I just paddled in from Waltham and boy are my arms tired…Seriously, I know I am not alone among contestants in the 30th Annual Charles River Watershed Association Run of the Charles canoe, kayak, and paddleboard race who downed several ibuprofen after Sunday’s vigorous paddle.  I think I can speak for the entire ten-person CLF team when I say the pain was worth it.  While we didn’t win the race in the literal sense, everyone on the CLF team did feel like winners knowing that we work for an organization who’s longstanding commitment to clean water in the Charles helps make events like the Run of the Charles possible.

My fellow anchorman, Lake Champlain Lakekeeper Louis Porter, kept me digging for dear life as we passed up several boats in the home stretch. Still, I could not help stealing a second here and there to admire the stunning riverscape that unfolded before our bow.  Redwinged blackbirds, swallows, mockingbirds, kingfishers, sparrows of all sorts, and geese floated with and flew over us.  Anglers lined parts of the shore, wetting lines in hopes of a strike.  In some places industrial revolution-era mill buildings that once used the power of the river to make machines run still encroach.  But in other places, you could barely make out signs of civilization through the thicket of shrubs and trees heavy with bright green early season buds.

There was quite a party underway at the finish line.  Folks of all ages, from as far away as Vermont, Maine, New York, and New Jersey had come to the water’s edge to celebrate our relationship with the river.  Numerous food vendors were doing a brisk business, as were the folks who rented out canoes and kayaks to those of us in the race who don’t have boats of our own.

After I caught my breath, I began to reflect on the fact that all the fun and commercial activity that the race had generated wouldn’t be possible without a clean river that is safe for swimming, boating, and fishing.

CLF and our partners like Charles River Watershed Association, whose sponsorship of the race is so important to keeping folks connected to the river, have been working for decades to insure that the river continues to be an attraction to the people of our region.  Thanks in large part to various advocacy campaigns, volunteer cleanups, and court cases to enforce the Clean Water Act over the years, EPA now gives the Charles River a “B” grade on its annual report card of water health.  That means the river was safe for boating 82% of the time last year and for swimming 54% of the time.  While that marks a vast improvement of the “D” grade the river received in 1995, more work remains to be done.  Fun events like the Run of the Charles–and the economic activity it generated in the communities the river flows through–are a great reminder of why CLF is committed to clean water work in the Charles and in countless other waters from the coasts to the mountains. 

Courtesy of garcycles8@flickr

Entergy owns a tired old nuclear plant on the banks of the Connecticut River in Vermont – a plant it wants to keep running despite escalating costs, threats to the environment and public health, and a history of false promises. 

With old approvals in hand, Entergy continues to operate Vermont Yankee past its scheduled retirement date of March 21, 2012. Entergy’s view of Vermont’s authority seems to be Vermont only has authority to give it a green light.  By Entergy’s warped playbook, any condition of operation or approval would be off limits.

Entergy went to Court last year to challenge Vermont’s authority to regulate that plant. The Court partly agreed with Entergy, but clearly recognized and reaffirmed that Entergy still needs approval from the Vermont Public Service Board to continue to operate Vermont Yankee for another 20 years.  The only limitation is that Vermont cannot regulate radiological health and safety.

In early April the latest claims came about from a response from Entergy and a reply from the State of Vermont.  The State claims that Entergy’s old approvals also require payment by Entergy into Vermont’s renewable development fund and reporting requirements.  These are conditions that are part of Entergy’s old permits.  Though less than clear, Entergy’s position seems to be that only some of those conditions continue to apply.  A later reply on April 9, seems to try and blackmail the state.  Entergy will make these payments but only if Vermont does what Entergy wants – either grant approval or not raise its taxes.  That’s an odd way to do business.

Once again, Entergy is proving to be a lousy partner for Vermont.  Entergy needs to comply or shut down.  If Entergy stays open based on its old approvals, it must meet its obligations to make the payments required by those old approvals.  Continuing its lousy track record of broken promises and thumbing its nose at Vermont is getting as old and tired as the plant itself.

