With the Red Sox in the playoffs yet again, I know I am not alone in the hope that we’ll be hearing a lot of the Standell’s 1966 tribute to Boston and the Charles River–”Dirty Water”–throughout the month of October as the Sox go for their third World Series trophy of the young century.

As much fun as it is to sing this song in the afterglow of a Sox victory, it’s sad that the label “dirty water” still fits the Charles River and so many other dirty waters across New England more than 40 years after the song came out and more than thirty-five years after the passage of the Clean Water Act.  One of the biggest problems now–blue-green algae blooms or scums (like the one on the Charles pictured below).  Beyond just making waters look and smell disgusting, swimming in water during or shortly after one of these blooms can cause skin rashes and ingesting water tainted with some blue-greens can cause unpleasant gastrointestinal problems.

Of all the reasons why we don’t really love that dirty water, scientists working on a cutting edge new theory may have identified a scary new one: a potential link between ingestion of toxins produced by blue-green algae and debilitating brain diseases like ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease), Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s.

An article in the Spring 2009 UNH magazine details the work of two New England scientists whose research is exploring the connection between clusters of ALS sufferers–i.e., areas where the incidence of disease is abnormally higher than in the general populations–and lakes where blue-green algae blooms have been or are still a problem.  While scientists have discovered some startling links–discussed further in the article–more study is certainly needed.  Raising awareness is an important first step.

In the meantime, CLF is continuing to advocate for solutions to the water pollution problems that causes blue-green algae blooms.  Simply put, the cause is too much of an otherwise good thing: nutrients.  Phosphorus and nitrogen are nutrients that exist in abundant quantities on this planet.  Under normal circumstances, most water bodies contain just enough of these nutrients to promote healthy growth of plant and animal life.  But improperly-treated pollution discharges have the effect of concentrating and overloading these waters, creating conditions in which the toxin-producing blue-green algae thrive.  These pollution sources include:

• poorly-controlled discharges of runoff from paved surfaces like big-box store parking lots, construction sites, rooftops, and city streets
• discharges from sewage treatment plants
• runoff from farm fields overloaded with manure

In addition to our efforts to clean up the Charles River, CLF’s Clean Water program is a driving force for cleanup of nutrient-overloaded bays and estuaries on Cape Cod, New Hampshire’s Great Bay, Vermont’s Lake Champlain,  and is supporting Maine’s efforts to adopt stringent standards to control nutrient pollution discharges to coastal and inland waters in that state.  Your continued support of CLF’s work is helping to restore these water bodies to health. And, if the scientific research establishes a firm link between brain diseases and blue-green algae blooms, your support of CLF’s work may also help protect the health of present and future generations at risk of exposure to the brain-debilitating toxins that certain blue-greens blooms produce.

A highly sensitive ecological and recreational treasure, the Great Bay Estuary is one of New Hampshire’s most important natural resources. Its rivers and bays provide a nursery for lobster, crab and fish. They are food and habitat for a wide variety of birds. And they provide countless recreational opportunities from fishing to kayaking and boating.

Unfortunately, the health of the Great Bay Estuary is in jeopardy from rising levels of nutrient pollution, inadequate sewage treatment, harmful stormwater runoff from parking lots and other paved surfaces, and sprawling development. To learn more about CLF’s work with the Great Bay Estuary, click here.

We’re thrilled to extend to you an invitation for the 2009 State of the Estuaries Conference:

October 16, 2009
the Great Bay Gallery
Somersworth, NH

Highlighting the “2009 State of the Estuaries Report,” this conference will feature up-to-date information on environmental indicators for the region’s coastal watersheds. Session topics include climate change and adaptation, watershed restoration, nutrient management, fisheries conservation, and innovative approaches for land use planning. To see the agenda, list of registrants, and register online for this conference, click here.

Registration deadline is October 12.

The other day I got an email from the folks at Zipcar asking for support from Zipcar members who live in Brookline MA to speak up regarding proposed revised zoning ordinances to encourage car sharing, and this note is to ask for your support of these updates. The proposed changes are “Warrant Articles” 12 and 13 on the November 2009 Town Meeting Warrant.  Here’s a quick overview prepared by Zipcar:

• A limited number of shared car parking locations will be permitted in all areas except those zoned for single family dwellings.
• A special permitting process would be available for those locations where member demand requires us to provide more than the number of spaces allowed under Article 13.

In response I sent the following email to members of Brookline Town Meeting:

Dear Town Meeting Members,

I am writing to you today in both my personal capacity as a Brookline resident and in my professional capacity, as a climate and environmental advocate, in order to urge you to vote in favor of Warrant Articles 12 and 13.

Almost ten years ago I had an opportunity to discuss the idea of car sharing with the founders of Zipcar just prior to the creation and launch of that enterprise. I urged them to press ahead with the concept and company and I joined shortly after the launch and have made heavy use of their services ever since. I can directly testify that the presence of Zipcar (particularly in Brookline Village) has allowed my family to manage with only one car. Car sharing reduces demand for parking, consumption of land by cars and traffic on the streets as cars are juggled among parking spaces. It supports and enhances public transportation use and activity in our commercial and residential centers (like Brookline Village, Coolidge Corner and Washington Square) and town policy should encourage and foster its expansion.

Zipcar started with a single green Volkswagen New Beetle in the Springfield Street municipal parking lot in Cambridge and its early expansion brought it naturally to Brookline. Through organic growth and merger it has now expanded across the continent (from California to Canada) and even across the Atlantic to London. We should be proud of the role that Brookline played in providing this good enterprise with a base for growth and should recognize that it continues to provide value to our residents and a benefit to the Town. The proposed Warrant Articles are reasonable measures that will facilitate this important community benefit – whether it is provided by Zipcar or another car sharing service.

Please let me know if I can provide you with any additional information or answer any questions on this, or any other, subject.

Seth Kaplan

I firmly believe in the value of car sharing (really, the wikipedia entry is quite good) as a tool for reducing car ownership and usage and for boosting transit use and helping build vital urban communities.

Some members of Brookline Town Meeting have suggested that they are concerned about noisy and disruptive college students traveling to and returning from cars stored in residential areas. This is a legitimate concern – but I would point out that Zipcar (and pretty much every operation of this sort) requires that members be at least 21 years of age and having shared cars in the neighborhood has the positive effect of providing local students (and recent grads) with an alternative that allows them to avoid owning a car that will clog up local streets.