Monday, November 24, 2008

Pipe Dream

By Chip Young

CSO project results should even outstrip the hype

It is a bit hard to say that a $350 million, multi-year project known as “Rhode Island’s Big Dig” and the subject of recent media attention from everyone from national TV to high school newspapers may be understated, but that’s my belief about the Narragansett Bay Commission Combined Sewer Overflow Abatement Project; hitherto called the CSO project.

True, there’s nothing like a photo of a rock drill big enough to use on Maria Shriver’s choppers, sand hogs working in underground in lighted tunnels like something out of a gargantuan, futuristic Coal Miner’s Daughter movie set, and enough enormous pipes to rival the Large Hadron Collider to get people’s attention.  But in a couple of years, the focus is going to be off the might and majesty of the CSO, and zoomed down to the marked signs of health exhibited by the wee, wet beasties like clams and other marine life in Narragansett Bay, and this combined impact on the people who enjoy the state’s most important environmental and economic natural resource.

Veteran quahoggers I have frequent dealings with like Mike McGiveney and Jody King, the president and veep, respectively, of the R.I. Shellfishermen’s Association get about as excited as I have ever seen them when they talk about what the potential benefits of the CSO project will mean for them and their bull-raking colleagues.  They have been at the dirty end of the stick for years, when any rainfall over a half-inch has shut down portions of Upper Narragansett Bay due to the raw, untreated pollution (we don’t need crude descriptors here, I think you know what we’re talking about) discharged from the old CSO runoff system that can’t handle the excess overflow.  That reduces the available areas left for quahoggers to work, and increases the stress on the stock in those available areas.  And when big storms come along and the Bay is closed even further south, shellfishermen are forced to either head much further down the Bay (as the ka-ching of gas costs rings in their ears) or just stay home.

The CSO project tunnels and holding tanks will prevent untreated sewage from running straight into the bay, and contain it until the flow to the NBC wastewater plant is reduced.  The excess sewage can then be sent to the plant, where it can receive the necessary treatment to not have such harmful affect on the marine life in the Bay. And that impact won’t be felt just in the Field’s Point area in Providence, but throughout the metro region where people who enjoy the beaches in Warren, Bristol and Warwick also feel the impact of CSO overflows along with the quahoggers.

The results may be incremental at first, but as time goes on in upcoming years, expect to see fewer shellfishing and beach closures, an attendant rise in the overall health of Narragansett Bay, and a damn sight more pleasant environment for all those who live around it or play on it.  And this is just Phase I of the project.  Phases II and III will branch out along the Seekonk and Woonasquatucket Rivers, and then into Central Falls and Pawtucket.  In the end, NBC officials estimate that by full completion of the CSO project, the 2.2 billion gallons of sewage that currently enter the CSO system will be reduced by 98 percent.

Now, maybe I was wrong.  No one can call that an understatement.

The teeth of the main drill’s enormous cutting wheel can be seen below. Watch your fingers.

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

A Dummy’s Guide to Good Investments: Open Space and Farmland

By Chip Young

Approve Rhode Island Bond Question #2

Let’s do a little street corner commerce.  Here’s the deal: You’ve got $2.50, you give it to me, and you get back $10 worth of nice property.  How’re ya doin’?  Right.  Now let’s up the ante.  You give me $2.5 million, and I give you back $10 million worth of beautiful and agriculturally useful property.  Now how’s that working out for you?

That is the kind of investment and payoff that Rhode Islanders can realize by passing Question 2 on this November’s ballot, the $2.5 million Open Space and Recreational Development Bond.  (Ignore the typically bureaucratic wording, what we are discussing is the conservation of primarily farmlands and other high priority open spaces.)

The bond money will generate three times the base amount in matching funds, providing a total of $10 million to protect Rhode Island communities’ special open spaces for eternity. (I admittedly have so many full disclosures to make on the side of this request it wouldn’t fit in this space, but common sense is common sense.)  Rhode Island’s voters have always realized what a solid economic investment environmental bonds are: an environmental bond has never failed to pass on a statewide or local ballot, being approved with an average of more than two-thirds support at the state level, with some local bonds for open space funding passing by 98 percent (West Greenwich) and 100 percent (Jamestown) in the past two years.  Think a politician would enjoy having a two-thirds majority, never mind a unanimous election?  That’s called a mandate.
I know times are tough, but you are never going to get a better bang for your buck—it is a winning investment for you and the kids of today and tomorrow. But if you don’t believe me, how about a bipartisan appeal below from two of our favorite former governors, Joe Garrahy and Linc Almond?

MAKING AN INVESTMENT ON SOLID GROUND
The 2008 Open Space and Recreational Development Bond
By J. Joseph Garrahy and Lincoln C. Almond

Who hasn’t marveled at Rhode Island’s sparkling coasts, rolling farmlands and centuries-old hand built walls?  Our state’s open space and farms exemplify the natural, historical and scenic qualities that make living here special.

No question but that this is a time of economic uncertainty.  Yet, this fall Rhode Islanders can make an investment that is literally on solid ground: a commitment to preserving the farms and open space lands that give the state its invaluable quality and character—irreplaceable, hard assets.

The $2.5 million Open Space and Recreational Development Bond on the ballot in November will help preserve our unique heritage.  The bond money will generate three times that amount in matching funds, providing a total of $10 million to protect our communities’ special open spaces for future generations.  Remaining natural areas and farmlands are disappearing across the state, and opportunities that are not seized upon will be lost forever.  The time to act is now. 

Open space and farmland enhance quality of life in Rhode Island.  They grow our food.  They protect our drinking water supplies and fisheries from pollution.  They are places where Rhode Islanders can hike, fish and play.

Did you know that farming is a $100 million industry in Rhode Island?  Our farms offer employment, create and boost related services, and improve the general business atmosphere.  Farms bring benefits to every community, urban, suburban or rural.  The food programs in 28 of Rhode Island’s school districts provide children with locally-grown food.  Farm stands and community gardens help working farmers, and bring fresh, nourishing produce to citizens statewide throughout the year, without using lots of fuel to transport goods across the country.

The Open Space bond funds—and the matching funds they attract—are also used to create and expand the parks, beaches, recreational facilities and management areas enjoyed by the public.  These are the places where we and our children unwind; they are the iconic or hidden spots that offer sustenance and shade, beauty, respite and recreation.

There’s an old expression about a financial deal that is so safe and smart that it is “as solid as the ground on which you are standing.”  That is the case when we invest in Rhode Island’s hardworking farmers and the lands they cultivate, and the open spaces that define what it is to be a Rhode Islander.  Every year that passes there is less farmland and open space left to conserve, and fewer chances to preserve and protect the benefits that accompany these acres. 

Make a solid investment in the future that will grow in value year by year, and vote to approve Question 2 for Open Space and Recreational Development Bond on Election Day.  You will be on very solid ground when you do.

Friday, October 10, 2008

Wind Energy Blows Into Rhode Island

By Chip Young

State’s ocean zoning will serve as a national model

First off, apologies for the play on words regarding wind energy in the headline, as the quota for those sorts of idiotic indulgences has been reached and breached.  It is evidently required by U.S. Internet Rule #3 governing blogs.

OK, let’s get serious.  Because Rhode Island’s entrance into the playing field of offshore renewable energy through a proposed wind farm is indeed very serious.  It is also very exciting.

For full disclosure, I am part of the team from the University of Rhode Island working on the Ocean Special Area Management Plan (O-SAMP), which will be zoning the ocean waters where the possibility of siting a wind farm exists, and evaluating those areas for their potential.  The areas being studied are delineated in the map above within the red lines, along with a breakout (yellow lines) of what are state waters, versus those under federal jurisdiction.  The O-SAMP work is under the direction of the Coastal Resources Management Council, being led by its executive director, Grover Fugate.  The team itself includes dozens of leading experts from the University of Rhode Island and its Graduate School of Oceanography, as well as members from Roger Williams University.  As the various stakeholder, science and legal advisory groups are formed, there will also be wide and deep public involvement in the process.

