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Stormy forecast for Earth's Day
Recycle cans, plant a tree in front of the orphanage, use a hemp bag for your local farmers co-op organic produce. Most of all pray to the Earth goddess to mobilize her minions of wood nymphs and engage corporate greed and hyper-consumerism on the front lines of the Appalachian Mountains. It is there that the largest block of intact forest in the eastern united states is under an assault reminiscent of the 19th century logging pillage. 100 years of forest recovery is being radically converted to an industrial, fossil fuel-producing, post-apocalyptic landscape of gas wells, pipelines, and access roads. Only thing missing is Mel Gibson driving a fuel tanker while pursued by Mohawk-wearing outlaw bikers.
Two years into the invasion, the ancillary damage is already starting to show. The sword of Damocles has fallen yet most people are blinded by the jeweled handle. Like the proverbial story of Jed Clampet shootin’ at some food and “up from the ground comes a bubbling crude”, wave hundreds of thousands of dollars and a new pick-up at large landowners and an army of ENTS could not stop the resulting devastation.
Read and weep. Not for Cabot Oil who are just the tip of the iceberg, weep for the sinking ship and the loss of the last, largest unbroken section of eastern forest. Makes the threat of sloburban sprawl pale in comparison. Some positive news? Well, it does takes that pseudo-intellectual, nostalgic sympathy for the extirpated eastern native American tribes and turns it into a tangible, gut-wrenching understanding. If you know the land, you can feel what they felt when the European locust hoard cut, burned, and plowed. Nothing has changed and nothing will change. Not until there is a radical paradigm shift in the fundamental operational gestalt.
I think I’ll go take over the recycling later today, that should cheer me up.
Happy Earth Day.
http://marcellusdrilling.com/2010/04/pa-dep-takes-aggressive-action-against-cabot-oil-gas-over-dimock-township-methane-contamination/
Kevin Heatley
Biohabitats, Inc.
Your Thoughts on Urban Ecology
Share your thoughts on our Urban Ecology issue of Leaf Litter. Leave your thoughts by clicking the "Comment" link below.
Ted Turner borrowing bison
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/02/02/montana.turner.bison/index.htmlI'm not sure how I feel about this one. On one hand, I like Ted Turner and he's done a great deal for the restoration of western native lands and animals, especially buffalo, and the bison were facing slaughter; but on the other, he's getting 88 bison that descend from our last free roaming genetically pure herds and putting them on a ranch. Granted it's a huge ranch, but something might not be right about that. The critics say those buffalo will be commercialized and that they should remain wild and not become livestock. I know transferring the bison to certain Native American tribes was attempted, but unfortunately that fell through. I guess the real problem is how this country and the state of Montana view and categorize wild bison. As long as we continue to manage bison, whether they are Yellowstone bison--part of our last free roaming and unfenced population, or Ted Turner's herds scattered across the west, like livestock, we'll always have this problem. Brian McAveneyLandscape Architect Biohabitats, Inc.
'Managed' wolf reintroduction in parks...hmmm
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/
02/02/wolves.ecosystem.control.climate/
index.html?eref=rss_latestReintroduce packs of wolves that can grow and sustain themselves as a species into the Southern Rocky Mountains, Adirondacks and Cascades and allow them to influence and improve biodiversity naturally, let the system work itself out. But releasing non-sustaining populations solely for the purpose of controlling ungulates is idiotic. How is their proposal beneficial to our overall biodiversity? Brian McAveney
Landscape Architect
Biohabitats, Inc.
Citizens' Statement of Support for Recovering the Jaguar as a Native Species of the U.S.
Codes play catch-up with sustainable design
Zoning and development codes are an important but under-recognized factor in environmental planning and design. Outdated or restrictive codes may hinder the use of innovative site design and stormwater management approaches, even if these approaches are supported by other public and private stakeholders in the design community. Many local jurisdictions, including Baltimore City, are in the process of updating their codes. In the meantime, existing codes can be an obstacle to innovative designs. Yesterday's Baltimore Sun article about one woman’s quest to have a wood chip driveway is a good example. Baltimore's new zoning code will have a big impact on the city's aspirations to be cleaner and greener over the coming decades. The code revision process is a great opportunity for citizen involvement. One key way to be involved is to attend public meetings and provide feedback on sections of the code that affect environmental and sustainability issues. You can also make your voice heard earlier in the process by contacting city agencies such as the Department of Planning, Office of Sustainability, and the City Solicitor to bring specific concerns to their attention. If you're interested in being included in mailing lists about upcoming zoning rewrite meetings in Baltimore, please contact Laurie Feinberg. For more information, visit the websites for the Department of Planning and TransForm Baltimore. The draft codes are scheduled to be released to the public in late February. Phil Jones, EIT, Water Resources Engineer Amelia Greiner, Communications Specialist Nick Lindow, PhD, LEED AP Biohabitats, Inc.
