From Snails to Whales: Christopher Charles Reardon/ Observations at the Barking Crab

Sunday, July 14, 2013

Christopher Charles Reardon/ Observations at the Barking Crab

Today our session was spent making observations of sea life in the field where we learned that just like with people, there is so much more than outer appearances that comprise a thing, that one must get below the surface with a critical and inquisitive mind in order to get to know what is really happening.

Scientifically Loitering

We arrived at the edge of the Boston Harbor at nearly low tide. The winds were calm and the temperature was warm, probably 80°, when we started our observations. There were just a few wispy clouds in the sky and it was decidedly humid. We observed several species of creature in the intertidal zone, most notably, a seagull feasting on two green crabs. Attached to the harbor wall we saw long strands of dry and dark green rockweed. The rockweed has long arm-like tendrils with tiny "poppers" at the end of each strand. To me, the way that the rockweed splays seemingly randomly in various directions resembles the movement at the end of a mop scouring a kitchen floor. Since rockweed grows only in clean and nutrient rich waters, its presence is an indication that the harbor is thriving. We looked it algae growing on various surfaces. The algae was visibly dry, light green and very short, similar to the very short grass that might be found on a golf tee. Looking around at the different swaths of algae, it became quite noticeable that different portions of algae or the then dry harbor walls are at different stages of development. On the beach, we saw small rocks, sand, and sediment. Under the water, large growths of green seaweed were visible. On the beach, the seaweed looked dried-up seemingly dead. However, we learned that once the tide comes in, the seaweed will “come back to life." As we walked down the pier, we noticed some green seaweed that was very well developed. However, just a few feet away, some identical seaweed looked not quite so well developed, an indication that the sunlight helps the seaweed to thrive.

Good Morning

We enjoyed a great example of the activity below the surface when we saw people feeding striped bass with chunks of stale bread thrown down on the murky water. From a distance, the fish appeared to be roughly 18 inches long with three or four dark brown vertical stripes running from one end to the other end of the fish. The striped bass would come to the surface just long enough to snatch a piece of bread before, quite violently, plunging below the surface again.

On a small private finger pier and shortly thereafter at the Barking crab, we did our first hands-on observation where we got our hands wet. First we watched a rope being pulled out of the water which was covered with invasive crustaceans. This was the most colorful thing I saw all day as it was a jumble of sea life: some of that moving and some of it not. It looked like a great tangled mess of multicolored electrical cords and small pieces of brightly colored clothing. Attached to the pier pilings, a student with sharp eyes pointed out some Sea Stars. My eyes could just barely make them out but they appeared to be about the size of a saucer from below a teacup. They were light brown and attached to the piling: unmoving.

Team Lunch

Our team focused on several different life forms, primarily in the calm and relatively clear water surrounding the piers behind the Barking Crab. I could see clearly below the surface for the entire length of my arm.

The Blue Mussel: About one and a half inches long and 1/2 inch wide. Subtle ridges about 1/16” apart running along the length of the mussel from end to end. The muscle was closed and I made a mistake because I did not think to pull it open in order to see what lives inside.

Bay Barnacle: We studied two Bay Barnacles which were attached directly to the blue muscle. The barnacles have an ex cut through the top of each. The tops were open and folded back in triangles. The barnacles were off-white in color and coated in algae. The barnacles had a crusty hard texture, as one would imagine of a Barnicle. Each barnacle was about half the size of a Tic-Tac breath mint.

Bushy Red Weed: We found what we believe to be Bushy Red Weed. Under the water where it was attached to the pier piling, it looked healthy and ever moving. The color was a dark purple. The weed consists of thousands and thousands of fibers that look like a disorganized spider web. While scrutinizing a photograph later in the day, I noticed some sort of creature living in the weed that I have yet to identify. It is gray in color and looks like it has a shell. I can see eyes on what would be its head and a spine running down the middle. I imagine that it is about ½ inch long. Perhaps it is a shrimp of some sort.

Golden Star Turnicate: We saw a fair amount of this invasive species coating many different things in our observation areas. We peeled it off on of our muscles. We also found it consisting of two different colors: a vivid orange and a more muted brown color. True to its name, the Golden Star Turnicate has hundreds and hundreds of tiny, almost microscopic, stars that may be best viewed with a magnifying glass. What at first looks like a solid orange mass is actually gelatinous looking and see-through except for where the stars are. On the underside of a portion of the Golden Star Turnicate we were able to see where it adheres to various species. It almost looks like little tiny barnacles on the underside of it. It is easy to see why the Golden Star sticks so well to whatever creature it sticks to because it looks very much like it has little suction cups all over the bottom of it.