One of the most important things to know about the whole offshore wind energy initiative the state is involved in is the distinct separation—a firewall, if you will—between the science and research being conducted by the O-SAMP team, and the policy and financial side, which involves the Governor’s Office, the state Office of Energy Resources and the R.I. Economic Development Corporation.  “We have already had discussions with the Governor and his office, who are in agreement that this process has to be independent and scientifically-based,” said Fugate of the O-SAMP effort.

The provision of information and communication among all parties and the public will be a priority.  For current information and ongoing updates on the progress of the science and research work see the O-SAMP web site.  For further information on the O-SAMP, contact Monica Allard Cox at (401) 874-6015, or via e-mail at:oceansamp@gso.uri.edu. Please take the time to learn about and get involved in this very progressive effort, which has enormous ramifications for the future.

A developer has already been chosen, Deepwater Wind, a New Jersey firm.  One of the requirements of the O-SAMP process requires the developer to reimburse the state for the cost of the research and science work that will be undertaken to determine possible sites for a wind farm.

The eyes of the country will be on Rhode Island as the O-SAMP process plays out, as the state is already in the lead nationally in zoning its ocean waters, and the streamlined process that is in place with CRMC in the lead can make the initiative a more efficient—while being thoroughly equitable and accountable—process than those in other states that are taking on this alternative energy challenge.

Stay tuned.

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Last Child in the Woods

By Chip Young

“Rhode Island… could become the leading state in the children and nature movement.“

On Saturday, September 27, at the Warwick campus of the Community College of Rhode Island, the acclaimed author, founder of the Child & Nature Network, and activist, Richard Louv, delivered a lecture based upon his latest book, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder.  The book has stimulated an international conversation about the future relationship between children and nature, and has helped spawn a movement that is now moving into federal and state legislatures, national parks and local schools. 

U.S. Senator Jack Reed had been set to do the intro for Louv, but for obvious reasons was in D.C.  But Reed is the author of the “No Child Left Inside Act,“ a new initiative designed to strengthen environmental education programs in America’s classrooms and reconnect more kids with nature, which runs hand in glove with Louv’s thinking and advocacy work.  The No Child Left Inside Act has picked up momentum and passed the U.S. House of Representatives last week by a wide margin of 293-109.

“Teaching children about the environment and giving them a hands-on opportunity to experience nature should be an important part of the curriculum in our schools,“ said Reed in a message from Washington.  “The strong vote in the House is a positive first step toward restoring environmental education in America’s classrooms.  I look forward to working with my colleagues in Congress to include NCLI as part of a broader elementary and secondary education bill.“

Louv serves as chairman of the Children & Nature Network, an organization helping to build the international movement to connect children with nature. He also serves as honorary co-chair of The National Forum on Children and Nature. Co-chaired by four state governors, the Forum, sponsored by the Conservation Fund, will fund programs around the country designed to get kids outside. 

“Perhaps because Rhode Island is the second most-densely populated state, Rhode Islanders have always promoted efforts to protect the natural areas that define their state through support of state and local bonds and creation of parks and preserves,” Louv observed. “The Ocean State boasts over 300 miles of coastline, and, thankfully, supports a number of growing efforts through conservation groups, schools and political leaders to get children out-of-doors to connect with the nature that they find in their communities. But like every state, Rhode Island can do much more—in fact, it could become the leading state in the children and nature movement.“

Some points Louv makes very well.  First, is that it has been shown that test scores go up with increased exposure to nature and the outdoors.  As does a child’s interest and excitement about nature and school in general, even if the outdoor exposure is in small doses.  And teachers who get their kids outside are less likely to burn out.  Take note, NEA.

Along those generational lines, there is often as much need for adults to haul their lazy rear ends somewhere further than from the front door to the car and then the car to the workplace or the store.  Like kids, some grown-ups and parents are a bit of afraid of what’s out there, and it is a not a comfortable place to be.  Can I sit here?  Is that poison ivy?  What if I get my feet wet, catch a cold and die?  C’mon, Daddy and Mommy.  You aren’t being asked to be Daniel Boone or Calamity Jane.  Just turn off the TV, grab little Junior and Sissy by the hand, walk them through the park, make up the names of plants and trees you don’t know (OK, maybe “Christmas tree tree” is not the true name of a fir tree, but it’ll do), and fake your own enjoyment.  You might even find you are having a good time in spite of yourself.

I thought one of the most telling bits of information in Louv’s 90-minute presentation and extended Q&A was the correlation between the rise in childhood obesity and the increase in organized sports for kids.  Having spent the days before Louv’s talk at a high school soccer team reunion with a bunch of other jaded, busted-up old jocks a lot of the discussion among was about kids and parents’ attitudes today, which the consensus was needs a lot of work. Too much regimentation and not enough being set loose to have fun.  The learning will come with the playing, so hold the uniforms and the red-faced parents on the sidelines.

I am of the mind that if you don’t have grass stains on your pants, a missing tooth or a scar you picked up from playing outside you shouldn’t be allowed into school.  All my friends, male and female, took a few knocks on the playground or doing something fun outdoors on their own.  I remember falling out of a tree the day before I attended my first day of first grade and tearing up my hand, so I made my entrance into public education with stitches in my palm and a red badge of courage, although I probably should have had an orange badge of stupidity as well. 

The presentation by Richard Louv was sponsored by a partnership of leading local environmental organizations that are dedicated to environmental advocacy and education: The Nature Conservancy; Audubon Society of R.I.; the Coastal Institute at the University of Rhode Island; Norman Bird Sanctuary; R.I. Environmental Educational Association; Roger Williams Park Zoo; Save the Bay; and the Apeiron Society for Sustainable Living. 

All of the co-sponsors of Louv’s lecture are actively involved in education initiatives that bring children and nature closer together:

• The Nature Conservancy works to protect the wild places that provide the “natural classrooms” about which Richard Louv writes in Last Child in the Woods.
• Roger Williams Park Zoo is a living classroom whose exhibits and education programs serve children throughout the Southeastern New England region.
• The Audubon Society of Rhode Island has a wildlife refuge system, protecting nearly 9,500 acres of wildlife habitat, which provides students with the opportunity to discover first-hand wetlands, fields, forests, and streams.
• Save The Bay has been doing standards-based experiential education programming for over 20 years, using Rhode Island’s largest natural resource, Narragansett Bay, as its classroom.
• The Norman Bird Sanctuary has public education programs such the Neighborhood Naturalists After School Club and the Saturday Explorers Club that link to the spirit of Last Child in The Woods. 
• Apeiron’s outdoor programs help people of all ages discover and experience their connection to the world around them, choose courses of action that promote health, well being and the environment, and become leaders of sustainable living in their communities. 

For more information on each organization’s educational programs, please contact them directly.  NOW.  Our kids need it.

Monday, September 15, 2008

Are You High?  You Better Find Out

By Chip Young

New technology needed to examine sea level rise vulnerability

You might not be aware of it, but long-range thinkers at state and municipal agencies, and at businesses who are sharp enough to recognize what is coming in the future, are already planning for the effects of sea level rise and impacts of storm surges caused by global climate change.  This would probably exclude Alaska and the town of Wasilla, whose fearless leader, Sarah Palin, obviously has a much better handle on the issue than those pesky scientists.

One of the tools they are clamoring for to do this sort of planning and management as well as possible is LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging).  Nathan Vinhateiro, a fellow at the Coastal Institute at the University of Rhode Island, works with the folks who are seeing the light, so to speak, and explains why LIDAR can give us a head start on the gradually increasing water levels in Rhode Island.

IT’S HIGH TIME FOR LIDAR
By Nathan Vinhateiro

Global climate change and its impacts have begun to take on a high profile in Rhode Island. The University of Rhode Island’s prestigious Honors Colloquium is kicking off a three-month series of public programs titled “People and Planet: Global Environmental Change,” and just last month Senator Sheldon Whitehouse chaired a field briefing of the United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works at URI’s Graduate School of Oceanography to examine the implications of climate change to Narragansett Bay.

