tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-94006622024-03-13T22:47:34.190-04:00sphereTom Andersen's blog about Long Island Sound
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/51975910@N00/2938987270/" title="compo in october by Andersen-Federico, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3176/2938987270_74ea675fa7.jpg" width="500" height="131" alt="compo in october"></a>Tom Andersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00624482065925540547noreply@blogger.comBlogger1645125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9400662.post-9191562321326931422013-06-02T14:48:00.003-04:002013-06-02T14:50:20.438-04:00To Colabaugh Pond for Periodical Cicadas<b id="docs-internal-guid-42ae95a5-0637-51a3-0d0b-9b12a191040e" style="font-weight: normal;"></b><br />
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-42ae95a5-0637-51a3-0d0b-9b12a191040e" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I choose a 40-minute drive to Croton instead of an hour-and-a-half drive to Clove Lakes Park on Staten Island for Brood II of the periodical cicadas this morning (Matthew Wills, the Brooklyn naturalist who writes the <a href="http://matthewwills.com/" target="_blank">Backyard and Beyond</a> blog, was heading to Clove Lakes and invited me to join him and his crew; I grew up near Clove Lakes and was tempted but the tolls and the pain-in-the-ass factor of driving through the city dissuaded me).</span></b></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-42ae95a5-0637-51a3-0d0b-9b12a191040e" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-42ae95a5-0637-51a3-0d0b-9b12a191040e" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Colabaugh Pond was the general destination; I explain why <a href="http://thissphere.blogspot.com/2013/05/cicadas-in-westchester-maybe-maybe-not.html" target="_blank">here</a>. We had the car windows down and heard them as soon as we turned onto Mount Airy Road from Route 127. At the intersection of Colabaugh Pond Road, I stayed on Mount Airy and turned right onto Pond Meadow Road instead. That’s when they were 17 years ago (duh). Today the noise came from high in the trees, all around us. It’s a small road, barely wide enough for two cars, and I pulled onto the shoulder. A young man was straightening up his yard. </span></b></div>
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<br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When he looked over at us I called out, “We came for the bugs!” He said the sound was nonstop (“sound” is a better word than “noise” for what we heard). I asked how long it had been going on for, and he said for five or six days. Gina asked if it was annoying and he said no, he had gotten used to it. I asked if he had been here 17 years ago. He grinned. “No! I was only 15.”</span></div>
<br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We found a dead cicada on the black top and then found several live ones clinging to a barberry bush. Two or three flew by at eye level. They were toy-like in the way they flew. Gina photographed a few and one landed on my shirt-trail and then on my right hand when I reached out toward where it was flying. The sound was constant, almost frog-like, easing when we walked up the road and into a clearing, and then getting more intense again as the road rose into the woods. There seemed to be many more than 17 years ago but I easily could be mis-remembering.</span></div>
<br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Back in the car, we drove a short way up Mount Airy until we could no longer hear them, backtracked, and then turned left onto Colabaugh Pond Road and continued, again, until we could no longer hear them. Colabaugh Pond seemed to be the epicenter.</span></div>
<br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That was pretty much it. The sound was sort of pleasant, certainly not annoying (although I think the density per acre was much less than it is elsewhere). There wasn’t much to see. There are three species of periodical cicada that emerge as part of Brood II but I didn’t try to identify the Colabaugh Pond species. The thought that they were there 17 years ago, and every preceding 17 years going back for who knows how long, was awe-inspiring but the spectacle itself wasn’t. </span></div>
<br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’ll be 76 next time and 93 the time after that. Although it wasn’t awe-inspiring it was interesting and worth witnessing. I’m planning to be there again.</span></div>
</b>Tom Andersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00624482065925540547noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9400662.post-24940878904271225382013-05-23T17:38:00.000-04:002013-05-23T17:38:00.927-04:00Cicadas in Westchester? Maybe. Maybe Not.<div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cicadas took over my neighborhood, and most of Staten Island, in 1962. We called them 17-year-locusts and we used a magnifying glass to burn holes in the discarded exoskeletons. I was 8.</span><b id="docs-internal-guid-773161ce-d34a-fad0-de55-318ab8377108" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-773161ce-d34a-fad0-de55-318ab8377108" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">By 1979, I had learned that they were really cicadas, not locusts, but I was living in the Adirondacks, beyond their range, so I missed them.</span></b></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-773161ce-d34a-fad0-de55-318ab8377108" style="font-weight: normal;"><br style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><div dir="ltr" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Seventeen years later, in 1996, I was working as a reporter in northern Westchester. I</span><b><b id="docs-internal-guid-773161ce-d34a-fad0-de55-318ab8377108" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">n May, a press release came into the newsroom from researchers in Connecticut. It said that they were sure that the so-called Brood II of the periodical cicada was extirpated from Westchester but, just in case, let us know if you hear of any reports.</span></b></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I knew by then that a great, obscure naturalist, a Staten Islander named William T. Davis (1862-1945), had traveled throughout the region in 1894 to witness and study the emergence of the so-called Brood II. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So I called the Staten Island Institute of Arts and Sciences, which had William T. Davis’s journals in its archives, and asked someone to check his entries from May and June 1894, in case he had been to Westchester.</span></div>
<br style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><div dir="ltr" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In fact, he had, they told me. They found an entry saying that Davis had found cicadas near Colabaugh Pond, in Cortlandt. I wrote a column about it, and reported that scientists were fairly sure that there were no more cicadas in Westchester County.</span></div>
<br style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><div dir="ltr" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Then on June 4, I got a phone call in the newsroom. What happened next was the subject of a subsequent column, published on June 6, 1996. Here it is:</span></div>
<br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b><div dir="ltr" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<b><i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cicadas</span></i><i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> arrive in Westchester</span></i></b></div>
<b style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><br /></i><i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></i></b><div dir="ltr" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<b><i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The scientists wanted to be wrong about this one - and they were.</span></i></b></div>
<b style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><br /></i><i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></i></b><div dir="ltr" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<b><i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Last month, several researchers studying 17-year-cicadas put out word that they were interested in hearing from Hudson Valley residents who found cicadas in their neighborhoods.</span></i></b></div>
<b style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><br /></i><i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></i></b><div dir="ltr" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<b><i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But Westchester County residents need hardly bother, they said at the time. No one in Westchester reported encountering cicadas 17 years ago - when they last emerged - and the insects were likely to be extinct locally.</span></i></b></div>
<b style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><br /></i><i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></i></b><div dir="ltr" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<b><i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But it turns out that they aren't.</span></i></b></div>
