Newsletters
December 2017 - Lots of Bad Environmental Ideas
“One of the penalties of refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.”
- Plato
“It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment.”
- Ansel Adams
We are not listing reader submitted environmental news links this month due to time and space constraints.
ENVIRONMENTAL IDIOCY ACCELERATES – So much idiocy, so little time
FOLLOW THE MONEY – Follow the ego too
In last month's newsletter we asked, “What other community would destroy a 5 month old multi-use rail trail and linear park that taxpayers paid $8 million dollars to construct?”
If you missed it, you can read it here: http://www.greenfutures.org/?content=7hys3g0A9jsp1rkg
All political candidates receive campaign contributions. When some campaign contributors donate ridiculously large sums of money to select politicians, that money usually comes with “conditions.” And, when politicians have an exaggerated sense of entitlement and self-importance they usually put those major contributing “friends” first ...and the public last.
The Mayor has now said numerous times, "If you don't want the path to be crossed by the road, then we'll not do it." Past practice shows that this mayor and his handlers can't be trusted. If he wants to do the right thing, he would take back the easement now.
Here's a recent article from The Fall River's The Herald News: http://www.heraldnews.com/news/20170927/fall-river-city-council-boots-rail-trail-easement-issue-back-to-administration
Note to the city administration: Lies of omission are still lies.
We have joined with others in forming the Coalition to Save the Rail Trail. Working together with neighborhood associations and other advocates will present a united front against this Article 97 land grab by the city administration. There will be more information, email alerts, out shortly on this. Watch for them.
Some wildlife along the Rail Trail. Photos – Brian Pearson
SOUTH COAST BIKEWAY ALLIANCE LOST IN THE WOODS – Can't find their way from Providence to Provincetown
When it began, Green Futures' members representing Fall River were part of the South Coast Bikeway Alliance. The purpose of the Alliance was to help facilitate the creation of a bikeway, part of the East Coast Greenway, from Providence, Rhode Island to Provincetown, Massachusetts. And, that is exactly what it still says on the Alliance website which includes a map showing the desired route.
So, why are they now lost in the woods? Because somehow that original plan has taken a back seat to a “new” initiative to create a mountain bike trail meandering about the Southeastern Massachusetts Bioreserve on roads and trails and through some extremely ecologically sensitive forested areas that must not be compromised. The Alliance is calling this a “scenic greenway.” Well, it is already scenic and already a “greenway” since the area is mostly already protected public land. It exists now!
Unfortunately, the Alliance is wasting effort, time and money on this ill-conceived idea instead of working on their original reason for being ...creating an intermodal trail directly linking Providence to Provincetown.
Mountain biking is an approved Bioreserve recreational activity. Folks, including many of our members, ride on roads and trails in the Bioreserve regularly, some daily.
The most troubling thing about the Alliance's ill-conceived plan is they completely fail to understand the mission of the Southeastern Massachusetts Bioreserve and its value in protecting and enhancing species diversity in Bristol County, sequestering carbon, filtering and protecting water sources and supplies, pumping out oxygen and providing opportunities for appropriate outdoor recreation.
In looking at their map, above, one can see they have drawn trails, some seemingly at random, all over the map. The old roads and existing hiker/biker trail routes are not a concern. What concerns us are the new ones the Alliance proposes cutting across core forested land fragmenting the forest.
As explained in its founding document: The Southeastern Massachusetts Bioreserve is a large area of protected land east of Fall River and west of New Bedford. The purpose of the over 15,000 acre Southeastern Massachusetts Bioreserve is to protect, restore and enhance the biological diversity and ecological integrity of a large scale ecosystem representative of the region; to permanently protect public water supplies and cultural resources; to offer interpretive and educational programs; and to provide opportunities for appropriate public use and enjoyment of this natural environment. The Bioreserve is not vacant land waiting for someone to come along with an idea on how to develop or "use" the place. The Bioreserve is also not a city or town "park".
Fragmenting the Bioreserve's remaining core-forest areas with a hard-surfaced trail will impact species dependent on unfragmented forests habitat for their survival. A few examples of species that would be at risk are scarlet tanagers, Acadian flycatchers, closed canopy forest warblers such as the black-throated blue warbler and chestnut-sided warbler, board-winged hawks, red-shouldered hawks and many more species including some amphibian and reptile species. Frequently used trails fragmenting the forest also allow in, originally alien to New England, brown-headed cowbirds which parasitize native forest bird species.
A hard surface mountain bike trail is not needed. An all inclusive bike/pedestrian trail between Fall River and New Bedford is.
The Alliance is seeking $25,000 for a feasibility study from the Crapo Foundation. Why? As we've mentioned, just mark your route along existing roads and trails on a map and ride. Or, pick up a Southeastern Massachusetts Bioreserve Trail Map and Guide and follow the roads and trails shown on the map. Fragmenting the last few large blocks of south coast forest is not the way to go.
AESTHETICS? - We never had none of them aesthetics in Fall River and we don't need no aesthetics now!
What did Lady Bird Johnson say?
“Though the word beautification makes the concept sound merely cosmetic, it involves much more: clean air, clean roadsides, safe waste disposal and preservation of valued old landmarks as well as great parks and wilderness areas. To me ...beautification means our total concern for the physical and human quality we pass on to our children and the future.”