Courtesy of rkramer62 @flickr. Creative Commons.

Has anyone else heard Canada Geese overhead in the last few days? I have, at our apartment in Somerville, MA. It’s a delightful sound, of course, but it’s the middle of January! This is the time for dead-of-winter slumber and the deep freezes that keep New England’s natural communities healthy and continuing as they are. Geese overhead in January is not a good sign.

Gardening companies and plant nurseries know the calendar. Seed catalogs are arriving, right on time. New England growers envision their gardens, select varieties of vegetables and fruits and, with the bounce of hope and excitement that this brings to a gardener, place their orders.

But what will this growing season bring? Very possibly too much rain (if recent experience continues), pests we’re not used to because they won’t be killed by deep frost over a warmer-than-usual winter, or other alterations to the web of life that has evolved in our region over the past thousands of years.

In 1990, the USDA plant hardiness zones in New England ranged from the subarctic zone 3 across the northern tier to temperate zone 6 across much of southern New England. As of 2006, zone 3 had shrunk to barely a sliver, and zone 7 appeared in the south – the same zone as Northern Louisiana. And that was 6 years ago. What is it now? What will it be in 10 years? I highly recommend arborday.org, where you can watch a brief animation of the shift (click “play” and “reset”).

The big idea in Bill McKibben’s recent book, Eaarth, is that our planet has already changed – it’s not the same as the one we used to know. Growers in New England know this because they pay attention to it. In the coming years and decades, we’ll all see it. It will be unavoidable.

This change will help us focus our work at CLF. It must. Successfully adapting to a fundamental shift in climate – in a way that is affordable, promotes healthy communities, and promotes a resilient natural world – is vital for New England to thrive. What exactly that will require is not yet clear – to anyone. The strategic priority-setting process we have now embarked upon at CLF will set us on course to figure that out – continually, over time. It will require us to be as resilient as our natural world needs to be.

I believe we will keep ourselves on that course, in part because the reminders of the importance of doing so are obvious – like increased flooding and shrinking winters. And geese overhead in January.

Many of us here in Rhode Island recycle, but the sad fact is that a lot of what we “think” can be recycled, can’t. Currently, only numbers 1 and 2 get through the recycle cops at the Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation (RIRRC). But come Earth Day, that’s going to change: RIRRC is implementing Single-Stream Recycling. What does that mean? All numbers 1-7 plastics will get recycled — and everything (paper and plastic) can go into one bin, thus eliminating the need to sort.

RIRRC hopes that Single Stream Recycling will encourage residents and businesses to move more stuff from the trash to their recycling bins and will raise our state’s recycling rate to at least 35 percent from the current 24 percent.

Informational letters will be sent to residents throughout the state detailing these impressive changes. Stay tuned!

In their rush to exploit recovery efforts from Tropical Storm Irene, ideologues who perpetually fight against regulation and science and who posture as the defenders of traditional “Yankee” values are forgetting two important rock-ribbed principles.

The first is frugality. There has been a lot of loose talk about how much money was supposedly saved by largely ignoring environmental review and permitting as bulldozers, excavators and dump trucks rushed into rivers across Vermont in dozens of places. Understandably, given the dire situation facing the state at the time, these claims are based on initial, back-of-the-envelope cost estimates made with little or no analysis. However, using those alleged savings to argue for a change in policy is irresponsible as a matter of policy, and discourteous to basic math.

The accounting trick the deregulation folks are trying to pull off ignores the near-term and future public and private costs that Vermonters will inevitably incur and in some cases are already incurring to fix the problems caused by hasty “restoration” that did more harm than good. The overall restoration effort was extraordinary, and the state’s road system has been rebuilt quickly. But as any old hill farmer can tell you, a quick repair is rarely the last fix you need, and haste, even when necessary, makes waste.

