From Snails to Whales: George's Island and Lovells Island

Monday, July 25, 2011

George's Island and Lovells Island

Upon our arrival on George's Island we began exploring Fort Warren. What a place. The pentagonal fort took 10 years to finish and stands today a fairly impressive structure. Complete with barracks, store houses, bakeries, jail cells, and even fields for recreation, Georges Island was no doubt a crucial fort in maintaining security in Boston Harbor. We were very causally exploring the fort but I couldn't help but wonder the agony prisoners experienced in the dark halls we were so casually laughing through. I shudder to think what this fort was like during a treacherous Boston winter.

Once we entered the courtyard we were regaled of the tale of the Lady in Black. (not the black lady.) Mrs. Lanier received a letter from her husband saying that he was imprisoned on fort Warren. Her gut impulse was to somehow get to this island and rescue him. She arrived on the island and started whistling the first verse to her wedding theme because everyone knows that it's infinitely easier to whistle and wait for a reciprocating second verse as opposed to just calling out the name of the confederate soldier. Regardless, they eventually found each other and because it's easier to enter a secret entrance and not leave it just as easily Mrs. Lanier brought a pick axe. Unfortunately weeks into their tunnel digging the couple was found. Since the pistol Mrs. Lannier had was so old, the pistol misfired and killed her husband. What an embarrassing end to what could have been a great pub tale. Mrs. Lannier's only request was that she be buried in women's clothing. Due to either the lack of women on the island or the priority of the request all they could find were black robes. Mrs Lannier was hung/shot by firing squad?? And supposedly haunts the island to this day. Georges Island brought us tales of whimsy and wonder and some equally great views of Hull.

The next stop was Lovell’s island. We were greeted by a park ranger who gave us an overview of the island. During his lectured I noticed a pamphlet that listed all of the animal finds that were common to Lovell Island. Overall, it didn’t help much but this it was a great tool for later going online and seeing if there were creatures I did see and had missed.

Upon making it down to the beach we were greeted by a colony of crabs. It didn’t take long before a brief crab fighting octagon took place near the rack line in a tidal pool. It was interesting seeing how the crabs acted without their shells. They would often try to retreat to other shells but despite all of the shells being identical they knew exactly which shells were occupied and which shells weren’t. It was traumatic in some ways seeing that helpless green crab being mauled by that seagull but come on! You think he would have gotten the hint. There weren’t any other green crabs down there and they’re not the most quick animal on the beach. It makes me wonder if more come out at night when they can not be as easily seen by predators from the sky.

One of the more interesting animals I didn’t expect to find was a sponge. It looked like it had been on the shore for a while because the inside of it seemed dried up and it was wrapped in different kinds of seaweed. Unfortunately I couldn’t find his pineapple home. …Sorry…

I was taken by great surprise when we found the large population of snails. One tree in particular was a host to over 10 snails (probably more.) The snails were less shy than the periwinkles we found on the beach. I assumed this is because in the scheme of things between the ocean violently crashing on them all the time is likely to make them a little self conscious of their size while the snails go relatively unnoticed and can stay in the same spot for hours unless they’re taken captive by fun loving perverse college students.

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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

Monday, July 25, 2011

George's Island and Lovells Island

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