Morton’s Egg Cockle: We found a small white shell with nothing inside of it. We looked through the book and tried to identify it. The shell is small and white. It is about the circumference of a nickel. It has ridges going across the entire surface. We looked through field guide and came to a consensus that it is the Morton’s Egg Cockle

Sea Lettuce: The sea lettuce was a fascinating thing to behold. It was bright green and lay out in ribbons somewhat like ribbon candies that one would find at Christmas. It was coated with insects or bugs of one form or another that we made a solid effort at identifying. We also found some red sea lettuce that at first we thought was a different species, however, it appeared to be attached to the green sea lettuce and merely a variant.

Sea Pill Bug: We believe that the inhabitant we found on the Sea Lettuce was the Sea Pill Bug. As described in our book, it was 3/8 of an inch long, and rolled up in a ball when we manipulated it. Through magnifying glass one could see dozens of tiny legs, antenna, and a tail. Its color was light brown and somewhat translucent.

Ascophyllum Mackaii (Rockweed): We saw an abundance of Ascophyllum Mackaii during our observations today. Near the Barking Crab, we found them attached to a blue hose. We found great long tendrils of this plant replete with poppers at the end of each strand, as well as some poppers midway. Upon closer inspection, each strand of the rockweed had a vein running down the center of it. This specimen appeared to be well developed, as there were multiple poppers at the end of each branch.

Below the Surface

It seems that our research could have gone on for days. Although we only focused on seven or eight different species, it became clear to our team that there are probably thousands of species around that dock. This observation gave me a new awareness of the richness that lies just below the surface of all things.

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From Snails to Whales

Welcome to Snails to Whales, Bruce Berman's blog focused on both the little and the big things that make Boston Harbor such an interesting and extraordinary place to live, work and play.

With 50 miles of protected water, four sheltered bays, seven river systems, 34 islands and a nine-foot average tide, Boston Harbor is one of the most diverse urban ecosystems in America.

This blog focuses on the flora and fauna of Boston Harbor and Massachusetts Bay - on the beach, the shore, and the harbor islands, and in the cleaner waters of Boston Harbor and Mass Bay - including this ecosystems most important species - people.

During the summer, it is also a place for my Boston University Students and my colleagues at Save the Harbor / Save the Bay to share their work and experiences.

Where I am coming from...

Love that clean(er) water
Learning about the Boston Harbor Cleanup from the waterway’s eyes, ears, and mouthpiece

By Brian Fitzgerald, BU Bridge

On Georges Island, Bruce Berman talks with his students about the history of the Boston Harbor Cleanup,
which is largely complete. Photo by Vernon Doucette

Bruce Berman, aboard a ferry from Boston’s Long Wharf to Georges Island, poses a question to his students: “How clean is clean enough?”

He’s talking about the water below.

It’s a brilliant July day, with the smell of salt spray in the air. The sky is clear, and so is the ocean. But there was a time when Boston Harbor wasn’t so clean, when the stench of sewage assaulted the nostrils of anyone who went near it.

Berman is the communications director for Save the Harbor/Save the Bay, a public-interest environmental advocacy organization whose mission is to help restore and protect the harbor and Massachusetts Bay. He also teaches a Metropolitan College summer course called Politics, Public Relations, and Public Policy: The Boston Harbor Cleanup.

“The Boston Harbor Cleanup is an amazing success story, and I just love to share it with students,” says Berman, noting that the harbor’s “bad old days” weren’t that long ago. Those were the days when untreated human waste, syringes, condoms, and tampon applicators routinely washed ashore. The antiquated sewage treatment plants on Deer Island and Nut Island were so poorly designed and maintained that they flooded during even mild rainstorms, sending millions of gallons of untreated waste directly into the harbor.

Since then, bacteria counts in the water have decreased by more than two-thirds. Now the harbor teems with plants and animals, and people can legally dig for clams on Carson Beach in South Boston, which was unheard of in the 1980s.

“It was one of the filthiest harbors in America, and now it’s one of the cleanest,” says Berman. “What I’m trying to impress upon students is how this incredible comeback occurred, and how business, advocacy groups, environmentalists, and government can affect the outcome of large projects such as the Boston Harbor Cleanup through negotiation.”

