilitate locomotion. The cars will be on the road delivering pizza from Fat Cat Pie Co., wine from Fountainhead and coffee and breakfast from Fat Cat Joe. They will be up and cruising Fairfield County in April so look out for Fat Cat Cars coming to a neighborhood near you soon…

I guess that’s one way to do it.

Out on Block Island, where all the electricity is created by diesel-burning generators, the state of Rhode Island wants to put wave-driven turbines in the ocean. The estimate is that it would cut electric costs for local consumers by 15 to 18 cents per kilowatt hour, which unless I’m completely muddle-headed sounds like a 15 to 18 percent reduction. One of the concerns of course is that cheaper electricity will prompt Block Islanders, who use relatively little electricity (probably in part because air conditioning in summer is rare), to use more, negating whatever gains the waves create.

A couple of weeks ago Andy Revkin wrote a piece for the Times Week in Review about reducing our carbon footprint, and he quoted Charles Komanoff, an energy economist who I remember from my days as a reporter because he used to travel to White Plains for hearings (about Indian Point, I think) by putting his bike on the train and then cycling to the hearing room. Andy quoted him as saying:

"There isn't a single American household above the poverty line that couldn't cut their CO2 at least 25 percent in six months through a straightforward series of fairly simple and terrifically cost-effective measures."

A couple of days later, Komanoff wrote on Gristmill that he had gotten a dozen e-mails from people questioning his assertion and wanting to know how they could achieve what he said they could achieve. Here's what he says -- a list of unglamorous but, considering that he knows what he's talking about, no doubt effective things to do.

Slipper Shells on Fairfield Beach

A couple of people who came out to Fairfield last night asked me about Atlantic slipper shells, which have been washing up on the beach there in enormous numbers, an unusual occurence, I concluded, since the people who asked had been beach residents and observers or the natural world for a long time. I had no idea why the shells had washed up, although I guessed that it might have something to do with the big storm of a few weekends ago.

I remembered though that we had seen something similar at Greenwich Point Park a couple of winters ago -- millions of Atlantic slipper shells (Crepidula fornicata) mixed in with mussels, oysters and quahogs. Rick D'Amico, who is a marine biologist (he works for the New York State DEC) told me that it was probably a normal die-off associated with cold water.



I'd be happy to hear if anyone has an explanation for what's been happening in Fairfield.

The View of Broadwater from on Deck

The few people who think Broadwater's proposal to put a liquefied natural gas terminal in the middle of Long Island Sound is a good idea often make the argument that the thing would be so far away -- nine or 10 miles from New Haven and Shoreham -- that it will hardly be visible from the shore.

That may or may not be true, and it may or may not be important. One issue that hardly ever gets mentioned though is that if views are important, the views from the shore are not the only ones that should be considered.

Two decades ago it was estimated that on summer weekends, 90,000 recreational boats take to the Sound. Even though they have the right to cruise on the waters of the Sound, the part of the Sound that Broadwater wants to take over will be off limits to them. And, of course, they'll have to look at this new, enormous industrial facility as well.

You might consider that to be a trivial problem. Another perspective, though, is that boaters make up an important part of the Sound's constituency. The Long Island Sound survey that came out two weeks ago showed that the people who use the Sound the most are also the most zealous in wanting to protect it. Ruining the boating experience -- ruining the view of the open Sound -- could easily cause those recreational mariners to care a whole lot less. As I said, it's not the most important issue, but it's one worth remembering anyway.

In the meantime, Congress is holding hearings on Long Island on Broadwater security problems, here.

Long Island's Sewers

Long Island needs better sewers, better sewage treatment plants and sewage disposal, and fewer leaky septic systems and cesspools. A State Senator from Long Island makes that common-sense argument today in Newsday, here.

For a second or two as I read it, I thought Senator Marcellino was going to propose that the state do something about the situation:

In 1996, in legislation I sponsored, the state initiated the Clean Water Clean Air Bond Act, which funded a major expansion of clean water initiatives, including $790 million for wastewater and habitat restoration and $355 million for safe drinking water.

Fantastic, I thought. A call for a new bond act. That would be big news. In my real job (which doesn't involve blogging about Long Island Sound) I too frequently have to listen to really long and boring conference calls among the smart people who run statewide or regional environmental groups, and I hadn't heard any of them talk about a new bond act. So this is potentially great, I thought, until I read the next sentence:

As these funds have dwindled or ended, municipalities must find additional funding to rehabilitate or even replace deteriorating wastewater systems.

Not exactly the boldest proposal ever. But at least he's keeping the larger issue out in the open.

Modern House Day 2007 in New Canaan

[Read 'Modern,' our new modern house blog, here.]