<b style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><br /></i><i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></i></b><div dir="ltr" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<b><i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yesterday morning, cicadas were singing their weird song in at least two pockets of woods in the Mount Airy section of Cortlandt, near Colabaugh Pond.</span></i></b></div>
<b style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><br /></i><i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></i></b><div dir="ltr" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<b><i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Roland Asp, who found them in his yard, pointed to a couple of cicadas clinging to the branches of tiny spruce trees. He looked on the trunk of a maple tree and found another, milky white - it had apparently just shed its larval skin and hadn't taken on the characteristic black, brown and orange color of an adult cicada. Nearby, hundreds of discarded skins were piled at the base of an oak.</span></i></b></div>
<b style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><br /></i><i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></i></b><div dir="ltr" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<b><i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">`` Saturday, this whole tree was crawling, '' he said.</span></i></b></div>
<b style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><br /></i><i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></i></b><div dir="ltr" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<b><i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">By yesterday, they had ascended to the leaves, which is part of their odd life cycle.</span></i></b></div>
<b style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><br /></i><i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></i></b><div dir="ltr" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<b><i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Seventeen-year-cicadas burrow out of the ground on an evening in late May, shed their skins and metamorphose into adults. The adults climb trees and within a couple of days the males start to sing, to attract a female. By mid-June, the cicadas mate and the females immediately lay their eggs in slits in tree branches.</span></i></b></div>
<b style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><br /></i><i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></i></b><div dir="ltr" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<b><i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The adults die in late June. In August, the eggs hatch. The tiny larvae fall to the ground and creep into the soil, where they feed on fluid in tree roots. There they stay, waiting for nobody-knows-what signal until they emerge again on an evening in late May or early June - 17 years hence.</span></i></b></div>
<b style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><br /></i><i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></i></b><div dir="ltr" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<b><i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">`` Friday night, I heard them everywhere - mainly walking through the grass, '' Asp said.</span></i></b></div>
<b style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><br /></i><i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></i></b><div dir="ltr" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<b><i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But had they started to sing yet?</span></i></b></div>
<b style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><br /></i><i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></i></b><div dir="ltr" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<b><i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">`` Not a word, '' he said.</span></i></b></div>
<b style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><br /></i><i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></i></b><div dir="ltr" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<b><i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He was standing in the yard of his small house at 10 a.m. A fast brook curved through the yard. A snapping turtle lumbered along the road. Birds were quiet. There was a pause in the conversation.</span></i></b></div>
<b style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><br /></i><i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></i></b><div dir="ltr" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<b><i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Then the noise in the leaves began. At times, it was like a power-saw in the distance. At other times it sounded like a chorus of other-worldly voices chanting a high-pitched waaaaaaaaw-waaaaaaaaw-waaaaaaaaaw, holding the notes for many seconds.</span></i></b></div>
<b style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><br /></i><i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></i></b><div dir="ltr" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<b><i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In New Haven, Chris Maier, an entomologist with the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, was happy to hear about cicadas in Cortlandt. He was one of the scientists who thought they were gone from the county - probably because development had usurped their range.</span></i></b></div>
<b style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><br /></i><i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></i></b><div dir="ltr" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<b><i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In retrospect, though, it makes sense that cicadas still live near Colabaugh Pond in Cortlandt. In early June 1894, a man who spent his life studying cicadas - William T. Davis - traveled to Cortlandt from Staten Island.</span></i></b></div>
<b style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><br /></i><i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></i></b><div dir="ltr" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<b><i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">`` Not far from Colabaugh Pond, we found them quite numerous, '' he wrote in his journal.</span></i></b></div>
<b style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><br /></i><i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></i></b><div dir="ltr" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<b><i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Maier said he'll make his own cicada search in Westchester tomorrow. He was especially intrigued that a Yonkers resident named Alicja Sullivan reported that she found two cicadas in her yard, in the city's Bryn Mawr section.</span></i></b></div>
<b style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><br /></i><i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></i></b><div dir="ltr" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<b><i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">`` It's good to know that they're still doing well there, '' said Maier.</span></i></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.magicicada.org/updates/update.php" target="_blank">Here's a map</a> of where cicadas have emerged already in 2013. They will be back again in 2030. </span></span></i></b></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-773161ce-d34a-fad0-de55-318ab8377108" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />Tom Andersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00624482065925540547noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9400662.post-21169134293324739992013-04-28T07:03:00.003-04:002013-04-28T07:03:52.426-04:00Henry David Thoreau, Climate Change ResearcherScientists in Massachusetts are conducting a fascinating climate change study using baseline data collected in the mid 1800s by Henry David Thoreau. I wrote about it a few days ago for Connecticut Audubon Society's blog, <a href="http://www.ctaudubon.org/2013/04/thoreau-wildflowers-climate-change/" target="_blank">here</a>. Tom Andersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00624482065925540547noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9400662.post-86274069438148190912013-04-25T09:55:00.002-04:002013-04-25T09:55:38.639-04:00The Mysterious Plastic Pellets of Mamaroneck HarborIf we needed a reminder that anything we put down our storm drains ends up in Long Island Sound and its tributaries, we got one recently in Mamaroneck, where millions of tiny plastic pellets washed up on Harbor Island Park.<br />
<br />
I wrote about how a local resident got to the bottom of it, on Save the Sound's Green Cities Blue Waters blog. Click <a href="http://greencitiesbluewaters.wordpress.com/2013/04/17/plasticpellets/" target="_blank">here</a>.Tom Andersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00624482065925540547noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9400662.post-21502459996573706022013-03-22T07:35:00.001-04:002013-03-22T08:34:46.187-04:00Blocking Roads to Stop Development<b id="internal-source-marker_0.23222731100395322" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"></b><br />