Camp Brook in Bethel is a prime example where "restoration" work done hastily in the throw-the-law-and-science-out-the-window free-for-all that followed Tropical Storm Irene is now being redone, at additional cost to taxpayers, to minimize new flooding risks caused by the hasty Post-Irene stream alteration

The second Yankee principle ignored by those who don’t want to let modern understandings of river physics, science-based laws and common sense stand in the way of their crusade against regulation is that we don’t solve our problems by pushing them on to our neighbors.

One of the purposes of the science-based river alteration regulations that have evolved in Vermont during the last few decades is to minimize and prevent flooding altogether rather than simply transfer problems onto neighboring properties. Mining gravel from the stream next to your house might prevent – for a time – your fields from flooding. But it increases the likelihood of your neighbor’s house getting washed away. Striking the balance calls for smart regulation such as Vermont has developed. To do river work right, is to do right by your neighbors.

And, although some would not have it so, those principles of true frugality, quality workmanship, and true community remain in Vermont, and must be restored along with our roads, homes, and towns.

Take for example the case of Camp Brook in hard-hit Bethel.  As reported in Sunday’s Times Argus and Rutland Herald (sorry I can’t link to the story it is behind a paywall), the bulldozers are back in the river.  But this time scientists from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Vermont Agency of Natural Resources, and volunteers from nonprofit White River Partnership are guiding their work closely.  You see, the bulldozers are there trying to fix the mess (likely made with the best of intentions) that the early recovery efforts made of the Brook; a mess that, according to the news report, actually increased the risk of flash flooding and threatens upstream and downstream bridges along Rt. 12 with erosion around their abutments and more intense flows from a river artificially straightened after Irene.  Here is an excerpt that sums up the status of the Brook as a result of the rush job:

“[N]o one in the excavators really knew what the brook had looked like before.  The valley was flattened.  Berms stood mid-slope.  Where the lawn had once been, the river now braided over dirt and rocks, with no banks to direct its flow.  There were no boulders or even large rocks to add burbles to its sound or prevent flash flooding.”

After weeks of careful remediation, the new science-guided effort is restoring Camp Brook to a healthy functioning stream with natural structures that will help prevent future flooding and restore habitat for fish.  Even though it’s buried in the back pages of the paper, it’s good news for people who care about protecting property and maintaining healthy streams.  It’s bad news for the deregulation crowd because it directly contradicts the claim that we can save money by gutting environmental regulations that require recovery work to be done carefully in a manner that is consistent with science-based state and federal laws. In the long run it is cheaper for us and for those downstream to do a job right the first time lest we keep having to relearn the lesson that haste makes waste.

On Thursday October 27, Tricia Jedele, CLF’s VP and Director of the Rhode Island office will be at the Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation in Johnston speaking with a number of esteemed guests on the future of solid waste management the state. Our limited landfill capacity means that planning and strategic decisions have to be addressed now to sustain us for the future.

Hosted by the Environmental Business Council of New England’s Rhode Island Chapter, key decision-makers will discuss current and future issues regarding solid waste management and will also discuss options and solutions for reducing and handling solid waste in 2012 and beyond, including recycling, product stewardship, regulatory or legislative amendments and other issues related to the long term management of the solid waste stream in Rhode Island. For more information, visit the EBCNE website.

I recently moved to a part of Rhode Island that is very close to this power station. When I first saw these two huge towers, I got nervous. “Am I living near a nuclear reactor?” Turns out it was my director who was in charge of getting these cooling towers built in the first place. They help to dramatically reduce the amount of cooling water the station uses from Mt. Hope Bay, thereby minimizing the thermal impact on the bay. A closed-loop system reduces the required amount of cooling water by more than 90 percent.

I grew up on the Atlantic Ocean and living near the water has always been important to me. To work with an organization that wants to continue to keep our waters clean, and to know that I can feel safe that our natural habitats have support from CLF means the world to me. Now when I drive to the beach and friends ask me what those big towers are, I proudly tell them, “My boss did that!”