Paradise regained

Berman points to the left as the boat cruises by the cleanup’s centerpiece: the gargantuan white egglike tanks of the Deer Island waste treatment plant, which in 1995 replaced the antiquated facility. The plant treats an average of 350 million gallons of sewage a day.

“And what comes out of the Deer Island treatment plant?” he asks. Berman, his booming baritone competing with the roar of planes taking off from Logan Airport, has a habit of putting students on the spot to see if they’re paying attention.

“The outfall pipe,” say several simultaneously. “Treated water,” chime in a few more.

“That’s right,” he says with a smile. “The plant separates the solid and liquid waste, and it pumps the treated water through the 9.5-mile outfall pipe, which empties into Massachusetts Bay. The resulting sludge is converted to high-grade fertilizer.”

Now Berman returns to his original question: “How clean is clean enough?” There’s no quick and clear answer to this one. “It’s a question that at the end of the day the federal courts had to decide.”

In 1985, a landmark federal court case required that the harbor’s beaches be made swimmable and fishable by 2000. Save the Harbor/Save the Bay was formed the next year to raise public awareness of the $4.5 billion Boston Harbor Cleanup. Sewer ratepayers in the 43 cities and towns financing the project cried foul over the prospect of astronomically rising bills, but because of the determination of environmental advocacy groups such as Berman’s, the cleanup was largely completed on schedule.

Berman says it isn’t finished, however. There are still frequent beach closures because the counts of Enterococcus bacteria exceed the federal and state standard for swimming. The culprit: filthy storm water and sewage, much of it from leaky pipes and illegal hookups emptying into storm sewers, and then into the harbor.

“So is the harbor clean enough,” the Springfield native asks his students, “when you can’t swim in it one out of five days in the summer?”

Work to be done

Berman and his class look out from Georges Island to Gallops Island (left) and the white tanks of the waste treatment plant on Deer Island (right). Photo by Vernon Doucette

This summer the state approved one of the last parts of the cleanup: the construction, by 2011, of a 2.1-mile tunnel near the Dorchester and South Boston shorelines that will hold sewage and storm water during bad weather. It then will be pumped to Deer Island for treatment.

Berman is ecstatic over this development, the result of “tireless negotiation and consensus-building,” he says. “After 2011, we’re looking at beach closings once every five years, when there is a major storm, instead of once every five days.”

But he is not about to let his guard down. To say that he is a man obsessed with the harbor cleanup would be an understatement. Berman is also Save the Harbor/Save the Bay’s “Baywatcher,” and he lives on his 40-foot trawler Verandah. Polluters beware: if you’re discharging oil or sewage into Boston Harbor, the Baywatcher just might be watching.

He is quick to point out that his zealotry is not just on behalf of the harbor’s flora and fauna. “The harbor is for everyone,” he says. “If you’re from a working class or poor family in Boston, and you can’t afford a Cape Cod getaway in the summer, a clean harbor is important. The same is true if you’re a tourist vacationing in Boston or you happen to live in a pricey waterfront condo.”

Accordingly, Berman, who was a political consultant and contributing editor to the Phoenix newspaper before joining Save the Harbor/Save the Bay nearly 10 years ago, also teaches his students about the harbor’s role in the city’s economy. He points out that in the early 1990s, just a few ferries cruised the harbor’s waters. Today, more than 100,000 people visit its islands each summer, discovering their ecological and historic treasures.

“The best way to protect the harbor cleanup,” Berman tells his students, “is to make sure that the public has access to the resources and can see a return on its investment.”

Trevor Kosmolsick (MET’05) has lived in Boston for seven years, but until taking Berman’s course, he had never been to the waterfront. “I’ve also wanted to go camping in the area, but I never knew that you could camp on a few of the islands,” he says. “Bruce Berman is not only a great professor, but the ultimate tour guide.”

He also backs up his words with actions. Sometimes he takes off his shirt and dives in the water to demonstrate to passing boaters that it’s safe to swim. To show people on ferries that fishing is safe, he’s been known to grab one of the bluefish or striped bass he’s caught and (very carefully) plant a wet kiss on it.

“What I want everyone to understand is that investment in the environment really does pay off,” says Berman. “We’re willing to pay for a clean Boston Harbor, so we should enjoy it.”