Newsletters
October 2016 - Yarrow, Marbled Salamander, Pesticides
WECOME TO GREEN FUTURES !
OCTOBER, 2016
“No man can get rich in politics unless he's a crook. It Cannot be done.”
-Harry S. Truman
“There is no more dangerous menace to civilization than a government of incompetent, corrupt, or vile men.”
-Ludwig von Mises
RECEIVED THIS PAST MONTH - Thank you to our readers for forwarding what they found environmentally interesting
Thank you Roxanne Quimby. https://bangordailynews.com/2016/09/02/news/state/philanthropist-quimby-celebrates-freedom-after-giving-away-national-monuments-land/?ref=topStories0
New Friends of the Wapack Website: http://www.wapack.org/
A tiny bit of help, maybe, for our vanishing monarchs? MassHighway is responsible for maintaining the Interstate Highways and the State Highway System which includes approximately 2,800 miles of roadway.Will a paltry $21,500 do any good? Will this initiative result in more loss of monarchs via road kill? https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2016/09/03/massachusetts-highways-wildlife-officials-team-to-help-monarch-butterflies
Disingenuous attempt. No, no Entergy! http://www.beyondnuclear.org/home/2016/9/8/beyond-nuclear-pilgrim-watch-challenge-entergy-attempt-at-ev.html
Oregon Parks and Recreation Department, like our Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, apparently looks the other way when natural treasures in their care are vandalized/destroyed.http://www.kgw.com/life/cape-kiwandas-famous-sandstone-pedestal-collapses/312984508
Here in southeastern Massachusetts we have many loons that spend the winter in adjacent coastal waters. We do not have any summer breeding pairs nesting in our local ponds and reservoirs. That may be changing. https://usfwsnortheast.wordpress.com/2016/09/13/its-back-to-the-future-for-loons-in-massachusetts/
One great ape is doing just fine. Guess which one? http://www.sciencefocus.com/article/nature/great-ape-species-facing-extinction
Kudos to President Obama. Last month Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument in the Pacific and this month Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument in the Atlantic.https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/09/15/fact-sheet-president-obama-continue-global-leadership-combatting-climate
A preview of what to expect from climate change in our New England conifer forests? Is it already here?http://www.opb.org/news/article/whats-up-with-all-the-dead-trees/?google_editors_picks=true
Wonderful and interesting articles in the recent newsletter of the Ecological Landscape Alliance. http://www.ecolandscaping.org/news-2/
“The turtle lives 'twixt plated decks
Which practically conceal its sex.
I think it clever of the turtle
In such a fix to be so fertile.” Ogden Nash – The Turtle http://www.ecowatch.com/diego-galapagos-tortoise-2005723683.html
Transitioning to the new Maine Woods and Waters National Monument. http://www.centralmaine.com/2016/09/16/national-monument-transition-will-be-complex-but-some-say-debate-is-fading/
Pesticide manufacturer sued. http://newamericamedia.
THERE'S A STINK AT THE MASSACHUSETTS DEPARTMENT OF CONSERVATION AND RECREATION (DCR). APPARENTLY NOT ONLY FISH ROT FROM THE HEAD DOWN!
Hell Yea, we're politically appointed cronies, toadies and hacks and we like to party!
http://www.telegram.com/news/20160901/dcr-chief-aide-suspended-for-private-party
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/local_coverage/2016/09/gops_party_irks_charlie_baker
DCR's Photo(s) of Shame for October. Photo showing damage due to DCR negligence and photo showing DCR's attempt at repair with a pine board and some rebar. Don't laugh!
ZIKA MADNESS –
Brought to you by pesticide manufacturers, so-called mosquito control agencies and some elected officials. Delivered to you at home by 24/7/365 complicit news media.
Can we film the Zika baby
Is the head shrunk yet
You know the boys in the newsroom
Got a running bet
Get the mother on the set
We need dirty laundry
With apologies to Don Henley (Dirty Laundry)
Panicked spraying of toxic chemicals to prevent Zika or any other mosquito borne disease is not the thing to do, but once again happening with little thought given to the harm being done to us and our shared environment by dumping neurotoxins on everyone.
George Santayana and a whole bunch of famous folks that followed have said, in various ways, “Those that do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.” Well, apparently we don't learn, or if we learn we don't care so here we go again.
Florida and other southern states have been aerially spraying Naled, (Dibrom) to stop Zika. It is ineffective against the mosquito that carries the Zika virus. Naled is bad stuff.
The European Union has banned Naled since 2012. Naled degrades to dichlorvos. Dichlorvos is an extremely toxic chemical that EU scientists say can cause mutations.
Failing to learn from history and being just plain stupid resulted in South Carolina, without having even found one Zika carrying mosquito, aerially spraying Naled and killing millions of pollinating bees, butterflies and other beneficial insects. Read about it here: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/02/us/south-carolina-pesticide-kills-bees.html?_r=0
Puerto Rico, early on in the Zika panic, refused to allow the CDC to spray Naled on their island. Good for Puerto Rico.
