Newsletters

"We think too small. Like the frog at the bottom of the well. He thinks the sky is only as big as the top of the well. If he surfaced, he would have an entirely different view."

- Mao Tse-tung

 

 

“Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”

- Winston Churchill

 

 

ENVIRONMENTAL INJUSTICE – Environmental injustice occurs in the context of extreme inequalities in income, wealth and power.

Breaking News: Announcing the new name of the former Freetown-Fall River State Forest. Henceforth it shall be known as the Rodney Dangerfield State Forest

 

 

We've been advocating for improvements at the former Freetown-Fall River State Forest (FFSF), now the Rodney Dangerfield State Forest, since we organized as Green Futures 24 years ago and saved that state forest from a land-grab attempt by ill-advised development interests and their political lackeys and toadies.

When we contacted the state agency responsible for the care and management of the state forest, seeking their support, we heard back from the regional director of the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Management (DEM) ...now the Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) ...“No one in Freetown or Fall River really cares about that forest. You want a nice forest? ...Go to Myles Standish.”

Well, yea, we kind of knew that. What we didn't know, but slowly learned, was that DEM/DCR also “really didn't care” about the FFSF. And, the reason DEM didn't care back then and why DCR doesn't care right now is because the attention, management and money goes to those DCR forests, parks and other properties that are located in communities that demand DCR live up to its mission statement. Here it is: To protect, promote and enhance our common wealth of natural, cultural and recreational resources.

A tale of two forests: That DEM regional director from 24 years ago was being brutally honest. Few locals cared about Freetown-Fall River State Forest, located between two, Fall River and New Bedford, of the most economically depressed and educationally deficient cities in the Commonwealth. In such marginalized communities, with a majority of its residents listed as “Environmental Justice (EJ) Populations,” by the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, one would think state environmental agencies like DCR would go out of their way to properly manage and monitor activities on the properties they are charged with protecting.

If you live in Massachusetts you can see if your community has an EJ population by going here:http://www.mass.gov/anf/research-and-tech/it-serv-and-support/application-serv/office-of-geographic-information-massgis/datalayers/cen2010ej.html

Compounding the problem at the former FSF is that there is a long history of local community leaders and state legislative delegations, especially in the past, dismissing anyone with environmental concerns and only viewing the FFSF as land for the taking for any cockamamie, environmentally damaging scheme or proposal while they chant their mantra, “jobs, jobs, jobs” ignoring the fact that good jobs come to communities that value and protect their public parkland and green spaces.

In comparison to FFSF, Myles Standish State Forest (MSSF) is located principally in the town of Plymouth, an affluent community that demands and expects DCR to manage and maintain its public state forests and parks.Those they elect to state office are expected to advocate for community environmental amenities up in Boston and they make sure state agency secretaries, commissioners and directors know who they are and comply with their requests.

 

Over the years we've compiled a long list of problems at FFSF. DCR has given scant attention to many of these problems, some they've simply ignored.

 

One particularly vexing EJ problem that shows the difference in how DCR “manages” our state forests depending on the community in which they are located is allowed use of recreational off-road vehicle activity at FFSF and MSSF.

 

MSSF friends and enthusiasts lobbied mightily to shut down all dirt bike, off-highway motorcycle (OHM) activity. They were successful. So, where did those displaced dirt bikes go? Bingo! You've guessed correctly. Over to FFSF because, as we know, “No one really cares about that forest.”

 

Where's the environmental justice in that move? DCR bans the activity because of the environmental damage it has caused at MSSF and relocates them to FFSF to cause much the same kind of damage there.

We are not opposed to having a single-loop dirt bike track at FFSF ...as long as DCR manages, monitors and maintains the single-loop trail and enforces rules, regulations and laws governing the activity. Unfortunately, they don't.

 

Almost 20 years ago, 1996, DEM/DCR announced a “new policy” for the Management of Off-Road-Vehicles (ORVs) in Massachusetts State Forests and Parks.”

