From Snails to Whales: Nitin Bhardwaj

Showing posts with label Nitin Bhardwaj. Show all posts

Monday, July 15, 2013

Day 3- Journey from the Waterfront to the Barking Crab

On this awesome day, we sought shelter from the glaring sun, but alas, we just could not run. As we returned to our meeting spot from yesterday, it was exhausting trek across the walkway to our final, intended destination: The Barking Crab. Today, we went hands on m

Right to fish in MA.
Invasive species Hitchikeris
White hard shell animals
Green crab- Red, common New England crab. Been here for 300 years.
Periwinkles- Common variation. love darts.
Snails- Generic material in shell.
Freshwater- Plumbing system
Saltwater- boat leak
Things to Observe:
Low tide
Light/Variable Wind 79 degrees
Fairly clear
Visibility psyche disk
~sea about 3-5 feet
Long Wharf @ Christopher Columbus Park
Rocky Seawall. Beach with pebbles to cobbles. Sand.
Feral rabbits attacked birds.
Most Abundant:
2. Green seaweed
1. Black/Brown seaweed.
Rockweed- sticks to the rock
Purple/Red Thing
Mossy thing- Bottom to top of Seawall. Intertidal zone. Exposed to air twice a day.
Sun tidal zone
Benthic zone.
Seabirds/Landbirds.
Crabs
3. Reddish/brown crabs
4. Hermit crabs- Periwinkle, take
5. Clam shell
6. Mussel shell- Purplish
Brazil nut theory
Audoban- shoot, stuff, and draw.
Light Greener area gets more sunlight.
Switchback dock- accessible-friendly for high tide.
Fouling organisms- live on structures.
Green sea lattice
Brown/Red/Green seaweed. Orange things!
Not silver fish.
Mallards lose nets. Have a clutch.
Wicked big storm/wicked high tide.
Sea shanty
Striped bass attacking pieces of bread.
South side of Long Wharf
Brown seaweed anchored but swaying. Rockweed on edges.
700 foot high tower- interfere Logan airport
Every building built in the past 10 years requires public use on the first floor.
No loitering in a public place. harbor towers. Seaport
Thatched Barnacle
Red Mussels
Sponge morphs
F. Evanescence
Clams & muscle farm
Lots of biodiversity
Beard of mussels.
Pounded by waves.
Salinity- Salty, Brackish, Fresh, Sometimes Fresh/Sometimes Salty
Fort Point Channel- Barking Crab
Rainwater/freshwater/storm water
2013: wet or dry year?

Fort Point Channel @ The Barking Crab
Smells like sewage ?
Water is dark
Bugs have died/stay
Sea lettuce
Red mussel
Ascophyllum mackaii
Morton's Egg Chockle
Red crusts

Sunday, July 14, 2013

Day 1- The Overview

I have always been an avid travel of the Greater Boston Metropolitan Area (as well as the rest of the world), but the Boston Harbor Islands have always remained an elusive mystery to me. Cape Ann & Cape Cod were once connected, and Massachusetts Bay was a just a pond. Glacier retreating is responsible for what we see now. That & landfilling. The islands that were created by this process are called drumlins. This deep, cold nutrient-rich water was in a protected “harbor”, which explains why it was settled: defense from damaging storms & opportunities for fishing.

Beginning this opportunity today, I found the experience rather exciting. It’s hard to imagine that this area was once covered in sewage and that no one had given a damn. Our trip started at Long Wharf in the Waterfront District, which was once just water all the way to the Customs House. I loved how we essentially got our own classroom at the center of the ferry to Quincy. Passing by Deer Island—now a sewage treatment—once was used by the Native Americans to chase deer out to, to keep their personal stock in place. The presence of wind turbines as an energy resource was a pressing issue as the water became a hot commodity, and these structures would be obstructing that view. Pirate Island hung pirates for all to see. Gallup Island, next to George’s Island apparently had asbestos issues. Nut Island involved sewage like Deer for the South. There was an useless public housing area next to the water with no public transportation, no school, no jobs, and was only built because the land was cheap—no surprise there. Asian ships were manufactured in Quincy. Spectacle, Moon, and Long Island were just a few the many islands we passed.

I hadn’t realized just how cold it would be, so I will definitely bring a light jacket on the water and leave my hat at home in the future. Striped bass seem to be the wicked popular fish out here in these waters. I hadn’t realized that numerous seagulls and fish boats in the vicinity indicate there’s a myriad of goodies nearby.

Saturday, July 13, 2013

Introduction & Which Way Does The Water Spin

Hey all, my name is Nitin Bhardwaj. I’m a 22-year-old undergraduate here at Boston University in the College of Arts & Sciences. I’ve been around much of Boston and the surrounding suburbs, but the Harbor Islands still remain as an unchartered, new territory that I need to see before I graduate. With the emphasis on fieldwork outside the classroom, it’s a sharp contrast to my Anthropology & Economics courses. And so, here I am, ready to step out and develop those skills that one just doesn’t get surrounded by four walls. (I'll let you know what those skills are when I do, but I think the syllabus might be a good resource.)

               I’ve always found the ocean to be a mysterious and fascinating place that is not only intriguing to our senses but vital to our economy; hence, it is essential we learn how to preserve this valuable commodity. Growing up in Houston, I was only 70 miles away from the Gulf of Mexico, in Boston I am only 4 miles away, and when I studied abroad in Singapore, I was essentially surrounded by it, so I think it ain't leavin' me anytime soon.
              I hypothesized that the water in the Northern Hemisphere would drain counterclockwise. If a hurricane spun that way here, I had always assumed that was the case with water anywhere. And yes, that Simpsons episode were Bart goes to Australia was involved in my reasoning. As we were doing the experiment, there was a concensus of counter-clockwise, but there was a sense of doubt in the air. It seemed hard to tell, even with the paper as a resource.
            It turns out, however, that this is a complete myth. People assume the macro scale impacts of the Coriolis Effect would apply to objects on a smaller scale like a sink, which isn't the case. According to the Huffington Post, this helps to explain the phenomenon in which the rotation of the earth can cause things moving in a straight line to appear to follow a curving path. However, the Coriolis Effect has minimal influence in how water drains in the sink. It could potentially, but this is currently impossible to measure. It depends on the shape the sink, the shape of the spout, if there was a force (like a hand) involved in spinning it a certain direction, etc... It doesn't matter whether you are in the Northern or Southern Hemisphere; it could go either way.

Sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/25/water-drain
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/General/bathtub.html-equator_n_2010379.html
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=can-somebody-finally-sett

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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.”