At the hearing, Senator Whitehouse heard a consistent and unanimous message from several expert witnesses: the evidence for human-induced global warming is unequivocal. Warmer surface temperatures are leading to wide-scale systematic changes to the planet, with tremendous consequences for human health and well being. Coastal communities, including those that share the state’s 420 miles of shoreline, are on the front line of this battle as they confront the most clear and present danger: a warmer atmosphere is causing the world’s ice to melt and sea level to rise.

Rising sea level has the potential to erode beaches, drown wetlands and barrier islands, intensify flooding from hurricanes and nor’easters, threaten coastal infrastructure and drinking water, and ultimately displace populations. What’s particularly alarming is that observations of sea level rise have been consistently higher than recent projections—the data seem to be lining up with worst-case scenarios for future inundation.
 
The time for debate about human-induced warming is over. Sea level is rising and it is now time for the dialogue to shift to adaptation.

If the state is to meet this challenge successfully, scientists agree, accurate and high-resolution elevation measurements are needed to understanding the consequences of sea level rise and storm surge. Accurate elevations and can be easily acquired using a state of the art mapping technology known as LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging).

LIDAR is a technology that uses properties of scattered light from a laser beam to determine the distance to an object or surface. Much in the way that SONAR uses acoustic waves to measure distance to objects underwater, LIDAR instruments, when mounted on aircraft, can produce very accurate measurements of the distance to the earth’s surface over large areas. LIDAR elevation points are typically accurate to six inches, a vast improvement over existing data. This information is fairly simple to obtain during the winter and early spring when deciduous trees have dropped their leaves.

To understand and communicate true risk and vulnerability from future hazards LIDAR elevation data are needed on a statewide level, not only for scientists, but for planners and emergency management officials as well.

At the Senate hearing, Rhode Island’s coastal experts repeatedly stressed that the current lack of accurate elevation information makes it impossible to understand and mitigate the impacts of sea level rise. Presently, the best statewide elevation data are built from the same contour maps that have been around for decades. In fact, the difference between elevations represented on these maps and actual heights “on the ground” can vary by eight feet or more. This presents problems when trying to map areas that will be inundated by a five-foot rise in sea level, or a 15-foot storm surge from a hurricane that makes landfall.

For medical professionals, diagnosis of disease has moved ahead light years as CAT scans and MRI instruments have replaced or augmented X-rays to allow more precise visualization of the human body. In the same way, new mapping technologies offer far more realistic and timely information for coastal managers. The cost and time required to acquire LIDAR elevations depends on the ultimate accuracy desired, but when compared to the economic and environmental value of our state’s coastal resources, the price tag is nominal. Moreover, the investment in LIDAR could save millions of dollars in future siting of coastal infrastructure.

Of course there are factors other than elevation that determine how susceptible coastal areas in Rhode Island will be to inundation. The shape of the coastline, the amount of sand being delivered by rivers and streams, tidal range, wave height, and coastal protection structures like breakwaters all play a role in the actual impacts of accelerated sea level rise. However, the detailed analyses required to consider these dimensions would be futile without reliable elevations. All of the speakers at the Senate briefing were clear—now is the time to get to work on replacing our inaccurate elevation information and identifying areas at risk. We simply cannot afford to waste time debating that which is unequivocal: climate change is our present and future.

To open the hearing, Senator Whitehouse called global warming “the most serious threat our environment faces,” and stressed the need for action now. The panel’s response was of one voice—climate change mitigation starts with reliable information, and statewide LIDAR is the first step. Given the scope of human, environmental, and economic impacts to our state, the cost of addressing this problem pales in comparison to the cost of ignoring it.

- Nathan Vinhateiro is a fellow of the University of Rhode Island’s Coastal Institute.

Monday, September 01, 2008

Global Climate Change:  It’s He-eeere!

By Chip Young

Rhode Island focuses on GCC in two major events

The message that is being sent in Rhode Island about climate change is to the point:  If you don’t want to believe in it globally, believe in it locally.  Because it is already right here.

Two current local events have and will help point out the seriousness of the issue to Rhode Islanders.

On August 21, our own U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse presided over an official briefing of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on “Global Warming’s Impacts on Narragansett Bay” at the University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography.  The big statement from the presenters?  “Unequivocal.” That one word projected on a huge, single slide by GSO associate dean and international climate change expert, Kate Moran. As in the opinion of the vast majority of world’s scientific community is unequivocal that global climate change exists and that humans are the cause of global warming.

Sticking with the brevity idea, here’s a good deal of what came out of the presentations and back-and-forth prompted by questions from Sheldon Whitehouse, which should have the impact of two-by-four to the forehead.  Remember these little items when the yahoos begin blathering, “There’s your global warming for you!” if we start experiencing an extremely cold winter this year, oblivious to the fact that a major feature of global climate is amplified swings in weather conditions—like, say, a nice summer and then extra cold winter.

Just the facts, ma’am.  Narragansett Bay’s average temperature has increased two degrees in the last 30 years.  In ecological terms, that is a huge jump.  The Bay is now becoming like a Mid-Atlantic estuary, along the lines of Chesapeake Bay or those in North Carolina.  Warmer temperatures make the possibility of lower oxygen levels in the water more likely—think suffocating fish and large fish kills.  Fisheries populations are adapting and changing, possibly for better, possibly for worse, but both economically and ecologically.  Predatory jellyfish that consume fish larvae before they can grow up are in the Bay earlier and longer.  Whoops.

How about sea level rise? It is already creeping up on us, no pun intended. Take a look at the graphic at the top of this piece, a vision of Providence in 2100.  Everything now under that layer of blue is underwater.  Check out the mid-upper left, where the State House is.  Hey, we’ll be able to have “Waterfire” on the first floor of the Providence Place Mall!  How convenient.  Plus, State House workers will have their own little riverside beach to relax on during lunch break.  Sweet.

But let’s up the ante on what you are seeing.  Scientists are often portrayed as hysterical Chicken Littles, running around screaming horror and destruction to whoever will listen.  But the predictions that scientists on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world’s leading body on GCC, made about this frightening factor in 2000 are now considered extremely conservative based on what we are actually seeing occur via satellite observations.  And that doesn’t even take into account the startling new impact of increasing loss of ice sheets in Greenland or glaciers in the Antarctic, which aren’t even included in the already threatening equation.  For naysayers on global warming, it is kind of like one of them flipping the bird to an average-looking guy in a traffic incident, and finding out he is an Ultimate Fighting champion.

Behind the scenes, sea level rise as the result of global warming is being taken very seriously by state and municipal planners and the business community.  Want to build a waterfront restaurant in Newport?  Better put it on Spring Street, which runs parallel to Thames Street up the hill from Newport Harbor, because that’s where the water will be heading by 2100.  (See the graphic below.)  Need upgrades to the wastewater treatment plant at Field’s Point in Providence?  You might not want to invest millions of dollars in a sewage facility that figures to be underwater.  That’s right, “Coming soon to your neighborhood…”  And if you have been waiting to retire and buy that little cottage on the salt pond in Misquamicut?  What salt pond?  Those barrier beaches that form them will be where the waves are breaking over the sandbars out there in a few decades.  Surf’s up, gang.

One of Senator Whitehouse’s telling points during his committee briefing was in response to what business and industry always refer to as the prohibitive cost of doing what is needed to reduce the human impacts that create global warming.  He observed, “It would be nice to put a price tag on what happens if we do nothing.”  Get out your calculators and raise the alarm, ladies and gents.  If you don’t, we’ll have to pay a very wet piper.

GET SMART!

If you want to learn lots and lots more about global warming and climate change, the information is coming to you this fall in a very interesting and understandable manner via the University’s Rhode Island’s 2008 Honors Colloquium, “People and Planet—Global Environmental Change.”  The series of free, weekly events featuring international experts and URI faculty members will run from September 9 to December 9.  Most events will take place on Tuesday evenings at 7:30 p.m. in the auditorium of the Chafee Social Science Center on the Kingston campus.