Everyone should heed Rachel Carson's comment on pesticides. “The more I learned about the use of pesticides, the more appalled I became.” Read more about Rachel Carson in our July, 2012 Newsletter.http://www.greenfutures.org/?content=NcysuM6MLenN3QmV
Pesticide manufacturers spent more than 30 million dollars lobbying Congress last year. There lobbying has been amazingly effective.
Even locally, here in Fall River, we've been assaulted by a pesticide. Without any threat of mosquito borne illness and during an almost mosquito free summer drought the environmentally-challenged mayor of the city subjected thousands of people to pesticide exposure. An article in “The Herald News” on the recent spraying of the Kennedy Park neighborhood lamely tries to allay any concerns about the spraying.
The article reports, “According to a release, the ground spraying will be performed by the Bristol County Mosquito Control Project by a special spray truck, using a fine, ultra-low volume spray, containing man-made pesticide product related to the natural components of the chrysanthemum flower, and also that found in other pesticide products used indoors in pet shampoo, lice treatments and on pets."
Of course, mosquito control agencies depend on mosquitoes for their existence. They depend on pesticides too. What is the name of the “pesticide product” related to the “natural components of the chrysanthemum flower” they want to use? Why not just name the pesticide?
What are they saying? We're not gong to name it because we want you to think that because the pesticide is “related” to a beautiful flower everyone is familiar with no one should be concerned?
Is the pesticide Anvil? Probably. Anvil's active ingredient is the synthetic pyrethroid Sumithrin. Sumithrin is an endocrine disruptor and very toxic to honey bees and fish. Yes, humans have an endocrine system too. Would you like yours disrupted? “chrysanthemum flower” conjures up a pleasanter image than “Anvil” ...yes?
Further along in the news article we read, “Residents in the area are asked, as a precaution, to keep their windows closed and refrain from going outside during the spraying hours. They may also want to shut off air conditioners unless they have a setting for recirculating indoor air. Residents are further advised to rinse any homegrown fruits and vegetables with water and to keep pets indoors during spraying to minimize their risk of exposure.”
Not quite the same risk as having chrysanthemums in the pot by the door or in the flower garden, eh?
Yes, some mosquitoes can carry diseases. Whether Zika south of us or West Nile Virus and Eastern Equine Encephalitis (EEE) in our neck of the woods, prevention of transmission is the most effective treatment today and for the foreseeable future.
When in mosquito country during mosquito season wear long sleeves and pants and apply an insect repellent containing DEET or picaridin/icaridan to exposed skin. Mosquito repellent clothing is also available.
In canvasing some of our members we found that we all know many folks, friends and relatives, battling various cancers. Granted, some cancers are caused by a genetic predisposition, some by life-style choices ...but exposure to toxic pesticides and carcinogenic chemicals are way up at the top of the list.
Read, Pesticides are Part of the Reason: http://www.panna.org/human-health-harms/cancer
How many people do you know that are struggling with or have passed away from Zika, West Nile or EEE? How many from cancer?
BIORESERVE FAUNA OF THE MONTH – Marbled Salamander (Ambystoma opacum)
Look at that salamander in the photo, above. Is he handsome, or what?
The rare marbled salamander, like the much more familiar spotted salamander, is a mole salamander in the family Ambystomatidae. They are called mole salamanders because they spend most of their time hunting their prey and living in mouse and shrew burrows underground.
Unlike our typically long and lean New England salamander species, marbled salamanders are short and chunky. Males and females are overall black. Males have white bands and patterns on their tail, backs and heads. The bands and patterns are pewter-gray in females. Adult marbled salamanders are 3 to 4 inches in length.
In Massachusetts marbled salamanders are at the northern edge of their range. From southern New England they are found down the Atlantic coast to Georgia and the Florida panhandle and west to east Texas. From Texas north east across Arkansas and up the Mississippi river valley, Ohio river valley to southern Pennsylvania and extreme southern New York.
These salamanders are found in woodland areas containing damp, humus rich soil. Seasonally flooded areas, fish-free woodland pools, must be present for reproduction.
During the day adults spend their time patrolling their burrow system under ground. On damp nights they will venture above ground to hunt for prey on the forest floor.
Other local mole salamander species breed in vernal pools in early spring. Marbled salamanders do the opposite. In September and October marbled salamanders leave the surrounding forest and return to the vernal, now autumnal, pool of their birth. The pool must still be dry from summer.
When ready to breed males do a circular dance around the female of their choice and she reciprocates. Males then deposit a spermatophore (a capsule filled with spermatozoa) on the ground. The female picks up the spermatophore with her hind feet and inserts it into her body.
