How’s the weather? That question is much easier to answer than it used to be. Back in the old days farmers didn’t have the Weather Channel or iPhone forecasts and could only rely on their own knowledge. Early forecasts of the weather improved because of balloons that were sent up into the atmosphere to gather information – today similar devices are sent up every 12 hours around the world. Combined with satellite and other data, accurate weather forecasts are now at our fingertips. A hundred years ago, it took months to produce inaccurate forecasts. For farmers, the ability to make plans on accurate weather predictions came down to dollars and sense – a torrential rain or early frost could destroy crops and carry a heavy economic cost. A big storm read more…

Hats off to Vermont regulators for requesting the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to put an end to the string of mishaps at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant. Vermont Yankee is an aging nuclear plant on the banks of the Connecticut River. It is increasingly showing its age and the time for stepped up oversight is long overdue. The request cites incidents that “continue to pile up”, including:  “a misaligned valve in the pool where the plant stores highly radioactive spent fuel waste allowed 2,700 gallons of water to drain out of the pool. Another involved epoxy applied to a condenser to keep it from leaking; that interfered with the condenser’s operation and forced the plant to reduce its power output.” It is time for the NRC to step in and read more…

New England is as famous for its coastline as for its fish – but what lies beneath New England’s waves goes largely unseen and unremembered. One of these unknown treasures is Cashes Ledge, a 25-mile long underwater mountain range which lies 80 miles off the coasts of Massachusetts, Maine, and New Hampshire and shelters one of the most distinctive marine ecosystems in the Atlantic. But Cashes Ledge is as sensitive to human interference as it is important to ecological diversity. With limited protection against increasingly destructive fishing techniques, Cashes Ledge remains vulnerable. Atlantic Riches Cashes Ledge hosts a remarkable diversity of marine life, from the Atlantic wolffish and rare blue sponge to the unusual red cod. The reason for such diversity lies in the mountain range itself, whose pinnacles interrupt read more…

This week on TalkingFish.org: In this week's Fish Talk in the News, lobstermen reach a deal with processors; a scalloper sues the federal government over fines; mycobacteriosis hits Massachusetts striped bass; nutrient pollution causes algal blooms in Buzzards Bay; New Hampshire makes changes to oyster farm licensing; the Bigelow Laboratory receives grants to study ocean acidification; and fishermen express concern over monkfish regulations. read more..

Warren (where I live) has become the first municipality in the state of Rhode Island to lease town-owned land to a farmer. The Warren Town Council unanimously agreed to lease two acres of land at the Community Farm and Gardens to Bleu Grijalva, founder and executive director of New Urban Farmers. The New Urban Farmers is a non-profit organization that works to preserve and restore the environment by creating sustainable agricultural systems by increasing healthy food access while nurturing minds in the cities of Pawtucket, Central Falls, and surrounding areas by eliminating barriers to healthy food and empowering low-income individuals, families, and at-risk-youth with education and collaboration. It believes that a community that grows together grows together. Urban agriculture can play an important role in creating a more livable, carbon read more…

The concept of a private East-West highway that would cut across Maine is a proposal that CLF has had significant reservations about, for various reasons, since its inception. Recent events and discussion have only heightened those reservations. The East-West Highway has been an on-again, off-again proposal since at least 1937. The concept last came under serious scrutiny in 1998, resulting in a report that the costs of building an East West highway outweighed the benefits, and that report’s focus was largely on the economic costs and benefits and not the environmental or community costs. The most recent proposal has generated a storm of criticism. A recent panel discussion of transportation experts that included Peter Mills, former State Senator and the current head of the Maine Turnpike Authority and former rail read more…

The other night, I broiled a gorgeous piece of striped bass for dinner. Though I savored each bite of this healthy, delicious, lean protein, I couldn’t help think of the grim images of other sizeable stripers that washed up dead in the latest fish kill to occur on the shores of Cape Cod in late July. According to the Cape Cod Times, on July 25, Falmouth residents began calling local officials complaining about foul odors and dead fish washing up on the shores of Little Pond Estuary–one of the many areas along Cape Cod where fresh water from the land mixes with salt water from the ocean. Upon investigation, officials confirmed the presence of what one resident referred to as a “heap of large dead fish…on the shore.”  Among the read more…

“I love diving with makos, but they have a very different behavior than other sharks. They come in appearing to be more agitated. They’re much more hyper and jacked up.” - Brian Skerry Mako sharks are built to move. They are very acrobatic – sometimes leaping high into the air –and are also extremely fast. Some scientists think they are the fastest fish, possibly going over 50 mph at times. (Fun fact – makos are one of the only “warm-blooded” fish, which helps explain why they can move so fast, even in colder water.) Makos need wide open spaces and healthy places to eat and reproduce. The health of our oceans depends on healthy top predator populations, and healthy top predators depend on healthy oceans. Our nation has taken a major step forward in read more…

Most customers of Public Service Company of New Hampshire get one of the worst electricity deals in New England. Their ratepayer dollars subsidize the operation of PSNH’s outdated, inefficient coal-fired power plants; they live with the public health impacts of air pollution from PSNH plants; they have seen (and will see) their rates rise thanks to PSNH’s abysmal planning; and they won’t see much if any benefit from the billion-dollar transmission project – Northern Pass - that PSNH is spending so much time promoting. Meanwhile, electricity for other New Englanders is getting cleaner and cheaper. The good news for PSNH customers: they now have choices. One of the more promising reforms associated with the restructuring of the region’s electric market in the late 1990s – “retail choice” – has been painfully read more…

A recent decision from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) offers hope that the nuclear industry’s free ride is coming to an end. The problem of what to do with the ever-growing amount of nuclear waste that is stockpiled at nuclear sites around the country has been vexing industry and regulators for years. It is a shameful reminder of poor management. Our nuclear reactors continue to operate and generate more waste when we have no real solution for its long-term storage. Absent a permanent answer, the waste sits where it ends up when it is no longer useful. In the case of Vermont, it sits on the banks of the Connecticut River or in a spent fuel pool of the same style and vintage as was used at the Fukushima reactor. On August 7, the read more…