“It won’t be an indictment of how we got to where we are,” says URI professor, occasional Gamm Theater director, and Little Rhody all around creative ace Judith Swift, one of the Colloquium’s coordinators.  “Instead, we will look to the future on these issues—what do we know, what do we need to know, what are we going to do to address it, and what are the consequences of those choices.”

This is going to be a treat, as not only will this will venture into science as we knew it when Mr. Wizard ruled the educational arena, there will be a touch of John Waters meets Al Gore thrown in.  Or haven’t you ever seen a cabaret act based upon coastal ecological functions?  Other entertaining ways to learn more about problems staring us right in the grill are URI faculty members who will use documentary film clips to unwrap the GCC arguments in a discussion entitled “The Great Global Warming Hoax?”, and examining excerpts from Hollywood movies to interpret climate change issues through the respective lenses of a scientist and a cinema buff.

People and Planet —Global Environmental Change, kicks off on September 9 with the renowned Elizabeth Kolbert, staff writer for The New Yorker and author of Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature and Climate Change.  For more info on all aspects of what should be a great ongoing event, go to URI Honors Colloquium, or contact the URI Honors Center at (401) 874-2381.

Be there or be square.

Monday, August 04, 2008

Newport’s Seaside Problems

By Chip Young

More beach closings and a “red tide” that isn’t

Newport, Rhode Island’s City by the Sea, has had a rough ride recently when it comes to problems regarding the beaches and waterfront that are its calling cards.

A lawsuit by filed on behalf of local citizens by two environmental organizations has pointed out the long—and currently losing—fight the city has fought against pollution of its beaches, Newport Harbor, and, by extension, a Middletown beach.  Local officials claim they are doing everything they can to halt the closing of tourist and local attractions like Easton’s Beach, commonly known as First Beach, and the adjacent Atlantic Beach Club Beach; and to improve the water quality of Newport Harbor, which continues to suffer from stormwater overflow problems.  The kicker is the red seaweed that is rampant throughout the waves and on the shore at Easton’s and Atlantic Beach Club beaches, about as appealing to swimmers as jumping into a mud puddle.  The algae are in themselves not harmful to bathers, but pollution, like politics, is all about perception.

Newport has been fighting water quality issues for decades.  It is like having a bad back.  Always present, always painful. Back in 1985, I stood with Michael Keating, president of Save the Bay at the time, on the steps of City Hall during a press conference, as he displayed for the media a one-gallon pickle jar full of water we had just retrieved from Newport Harbor at Long Wharf.  You didn’t have to be a genius to see what was floating in the water. “Revolting” would be an understatement. And yet this is the water that the winning skipper of the America’s Cup, then one of Newport’s crown jewels as a worldwide attention-getter, would be thrown into after the competition.  “I went to Newport and all I got was this lousy Cup and an ear infection.”

The reason for the current beach closings was the same as the problem back in 1985: stormwater runoff and sewer overflows, and stressed treatment capabilities at its wastewater treatment plant.  In 1986, Newport debuted its new, improved treatment facility to great fanfare.  This was to be the solution to all the sewage problems for years to come.  Those years came too quickly, as did development.  The treatment plant, which serves both Newport and Middletown, is now at full capacity, overburdened by the demands of increased growth.  That same expansion continues to contribute to the polluted stormwater that plagues the harbor and beaches, as more and more people and sidewalks and parking lots spew toxins into the runoff.

Environment Rhode Island and the Boston-based National Environment Law Foundation, which are providing the backing and legal assistance to the local residents who brought the lawsuit against Newport for ongoing federal Clean Water Act violations, say all they are looking for is a timetable to clean up these problems.  They aren’t looking for fines that would further punish a municipality in the midst of a financial crunch.  They just want a timetable and real action. But the town leadership is still crying poor, and from personal observations over the years, their attempts at mitigating the longstanding problems have been less than wholehearted or well-informed.

I have swum at First Beach for years, and have on occasion this year, the last time being two weeks ago.  I have a rough idea of how quickly the pollution will flush after a rain, and after a couple of tide changes and dirty weather, I am not too concerned.  I’m more concerned about catching a few good waves.  But I am not your average water dog.  There were other people in the water when I took the plunge, but hardly the number you would expect from a beach of that size during the wonderful weather we have been having, and the way the body-surfable waves were rolling in.  I imagine some were indeed kept out by the media-hyped stories about the pollution there.  And after rains the pollution is more than evident—you don’t need to be a scientist, just let your nose be the judge. 

I am certain many wannabe swimmers and boogie boarders stayed on the hot sand because of the perceived filth of the seemingly endless infestation and constant presence of the seaweed/algae known to scientists as spermothamnion repens, that chokes the water reddish-brown.  Many people mistakenly call it “red tide,” but it isn’t, nor is it harmful to humans.  The real red tide, which Little Rhody is thankfully free from, is similarly red-colored algae which contain toxins. These affect shellfish, which retain them when they filter feed, and they themselves are then consumed by hungry seafood lovers.  The resulting gastrointestinal reaction is enough to make you display the protective sign of the cross with your fingers in the direction of any red-tinted seaweed in the future.  Not helpful in Newport’s scenario.

Scientists conjecture that the local algae is breaking free from a reef or other hard surface where they have attached themselves not far off shore.  Heavy wave action or something hitting or gnawing them can free pieces from their solid foundation, and send them into the water column.  There, being ultralight and somewhat buoyant, and churned by the waves, they rise to the top, photosynthesize and grow in the sunlight, and wash ashore on the beach.  This onslaught is actually millions of small, two to three-inch pieces of algae, but the visual effect is that of an avalanche of slimy, clinging plantlike invaders that wind up in your mouth after you get spilled by a wave, or in crevices of your swimsuit or body that challenge your sense of invasion, hygiene and decency.

I have seen the visceral reaction of tourists as they stroll down along Memorial Boulevard past Cliffwalk and First Beach when they encounter the all-encompassing seaweed, which can only be exacerbated by the stories they hear about pollution.  It doesn’t matter if the connections they make aren’t scientifically valid.  They are very real to the people who tend to believe their lying eyes.

Newport’s leaders have a serious problem on their hands, no matter how they decide to resolve it.  One just hopes with all the value-added these beautiful natural resources provide on top of all the cultural, historic and artistic draws the City by the Sea possesses—and what they threaten to detract from those assets by being a visual and olfactory blot on the personal observation ledger—that they will find a will and a way to solve these ongoing problems quickly.  There isn’t much of an alternative, as the recent lawsuits have started the time clock ticking.

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Narragansett Bay Isn’t What It Used To Be

By Chip Young

What it is like five years after the 2003 Greenwich Bay fish kill

August 20th will mark the fifth anniversary of the calamitous Greenwich Bay fish kill.  This catastrophic ecological event left the shores of beaches and coves surrounding Greenwich Bay covered in dead fish and shellfish, all primarily suffocated by the lack of oxygen in the local waters.

The fish kill was the result of a “perfect storm” of factors, which scientists were not oblivious to, but were in no position to do anything to halt.  In fact, researchers from the Bay Window Monitoring Program, of which I am a member, predicted its occurrence right down to the very day.  Their prescience was based on the data they were collecting, which showed the growing lack of dissolved oxygen, warmer temperatures and the coming neap tide, which is when there is the least tidal fluctuation, which minimizes the mixing of the saltwater of Narragansett Bay with freshwater from rain, and the natural river and stream flows.

The public outcry over the visual and visceral shock of seeing that much marine life washing up dead led to an immediate response from state government.  A Governor’s Narragansett Bay and Watershed Planning Commission was formed to look into the matter and take action, with hundreds of local experts involved from government, private and public sectors.  Attacks were launched on the nutrient loadings into Narragansett Bay from wastewater treatment plants and stormwater runoff.  These nutrients, from human sources and the use of nitrogen-rich fertilizers, were seen by many as an oxygen-depleting powder keg, the fuse of which was lit by the accumulated factors of weather, temperatures and other small but important variables.