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<b id="internal-source-marker_0.23222731100395322" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One way to stop development that will ruin natural areas is to stop the building of roads. The Times <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/22/nyregion/maurice-barbash-a-builder-who-fought-for-fire-island-dies-at-88.html?ref=obituaries&_r=0" target="_blank">has an obituary today of Maurice Barbash</a>, a real estate developer who successfully fought a plan by Robert Moses to build a highway along Fire Island in the early 1960s. Other successful examples I know of: The Richmond Parkway, on Staten Island, and the highway across lower Manhattan that galvanized Jane Jacobs, both of which were Moses’ ideas; the Rye-Oyster Bay Bridge (also Moses), and Route 117 from Mount Pleasant to northern Westchester, which, if I remember correctly, the Rockefellers were in favor of (the halting of that project explains why Route 172 is a four-lane, divided highway near Pocantico Hills, from Route 9 to Route 9A but no further).</span></b></div>
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />Tom Andersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00624482065925540547noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9400662.post-56467996172012453872013-01-22T07:13:00.001-05:002013-01-22T07:13:28.001-05:00January 29 Talk in Guilford: Adriaen Block and the Discovery of Long Island Sound<span id="internal-source-marker_0.4460866994500763" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">It's the 400th anniversary of the European discovery of Long Island Sound and the Connecticut River, and if
you’re interested in the story of Adriaen Block and his fellow Dutch sailors, head to the
Guilford Free Library on Tuesday evening, January 29, to hear my talk.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Block's
story is a tale of mutiny, gun battles, fierce economic competition,
burning ships, and explorations of uncharted harbors and bays.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Few
people know the full story of Adriaen Block and the other Dutch sailors
who first ventured into the Sound and the Connecticut River. And even
while the quadricentennial of Henry Hudson’s first voyage up the Hudson
was widely celebrated, little attention is being paid to the
quadricentennial of the Sound and the Connecticut River.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In
fact, we're not even sure when exactly Block made his voyage of
discovery. It might have been in 1612, or in 1613, although it seems
certain that it was not in 1614, as many books and websites claim.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I wrote about Block’s voyage in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This Fine Piece of Water: An Environmental History of Long Island Sound</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> and have expanded and adapted that chapter of the book for this talk.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This
will be the third time I’ve given it. Previous occasions were at the
New Haven Museum and in Essex for Potapaug Audubon, Essex Land Trust and
the Essex Historical Society.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The </span><a href="http://www.guilfordfreelibrary.org/"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">Guilford Free Library</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> is at 67 Park Street, right on the beautiful Guilford green. The organizer of the talk is the </span><a href="http://faulknerslight.org/wordpress/"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">Falkner’s Light Brigade</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">, a group that maintains the lighthouse on Faulkner’s Island Lighthouse. The talk is free, of course, and everyone is welcome.</span>Tom Andersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00624482065925540547noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9400662.post-51005278361553221732013-01-03T18:49:00.002-05:002013-01-03T18:49:24.259-05:00A Look Back at Water Quality in the Summer of 2012<span id="internal-source-marker_0.33104375459054114" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I’ve
been reviewing water quality data from the summer of 2012 – an
unusually bad summer on Long Island Sound – on Save the Sound’s Green
Cities Blue Waters blog.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Click </span><a href="http://greencitiesbluewaters.wordpress.com/2013/01/02/season-review-why-was-hypoxia-so-much-worse-in-2012/"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">here</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> for the most recent post, and the click back for two earlier posts.</span>Tom Andersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00624482065925540547noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9400662.post-7872294061177042112012-10-26T15:05:00.000-04:002012-10-26T15:05:01.166-04:00Warmer Water in the Sound Means Different Kinds of FishThe waters of Long Island Sound are getting warmer and the fish populations are changing as a result. I wrote a long post about it on Green Cities Blue Waters, Save the Sound's blog, <a href="http://greencitiesbluewaters.wordpress.com/2012/10/25/warmer-water-is-bringing-changes-to-the-sounds-marine-life/" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
<br />
It's based on a peer-reviewed paper published over the summer by Penny Howell and Peter Auster, and is work a look.Tom Andersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00624482065925540547noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9400662.post-70664725426685227472012-10-19T07:03:00.001-04:002012-10-19T09:48:08.220-04:00Fall Seems To Be The Season for Ocean Sunfish, aka Mola molaA fellow who was in a boat off Greenwich yesterday saw one of Long Island Sound's rarest sights: an ocean sunfish. I had blogged about them several years ago and so searched back, turning up these posts:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://thissphere.blogspot.com/2006/11/ocean-sunfish-really-big-fish-in.html" target="_blank">November 2, 2006: Ocean Sunfish: A Really Big Fish in Larchmont?</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://thissphere.blogspot.com/2006/11/ocean-sunfish-among-rarest-of-rarities.html" target="_blank">November 3, 2006: Ocean Sunfish: Among the Rarest of the Rarities</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://thissphere.blogspot.com/2006/11/ocean-sunfish-not-quite-unheard-of-in.html" target="_blank">November 7, 2006: Ocean Sunfish: Not Quite Unheard of in Long Island Sound</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://thissphere.blogspot.com/2009/10/sailor-sees-really-big-fish-in-sound.html" target="_blank">October 12, 2009: Sailor Sees a Really Big Fish in the Sound</a><br />
<br />
Note the dates. Autumn is obviously when this large and unusual fish visits the Sound. All the sightings were in the western end as well.<br />
<br />
Here's what Kit Kittle, who was sailing yesterday off Greenwich, wrote to me:<br />
<br />
<i>About a half mile south of Great Captain Island near Greenwich in 50 feet of water at 4:30 today, I could see a big fin sticking up in the air about half the time between the growing white caps. I went towards it and followed it for a half hour. The fin was long - about 18 inches - and was just sticking up gently waving around as if whoever owned it was not swimming very hard at all. <br /><br />I thought it was the flipper of a seal, or perhaps the tail of a whale, but I could not be certain. But it did not take a breath. It was not afraid of me or my boat that was splashing loudly against the oncoming waves ten feet from it. I could see it was at least five or six feet long and pretty rectangular and the fins were coming sideways off its back end. <br /><br />I have since read enough on that google search to be sure that this was a sunfish or mola mola. It was swimming towards Long Island. I have seen these unusual fish twice before at much greater distances, but I had a sense that this fish was looking at me as I was at him. It was a life affirming experience to see this mola mola swimming gently in the choppy Sound.<br /><br />Please do post if anybody else sees this visitor. </i><br />
<br />
9:50 a.m. update: Save the Sound has a good shot of an ocean sunfish in Long Island Sound on its FAcebook page, <a href="http://www.facebook.com/savethesoundct" target="_blank">here</a>. <i><br /></i>Tom Andersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00624482065925540547noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9400662.post-45429447035553936312012-07-11T16:47:00.001-04:002012-07-12T07:36:02.573-04:00Pesticides in Long Island Sound Lobsters. What Does It Mean?<span id="internal-source-marker_0.2386477089914273" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Tiny
amounts of pesticides have been found in a handful of lobsters caught
in Long Island Sound and tested by the Connecticut DEEP and UConn. You
can read a good account of it in the Ct Mirror, </span><a href="http://www.ctmirror.org/story/16864/pesticides-found-li-sound-lobsters-first-time-more-study-planned"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">here</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">It
is an interesting finding, but it’s also perplexing. Researchers will
now look for a cause and effect link between pesticides and the 1999
lobster die-off in Long Island Sound. But it’s not clear to me how this
discovery in 2012 will lead to any conclusions about something that
happened 13 years ago.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">To
review: There was an enormous die-off of lobsters in the Sound in 1999.