Smart electricity use means less pollution and more money in our pockets. Tools to make this happen are being deployed in Vermont, which has committed to putting a nearly universal smart grid into operation by 2013. A smarter grid can smoothly integrate energy efficiency and renewable energy resources so our homes, businesses, cars, rooftop solar and smart appliances all work in concert to meet our power needs and reduce pollution. This commitment stems in part from a 2008 settlement between Conservation Law Foundation and Vermont’s largest utility, obligating the utility to implement advanced metering technology, “as fast as it reasonably can.”

Roughly 32,000 Vermonters already have some version of smart meters installed in their homes through utility programs. Expanding on the programs will happen rapidly and soon through the utilities’ partnership with the Department of Energy. The project costs $138 million total, of which half, or $70 million, comes through the DOE from the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act stimulus, and half from Vermont utility companies.

Smart meters record the energy use of a home or business and communicate that information to the utility for monitoring, This two-way system of communication enables customers to make better choices about how to use power. Vermont utilities and customers can rely on time-based-rates, meaning the price of energy depends on the time of day and demand for power. This allows customers to lower the demand, lower bills, and ultimately lower the price of electricity for everyone by using more power at low-demand times of the day.

For example, with information about energy use easily available through the smart meter and accessible on-line, utility customers can run a clothes dryer or dishwasher during off-peak hours, when the price of energy is low, saving money and lowering congestion on the electric grid. Smart meters also improve utility service by reducing meter reading costs and allowing utilities to more quickly pin point and respond to outages.

At peak times of the day, when the most electricity is being used, it is often powered from the dirtiest sources. Smart meters have the potential to help us cut emissions by reducing our reliance on these dirtier sources.

As Vermont’s grid becomes smarter, so must utility programs in order to make the most of this technology. Going forward, CLF is pushing to ensure Vermont’s smart grid investments will have the flexibility needed to assimilate new technologies that enable smart appliances, integrate hybrid electric vehicles, and facilitate smaller renewable energy projects. Vermont is already a leader on delivering electric energy efficiency. Leading on smart grid is another tool to capture even greater financial and environmental benefits for the state and the region.

Yesterday, National Public Radio reported on a severe toxic algae bloom that is plaguing a popular lake in Oklahoma.

The algae in Oklahoma was spurred by familiar factors – lower water levels in the lake due to higher  water consumption by people, hotter conditions and low rainfall attributable to climate change, and nutrient pollution swept into the lake by stormwater runoff from the surrounding land area.

What was new was to hear public officials acknowledge that the lack of clean water is hurting the local economy and impacting people’s health.

As NPR Reported:

“ Across the state, the lack of water has even cut into tourism. Low water levels in northeast Oklahoma’s Grand Lake resulted in a spike of toxic levels of blue-green algae.

Gov. Mary Fallin says this hit just as visitors were arriving for July 4 celebrations.

It took a toll on businesses and tourism at the lake itself,” Fallin says. ‘Some of the businesses I talked to at Grand Lake told me they saw a 50 percent drop in the number of people who were coming into their businesses.’”

As the CLF Scoop reported earlier this summer, U.S. Senator Jim Inhofe got sick after swimming amid the toxic blue-green algae in Grand Lake, and pinned his own illness on the algae.  Inhofe is known as one of the staunchest anti-environmentalists in Congress, and has opposed regulation to address climate change.  The Senator himself reportedly admitted the irony, suggesting that “the environment was fighting back.”

CLF hasn’t been sitting on the sidelines like some.  We’re fighting back against the sources of toxic algae blooms in New England – polluted stormwater runoff, inadequate management of sewage, and carbon dioxide emissions that accelerate climate change.  Reversing the devastating toxic algae blooms that regularly shut down bays along Cape Cod, Lake Champlain, New Hampshire’s Great Bay, Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island, and elsewhere throughout the region is a top priority for CLF.

Unfortunately, it has taken a crisis to convince some elected officials what CLF has known for years.  Clean water generates economic growth, health, and tourism, while creating outdoor spaces that nurture our spirit.