There has been progress in trying to assure that we don’t experience another fish kill of that magnitude.  (Some fish kills occur naturally every summer, and should’t be a cause of panic.)  But Bay Window researchers and scientists are now keeping a close eye on the entire Bay as the warm weather and rains of August approach, especially during the neap tides scheduled for August 8 and 23.  You’ll be able to read more about what is happening underneath the waves as regards the possibility of another fish kill in this space we near those dates.  For now, below is a take on how Narragansett Bay has been gradually changing through the years, and what that evolution means to Rhode Islanders, written by my highly respected Bay Window colleagues Mark Gibson and Candace Oviatt.  These two scientists have been studying the Bay for years, know it inside out, and what they see and say is well worth your while.

NARRAGANSETT BAY: CH-CH-CHANGES
By Mark Gibson and Candace Oviatt

In late June, Department of Environmental Management scientists from the Bay Window monitoring partnership observed through aerial flyovers and purse seine sampling an estimated 24 million menhaden with an average weight of one pound apiece, in Narragansett Bay. The fish were predominantly located in the Upper Bay and Providence River.

That is a lot of fish, an amount not seen since the 1970s.

The massive influx of this keystone species that lures fishermen and predatory fish such as striped bass and bluefish is nearly double that of the noteworthy 2007 bumper crop of menhaden that attracted media and public attention.  But there are other major changes going on in Narragansett Bay that are not as visible as churning schools of fish on the surface.

Narragansett Bay itself has noticeably warmed in the recent past.  Yes, that is global climate change manifesting itself right here in our backyard. The Bay is gradually taking on the characteristics of a mid-Atlantic estuary such as what you would experience in Maryland and the Carolinas.  Over the past 30 years, the average mean temperature of the Bay has gone up two degrees Fahrenheit; the average mean winter temperature has increased four degrees.  For temperature-sensitive marine creatures, that is a huge change.

Due in part to the warming of the Bay, traditional natural cycles of Bay organisms are either taking place earlier, or not at all.  The system has changed.  The winter/spring “bloom” of plankton, which used to be the starting point for a cascade of ecological processes up the food chain, has become a fragment of itself.

It all begins with the plankton. Phytoplankton, the microscopic plant life in the Bay, once thrived in enormous amounts in February and March, during that winter/spring bloom. Once, the small plants would bloom extensively and virtually free from zooplankton predators (think small, shrimp-like creatures), and sink naturally to the bottom. This occurred because the zooplankton were inactive in the cold winter water and not able to feed on the abundant phytoplankton. The phytoplankton sinking to the floor of the Bay would become welcome meals for bottom mud dwellers such worms and shellfish.  Now, with warmer winter water in the Bay, the zooplankton do not go dormant. They remain active in their newly warmer surroundings, and graze the phytoplankton well in advance, limiting their blooming in the traditional way of the Bay.

In addition, the tiny, clear, barrel-shaped jellyfish you see throughout the Bay, known as “ctenophores” (TEEN-oh-phores), have also benefited from the balmier temperatures.  They are arriving in the Bay early than usual, in June rather than September, where they feed on the small marine life (for example, small fish larvae).  Some scientists believe that the changes that we are seeing in the kinds of fish occurring in these waters are related to this jellyfish predation on fish larvae. Yet more changes for Narragansett Bay.

The rise in water temperature is causing major changes in the organisms that live in the Bay and how the whole ecosystem works.  It is also switching the balance of power in fisheries from species that live on the bottom like flounders and hakes, to those that live in the water column such as butterfish and scup.  That already has measurable economic impacts locally; as winter flounder are worth up $2.00 per pound to commercial fishermen, while menhaden and scup only yield $0.10 to $0.75 per pound.

This shift in types of fishes over the past 30 years of warming waters is interesting because the total biomass of fish has remained about the same. That biomass just consists of different species. Little known year-round resident bottom fish such as hogchokers and oyster toadfish are declining, as they are replaced on a much more seasonal basis by visitors such as stripers and summer flounder.  Warm water may be the primary cause, think Bay Window researchers, but they are also concerned that a lack of oxygen along the bottom of the Bay—a condition called “hypoxia,” which was the main factor in the notorious 2003 Greenwich Bay fish kill—may also play a significant role.

Other factors are contributing to changes in the Bay as well. The water quality is getting better as we reduce pollutants from wastewater treatment facilities and we eliminate old cesspools.  Shell disease—an emerging new disease—is affecting the iconic animal of Narragansett Bay, the lobster.  Newly arrived invasive species of crabs and other organisms are out-competing our native Bay creatures for existence.  At the same time, the overall productivity of Narragansett Bay seems steady. 

Global climate change may be here to stay and Narragansett Bay is changing. How? That is what Bay Window scientists are focusing on; examining the information they accumulate day in and day out.  We need to find those answers because the health of this incredible, dynamic system is critical to the future economic and environmental well being of each and every one of us.

-  Mark Gibson, deputy chief of Fish and Wildlife for the R.I. Department of Environmental Management, and Candace Oviatt, professor of oceanography at the University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography, are both members of the Bay Window Monitoring Program Steering Committee.

Monday, July 21, 2008

Birdies and Birdmen

By Chip Young

Anything can happen when you get out of the house

Here’s what can happen if you tear yourself away from HD digital cable (and your ‘utes from their Facebook and video games) and all get out into the wonderful world of nature and open spaces and blue skies.  (Reminded me of the Mickey Mouse Club’s “Anything Can Happen Day,” for those of you approaching a certain age.)  This is a true story.  Honest.

We were just minding our own business, playing a golf match in the Wednesday night Twilight League at Jamestown Golf Course. Me along with two fellow Jamestowners, my partner Kevin Welch and opponent Dale Buckey, and his Newport teammate, Ed Schene.  There was a perfectly clear blue sky, you could see the planes and going to and from T.F. Green Airport, and we were laughing about our golf balls nailing them when we hit our shots and followed them as they looked like they were flying right past the aircraft in the sky. That little pretend game got chuckles all round long.

Little did we know. 

On the ninth and final green, about 6:30 p.m., three of us were standing with the Newport Bridge at our backs gazing down past the hole at Dale, who was putting up the hill towards us.  He was sizing up his putt, and then suddenly stood up and pointed over our heads, and shouted “Look!”  We figured something had happened on the bridge, or there was another big cargo plane from Quonset going by worth our attention.  We turned, and about 150 yards behind us and 80 feet up, a guy in an ultralight solo glider (not a parasail, where you hang down, but one where you are lying flat out in a sort of sheath that encloses your body and legs) with about a 50-foot wing span was coming down right towards us.  He flew just over the treetops, sneaked over the telephone wires, and went about 20 feet directly over our heads—you could have said “Hi” and chatted and he would have heard you, but we were just gawking with our mouths open and arms outspread like welcoming the Messiah as we followed his flight.

He landed just past the sand traps in front of the green in the fairway on what was essentially his stomach, and then rolled on the landing wheels under his body to a stop halfway down the heart, like a perfect tee shot in reverse.  We were screaming at our friend Doc Barrett, another local boy, who was standing in the adjacent parking lot, only 20 yards away from getting run over, with his back turned, filling out his scorecard, totally oblivious, thinking the hubbub was because Dale had sunk his long putt for an eagle. 

When Doc finally responded and turned towards us, we all furiously pointed behind him where Birdman had come to a rest. Doc spun another 90 degrees, saw the glider, jumped about a foot in the air, and then raced over to the mysterious flyer to see if he was all right. (We had to putt out and finish the match, of course. First things first, and we do have priorities.) 

Our foursome went back in to the clubhouse, shaking our heads in amazement, leaving the mystery pilot to caddy his own glider off the course.  Doc eventually brought Birdman in and bought him a beer. When I asked him from across the room where he had started out his journey, figuring possibly a high spot in the state, like the Johnston Landfill, he announced he took off that morning in the Catskills (!?!?!?!).  This was met by a slight indication of disbelief (expressed by a roaring cascade of “Bull-___t!“), but it was true, and he had the GPS tracking to prove it.