Thursday, May 17, 2007
New Canaan's Moderns and the National Register of Historic Places
The people who want to put New Canaan's modern houses on the National Register of Historic Places (which I wrote about last Friday) say they've already been in touch with more than 80 homeowners and that, so far, the reaction has been good.

The project seems to be a collaboration among the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism, the Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation, the New Canaan Historical Society and the National Trust for Historic Preservation (which owns and operates Philip Johnson's Glass House). And there's an advisory committee of John Johansen, John Black Lee, Toshiko Mori, Theo Prudon and Robert A.M. Stern. (Johansen is the only survivor of the Harvard Five architects (Johnson, Breuer, Noyes and Gores were the others); John Black Lee designed a number of New Canaan moderns, including one of my favorites, on Chichester Road, which Toshiko Mori, the chair of the Department of Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, re-did a few years back (Lee also supervised the construction of my in-laws' house in Pound Ridge, although he didn't design it); Stern is the dean of the Yale School of Architecture; I don't know who Theo Prudon is, although I probably should).

Here's the idea behind the project, from the Glass House website:

The knowledge gained from this project is not only intended to shed light on the individual importance of this community in its greater influence outside of CT, but it is intended to inform other Modernist communities across the United States that wish to embark on similar studies. The recognition of mid-century Modern homes and their role as an asset within real estate investment is growing, however the formal recognition of this architecture is still necessary for a proactive approach to preservation. The thematic National Register Nomination of a number of these homes will serve this purpose.

I haven't heard about any modern houses in New Canaan being razed lately, which not long ago was a huge problem. I'm sure there are still threats, and I think the town government itself still takes a hands-off attitude about it, as if tear-downs were merely a function of the free market when in fact, with all the zoning regulations in New Canaan and elsewhere, real estate and development are almost completely under government control and tear-downs could be regulated too if the town thought it important enough.

Listing on the National Register in itself won't prevent tear downs. But it will be one more way to put encourage owners to preserve modern houses and, with any luck, discourage the spec developers from buying them and tearing them down.

Which prompts this thought: while the list is being prepared for the National Register, someone out to come up with a complementary list of developers who buy and tear down modern houses. Maybe they'd be less willing to do it if we make their names known (like this guy, in Westport).

Friday, May 11, 2007
New Canaan's Moderns Might Be Nominated for the National Register of Historic Places
The National Trust for Historic Preservation is apparently planning to survey New Canaan's modern houses (the trust says there are more than 90 extant) and prepare a "thematic" nomination for the National Register of Historic Places. That information, and nothing else unfortunately, is available on the Philip Johnson Glass House website, here.

Monday, May 7, 2007
Modern House Day
We're looking forward to the 2007 Modern House Day in New Canaan, which is scheduled for Saturday, November 3.

The tour will include a house by Marcel Breuer, one by Elliot Noyes, and one by Philip Johnson; Edward Durrell Stone's Celanese House, which is being renovated; and one or two others.

It will also include lunch (probably outside, under a tent) at Landis Gores's Pavilion House, in Irwin Park, which is likely to be used as an exhibition space for mid-century modern furniture.

The event is a fundraiser for the New Canaan Historical Society, which has worked hard to open the eyes of New Canaan residents to the importance of the town's modern architecture. I'm not sure of the price yet, although it's not cheap. But they sell only 250 tickets, and the two previous events -- in 2001 and 2004 -- were sold out. They were also enlightening and great fun.



My wife's firm, Gina Federico Graphic Design, is volunteering to design all the printed material, including the ticket/brochure (which I'll write).

In the meantime, there's a tour of Usonia, the Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired community in Mount Pleasant, New York, coming up on Saturday, and an exhibition about Usonia at The Studio, a gallery in Armonk, here.

Oysters in Greenwich

Considering the results of the Long Island Sound survey that was released a couple of weeks ago (that is, people are largely clueless when it comes to the Sound and its pollutants), events like the one the Greenwich Shellfish Commission put on yesterday at Greenwich Point Park can only be a good thing.

The Greenwich Time reported that hundreds of people showed up for a three-hour event called "Experience the Sound."

Quote of the day from Roger Bowgen, chairman of Greenwich's Shellfish Commission:

"The idea is to open people's eyes to the fact that there are other things to do here than sit on the beach and stare at an iPod."

Of course when you go to the Shellfish Commission's webpage and click on "Shellfish Bed Status," the first thing you see is:

Oyster Alert
No oysters may be taken from Greenwich waters during the 2006-07 season.

Which is a bit disheartening.

Meanwhile, the New Haven Register apparently thinks that the other things you can do besides sit and stare at an IPod include building a huge liquefied natural gas terminal. The Register's editorial writers think the Broadwater LNG terminal is a good idea, here.