The die-off coincided with the spraying of pesticides to kill
mosquitoes during a West Nile outbreak. It also coincided with a period
of warming water temperatures in the Sound. And it coincided with a peak
in the Sound’s commercial lobster catch.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The
warmer water is significant because the American lobster, <i>Homarus
americanus</i>, is a cold-water species, and Long Island Sound is at the
extreme southern end of its inshore range. In other words, before the
Sound’s water started warming, water temperatures in the Sound were
about as warm as lobsters could tolerate anyway. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">So
by the late 1990s, there were millions of lobsters living in conditions
that were unsuitable for them. The Sound’s lobster population was
stressed by a change in habitat conditions.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The
peak in the commercial catch is interesting because throughout the
1980s and 1990s, Long Island Sound – particularly the western half – was
essentially a lobster ranch. Lobstermen would consistently pull traps
crammed with 20 lobsters feeding on bait; typically 19 of those lobsters
were too small to be kept legally. So the lobstermen would throw them
back. The small lobsters would then enter more traps and continue to
feed on the bait, and so on until the lobsters were big enough to keep. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In
other words the lobstermen were essentially ranching or farming
lobsters, feeding them on bait in cages, and spurring the growth in
population. Overpopulation was another source of stress. (That, by the
way, is not just my opinion; it was the conclusion of the Connecticut
DEEP and the New York State DEC.)</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Scientists
concluded a decade ago that water temperature and overpopulation were
among a few environmental stresses that led to the die-off by making the
lobsters vulnerable to a parasite that killed them. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Now maybe pesticides should be added to that list. Or not. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The
recent tests that detected the presence of pesticides in Sound lobsters
are far more sensitive than previous tests. They were able to find
concentrations of pesticides that were too small to be detected 10 years
ago.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The
tests of course don’t answer the question of whether the pesticides
were there in 1999. Also still to be determined is whether the tiny
amounts detected are enough to do any damage to the lobsters. It’s also
unknown whether pesticides will show up in a new batch of lobsters being
tested now.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">And
it’s important to remember that the new tests are from this year. The
lobsters die-off happened in 1999. And once they died, they stayed dead –
the population has not rebounded.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">So
if the lobster population died off in 1999, what is the significance of
pesticides found in Long Island Sound lobsters in 2012? </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Again,
the presence of pesticides in Long Island Sound lobsters is an
interesting finding. But for now al it means is that pesticides were
found in a few lobsters. It does not mean – yet – that pesticides are
hurting the lobsters. Nor does it mean – yet – that pesticides caused
the lobster die-off in 1999. Further tests may answer those questions.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Does
it sound as if I am trying to rationalize or excuse the use of
pesticides? I’m not. You can read just about everything I’ve written on
this blog about pesticides and lobsters </span><a href="http://thissphere.blogspot.com/search?q=pesticides"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">here</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">. We as a society use way, way too many pesticides. I’m for banning or severely limiting their use. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">But
the more important reality may be that there are no longer a
significant number of lobsters in the Sound because the habitat has
changed and Long Island Sound simply is no longer lobster habitat.<br /><br />The DEEP's press release about it is <a href="http://www.ct.gov/dep/cwp/view.asp?Q=507752&A=4173" target="_blank">here</a>, although you'll notice that they bury the pesticide finding in the 13th paragraph.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span>Tom Andersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00624482065925540547noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9400662.post-63869835192041105602012-03-25T17:27:00.003-04:002012-03-25T17:45:18.861-04:00Corson's Brook Woods Today in the Times, in 1981 and in 1893<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IFyVJcir-6A/T2-LL66LAzI/AAAAAAAAA5I/IwbAv7A3EzI/s1600/A+Comparative+Flora+of+SI.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IFyVJcir-6A/T2-LL66LAzI/AAAAAAAAA5I/IwbAv7A3EzI/s320/A+Comparative+Flora+of+SI.jpg" width="215" /></a></div>
<span id="internal-source-marker_0.8652183648317308" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Do
you read the nature column that Marielle Anzelone writes in the Times?
Last fall she chronicled the progress of autumn in some woods she knew
of in northern Manhattan. Now she’s following spring </span><a href="http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/20/spring-comes-to-a-city-woodland/?scp=1&sq=marielle%20anzelone&st=cse"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">on Staten Island</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">On
Twitter yesterday, Matthew Wills (who tweets from Brooklyn as
@backyardbeyond) noted that “we found two woodland wildflowers in bloom
yesterday on Staten Island,.,,” I </span><a href="http://matthewwills.com/2012/03/24/spring-beauties/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">clicked the link</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
and saw photos of spring beauties and trout lilies, and saw that he had
visited the island with Marielle Anzelone and that she had also
identified two other plants, Virginia waterleaf and blue cohosh.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">As
soon I read the names of those wildflowers, I DM’d Matthew (we’ve never met but we follow each other on Twitter
and occasionally retweet each other) and asked him where they had found them. He confirmed: Corson’s Brook
Woods. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I haven’t been to Corson’s Brook Woods since 1982 but I know it well. In fact, I named it.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In
the spring of 1981 I was working for a local Assemblywoman, Betty
Connelly, whose district office was at Willowbrook (it's the College of
Staten Island now but at the time it was Staten Island Developmental
Center and was still a home for developmentally disabled people; when I
was a kid it was Willowbrook State School, so we called it Willowbrook).