It turned out that Birdman (since identified as one Stan Roberts, who is a professional drummer as well as hang glider pilot) took off six and a half hours earlier from upstate New York off a 1,300-foot cliff with two other gliders who he left in his slipstream 40 or 50 miles back. Riding the thermals in his cocoon-like little body suit and harness, with steel rods to support his legs and keep them outstretched behind him, he got up to 7,000 feet at one point as he headed east, before he landed at the Jamestown golf course because he knew it was here, having pulled the same stunt to little fanfare 10 days before.  (One of the witnesses to that appearance said Roberts’ first words were, “Where am I?”)

The point-to-point trip was 157 miles, which he claimed was a record for his hang glide club.  Birdman said he knew when he soared down over Narragansett Bay he was too low to reach his goal of a 200-mile flight, which would have been White Crescent Beach on Cape Cod, so he put down at the now familiar and wide-open links.

It was all fairly unbelievable.  Our awe-inspiring Birdman of a half hour earlier was standing there in the clubhouse with a Heineken, having doffed his flying duds, wearing a polo shirt, shorts and sneakers like some schlub who wandered in off the street for a beer and a burger.  He was awaiting one of a glider team network from Narragansett to pick him and his wings up, like he took just a quick stroll downtown and now needed a ride home.  Just a day in the life.

Oh, and that’s my excuse for three-putting the ninth.

Wednesday, July 09, 2008

Partnerships in Preservation Work

By Chip Young

Looking at the big picture reaps dividends

If there is one generalization I would make regarding most environmental initiatives, it is that partnerships do indeed work.  (I would also argue that all “environmental” efforts are also economic endeavors, so please read it that way every time one evokes an environmental cause.)  Sure, there are instances of groups having a falling out with one another, but nothing along the lines of restaurant partners chasing each other through the kitchen with butcher knives (which I have personally observed), brothers Adi and Rudi Dassler breaking up to form the archrival Adidas and Puma athletic shoe companies, or the Beatles breaking up.  That damned Yoko.

Despite the fact the environmental community has a reputation for standing for peace, love and Kumbaya, people and organizations can get very protective of their little corner of the world, state or neighborhood.  Dare we say “turf”?  As cynics remind us, if we all ever worked as a single unit, there could only be one executive director. Oops.

But things are looking up.  It is getting to the point in Rhode Island and nearby Massachusetts where not only do groups talk the economic talk, when they walk the environmental walk they aren’t out for a stroll on their own.  There is still a ways to go to reach nirvana in my mind, but slowly the folks who deal with land are addressing water issues with a little more interest and knowledge, and vice versa for the watery sorts and their soil-oriented colleagues.  Add to that the economic seasoning, throw in a healthy dose of alternative energy and global climate change, and, voila!—we have a full course meal.

A group I am associated with recently formed the Sakonnet Conservation Coalition.  It is comprised of the five leading open space and farmland preservation organizations in Tiverton and Little Compton who have been working alongside each other for decades, saving fairly amazing parcels of land in their very special little place.  Realizing that when they pulled back and looked at what they had accomplished, they have decided to promote the bigger picture of what all their individual efforts have achieved, while continuing to maintain a focus on their own organization’s site-specific priorities.

It is a first step in partnering and collaboration, but a very good and important one.  Their past successes and future goals are spelled out in this recent opinion piece by the group, of which it is worth taking note.  This from The Sakonnet Conservation Coalition, a partnership among the Little Compton Agricultural Conservancy Trust, Sakonnet Preservation Association, The Nature Conservancy, Tiverton Land Trust and the Tiverton Open Space and Land Preservation Commission:

CONCERTED CONSERVATION SERVES THE COMMUNITY
By The Sakonnet Conservation Coalition

Preserving land and open space is a shared responsibility.  No more so than in the region on Newport’s quiet side, east of the Sakonnet River in Tiverton and Little Compton.

Over the past decade, land and farm conservation groups in this area—the Little Compton Agricultural Conservancy Trust, Sakonnet Preservation Association, The Nature Conservancy, Tiverton Land Trust and the Tiverton Open Space and Land Preservation Commission—have been working shoulder-to-shoulder to protect and preserve open space in the region.  Thanks to this cooperative effort, which frequently involves partnering with the R.I. Departments of Environmental Management and Transportation, the Natural Resources Conservation Service, local municipalities, and the Champlin Foundations, the individual benefits provided by each of the groups are significantly enhanced.

The fruits of those collaborative efforts are readily evident just by taking a drive south down Route 77 through the two communities that make up the Sakonnet landscape through the communities that line the eastern shore of the Sakonnet River. 

You first pass Pardon Gray Preserve on the left, a huge expanse of meandering meadow set against a wooded ridge, the largest forest in the East Bay, known as Weetamoo Woods.  This area is a major touchdown spot for forest birds that migrate and disperse over the entire region.  Further south, also on the left near the Little Compton town line, is the Eight Rod Way Management Area, where farming continues to serve local needs and provide an economic boost on land now open for visitors. 

More roadside farms continue on both sides of Main Road, from Hathaways’ farmland across from Pardon Gray Preserve to the area surrounding Sakonnet Vineyards, past Peckham Road and to Walker’s Farm Stand and The Last Stand, where customers literally eat up the local corn, fish and produce. Many of these have been preserved for continued family farming by the Youngs, Peckhams, Samsons, Richmonds, Lebreuxs and others.  Some of the colonial era stone walls here have even been restored by conservation efforts. 

Just past The Last Stand, on the right, is historic Treaty Rock Farm, still and forever destined to be another vibrant, contributing working farm, as well as a cultural and educational icon.  And beyond the turnoff to Little Compton at Meeting House Lane, the iris meadows at Taylor’s Lane have all been preserved as has the Middendorf farm, which from Main Road provides the first view of Sakonnet light and harbor, long a commercial lobstering landing point.

All along the way, you will have passed innumerable smaller tracts of forest, shrub, orchard, meadow or pasture, each protected in their own right along with these larger properties for nature, farming, or public benefit.
If you veer off the beeline of successful projects displayed on Route 77, there are similar efforts taking place throughout the neighboring area.  They include Middle Acres Farm, with 238 acres of farmland, wetlands and forest along Crandall Road heading from Tiverton to Adamsville that have been conserved by a similar joint effort.  This area preserves the wetlands area of Adamsville Brook which feeds the west branch of the Westport River and also protects the cranberry bogs and other farming activities on this land for the future.

As the summer of 2008 arrives, the Sakonnet landscape partners have their eyes set on more preservation and conservation efforts for farms and open spaces through separate projects and as a supportive team.  The Ferolbink farm is looking to join in being preserved with its neighboring working agricultural lands. Across the road from the Sakonnet Vineyard, efforts are going on to preserve 55 acres of Peckham family farmland.  Protecting the Watson Reservoir watershed and buffer and the Nonquit Pond reservoir and greenway are high on the list of priorities.  Preserving land in Pocasset Ridge, the forestland north of Weetamoo Woods and Pardon Gray Preserve, is also a key ongoing effort to the challenge of preserving the largest, and last remaining, unfragmented forest in the East Bay.  The initiatives are moving forward with full backing of all the area organizations.

The value added being brought to the region through this collaborative effort is immeasurable, and the diversity of interests and the backing of hundreds of local residents continues to be considerable.  The return on these strategic, mutually supportive initiatives is appreciated just by taking a “windshield survey” of the accomplishments as one moves through the Sakonnet landscape.  Hopefully this cooperative work can serve as a model for other ongoing conservation efforts of Rhode Island’s farms and open spaces while they can still be preserved for generations that follow, as the opportunity to do so was handed down before.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

They’re Hee-ere! Early Influx of Menhaden Positive Sign

By Chip Young

Narragansett Bay undergoing significant changes

Twenty-four million menhaden.  Say it again: Twenty-four million.

That’s a lot of anything—M&Ms, paper clips, pennies—never mind fish.

