From Snails to Whales: Lovell's Island Observations

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Lovell's Island Observations

We went to explore the tidal pool at low tide. The bottom of the pool was very rocky. I saw two different types of crabs while I was there. The first crab that I saw was found underneath a rock. It was about 2" wide and was a dark brown-black color, very similar to the rock color. The crab appeared to lighter brown bands along its shell and legs. Its legs were a little longer than the crabs body and very thin. Its pinchers were short, about 1/3". Im not sure what type of a crab this is. I thought it was a Say's mud crab, but it was too large as they only grow to be less than an inch wide.

The second crab was yellow with dark spotting that looked either red or purple. Its legs were short and thick, and its eyes protruded out to the sides. The crabs pincher claws were about 1/2 the length of its legs and it had a circular body about 2" wide. I think that this crab is the Atlantic Rock Crab. Although they can grow to be almost 6" this may have been a young specimen. They are often found in rocky or sandy bottoms, ranging from intertidal zones to open water.

There were plenty of periwinkle snails in the tidal pool. All of the snails were a brown color that was very similar to the rocks on the bottom of the pool. However, the snails all had different markings. Some appeared to be striped while others appeared to be mottled. Additionally, the striations on the snails' shells were very different. On some of the snails the striations followed the curvature of the shell and on other snails they went perpendicularly across the shell.

When we gathered all of our samples together it became clear that there were many different types of periwinkles. I noticed that the snails could be grouped together in different categories based upon their color and size. I did a quick grouping of the snails we had and I found three different categories. In one group of sails, the point of their shells was a single solid color and the rest of the shell was another color. These snails were the smallest, and they were all very close in size to one another. The second group of snails I found were those with mottled shells. The third group of snails that I found were those that appeared to be a solid color. The last two groups were very close in size to one another. This lead me to believe that there were different species of periwinkle snails and definitely observable variations.

I did find a piece of tunicate that looked very similar to some of the tunicate that we found on the dockside at the barking crab. I think that it is Orange Sheath Tunicate. However, there wasn't much of it found on the island.

Searching for land snails was not as easy as I thought it was going to be! My group started a little further inland than the other groups. After a long period of time where we didn't find anything I found 2 baby snails. They were on the leaves of some sumac trees, about 4 feet off the ground. They were both about 2mm wide and had translucent shells with a brown stripe down the middle. Their bodies were both an opaque off-white. I was able to take a better look at land snails after regrouping with the class and seeing the examples they had brought back in.

I saw a great variety of snails. All of their shells were very similarly shaped, however they were different in their colors and markings. There were snails with yellow shells and snails with brown shells. For each color there were snails that had a single brown stripe or multiple brown stripes ranging from 3-5. Initially I thought that the darkly colored snails had darker bodies and the lighter colored snails had lighter bodies, but then we saw a light colored snail with a very dark body. I think that all the land snails are the same species with different traits. If the lighter snails had light bodies and the darker snails had dark bodies only I might have thought that there were multiple species that we were seeing. However, after seeing a light shell with a dark body, I believe that they are all the same species.... Although now that I'm typing it out, I remember someone suggesting that two species could have interbred. To be honest, Im not sure how many different species of land snails we saw. It was very frustrating because there were so many different ways that the snails could have been sorted into groups. Overall they all looked very similar to one another, and in the end Im guessing that there is only 1 species.

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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.”

From Snails to Whales

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Lovell's Island Observations

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