From Snails to Whales: Castle Island Adventure!

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Castle Island Adventure!

Today's trip to Castle Island was my favorite so far. I took my shoes off as soon as we hit the shores and waded into the water to see what I could find lurking under the rocks and sand. When we first stepped onto the beach, I noticed how sandy and filled with people it was. There weren't distinct wrack lines like we found on Peddocks Island which made it harder to figure how high the highest tide was. The tide was rising when we got there at 1:17 since low tide was at 10:25 a.m. today and high tide would be at 4:38 pm. (http://www.boatma.com/tides/July/Charlestown-Charles-River-entrance-Boston-Harbor.html) As we moved along the shore it got rockier and life became more apparent. It wasn't that hard to find flora and fauna to study in the bigger rock areas since they were attached to rocks, under rocks, and in between rocks. There were periwinkles, blue mussels, star tunicates, orange sheath tunicates, sponges, and crabs all within two feet of the water line. I found that life was most abundant under big rocks as the tunicates and sponges would grow there and then crabs would burrow underneath them. There were many more varieties of crabs on this beach than on Peddocks as well. The most common one I spotted was a small brownish crab that had a neon underbelly. Other larger crabs could also be found on shore but most of those were dead and some were wounded.

<Mussel with tunicates living inside of it.

Dead crab>

<Clam shell with amphipods crawling on the outside.

Rockweed>

<A wounded crab located on the beach. This crab was missing its front pincers.

A shell coated in seaweed.>

<Another large dead crab.

A hermit crab popping out of its shell.>

<The small crabs with neon underbellies.

Giant oyster shell.>

Oyster shell to scale.>

<Rock covered in tunicates and barnacles.

Seaweed>

<Mussel, slipper shells, and orange tunicates attached to rock.

Rocky shore.>

________________________________

To me, the importance of clean water can be found not only in what we can do with it and in it but what that reflects about a city, country, or society. I think its great that there are still places in the world where water is safe, animal life is abundant, and people are aware of their impact on the nature, wet or dry, in their area. I don't have a very extensive relationship with the ocean, since I usually only find myself there during the summer or on family vacations, but I still think it is a beautiful and extraordinary piece of nature that must be respected and maintained. I do love to swim though and if I had been unable to experience swimming and playing in natural bodies of water when I was growing up I feel like I would have been cheated out of something great. The ocean is a great teaching tool for a new generation of thinkers, policy makers, activists, and people who are in charge of the fate of our world. And I think respect and trust is at the heart of what values make clean water possible (besides the technology, money, and policy part). It is important to value the cleanliness about our beaches, lakes and rivers because they hold so much diversity and so many species, part of what makes our world so beautiful and so special. Learning to keep our beaches and water clean is just a part of learning to take care of the world at large, including each other. Plus its great to experience what a beach holds and learn what makes it so special! It is unfortunate that there are people in the world that are deprived of the magic of the ocean and the pleasure of swimming in it.

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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

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Castle Island Adventure!

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