But that’s how many menhaden, a prized baitfish, there are right now in Narragansett Bay, predominantly in the Upper Bay and Providence River.  The average size of the fish is just about one pound.  The estimate is based on net surveys and aerial flyovers by Department of Environmental Management fisheries scientists who are part of the Bay Window Monitoring Partnership.  Said one of the DEM researchers who did the aerial reconnaissance, “It’s harder to find water where there isn’t menhaden than where there is.”

Early readings from the Bay Window program, a partnership of state and federal agencies and academia that provides a ongoing broad data-gathering, research and assessment of the health of Narragansett Bay, indicate positive signs in the Bay fisheries to date this year, while the warming of the Bay and incidences of low oxygen levels in the Upper Bay remain an area which needs constant oversight. (Full disclosure: I am a member of the Bay Window project’s steering committee, so at least I know of what I speak, but the scientists do have to speak slowly when they explain things to me.)

That 24 million total is nearly double that at this time in 2007, a year which drew all sorts of public attention as the fish were sighted in large numbers well up into the Upper Bay and Providence River.  This is very good news on many fronts, as the current location of the fish in Upper Bay areas is helping to greatly reduce high-rising fuel costs for commercial fishing boats going after the desirable bait.  It is also encouraging for the rest of the summer, because menhaden are an important fish for other food supplies, and they are bringing striped bass and bluefish into Bay after them, as in 2007, which was a tremendous season for recreational fishermen. The size of some of the stripers being caught this year in the Bay are enough to make experienced eyes pop.

On other fronts in Narragansett Bay, warming and climate change have been a growing concerns in recent years, as they have many wide-ranging impacts. The average Bay temperature is up 2 degrees Fahrenheit in the past 20 years, winter average temperature is up 4 degrees F, and the Bay is moving towards becoming like a southern estuary—think the Carolinas.  This will not only affect fisheries, but is a major catalyst for possible fish kills, because warm temperatures are a contributor to a of lack of oxygen for marine life, which becomes depleted in part due to large nutrient loadings. 

The Bay Window partners had accurately predicted from its past timeline of research information and that summer’s data the infamous 2003 fish kill in Greenwich Bay, which sparked a concerted state and federal effort to pinpoint the causes of the event and take management steps to avoid a repetition in the future.  Rhode Island is investing millions of dollars into upgrading wastewater treatment plants and increasing storm drain protection to reduce nutrient loadings, a $400 million investment in mitigation in Upper Bay alone.

The Bay Window ongoing surveys and monitoring show that the Narragansett Bay quahog population remains stable compared to 2007, which is an encouraging environmental and economic sign. An abundance of clams is a valuable indicator of good Bay health.  It is believed that a combination of management area actions and use of spawner sanctuaries, and fewer rainfall closures and quahoggers, has contributed to this stability.  This is encouraging for shellfishermen, but rainy days mean shellfish closures, so hopes remain for a dry summer.  But overall in recent years, shellfish closures are flattening out, which scientists see as a good sign for all involved.

The Bay Window monitoring has been funded since 1997 thanks to the efforts of Rhode Island Congressional delegation, who came through last year with $916,000 in federal funds for the 2008 program, a real coup in these bleak budget days. 

For information on Bay Window and its data, people are encouraged to go to: Bay Window, which is designed to serve as a clearinghouse for scientific and general information on Narragansett Bay.

Meanwhile, here is a quick snapshot of what is being seen as emerging trends out in Narragansett Bay heading into the summer of 2008:

EMERGING TRENDS IN NARRAGANSETT BAY - 2008

OVERALL:  The picture is good to date.  Narragansett Bay is holding steady if not improving with its fish populations, it’s just that the species have changed.  Where most of the fish used to be bottom dwellers in the past (1980s - e.g., winter flounder), they are now those that swim in the water column (scup, menhaden).  That is likely to be the case as long as low oxygen levels in upper Bay and climate change (Bay water warming) continue.

Change from bottom-dwelling to water column fish has commercial and recreational impacts.  Winter flounder (once so abundant they were “the first fish you caught in the spring and the last fish you caught in the fall”) are no longer there for fishermen, commercial or recreational.  This has an economic impact, as winter flounder are worth $2 per pound to commercial fishermen, while menhaden and scup only get $0.10 to $0.75 per pound

BAY WARMING:  Yes, that’s climate change, and we are seeing it in Narragansett Bay.  Average Bay temperature is up 2 degrees Fahrenheit in past 20 years, winter average temperature is up 4 degrees F, and we are moving towards becoming like a southern (South Carolina, Georgia) estuary.  This will not only affect fisheries, but is a big catalyst for possible fish kills, because of lack of oxygen which gets depleted due to large nutrient loadings.  Rhode Island is investing millions of dollars into upgrading wastewater treatment plants and increasing storm drain protection to reduce nutrient loadings ($400M investment in mitigation in Upper Bay alone)—all actions driven by Bay Window data on temperature, nutrient level and oxygen levels after disastrous 2003 Greenwich Bay fish kill, which scientists predicted down to the actual date, but could do nothing about at that time.  That is why new management actions were immediately begun.  The state cannot eliminate or predict the possibility of a major fish kill (minor ones are the norm every year) at this point due to the number of variables involved. 

MENHADEN: Combined with last year’s abundance, the 24 million menhaden seen in Narragansett Bay at this point provides a good feeling that this shows improved water quality, and their presence also contributes to a healthy ecosystem which can be appreciated by non-consumptive users, conservationists, and the general public. Menhaden are also in the Bay early as in 2007, and that effects commercial fisheries movement. The location of the fish (Upper Bay areas) is helping greatly with fuel costs for recreational and commercial boaters alike.  It is also good sign because menhaden are an important fish for other food supplies, and they are bringing striped bass and bluefish into Bay after them, like last year, which was a tremendous season for recreational fishermen.

QUAHOGS: The population remains stable compared to 2007, which is an encouraging environmental and economic sign. Abundance of quahogs is an indicator of good Bay health.  This is encouraging for shellfishermen, but rainy days mean shellfish closures, so you hope for a dry summer.  But overall over recent years, shellfish closures are flattening out, a good sign for all involved.

LOBSTERS AND OTHER FISH TO DATE:  Looking up.  Trawl survey in June 2008 provided a mixed bag of highs and lows.  But mostly highs. Lobster, winter flounder, summer flounder, sea herring, scup, and squid numbers were up compared to June of 2007, with sea herring and scup up considerably. 

UP TO THE MINUTE INFO:  Overall, all species of recreational (and commercial) importance are present throughout Rhode Island coastal waters, with the Sakonnet River offering the widest diversity of both predator (stripers, bluefish) and prey (menhaden, scup) species.  Time to get the rod and reel out.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Life’s A Beach, Ain’t It?

By Chip Young

Why we love beaches and keeping them clean

I have always thought that a beach is the world’s cheapest psychiatrist.  It’s free, and you just sit down, watch the water, listen to the waves and mentally veg out, letting your blood pressure drop as fast as ethanol stock shares.  Nine out of 10 therapists, life coaches and any other of today’s self-styled stress messiahs invariably begin their soothing mantra with “Close your eyes and pretend you’re on a beach…“

On the more actively involved side, I have also found that body-surfing is an excellent way to clear out the mind after work. Get a good long ride with only the sound of the rushing surf churning in your ears as you shoot through the water at full stretch and you forget about every annoying person and thing that bothered you all day long.  Although this particular health treatment plan does come with the occasional unexpected head-over-heels, somersaulting flip from a big wave that runs about two gallons of seawater through your sinus cavities and fills your swimsuit with incredibly aggravating and abrasive sand and seaweed.  Just nature’s way of making it real.

And as we encounter weather like that of the recent “Where did this come from?“ sizzling temperatures, it is also nice to sometimes merely walk into the chilly water up to your neck and stand there, to try to put out the flames erupting all over your head and body.