Their study revealed,“Significant problems surrounding ORV use at DEM facilities. Impacts to wetlands, and rare species habitat have been widespread, as were accelerated soil erosion, mud holes, trail widening, and unauthorized cutting of new trails.” DEM also stated that, “ORVs also compact soil, which decreases the infiltration rate, causing standing water, and ultimate mudholes. All these impacts are cumulative and steadily worsen with continued ORV use. Conflicts between ORV users and other forest visitors have also been common, most often in the form of displacement – non-motorized users simply staying away from areas frequented by ORV users.“ And, “Finally, the evaluations showed that DEM did not have the capability to effectively manage an extensive ORV trail system given the vehicles’ disproportionate level of impact and the fact that only 7% of Forest and Park visitors use ORVs.”

 

As mentioned, we think Freetown could accommodate a single-loop dirt bike trail, but DCR has to have the desire and ability to properly manage and maintain it.

 

Environmental Justice demands DCR treat all public land under its care, whether in economically disadvantaged communities such as Fall River or in affluent communities like Plymouth ...fairly.

DCR is not living up to its mission statement. Another example of that failure in next months newsletter.

 

 

 

 

Some items from readers

Connect with Mother Nature. Discover a forest near where you live. http://www.discovertheforest.org/

 

Local trash talk:

Apparently clueless Fall River Trash Force resurrects flawed plan.

http://www.heraldnews.com/article/20151007/NEWS/151006522

Since there is talk of trash incineration we've been there and done that. Read about Wheelabrator's nasty ash dump in Saugus. http://saugus.wickedlocal.com/article/20151014/NEWS/151018251/?Start=1

Blame our former governor. How about we build a filthy, polluting trash incinerator in Richmond, MA?http://www.no-burn.org/end-of-moratorium-in-massachusetts-a-mistake

 

“R I Future” and LNG. http://www.rifuture.org/ferc-listens-as-no-one-speaks-in-favor-of-national-grids-lng-facility.html

 

Conservation Law Foundation fights Kinder Morgan pipeline approval. http://www.clf.org/newsroom/clf-fights-natural-gas-pipeline/

 

Charley Baker's environmental rollback? We hope not! http://yubanet.com/enviro/Massachusetts-Begins-Mass-Environmental-Rollback.php#.ViTK_H6rTIW

 

Poisoning our food: Fried fish with a side of mercury. http://necir.org/2015/07/19/high-mercury-in-mass-fish/

 

Look at what roams Massachusetts after the sun goes down.http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2015/10/westhampton_trail_cams_capture.html

 

 

 

NO NUKES IS GOOD NUKES – Owner Entergy closes Vermont Yankee and now plans to close unsafe 
Pilgrim 1

Entergy's Pilgrim 1 nuclear power plant is less than 50 miles away. It is old and outdated and has the same reactor design as Japan's now infamous Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

 

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission marked down the safety status due to long-standing low to moderate safety findings.

 

The cost of bringing the aging plant into compliance apparently is more than Entergy wants to pay. This is all good news except that Pilgrim's spent nuclear fuel will be stored on-site.

 

One would think our government would have required that the nuclear energy industry have a permanent repository for spent radioactive fuel before they could begin siting nuclear power plants around the country. But nope, didn't happen.

 

Read about Pilgrim 1 in our November 2013 newsletter here: http://www.greenfutures.org/?content=udIqNO0cOhFdHSIm

 

 

 

BIORSERVE FLORA OF THE MONTH – Yellow Star Grass (Hypoxis hirsuta)

Yellow star grass is not a grass. It is in the family Hypoxidacea, related to the lilies.

 

This bright yellow perennial flower grows singly or in clumps and the ½ to 1 inch wide blossoms are clustered on a stalk. The entire plant reaches six to ten inches in height. The leaves of yellow star grass grow upward from the base of the plant, sprouting from an underground rhizome. These leaves are long and flat resembling grass blades.

 

The flower's petals and sepals, which are indistinguishable from each other, are called tepals. The six tepals make up the outside structure of the flower, the perianth. Each flower has six stamens.

 

Once pollinated by small forest bees a small green capsule forms and slowly ripens over the summer turning brown and splitting open releasing many tiny seeds.

 

Yellow star grass can be found in open deciduous woodlands and in grassy areas in full sun. It flowers from late spring through summer.