Rebuilding Haiti
Among the 24/7 coverage of the recent devastation triggered by an earthquake in Haiti, I've begun to hear something promising - talk of the opportunity to design and rebuild the "right" way a city which was flattened. On this topic I wonder what is considered the "right" way. Does it include all the new bells and whistles of an emerging regenerative society, or just the bare minimum of what is considered standard in industrialized nations (therefore better than what Haiti has had)? I realize that somebody has to pay for whatever goes in, but it appears that the U.S. will be the most likely candidate for this. If this is done using our best available understanding of regenerative practices, Port-au-Prince could be a model for future urban redevelopment. What role can companies like Biohabitats play in working to push toward that goal of regenerative design?
Bryon Salladin
Environmental Scientist
Biohabitats, Inc.
Smart Growth Loophole?
In the past there have been strings on listserves addressing the merits of more dense development versus low density development from a smart growth and water quality benefit standpoint. This is not a new topic to these listserves or those of us that dabble in the watershed restoration arena. The comments are typically thoughtful, and mostly pro-density. But what I find curiously absent from the conversation is the stated need to set aside the areas that otherwise would have been developed to accommodate growth (that is now presumably housed in higher density zones). In other words, doesn"t higher density development have to go hand in hand with open space preservation to limit or prevent the creep of the development envelope? This can be a sticky issue, because it gets into property rights, transfer development rights, and a whole host of legal issues. Despite these tough issues, I think it misses the mark to talk about increasing density in the name of protecting the environment, if it is not done in concert with mechanisms to ensure the preservation of substantial amounts of open space. If this isn"t done, then what is to prevent the sprawl and lower density development from occurring outside of the higher density zones? Market forces are not the answer in my estimation. I don"t think we can trust them just yet. Two policy-related options that seem intriguing and worth exploring related to this smart growth paradox include: - Designate a percentage of the good and excellent quality streams and their watersheds as off limits to development. Exceptions to this might be considered where stringent water quality and volume reduction criteria are in place coupled with commitments to maintain and monitor stormwater management systems to ensure water quality and habitat quality targets are being met.
- Reassess watershed use designations and reclassify stream systems for more realistic designations. For example, an urban stream designation that has new standards related to more realistic aquatic and human contact scenarios could be established. Effective management of such urban systems would still be required, but the goals/targets for water and habitat quality would become less stringent as agreed upon indicators of watershed health (e.g., effective impervious cover, urbanization, etc.) reached certain benchmarks.
Ted Brown, PE, LEED AP
Water Resource Engineer Biohabitats, Inc.
Largest U.S. farm group rallies against climate bill
Largest U.S. farm group rallies against climate bill: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6091WT20100110The headline describes recent maneuvers by the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF- 6 million-members, the largest U.S. farm group) to block important climate legislation in congress. Their disagreements come from cap-and-trade systems that would promote reforestation offsets for large factories and power plants. By making trees more profitable than crops, the system could eliminate up to 130,000 farms and ranches. The group is also opposed to animal rights activism that threatens to "destroy our ability to produce the meat that Americans want to eat." This type of reasoning, along with the power of this group to effect politics, creates a major impediment to politicians ever committing to serious climate change legislation. The importance of agriculture to our society cannot be understated. However, the leaders of the farm industry are stuck in a antiquated system requiring severe government subsidies to make it work. And the impact of highly under-regulated fertilizers, pesticides, and ag waste is a huge concern for the Chesapeake Bay. Maybe what the 'green' revolution needs is a more organized political approach, similar to the AFBF - a 'dark green' rather than 'light green' method of creating change. Nick Lindow, PhD, LEED APWater Resources Engineer Biohabitats, Inc.
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