Beyond the mental and physical benefits, beaches are also a huge economic boost for The Ocean State. Tourism brings in millions of dollars every year, and on a given summer day, largely because of our shore and beaches, our population can nearly double as out-of-staters head for the water like a motorized march of the penguins. So it would figure that given those benefits, it would be a good idea to make sure that both residents and visitors know that Little Rhody’s beaches are clean and safe.

No worries, Rhode Island is on the job.

The state Department of Health’s Beach Monitoring Program begins testing the state’s 126 monitored beaches each spring, as they begin their collaborative work with local beach owners, volunteers, cities and towns, and other state agencies to collect samples, monitor water quality and protect the public health.  The program samples coastal beaches five days a week, and receives sample results from its partners seven days a week.  The DoH constantly refines its sampling strategies to focus on areas of greatest concern and when bacteria counts are most likely to be present.  Read: After a heavy rainfall. (For updated info on your local beach or destination site, you can call the DoH Beaches Hotline at 401-222-2751.)

The number of beach closure days is directly related to the amount of rain we get.  In 2006, a heavy year for precipitation, individual beaches were closed for an alarming total of 351 days. In 2007, a moderate year for rain, the closures only numbered 96 all summer.  That’s better.  But it is what happens in the entire watershed, inland as well as right at the shore, that dictates how clean our beaches are.  Stormwater runoff and storm drains deposit oil, gas, and crowd favorites such as pet and wild animal waste directly into our rivers and streams, which then carry those elements down to their natural endpoints at Narragansett Bay or the Atlantic Ocean.  So what you do inland as far as disposing of waste and toxics can be just as important as if you did it while you’re standing up to your ankles in water at the beach.

Fortunately, the Beach Monitoring Program has a 24-hour turnaround time for sampling, so communities who have their beaches closed because of a heavy rain can find out ASAP when they are cleared to re-open by taking daily samples to be assessed.  This doesn’t negate the fact that beaches in the Upper Bay, which are near more populated urban areas with nastier runoffs impacts and flush out more slowly than South County ocean beaches, aren’t more likely to take a heavier hit from the rain, but it does speed up the process of getting folks safely back into the water.

And if you are like me, you are always looking for that sign that says, “The Doctor is in.“

A video feature on the DoH Beach Monitoring Program can be seen on the Channel 10/URI Watershed Report by clicking Watershed Report.

Wednesday, June 04, 2008

The Sun Rises in Olneyville

By Chip Young

New fish ladder signals Woonasquatucket resurgence

There was a time not very long ago when city kids thought the only wildlife that existed in urban rivers was shopping carts and used tires.

Not so these days, thanks some remarkable restoration projects going on statewide.  The most recent success story to emerge into the spotlight is the opening June 2 of the Rising Sun Fish Ladder in the Olneyville section of Providence.  The fish ladder, located at the the newly redeveloped Rising Sun Mills on Valley Street, will restore a vital link between Narragansett Bay and the Woonasquatucket River watershed 140 years after it was severed.  It is only the first step in a sequence of activities that will allow migratory fish such as alewives, blueback herring and shad—“anadromous” fish that spawn in freshwater and live in saltwater—to return to their place of birth in the spring to produce a new generation that will live in the river until the fall, when they will depart for the Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. The unerring ability of the fish to return upriver to where they were born to spawn after months in the ocean remains one of Mother Nature’s little tricks and treats to ponder when you’re daydreaming.  Especially when it involves an often forgotten and invisible river.

No one has ever mistaken Olneyville for the Left Bank in Paris, but slowly and surely the area, with an influx of the local arts community, and a rejuvenated Woonasquatucket River winding through as it runs from North Smithfield down to Providence and the head of Narragansett Bay, has been making a comeback.  You may not see the Woonasquatucket as it winds around Merino Park, hidden by the bushes and trees along its banks as it flows past the abandoned mills, but the natural, indigenous wildlife of fish and birds is gradually returning to replace the shopping carts and tires.

This ecological renaissance in the Renaissance City is being led by partners that include the Woonasquatucket River Watershed Council, the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, the Coastal Resources Management Council, the R.I. Saltwater Anglers Association, The Armory Revival Company and the owners of the Rising Sun Mills, Streuver Bros. Eccle & Rouse, all of whom contributed to the project’s funding and sponsorship.  The job is far from over, however, as the dam at the site, which the fish ladder allows the returning fish to circumvent as the head upstream, is just one of others still remaining on the path back home.

Dams along the river, which resulted from the the development of Providence’s historic textile mills in the late 1800s, are still in place upstream from Rising Mills.  They present a problem, because while everyone has a vision of salmon making great airborne jumps as they forge up a Northwest River to their spawning ground, alewives and herring are not NBA-level leapers.  Instead, the fish ladders give them a set of stairs up and around the dam that they can do a little fish hike to eventually get to their destination on the other side. Some of the other dams on the river are in bad condition and slated for removal.  The next challenge will be the Paragon Mills dam, due to be removed this summer, which will provide 40 new acres of spawning waters, while having the added benefit of reducing flooding problems that now regularly occur in the neighborhood.  A combination of removal and building new fish ladders at three other upstream dams will clear the way all the way to Johnston for the watery intrepid travelers.

Twenty years ago, the idea of fish returning to spawn was a dark prospect.  The sun is indeed rising on the Woonasquatucket River these days.

Thursday, May 29, 2008

Major Shellfish & Eelgrass Transplant to Benefit Salt Ponds

By Chip Young

Increased clam population, cleaner water expected results

Two large transplants of shellfish to Ninigret and Quonochontaug Ponds in Charlestown, and the relocation of eelgrass into test sites in both coastal salt ponds marked the start this spring of a new project designed to increase the ponds’ shellfish populations while improving water quality.

A total of 40,000 pounds of shellfish, which is about 200,000 individual clams, was divided between Ninigret and “Quonnie” and put into “spawner sanctuaries” in the South County ponds on May 8 and May 20, respectively.  In between those shellfish-shifting operations, on May 15, eelgrass harvested from Ft. Getty in Jamestown was moved to test sites in the two South County ponds.  This will be followed by a full-scale eelgrass transplant this September.

The project is called The National Partnership Between the NOAA Community-based Restoration Program and The Nature Conservancy, and includes a boatful of partners including the Department of Environmental Management, Save the Bay, the Salt Ponds Coalition and the University of Rhode Island.  The always helpful R.I. Shellfishermen’s Assn. also chipped in, digging up the quahogs in Greenwich Cove under DEM supervision on the two transplant dates, before they were loaded on to a huge flatbed to be trucked down to Ninigret and Quonnie.  At the sites, volunteers loaded the 50-lb. sacks onto boats contributed by Salt Pond Coalition members, DEM and Save the Bay, which took them out to be dumped overboard into the sanctuary areas.  Sore backs, muddy clothes and wet feet all around, please.

The clams were taken from “uncertified waters” in Greenwich Cove, where they are not allowed to be harvested for eating, and were tested to ensure they were healthy before they took their ride down to Charlestown.  The spawner sanctuaries where they were transplanted are also off-limits to harvesting, but they will serve as a breeding ground for the shellfish, which will eventually increase the number of clams in the entire pond area outside the sanctuaries.  As a bonus, since the clams filter water to feed, they reduce excess plankton, and contribute to overall improved water quality in the ponds.  That cleaner water will then help the eelgrass grow.  (Ah, it all eventually comes together, doesn’t it?)

The partnership’s objectives are to show how this cooperative effort can help the overall health of the ecosystem, while exploring the impacts and potential future benefits of combining shellfish and eelgrass restoration right next door to one another.  Hopefully, the lessons learned here can be used elsewhere.  Believe me, there is a lot going on across this country and around the world that went to school on Little Rhody when it comes to coastal issues.

“TNC, NOAA our partners and volunteers have done a great job, and we are all eagerly anticipating seeing the results of this transplant effort,“ said Janet Coit, director of the Rhode Island Chapter of TNC.  We’ll be on the lookout in September to to see just how well this big move by the shellfish and eelgrass pays off.  For more information, contact Chris Littlefield or Caroly Shumway of The Nature Conservancy at (401) 331-7110.