From Snails to Whales: Peace on Peddocks Island

Monday, July 16, 2012

Peace on Peddocks Island

I feel like I visited another planet today. Peddocks Island was a treasure- a secluded, natural, practically untouched island only about a ten minute boat ride away from the Boston shore. After walking through a wooded area, and passing by one of the only cottages on the island, lived in by some very lucky people who have contracted to give the land back to the government once they die, we came to the opening to the beach.

The first thing Professor Berman pointed out was the wrack- that is, the area away from the water where everything gets pushed up along the beach by the tide. What the wrack line mostly showed were the lightest things that get pushed up: shells....thousands and thousands of mostly blue mussel shells, empty and dried up by the sun. We found a few slipper shells, which have a kind of hood tucked under their belly, showing evidence that an animal lived inside it once. We saw razor clams, long and rectangular in shape, and we also saw the skeletons of former periwinkles. ( interesting to note that the hole that can be seen when turning the periwinkle upside down is there because it is drilled by the tongue of another snail).

I found a couple of oyster shells- but it was not clear whether they were washed up by the ocean, or whether they were the remains of the cottagers last night's dinner. Contrary to our "day of seaweed" yesterday, we only found, really, two kinds of seaweeds along this beach. A white curly seaweed and a green curly seaweed. Bits of old beach glass in colors like pink, purple and green tell a story of the past and can be artifacts that teach you something about history. Apparently, glass that remains green in its color can be traced back to Nazi Germany when they manufactured green bottles to the States. However, the purple glass we found told us that these bottled were manufactured here at home, since America's glass faded and turned color over time from its original green. We saw a dead Skate fish, which looked a bit gory with three holes on its underside.

The beach began to change the longer we walked along it. We learned that the pebble beach, which is what we first walked on, changed to a cobble beach, which meant that the rocks become bigger. The difference is that on a pebble beach, everything is basically dead and dried up, where as when you find larger rocks , there is more water and therefore you can find more living things. It was on the cobble beach, where we picked up large rocks and found dozens of tiny asian shore crabs ( an invasive species), and we were encouraged to pick them up and sing lullabies to them. I was pretty freaked out at first to touch one, fearing it would bite my finger off, but I held it from the base of its body and it actually felt kind of cool to feel its claws straggling around my hand. I derived a great sense of excitement from learning how to discern the sex of a crab! The female actually had a triangle shape on its underside, and the male, well, has a long, narrow, pointed rectangular shape. When i get done with this Blog, I look forward to watching crabs mate on YouTube, and not because I am perverse- really, just out of pure fascination.

We had a relaxing lunch and i has a great swim in these untouched waters. The sea tasted saltier than it does closer to the shore of Boston. It was refreshing as hell. Afterwards, I checked out the mudflat behind us, the outskirts of it was a bed of cracked mud and then in the center, what looked to be an actual pond with ducks enjoying a bath in it.

I guess one thing that struck me the most was learning what a great effect periwinkles have had on the beach. Who would think that these little snails could move mountains on their very own? Yet, they eat the algae on the rocks, releasing the sand away, and what is left is a rocky beach. So they have changed what was originally sandy beaches to rocky beaches.

I came home exhausted and sunburnt, but transformed from this almost surreal and tranquil landscape, only to disembark the Boston-bound boat on Boston's shores, bustling with crowds of tourists. I must admit, that having to return and face the seashore's largest predator- Man- was a bit of a buzz kill.

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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 16, 2012

Peace on Peddocks Island

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