The female salamander retires to a quiet spot in the autumnal pool and lays 30 to 200 eggs under wood debris, moss or rocks. The female stays curled around her eggs until fall rains fill the pool and her eggs begin to hatch.
When first hatched the salamander tadpole, the nymph/larval stage, feed on tiny snails, slugs, worms, aquatic insects and crustacea. The young are aggressive predators and grow rapidly and as they grow they supplement their diet with frog eggs and tadpoles of other amphibian species and anything else alive that they can catch and fit in their mouth.
By summer the young metamorphose into tiny salamanders and leave their pool. By the following summer they are nearly full size. Males begin breeding when 2 years old, females at 4 years old.
Snakes and some birds will eat marbled salamanders. Like the spotted and other mole salamanders marbleds have toxic skin secretions which repel most predators.
Marbled salamander in its burrow.
BIORESERVE FLORA OF THE MONTH – Yarrow (Achillea millefolium)
Yarrow is a member of the aster family. Although it resembles some introduced species and consorts with a whole bunch of alien weeds, yarrow is a North America native. It is also found growing in the rest of the north temperate zone worldwide.
Yarrow is a perennial plant with finely cut, fern-like leaves. The plant grows one to two and a half feet in height from rhizomes (stem of a plant growing underground from which true roots and new plants grow). It grows best in unmanaged meadows, recently logged forest clearings and disturbed areas along roads and railroad tracks in full sun. The entire plant has a spicy sweet odor.
The feathery leaves are arranged evenly along the stem and are longer at the bottom of the stem gradually diminishing in size toward the top.
Flower heads are in flat-topped clusters. Each cluster is composed of white ray flowers (tiny tubular flowers in the central part of the cluster) and disk flowers (petaled flowers that encircle the cluster). Yarrow is pollinated by bees, wasps, butterflies, moths and other insect pollinators.
After pollination small fruits called cypselas develop. A cypsela is a dry capsule containing one seed.
In colonial times yarrow foliage was used to stop nosebleeds and heal wounds. It was also brewed as tea and used in cooking.
Yarrow can also be used to make an herbal flavoring and bittering agent, called gruit, when brewing beer. For more info on gruit go here: http://honest-food.net/2016/05/05/gruit-herbal-beer/
LILLIAN CORREIA – A Wonderful Person
Lillian Correia was a unique, highly respected, long time member of Green Futures. Our friend Lil passed away September 12, 2016 in her Fall River North End home where she had been born 91 years ago. In this day and age how many people can say they've lived in the same house for almost a century?
Although Lillian's sense of place kept her in the same house and neighborhood her whole life she often traveled outside the neighborhood she loved to journey to Bermuda and other locations.
Lillian taught pre-primary and second grade in an elementary school. Guess where? Barely 500 feet from her home.
Lillian was an early member of the North End Neighborhood Association and she had a keen interest in local politics and didn't mind setting politicians straight when they got out of line.
When Hess LNG proposed building a huge liquified natural gas (LNG) import facility in her residential neighborhood Lillian joined the Coalition for Responsible Siting of LNG Facilities and Green Futures. She soon became the Coalition's treasurer.
Here's Lillian, by her house, in her neighborhood, a little over ten years ago when a Christian Science Monitor reporter stopped by to ask her about the ill-conceived Hess LNG plan.
In the nearly 80 years that Lillian Correia has lived in the little blue two-story home across from a defunct textile mill in Fall River, this daughter of an Azorean immigrant mother never lived in fear for her life. Now she's not so sure. In front of her home, in the middle of her flower garden, stands a bright red and white "No LNG" sign - one of a sprinkling of such signs up and down North Main Street. It's why her dining room table is spilling over with fliers she is mailing to neighbors informing them of an LNG protest rally and picnic. "We realize the area needs more energy," she says. "But we're against putting this LNG facility in the middle of this heavily populated city.... To be honest, I'm really not so sure our country needs this thing as bad as they say we do."
Lillian offered her home for meetings, never hesitated to volunteer and help in our many environmental endeavors and had a quick wit and ready smile. She became an eager participant in protecting our shared environment advocating for clean water, clean air, open space and environmental justice.
Every one of us loved Lil and we know she loved all of us in return. She was a wonderful person.
OCTOBER
“Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.”
-Albert Camus
It has been a tough summer for our forest trees. Many of our hardwood species one again suffered devastating attacks from alien winter moth and gypsy moth caterpillars. Just when the caterpillar damage began to lessen in July and the trees that still had energy reserves began to fight back by putting out new leaves, the drought came along. The situation the trees find themselves in this year will probably mean muted fall leaf colors.
Even if not ideal color this year, October and New England were made for each other. Get outdoors while days are sunny, the air is crisp …and enjoy.
Peak color and leaf fall in the Southeastern Massachusetts Bioreserve and area woodlands should occur between October 14 and October 24. You don't want to miss it.
Don't forget to click here for our Calendar.
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