The Mayor wants to “beautify” Fall River ...with digital billboards. Some City Councilors agree. Once again, follow the money.
The size of these proposed digital billboards is quite amazing. These opening sentences from an article by Jo C. Goode, in Fall River's The Herald News, gives a good idea of the monstrous size of these digital billboards should the city administration succeed with their plan to blight the city with these things.
By Jo C. Goode
Herald News Staff Reporter
FALL RIVER -- So how high is a 70 foot billboard?
Imagine an eight-story building and add about 6 more feet.
That’s the height of eight proposed 50-foot-wide digital billboards Mayor Jasiel Correia’s administration wants to establish on leased city-owned property around Interstate 195 and 24 as an additional source of income.
For more info on digital billboards go here. http://www.scenic.org/billboards-a-sign-control
If you're a Fall River resident call or email your city councilors and tell them you are opposed to digital billboards in Fall River except for one sited outside the Mayor's bedroom window. That digital billboard you enthusiastically support.
City Council Contact info:
One Government Center,
Room 221,
Fall River, MA 02722
LOOKING TO SITE SOLAR IN ALL THE WRONG PLACES – City set to destroy forest
And yet, another cockamamie ill-conceived idea to damage our shared environment and help speed up global climate change. How much carbon is stored in the soil and in the mature trees on the 300 acres the Mayor wants to destroy?
Once again, the Fall River City Administration is in destruction mode.
Fall River is planning to clear-cut 300 acres of mature forest for a solar installation. Maybe not in Texas, but 300 acres is huge for such a development in Massachusetts.
The Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources “strongly suggests” solar arrays not be sited on forest or agricultural land. Yes, “strongly suggests” means nothing when it come to the huge tax benefits the solar companies and their political enablers can realize from these installations and the Massachusetts legislature has given solar panel sellers free reign to ignore zoning and other rules and regulations that others developers must follow in order to protect the environment.
The 300 acre solar array being proposed will be adjacent to the southern edge of the Southeastern Massachusetts Bioreserve on 231 acres of private land and the remainder on Fall River Water Department land, part of the Watuppa Reservation, Article 97 land.
Within these private and public parcels are spring seeps, the headwaters of Bread and Cheese Brook. Bread and Cheese Brook is listed by the Massachusetts Department of Fish and Game as a "Goldwater Fish Resource (CFR}." Fish and Game officials and fisheries biologists are very concerned that we are losing our coldwater fish species at a rapid rate due to unwise development and global warming. Out of all the thousands of brooks in the state, very few are listed as a CFR.
If a 300 acre solar array is constructed on this ecologically sensitive land the 300 acres will have to be cleared and land altered. Removing the forest canopy will raise the temperature of the brook and it will no longer be a CFR and will not be able to support trout and other coldwater fish and invertibrate species that require that habitat type to survive.
Hopefully Massachusetts Fish and Game, Sea-Run Brook Trout Coalition, Westport Land Conservation Trust which owns land in the area, Westport River Watershed Alliance and the Westport Fishermen's Association should be concerned and interested in this since Bread and Cheese Brook has a native brook trout population and Bread and Cheese Brook is a major tributary of the East Branch Westport River. Maybe united they can at least slow and hopefully, eventually, kill this horrendous solar project.
Destroying the forest and placing solar panels at the headwaters of Bread and Cheese Brook makes no sense.
NOT CONTENT RUINING ITS OWN ENVIRONMENT – Fall River wants to ruin Burrillville's too
A giant fracked gas and diesel electrical generating facility, Invenergy, has been proposed for construction in Burrillville, Rhode Island. This fossil fuel fired power plant will not only add carbon and other more dangerous pollutants to our air, but will fragment one of the few intact forests, a scarce environment, in tiny Rhode Island. According to energy insiders, the generating facility is really not necessary.
Invenergy needs a source of water to cool its turbines and attract investors and to receive permission to move ahead with their plan from state and federal regulatory agencies. Providence, with its huge Scituate Reservoir and then Woonsocket and now just about everyone else, has turned them down on their water requests.
Guess who decided to sell them water on a “contingency” basis? What community would do such a thing?
Fall River signed a contract with Benn and Sons Water Delivery Services. Benn will truck water to Invenergy. That will allow Invenergy to proceed with its environment destroying, climate harming plans.
Fortunately the Conservation Law Foundation and others are involved in this fracked gas and diesel fueled debacle. Hopefully the end of Invenergy is near.
It is sad, however, that once again the Mayor of Fall River has shown himself to be unconcerned about environmental destruction, global climate change and is deaf to the valid concerns and opposition to Invenergy's plan by the residents of Burrillville.
If you want more info on this issue, check here: https://www.clf.org/blog/open-letter-mayor-elorza-re-invenergy/
Watch Fall River's Watuppa Water Board, asking few substantive questions, stumble their way through the meeting where they okayed this cockamamie water trucking plan despite the fact it was added to their official agenda, probabaly illegally, at the last minute. http://www.rifuture.org/fall-river-invenergy/
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Due to all the local environmental issues taking up our time we are skipping our monthly flora and fauna profiles. Instead, see if you can spot the deer carefully watching us walk by on one of our summer walks.
FIRST MONTH OF WINTER – December
Check our Calendar for great outdoor activities!
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY HOLIDAYS to you, your family and all environmental advocates and protectors! From all of us at Green Futures.
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