An Evening in Fairfield

If you're in the area and there's nothing interesting on TV, stop by the Fairfield Public Library’s main branch, 1080 Old Post Road, Fairfield, on Tuesday, May 8th at 7:30 p.m. The Fairfield Beach Residents Association has invited me to talk about Long Island Sound, which I'm always happy to do.

Sound Survey, Individual Responsibility, and Sewage Treatment Plants

Yet another newspaper editorializes about the Long Island Sound survey and the need for individual citizens to do more to clean up the Sound. In this case, the Journal News neglects to also ask what's up with Westchester County's plan for nitrogen removal at its four Sound shore sewage plants.

We're just seven years away from 2014 and the 58.5 percent nitrogen reduction goal, and as far as I know Westchester hasn't yet made its plan public.

Wind Power and Block Island

"I think wind farms would be acceptable to many people; they certainly are to me. I believe there's been a shift of perception - we're getting used to the idea and understand the need." – Block Island First Warden Kim Gaffett, on a study that says the best place out of several good locations in Rhode Island for power-producing windmills is off Block Island’s south shore.

The south shore is a long stretch of wild beach where people surf, sunbathe in the nude, and fish. The bluffs erode boulders and sand and a grayish clay that kids use as body paint. Barn owls supposedly nest there. Houses sit on top of the bluffs, but you can’t see them, and with the noise of the wind and the surf, you feel you’re in the wilderness.

I’m a proponent of wind power. I wish the ocean off Block Island’s bluffs wasn’t a good place for them. I have a feeling though that First Warden Gaffett’s opinion about people’s acceptance of wind farms is way optimistic. Here’s what the Block Island Times reports.

The Smell of Decomposing Flesh in the UConn Greenhouse

Quote of the day:

“It smells just like a rotting corpse. In 2004, there was a medical examiner here who came to see it and confirmed that it smelled exactly like a corpse. It has the compounds that a rotting corpse has." -- Clinton Morse, plant growth facilities manager for UConn's ecology and evolutionary biology department.

Those who want to have this olfactory experience for themselves might want to head to UConn’s Storrs campus, where a giant corpse flower, Amorphophallus titanium, is about to bloom for the first time in three years. The flower is in the university's greenhouse, on North Eagleville Road. Judging from its scientific name and its description in the Hartford Courant, the corpse flower not only smells like rotting flesh but bears a passing resemblance to a penis. I'd be interested in a first-person account, should any of my readers see and smell the flower for themselves.

Where Have the Egrets Gone?

Herons and egrets are disappearing from the rookery on Great Captains Island, in Greenwich, and Audubon Connecticut and others are looking into why and what can be done to stop the decline, here.

Owl Nest

We hear barred owls in our neighborhood a lot. I’ve heard a male hooting like a monkey in the woods next to the tennis courts at the town park. I’ve seen barred owls in two or three widely-distant places on big tracts of land the Aquarion water company owns. And we see them and hear them near our house all the time, especially in late summer and early fall.

For weeks now we’ve heard a squeal or screech, starting on a low pitch and rising for second or two, coming from the woods just beyond one of our stone walls, and we all assumed it was a barred owl. I didn’t see it however until I went to find it last week, and then yesterday Gina was working in the garden and happened to look in the direction of the squealing to see a barred owl fly into a cavity high in a northern red oak about 15 yards from the stone wall and only 40 or 50 yards from our house. My son, Kaare, and I later walked over there and stood beneath it for a few seconds, and heard a squeaking noise coming from the hole.

I can’t tell for sure what’s going on in there but my guess, based on a quick read of my various bird books, is that the female is incubating and that the bird we occasionally see is the male coming and going with food for the female. Incubation takes about a month and then the nestlings need another six weeks to fledge. One of the ways birders find active owl nests is to look for feathers and pellets and droppings near the base of a tree, but the area around the black oak is clean still, which might mean the eggs haven’t hatched yet. If so, we have a long time of owl noise and activity to look forward to.

Barred owls are not at all uncommon in New York, but they are not suburban birds. Here’s what the 1986 edition of The Atlas of Breeding Birds in New York State says about habitat requirements:

Unlike the Great Horned Owl, which shows toleration for fragmented forests and woodlots, the Barred Owl seems to prefer larger unbroken woodlands, either coniferous or deciduous, and often mixed with sufficient old growth to provide suitable nesting trees. … Eaton noted that this owl “breeds wherever it finds swampy woods or forests of sufficient extent to secure it protection from its one great enemy, civilized man.”

The fact that a pair is nesting so close to our house might mean that the population in this town is dense enough to force birds to find nests in locations that are less than prime. Or it might mean that even though we have three-acre zoning, we’ve kept the woods sufficiently intact to allow barred owls to nest. Either one is good news to me.