A friend and I had become distressed at the destruction of Staten
Island's natural areas, and we became friendly with the leaders of a
group called Protectors of Pine Oak Woods, who were led by a terrific,
friendly, dedicated naturalist named Dick Buegler. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In
April 1981, Dick was in the final stages of conducting fieldwork for "A
Comparative Flora of Staten Island 1879-1981,” a catalogue of the
island’s plants that he and another naturalist, Steve Parisio, were working on for the Staten
Island Institute of Arts and Sciences, which was celebrating its 100th
anniversary.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">One
Saturday afternoon that month, Dick led a small group of us through
Willowbrook, one of the few places he had yet to survey for the Comparative Flora, and we ended up in a small
tract, maybe 20 acres, of rich, moist woods bisected by a brook. I was
inexperienced in identifying wildflowers but Dick knew what was rare on
the island, and he was tremendously excited by what we found. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">For
starters, there were three plants that grew nowhere else on Staten
Island: wild leek, bladdernut (a shrub/small tree) and American
sycamore. Later that summer we found a fourth, zig-zag goldenrod. There
was wild ginger, blue cohosh, sweet cicely, baneberry, Virginia
waterleaf, false hellebore, silvery spleenwort, spikenard, hop hornbeam
and basswood. There were hundreds of sugar maples; the only other stand
on the island had perhaps two dozen specimens. The 1981 Flora that Dick
and Steve were working on eventually listed basswood as uncommon on
Staten Island; all of the others were characterized as rare.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Dick
was thrilled at the discovery. Because my office was at Willowbrook,
and because I worked for a state lawmaker who was sympathetic to the
cause, I became the official tour guide for a succession of naturalists
and others who wanted a first-hand look. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Staten
Island Developmental Center was slowly being closed in those days, as
its residents moved into group homes. There was serious talk by New York
State of selling it for development. We thought that was a bad idea and
we thought the discovery – or rediscovery – of this small section of
it, full of rare plants, was a good rationale for opposing the sale.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I
wrote a piece for the Staten Island Advance, explaining what was there
and why it was important, and calling on the state to keep it preserved,
to make it part of the </span><a href="http://sigreenbelt.org/"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">Staten Island Greenbelt,</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> which was just coming into being at the time. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">As
part of my research I went to the archives at the Staten Island
Institute of Arts and Sciences and read some of William T. Davis's
journals. Davis (1862-1945) was the grandfather of Staten Island’s naturalists and
environmentalists, an interesting guy and a good writer. I found in the
journals that Davis had been to these same woods in 1893 and had
described almost precisely what we had seen in 1981.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I
also found the area on a 1917 atlas of Staten Island, which identified
the brook that flowed through the woods as Corson’s Brook. Hence,
Corson’s Brook Woods. To my amazement, the name stuck.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The
Greenbelt was dedicated as a New York City park-nature preserve not
long afterward, but Corson’s Brook Woods was not included. So on that count we failed. On the other
hand, public opposition to the plans to sell Staten Island Island Developmental
Center led the state to drop the idea; instead it is now the home of the College of Staten
Island. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The
chances of CSI being sold and developed are slim. Let’s hope that the
small section known as Corson’s Brook Woods will remain as wild as Davis
found it in 1893, as we found it in 1981, and as Marielle Anzelone and
Matthew Willis are finding it today.</span>Tom Andersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00624482065925540547noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9400662.post-54393659401327836762012-02-17T18:01:00.001-05:002012-02-17T18:01:26.653-05:00Westchester Sewage Plant Upgrade Is Behind ScheduleWestchester County is behind its state-mandated schedule in upgrading the Mamaroneck sewage treatment plant. They need permission from Mamaroneck Village to work longer hours, to get the job done by year's end. Nice reporting by Sound and Town Report, <a href="http://mysoundandtown.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2127%3Asewer-treatment-plant-work-delayed-by-recent-spill&catid=34%3Anews&Itemid=53" target="_blank">here</a>.Tom Andersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00624482065925540547noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9400662.post-66352132580222686402012-01-26T07:20:00.003-05:002012-01-26T07:20:50.178-05:00New York State Proposes to Allow Bobcat Hunting and Trapping in Westchester<span id="internal-source-marker_0.6482473179507158" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation wants to allow
bobcat hunting and trapping in Westchester County (Rockland too), at
least if I’m reading a newly-released bobcat management plan correctly.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The
reason seems to be not that bobcats are causing trouble or that there
are too many but simply that there are enough to allow some to be
killed.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In
recent years, hunters and trappers have killed 400 to 500 bobcats a
year. Under this new management plan, that would rise to 500 to 600.
Wildlife managers think that the state’s bobcat population, estimated to
be about 5,000 animals, could sustain 1,000 a year being killed.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">It’s
not clear to me when exactly the hunting and trapping season in
Westchester would be, but it would be short and in the fall.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">You can find a link to the plan on this </span><a href="http://www.dec.ny.gov/animals/9360.html"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">DEC webpage</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">. I read about it in the </span><a href="http://www.adirondackalmanack.com/2012/01/phil-brown-dec-proposes-killing-more.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AdirondackAlmanack+%28Adirondack+Almanack%29"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">Adirondack Almanack</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> (@adkalmanack on Twitter).</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">By
the way, I find the word “harvest,” which is used repeatedly in the
management plan (as in, “We believe that these harvest control measures
will allow for a limited and sustainable harvest of bobcats ... ”), to be an insulting euphemism.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span>Tom Andersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00624482065925540547noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9400662.post-55956187365347605882012-01-24T07:08:00.002-05:002012-01-24T07:08:54.114-05:00Bird Sighting of the Week<span id="internal-source-marker_0.14923183587794941" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">From the CtDailyReport of the Connecticut Ornithological Association:</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">01/23/12
- Cheshire -- 4 BLACK VULTURES leaving the Dragon Buffet Restaurant and
crossing Route 10 to Radio Shack's roof, 2:30 PM.</span></blockquote>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">An hour later they were hungry for carrion.</span>Tom Andersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00624482065925540547noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9400662.post-31413389941324725022012-01-23T18:36:00.000-05:002012-01-23T18:36:17.729-05:00The Long Island High School Student Who Has Discovered How Mussels are Adapting to Asian Shore Crabs in the Sound<span id="internal-source-marker_0.6221051821983726" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">A terrific little story from the Times just dropped into my inbox. It’s
about Samantha Garvey, a high school student on Long Island who is both a
semifinalist in the Intel Science Talent Search and (until very
recently) homeless. Her area of research is ribbed mussels and Asian
shore crabs from Long Island Sound. Here’s what the Times reported:</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The
mussel species, Geukensia demissa, or ribbed mussel, is native to Long
Island Sound. The Asian shore crab, Hemigrapsus sanguineus, is not. It
is a predatory interloper that arrived in the waters near Cape May,
N.J., in 1988, and has since spread from Maine to North Carolina.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The crabs like to eat mussels.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The
scientific question was whether the ribbed mussels would just sit there
and be eaten by the new predator, or had nature provided them with a
means of defending themselves?</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Ms.
