From Snails to Whales: mehmet ileri

Showing posts with label mehmet ileri. Show all posts

Friday, July 27, 2012

Today, as usual we met at Starbucks. The weather was optimum for me and we had nice ride to Georges Island at 9:10. After some discussions with rangers about the cancelled trip to Lowells, DCR sent us the Abigal and its crew. Thanks for all to DCR. I thought Lowell is the same with Peddocks, because they are all Boston Harbor Islands. To what end, they can differentiate but it was not same, I was wrong. The Lowell Island as I can see, much full of life on the contrary to Peddocks Island. We made observations in the tide pools and catch different snails and crabs. I found a red shell snail that is worth to kept. And also, I caught a crab that can hurt seriously according to the professor. On the way to the inner island, we observed land snails which we saw on the rock at the beach that probably brought by sea birds. To sum up, we observed I think 4 kinds of marine snails (usual black, orange, white and my red)

Thursday, July 26, 2012

The need for clean water especially some parts of the world is getting a bigger problem. Especially in the middle east, not a hot agenda as African countries but counties try to make projections about future. In our country, government is thinking about to set up ministry of water in the next future for the sake of our children. A few years ago, the prime minister made a declaration that clean water, drinking water will be more important issue than oil. This concern shows us the the gravity of the importance of clean water.

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Today, we met at our usual Starbucks point at 8:30. I came a bit early with a dunkin donuts coffee and nobody warn me:) Then, we went to Georges Island and transfer a small ferry to go to the Peddocks Island. When we board, a ranger gave some brief information about island. After a walk on the pathway, we reached the beach. The beach was full of the ruins of dead organisms. There were lots of mussel shells and dead crabs. Then, professor showed us beach glasses and give some information about the mussel shells. After lunch, we found some living organisms for example periwinkles, crabs and amphopods.

I touched a crab and a alive periwinkle for the first time and it was really interesting experience for me. I took some green beach glass from the beach with me and took a few photos of that living things.

Sunday, July 15, 2012

Docks of Boston Harbor

Today, we found many sea creatures under the docks. We put them in a jar and after lunch we tried to analyze them as much as we can. First, I thought it is difficult to find 10 species but at the end we threw away some of them. Here is the list of our group's list:

Grinelll's Pink Leaf: it is brown purple color, it has wavy shape, it is soft and thin
Sea Lettuce: it is green, thin and soft
Brushy red weed: it looks like a root with red and pink color. I think our weed is the variant of Brushy red weed.
Red Beard Sponge: Although the name is red but ours is yellow.
Blue Mussells: It has black and dark brown color and oval shape, the inside of the mussel is white.
Horse Mussel
Sea Peach: We couldn't get any sea peach but we took the photo. It looks like a heart and it has orange shape.
Spongemorpha: I think it is grass. it has green color and sticks on the rocks.
Golden Star Tunicate: it has dark green color and it has white dots like stars.
Smooth Skeleton Shrimp: they are little and tiny animals.
Orange Sheath Tunicate

good night everybody,
mehmet again,

Today, before the class I saw prof. Berman and he asked me about the direction of the water in sink. I sad, it depends. He said, yes it is true but youtube is not a trustful source since I have posted a youtube link in my previous post. I suggest youtube managers to integrate a youtube.edu or youtube.gov domain.

Afternoon, we met in front of the marriot hotel next to the aquarium at 1.10 pm and we take boat at 1.30. Harbor is a very busy place like Bosphorus, like professor said, people love the ocean and sea.The weather was hot enough but fortunately it was windy on the boat. We listened to the professor about the real story and history of the harbor. The evolution of the harbor from sewer was amazing.

Moreover, the islands looks great also the prices of the houses on it. I thought it was a success that there is not any industrial pollution in the harbor until I learn there is no industrial activity at all. Lastly, the travel of the goldfish was fascinating.

Saturday, July 14, 2012

hi everybody,

my name is Mehmet and I am from Turkey too. Also I have been working for the telecommunications authority for seven years as my colleagues Erdoğan and Alper. My major is financial economics in BU. Although the whole degree takes two years to complete, we had one year to finish. Thanks to God, this the last course:) I am married with a child that's way I am posting so late.

About the water in the sink, when I was a child, there was a guy a famous pop singer in 90s went to equator and did the same experiment with a bucket water and a straw. He showed the direction of the straw spinning in the water in different directions in different hemispheres. Where can I know that we did the same experiment 20 years later in Boston. When I google it, there is not a consensus whether the water turns randomly or from Coriolis effect. Here is the proof : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17zVP7R0iLY&feature=related

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.”