 

The range of yellow star grass is east of the Great Plains in the United States and the southern portions of the Canadian provinces of Ontario, Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

 

Although voles and mice sometimes eat the rhizomes, yellow star grass foliage is rarely eaten by insects or other woodland creatures.

 

 

 

 

BIORESERVE FAUNA OF THE MONTH – Wood Duck (Aix sponsa)

Photo courtesy of US Fish & Wildlife Service
 

What is the most colorful bird in the Southeastern Massachusetts Bioreserve (SMB)? Most would say the wood duck.

The male wood duck (drake), as in most birds is more colorful than the female (duck or hen). Its body is covered in iridescent multicolored feathers of tan, red, yellow, black, white, blue and green. The male has red eyes and a black, white, red and yellow bill. Males also sport a black, purple, green and white crest.

The hen is much more subdued in color with overall tan to gray-brown plumage with white speckling on the breast. Hen wood ducks also have a white ring around their eyes and base of bill. Throat and belly feathers are buff to white. She might also have some blue on her wingtips and all have a blue with white border wingspeculum (a stripe of metallic sheen on the secondary flight feathers of many species of ducks). Hens have brown eyes. Like the drakes they also have a crest.

Wood ducks average 18 inches in length and weigh up to 2 pounds.

Wood ducks are common nesters in the SMB and in forested wetlands across the eastern half of the United and the Pacific Northwest including California. They also nest in extreme southern Canada. Most wood ducks migrate south for the winter. SMB wood ducks leave from late September to early October to spend the winter in the Carolinas and other southern states.

Not only are wood ducks beautiful, they are also delicious. Unregulated hunting for meat and feathers, to adorn ladies' hats, in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries brought the species perilously close to extinction. The Federal Migratory Bird Treaty resulting in duck hunting seasons and limited bag limits, along with state fish and wildlife departments erecting wood duck nesting boxes in wetlands, saved the wood duck and have made it one of our most common ducks today.

Drake wood ducks begin to display to attract a hen starting in mid-winter on their wintering grounds. Drakes spread their wings, puff up and bow their heads. Once accepted by a hen they stay right be her side and when it is late February or early March, and time to head back north, the drake follows his hen back to her home area where she was raised.

Arriving back in the hen's old neighborhood the pair search for a hollow tree cavity in which to nest. Ideally it should have an entrance hole just large enough for the hen to squeeze through, small enough to keep hungry for a duck dinner raccoons, opossums and fishers out. As mentioned, they also readily nest in man-made nesting boxes. The hen lines her nesting chamber with down she plucks from her breast and wood chips from the tree hollow if available.

Hens lay approximately a dozen eggs and sometimes travel about to other wood duck nests and lay additional eggs in those nests. Waterfowl biologists are still trying to determine why some hens do this. Once hens begin incubation the drakes leave. Hens have sole responsibility for incubation and raising the ducklings.

Eggs hatch after a 29 to 32 day incubation period. After the ducklings' yellow and brown down has dried the hen leaves the nest chamber and after carefully checking about for predators calls for the ducklings to leave the nest and join her on the ground. The ducklings are born with sharp toenails which allow them to climb up to the lip of the hollow ...and after increased calling from the hen ...prompts them to launch themselves into the air and join their mother on the ground. See it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkBSkFyUyv0. Once all her ducklings have vacated the nest and formed a line the hen leads them to the nearest body of water and into thick aquatic vegetation in which to hide from predators.

In the SMB ducklings stay with the hen learning wood duck ways for the entire summer until time to migrate south for the winter. In southern states hens sometimes have two broods a summer.

Wood ducks eat a wide variety of aquatic seeds, berries, tubers and other plant material. In summer aquatic insects and other invertebrates are an important part of their diet, especially for the rapidly growing young who need that rich source of protein. In the fall, native wood ducks and those migrating through the SMB eagerly feed on acorns which they swallow whole.

If while hiking or spending time in the woods you are fortunate enough to find yourself in close proximity to wood ducks make sure to appreciate their beauty and listen carefully for the “ooo-eek, ooo-eek” of their haunting woodland cry. These ducks don't quack.

 

NOVEMBER

 

"November's sky is chill and drear,
November's leaf is red and sear."
- Sir Walter Scott