Garvey collected mussels from different parts of Flax Pond, a salt
marsh on the North Shore of Long Island. She compared the shell length,
width, weight and other measurements of those that lived where Asian
shore crabs were prevalent with those that lived in areas with few
crabs.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">She
found that the mussels that lived in areas where the crabs were
prevalent had thicker shells. Was that because the Asian shore crabs ate
the mussels they could pry open most easily, leaving thicker-shelled
survivors, or were the mussels able to grow greater protection in
response to the predators?</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In
a laboratory at Stony Brook University, Ms. Garvey put some young
mussels in tanks with the crabs, although the crabs were in cages. In
other tanks, mussels lived alone. After 65 days, she found that the
mussels that shared their tank with the crabs had developed thicker
shells than the ones that lived alone.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The
finding suggests that chemicals released by the Asian shore crabs in
the water set off a defense mechanism in the mussels: they produce
thicker shells that fend off predators. When the crabs are not around,
the mussels do not pad their shells.</span></blockquote>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">And
it sounds as if her teacher, Rebecca Grella, of Brentwood High School,
has put together a large, impressive team of high school researchers.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/24/science/after-homelessness-honors-from-a-national-science-fair.html?_r=1"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">Read it all here.</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span>Tom Andersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00624482065925540547noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9400662.post-7913844420851305662012-01-18T19:00:00.000-05:002012-01-18T19:00:14.792-05:00From the Advocate, Big, Big Problems at Stamford's Sewage Plant<a href="http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/local/article/Angela-Carella-Sewer-plant-flush-with-problems-2592642.php" target="_blank">This piece </a>about the much-admired Stamford sewage treatment plant, by Angela Carella, an editor at the Stamford Advocate, is devastating. If what she asserts is true -- and I have no reason to not believe her, although I look forward to possible responses -- it rises to the level of a scandal.Tom Andersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00624482065925540547noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9400662.post-68910712499532340132012-01-17T07:29:00.001-05:002012-01-17T07:29:11.752-05:00Trouble at the Stamford Sewage Treatment PlantThe Stamford sewage treatment plant was exemplary for so long that it's a surprise to hear that there seems to be big trouble there.<br />
<br />
First, a few months ago, there were complaints from a couple of shellfishermen in the Stamford-Greenwich area about how troubles with the plant's disinfectant system were forcing them to curtail harvesting oysters and clams and therefore costing them money.<br />
<br />
Then a couple of weeks ago Stamford figured prominently <a href="http://thissphere.blogspot.com/2012/01/irene-and-october-snowstorm-caused-47.html" target="_blank">in a story about how power outages at treatment plants caused sewage spills during the two big storms in the second half of last year</a>.<br />
<br />
Now today's Advocate has a long piece about how the cause of the problems might well be poor leadership at the plant and poor oversight in city hall. It's worth reading, <a href="http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/Who-s-in-charge-at-wastewater-plant-2532348.php" target="_blank">here</a>. My only quibble is that I would have liked to have seen a couple more paragraphs about how the administrative troubles have led to water pollution troubles.Tom Andersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00624482065925540547noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9400662.post-34946569157117151192012-01-02T11:16:00.000-05:002012-01-02T11:18:39.037-05:00Irene and the October Snowstorm Caused 47 Sewage Spills into Long Island Sound and Connecticut Rivers<span id="internal-source-marker_0.04875513416907862" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">You
get a glimpse of the environmental havoc caused by Tropical Storm Irene
and the late-October snowstorm from a story in the Courant over the
weekend. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Reporter
Dave Altimari took a vague statement that Connecticut DEEP Commission Dan
Esty made to a state panel investigating the storms’ aftermath -- a
statement that no one on the panel questioned -- dug a little deeper,
and learned that failures in the backup power sources at Connecticut
sewage treatment plants caused 47 sewage spills into Long Island Sound
and the state’s rivers. A huge amount of sewage -- raw and
partially-treated -- was discharged.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Here’s what the commissioner told the panel:</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">"In
the course of the two storms, keeping these systems up and running
emerged as a high priority — and a challenge, as backup power failed at a
number of facilities, causing several discharges of untreated sewage
into the environment,'' Esty said in his testimony.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Esty didn't go into detail about the discharges and the panel members did not question him....</span></blockquote>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Altimari did valuable follow-up work though. Here’s what he wrote:</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">… a review of DEEP's incident reports indicates the problem may have been far worse than officials said. The reports show:</span></i><br />
<i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">--There were 14 spills in which more than one million gallons of sewage spilled.</span></i><br />
<i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">--Sewage
was discharged into 16 rivers across the state, including the
Connecticut, Farmington, Housatonic, Quinnipiac and Willimantic.</span></i><br />
<i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">--Untreated
or partially treated sewage was discharged by plants in 26 communities,
from the state's biggest city, Bridgeport, to one of its smallest
towns, Norfolk.</span></i><br />
<i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">--Of the 47 spills, 26 occurred during Irene and 21 during the October storm, records show.</span></i></blockquote>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">And in what might be the understatement of the year, Esty told the panel:</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">"A better structure of backup [or primary] power for wastewater facilities should be explored.”</span></blockquote>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I
would have liked to have seen Altimari compile some information about
the consequences of all those sewage spills. The Sound’s shellfish
industry was shut down for weeks, for example. Presumably beaches were
closed as well. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Conservatively,
the Sound contributes $5.5 billion a year to the local economy,
according to EPA. If the businesses that rely on the Sound were shut
down for a month because of the storms, you might be able to argue that
the economic cost was one-twelfth of $5.5 billion, or $456,500,000. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">That’s a lot of money to lose because backup power was inadequate. <a href="http://www.courant.com/health/connecticut/hc-storm-seweragespills-0101-20111231,0,7383619.story" target="_blank">Here's Altimari's story; it's well worth reading. </a></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span>Tom Andersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00624482065925540547noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9400662.post-75050350610734741332011-12-30T10:21:00.000-05:002011-12-30T10:21:01.117-05:00Constantine Sidamon-Eristoff ... Prince, ConservationistBack in 1990, after five years of research had made it clear that nitrogen in treated sewage was responsible for Long Island Sound's hypoxia problem, the U.S. EPA and the states of Connecticut and New York were taking their first steps toward doing something about the problem.<br />
<br />
It was hardly a radical idea -- they would freeze the amount of nitrogen flowing into the Sound from sewage plants at 1990 levels. They called it a nitrogen cap. It wasn't a reduction. They weren't prepared to actually begin cleaning up the Sound yet. But they didn't want it to get worse either.<br />
<br />
And yet that recommendation freaked out people in Westchester County, in particular real estate developers, the trade groups they paid to represent them, and elected officials who were beholden to them. They had influence in Albany and for a while it seemed as if they might stop the entire Long Island Sound cleanup effort.<br />
<br />
Among the people who would not let that happen was Constantine Sidamon-Eristoff. He was the EPA administrator in the New York region, an appointee of President George H.W. Bush, and he decided the nitrogen cap was important -- and he said so, publicly, in a way that made it seem completely sane and rational (which of course it was):<br />
<br />
"I, at this point, think it would be wise to go ahead. I think time is of the essence. Why not take steps now if you know what you can do and it's doable?"<br />
<br />
His EPA counterpart in New England, Julie Belaga, agreed, and their position became policy, as both EPA regions and both states approved the nitrogen cap.<br />
<br />
I didn't know Connie Eristoff well. He was gentlemanly the few times I met him and when I asked him questions, either in person or on the phone, he answered them (which is how I got the quote above). There's not much more a reporter can ask for.<br />
<br />
I was reminded by <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/30/nyregion/constantine-sidamon-eristoff-environmental-advocate-dies-at-81.html?_r=1&ref=obituaries" target="_blank">his obituary, in today's New York Times, </a>that he also strongly fought to allow New York City to keep its drinking water clean by protecting its watershed rather than by building a filtration plant, a decision that seems as common-sensical now as it was controversial 15 years ago.<br />
<br />
Connie Eristoff got his start in government under John V. Lindsay. He was actively involved in Audubon New York. And he was a prince "whose family nobility dates to the 15th century in the Eurasian kingdom of Georgia."<br />
<br />
