From Snails to Whales: Saturday July 31st, 2010.

Saturday, July 31, 2010

Saturday July 31st, 2010.

Got to the harbor early (like and hour) i was so scared i wasnt going to make so i gave myself some lost time. 8:00 AM- Everything was so quiet and peaceful outhere defenetely a good place to relax and sit on the benches and enjoy the beautiful view. I saw people just running with their dogs, or reading the paper, etc..Almost every person around me was drinking coffe (hot coffee by the way). The weather temp around 62 degrees, water looked really calm no much waves or wind. the water seem a color greenish even thou when i looked at my pictures it looks sky blue (?) On the seashore i saw very little evidence of human use (couple plastic bags, a plate -which i found out the proffesor put in there on purpose-). The water didnt seem appealing for a swim due to the fact that i saw a lot of sea plants in it. There were two different kinds, which ill discuss in more detail later in this blog.
8:40 AM- Definetely a lot more people and movement of tourists of all ages. Not that quiet anymore!
10:15 AM- We walk on the edge of the harbor, the tide was as low as it can get. The water had pollen and oils in it. As i stated before there was evidence of human use and some white pearly inside shells. The habitat showed birds but no fish at all. Te water was mostly clear, in a scale from 1-10 we gave it a 5. Against the tide i observed a green mussy stuff and undearneath it some black branch like plant with movement to it. I noticed the same plant that was against the wall was inside the water, it seemed the water pushes the plants towads the tide and it dryes in there. Once they dry the color changes. The black branch like plant i saw was color brown inside the water and the green stuff has movement to it inside the water and the shore because water is constantly touching it, but against the tide is a lighther green without any movement to it. There was also another species againt the tide and in the water named barnicles.
11:23 AM- Walk to other part of the harbor were we spotted some little fishes named silver fish "shinners" a lot of them. In this spot the tide was very high and we spotted some green seaweed in the tide and only a little amount of black/brown plant things in the water. Hypothesis: It was less green and blackish branch like plants because of the shade that the building behind it produces.
12:00 PM- We went to do our more detail research behind the docks at the barking crab restaurant. We separated in groups and i observed the ecosystem in the right side of the dock.
Right side- had a lot of romained lettuce like plants, very nice color green and some dark brown ones. Observed a lot of mussels and other crustations growing on top of them with a lot of living mini insects living all around them, they were all different sizes some open and some close. The mussels were surronded by something that look like a muddy plant and some had a mustard color type of sponge.
Definition of species: A class of individuals having some common characteristics or qualities: distinct sort or kind. Source: Dictionary.com

Identification of the species we observed.

Animals (4). - Skeletal shrimp like thing- Long-horn Skeleton shrimp-: A redish color creature, which habitat is on seaweeds, it was seen inside the water against the tide line, slender, very small in size; -Shellfish (Mussels) -Californian Muscle-: The mussel were surrounded by brown mud and a mustard colo type of sponge with a lot of mini mussels eroded, very abundant and it seem to be the home for some wormlike creatures; - Flowerlike animals- Orange sheat tunicate- Color orange, small size, found agaisnt the tide, seems to have tentacles like open bumps; - Crabs- Commensal Crab-Had 4 legs, 2 pinchers, the color was kinda transparent/beige, the size was a couple inches long, the description in our guide is very similar to my observation and accordingly to the guide ranges in massachusets.
Plants (3). - Green like Seaweed- Sea lettuce (Source:http://www.edc.uri.edu/restoration/html/gallery/plants/sea.htm)- A plant that looked like a pice of lettuce, found attached to a dock in the boston harbor, a very bright green color like, once outside the color the color changes to a darker green, the edges are ruffled-Black branch like seaweed-Rockseaweed (Source: http://library.thinkquest.org/J002608/Rockweed.html) - This sea plant on the water has a brownish color and gets black once it dries out, i look it up at google as rock seeweed because we found it against the rocks of the tide, the fronds can get very long but in my source it said its usually color green, which here is not the case!! - Barnacles-Northern Rock Barnacle-They were all along the tide on the boston harbor 1st stop today according to the hitchhikers in the most common barnacle in new england, and it has a hard surface. -Green Fleece Alga- The green alga that we found in our first stop in the harbor it was in the water and it looked like finger like branched alga. It was attached to a tube- which its a hard surface.
Daisy things (2) - Pacific Star Tunicate- Its looks of very soft consistency and like inside it, it has mini orange/yellowish flowers, just like the one in the pic of the guide book (image no. 120), but once i read the range of this stars it says N. California to S. California, which confused me, so because of that range i might said its a Golden star tunicate with the range in the guide coincides with where we found it.

OMG i cant belive how long it took me to finish this blog, so hard to identify creatures that ive never seen before and i dont know their names to be able to find them, thousands of pics to look up online!

See you!

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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

Saturday, July 31, 2010

Saturday July 31st, 2010.

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