I always assumed he was a Republican. That matters only because we need more like him.Tom Andersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00624482065925540547noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9400662.post-9458645426142407802011-12-28T18:22:00.002-05:002011-12-28T18:23:15.021-05:00State of the Sound<div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Connecticut Fund for the Environment/Save the Sound released its first "State of the Sound" report today (although in truth that's a bit of a misnomer: a more accurate name would have been "State of How We the People Who Live Near Long Island Sound are Doing in Protecting and Restoring It," but that's not quite as pithy).<br /><br />They found that by some measures, we're doing OK and by others we're doing considerably worse than OK. All in all, the grade they assigned was a C-plus.<br /><br />You can find a pdf <a href="http://ctenvironment.org/" target="_blank">here</a>, and there's coverage by the Connecticut Post <a href="http://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Long-Island-Sound-report-gives-so-so-grades-2427375.php" target="_blank">here</a> and Patch.com <a href="http://northhaven.patch.com/articles/state-of-long-island-sound-grim-report-says" target="_blank">here</a> (Newsday also wrote about it but you have to pay to see it). <br /><br />I wrote the foreword (several years ago, actually -- that's how long it took to publish the report.) Here it is;</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span id="internal-source-marker_0.36036843809859187" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span></div>
<blockquote>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Long Island Sound was in bad shape back in mid and late 1980s, when I
first started paying attention. If you think of the Sound as a big
forest, it was as if all the air had been removed from a third of that
forest, and all the warblers, thrushes, butterflies, spiders, bats,
squirrels, cicadas, katydids, and deer suffocated or, if they were
lucky, crowded into other areas. That's how bad hypoxia was in the
summer. Virtually all forms of marine life were unable to survive in the
western third of Long Island Sound.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> But that was 20 years ago. What's happened since?</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Lobsters
have all but vanished. Oysters, carefully restored with infusions of
money from taxpayers and the private sector, succumbed to two diseases
and are only now starting to revive. Winter flounder disappeared. The
water on average has gotten warmer; warm-water species are replacing
cold water species. Salt marshes are dying. And hypoxia returns every
summer -- sometimes bad, sometimes not so bad, sometimes critically bad.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
Last year I was on a conference call, planning a public forum with a
handful of college professors who teach on the far eastern end of the
Sound, and when I used the word "crisis" to describe the late 1980s, one
of them interrupted and told me quite peremptorily that there is not
now nor has there ever been a crisis in Long Island Sound.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
On the contrary. Long Island Sound exists now in a state of permanent
crisis. That's my opinion, of course. But what other conclusion are we
to draw? Twenty years ago the U.S government and the states of New York
and Connecticut created what has become a permanent -- as well as
knowledgeable and dedicated -- bureaucracy to manage Long Island Sound,
and yet there's so much going wrong in the Sound we can hardly keep
track.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
When I was in elementary school I tried to cover up a failing grade by
dropping a strategically-located blot of blue ink from a cartridge pen
onto my report card. Reading this "State of the Sound" report card, I
see a lot of places where I'd like to drop blots of blue ink.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
After 20 years of anti-pollution efforts, we get a D-plus in raw
sewage? Spill an ink blot there. C-minus in low oxygen? Ink blot,
please. Adapting to the rise in sea level, and conflicts among the
people who use the Sound -- a D in each? Blot, and another blot. A
C-minus in keeping stormwater that is contaminated with dog crap and
motor oil and chemical fertilizers away from our beaches and shellfish
beds? A big ink blot there.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> But we must be doing well in something, yes?</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> We
get an A in fish ladders. Fish ladders open up rivers blocked by dams,
letting anadromous fish swim upstream to spawn (although as the
biologist in charge of Connecticut's program has said, swimming upstream
is one thing; getting back down past the dams and ladders is another).</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> We get a B in coastal habitat, for restoring 600 acres, mainly of coastal marshes.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
And we get a B in beach litter, although not because there's any less
of it now. The amount of litter is about the same as it was a decade
ago. We earn a B because more people are volunteering to participate in
beach clean-ups -- in other words, more people are picking up other
people's trash</span>.<span id="internal-source-marker_0.3458319091386338" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span id="internal-source-marker_0.3458319091386338" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span id="internal-source-marker_0.3458319091386338" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> It
takes an act of will not to feel pessimistic in the face of all this,
and I'd be lying if I said that at times I don't. But those of us who
care about Long Island Sound can't afford to be too pessimistic – or
rather, we can't afford to let pessimism deter us from doing what needs
to be done.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> What
exactly is that? We need to make sure our elected officials know that
Long Island Sound is a priority, and that they continue to provide money
for sewage treatment plant upgrades and stormwater management, and for
increasing and improving public access to the Sound. We need to help
organizations like Save the Sound continue to promote the notion that
what we as individuals do has an effect on what Long Island Sound is.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> When
anyone – a municipality operating a sewage plant, a boat owner heedless
about where he dumps his vessel's head, a multinational corporation
that wants to industrialize the Sound, a homeowner with a bad fertilizer
habit – damages the Sound, we need to take it personally. We need to
remember that Long Island Sound is ours.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> And
one more thing: although the state of the Sound seems grim, this "State
of the Sound" report is excellent – read it, and do what it says.</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span></div>Tom Andersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00624482065925540547noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9400662.post-66999168008381113022011-12-19T07:14:00.001-05:002011-12-19T07:14:50.038-05:00Happy to be Working With Connecticut AudubonAt least a couple dozen people have sent me good wishes and congratulations on the new Connecticut Audubon Society position. It's a good organization and I had a good first week (in my estimation anyway). You can keep up with Connecticut Audubon by signing up for its newsletter, <a href="http://www.ctaudubon.org/" target="_blank">here</a>, and by reading or subscribing to its conservation blog, <a href="http://ctaudubon.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
<br />
I've been doing communications and fundraising consulting for a number of other non-profits, and I'll continue to do that as well. Here's the full Connecticut Audubon announcement:<br />
<br />
<i>December 15, 2011 -- Connecticut Audubon Society, the state's leading independent conservation and environmental education organization, has named conservationist and author Tom Andersen as its director of communications and community outreach.<br /><br />Andersen will oversee all of Connecticut Audubon's communications with members, the general public, and the press, and will also coordinate the organization's public policy and advocacy work.<br /><br />Founded in 1898, Connecticut Audubon Society is an independent conservation and environmental education organization, with headquarters in Fairfield. Connecticut Audubon operates five centers -- Pomfret, Glastonbury, Milford, Fairfield and Birdcraft Museum -- and owns 19 sanctuaries covering 2,600 acres.<br /><br />Connecticut Audubon's education program has worked with more than 70 percent of the state's school districts, and its conservation scientists write and carry out conservation management plans for landowners throughout the state.<br /><br />"We're poised to grow and to play a bigger role in conservation issues in Connecticut," said CAS President Robert Martinez. "Tom Andersen's knowledge and experience in the not-for-profit world and in conservation will help us focus our message and our work, reach more people, and be even more effective in protecting Connecticut's critical natural habitats."<br /><br />Andersen will oversee Connecticut Audubon's website and direct communications with members and the general public, social media, and press relations. He will lead a team of Connecticut Audubon staff and board members in identifying, and then formulating positions on, the public policy issues that make up the core of Connecticut Audubon's advocacy work.<br /><br />He is the author of This Fine Piece of Water: An Environmental History of Long Island Sound, published by Yale University Press. Andersen spent 10 years at Westchester Land Trust, in Bedford Hills, N.Y., as director of communications and special projects and as acting executive director. He helped Westchester Land Trust protect an average of more than 600 acres a year from 2000 through 2010, a decade during which the total amount of land the organization protected rose from 900 acres to more than 7,000 acres.<br /><br />Previously he worked as a newspaper reporter in Westchester County, mainly writing about environmental issues. A former 15-year New Canaan, Ct., resident, he now lives in Pound Ridge, N.Y.</i> <br />
<br />Tom Andersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00624482065925540547noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9400662.post-85339066396820075442011-12-13T19:05:00.000-05:002011-12-13T19:05:17.161-05:00Diving Ducks and Oyster Beds<span id="internal-source-marker_0.33882991658558603" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The
mouth of the Housatonic River and the stretch of Long Island Sound
immediately to the east and west is one of the richest natural spawning
areas for oysters not only in the Sound but probably in the northeast.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Oysters
that spawn in the Housatonic populate the mouth of the river, and
currents sweep oyster larvae around Stratford Point, where they settle
out on Bridgeport Natural Bed, a four-square mile area from Point No
Point to Black Rock that is so important to the Sound’s oystermen that
state regulators allow oyster boats to use hand-powered dredges only, so
as not to damage the beds with power dredges.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I
visited Stratford Point today to learn about Connecticut Audubon
Society’s habitat restoration project there, and in the course of an
hour’s conversation with Scott Kruitbosch, Connecticut Audubon’s
conservation technician, some interesting speculation about the
Housatonic oyster beds emerged.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Last
year at this time, Scott told me, there were “massive” numbers of
diving ducks on the mouth of the river. Greater and Lesser Scaup.
White-winged Scoters and Surf Scoters, maybe Black Scoters, as well as
Redheads and King Eider.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This
year, nothing. The protected cove to the north has plenty of dabblers
-- American Wigeon, Black Ducks, Gadwall -- but the diving ducks are not
around.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The
diet of diving ducks includes small oysters. The speculation by
Connecticut Audubon’s conservation staff -- a guess, really -- is that
something happened to the oyster beds. And the further speculation is
that what happened was Hurricane Irene.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Numerous
oystermen reported in September that the storm had damaged their
equipment and smothered their oyster beds with sand and mud.
Historically, the infamous hurricane of 1938 did so much damage --
wrecking oyster boats and oyster beds -- that it almost wiped out the
Sound’s oyster industry. It took two decades for it to recover.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I
haven’t seen a full assessment of the damage that Irene did to the
Sound’s oysters. But if the lack of diving ducks on the Housatonic is an
indication, the damage includes not only the Sound’s oystermen but
possibly the wildlife that relies on the Sound’s oysters as well.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[This is also my first post for Connecticut Audubon Society's blog, which you can read <a href="http://ctaudubon.blogspot.com/">here</a>.] </span>Tom Andersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00624482065925540547noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9400662.post-68519085326423519352011-12-08T13:55:00.001-05:002011-12-08T13:56:25.424-05:00Westchester's Nature Centers Will Stay OpenIt looks like the Westchester County Board of Legislators has worked out a budget that keeps the county's six nature centers open (and restores lots of other programs and jobs as well). It also looks like at least part of it was done with the support of the county board's Republican minority. <a href="http://www.lohud.com/article/20111208/NEWS02/112080359/Westchester-Dems-restore-180-jobs-reverse-health-care-nature-center-day-care-other-cuts-county-budget-vote-1-30-p-m-?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|Westchester%20County,%20New%20York">The Journal News has a few details.</a>Tom Andersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00624482065925540547noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9400662.post-80428129083683591632011-11-30T18:09:00.001-05:002011-11-30T18:10:19.740-05:00Snowy Owl at Stratford PointThis short HD video of the snowy owl that showed up at Stratford Point today is worth a look. The guys at Connecticut Audubon shot it, and also have a good number of great photos on their blog, <a href="http://ctaudubon.blogspot.com/2011/11/snowy-owl-at-stratford-point.html">here</a>.<br />
<br />
<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/32935876?portrait=0" width="400" height="225" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe><p><a href="http://vimeo.com/32935876">Snowy Owl at Stratford Point</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/ctaudubon">Connecticut Audubon Society</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>Tom Andersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00624482065925540547noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9400662.post-21095339179157857322011-11-23T09:01:00.001-05:002011-11-23T09:09:02.447-05:00Keep Westchester's Nature Centers OpenLots of organizations and environmental advocates are mobilizing to convince the Westchester County Board of Legislators to restore funding <a href="http://thissphere.blogspot.com/search/label/Westchester%20nature%20centers">for the county's six nature centers</a> in next year's budget. I had a few more thoughts about it this morning.<br />
<br />
When County Executive Rob Astorino says he's shutting down the six centers, he means the buildings at six preserves; the preserves themselves will stay open for passive use, though they will not be staffed. All the programs will end, including camps and whatever conservation-maintenance work is done by the six curators. But the public will still be able to visit those preserves and, in the cases of Marshlands and Edith G. Read preserves, in Rye, have access to Long Island Sound.<br />
<br />
Nevertheless, those curators play an important role. They help educate visitors -- an in particular, the curators at Marshlands and Read help educate visitors about the Sound and its habitats, which helps build support for restoring and protecting the Sound. <br />
<br />
The curators keep an eye out for vandalism or other destructive behavior. They pick up trash on the shoreline, which makes the experience of visiting a whole lot nicer. <br />
<br />
They watch and record the goings-on in the natural world, which I happen to think is a valuable function. When I worked in Mamaroneck and New Rochelle, I would not occasionally call Marshlands and ask for information (When was it that the dead sea turtle washed up onto your marsh? When do you start seeing terrapins nesting? What year was it that a black rail visited?) and the curator would look in her records and tell me. The record-keeping at Trailside Museum, at Ward Pound Ridge Reservation, is even more comprehensive. They have an old-fashioned library-type card-catalogue for all the species seen in the reservation (which is 4,300 acres and very varied) going back to the first curator, in the 1930s. At Lenoir Preserve in Yonkers, a rufous hummingbird (a rare visitor from the west) has been visiting the hummingbird feeder this month, to the great excitement of birders. Those observations and activities will be curtailed if the centers close.<br />
<br />
Are they essential? No. Are they important and do they make life here in Westchester better for a fair number of us? Unquestionably. <br />
<br />
I hope the county board puts money for the nature centers back into the budget.Tom Andersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00624482065925540547noreply@blogger.com0