tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-54974929663511663402024-02-19T03:12:32.873-08:00Edgewalker's beach blogsusan gateleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02670909101321051465noreply@blogger.comBlogger28125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5497492966351166340.post-67541431434566039252016-01-08T14:24:00.001-08:002016-01-08T14:27:15.244-08:00been a spell since I was here. And it's a very different winter so far from last.<br />
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I have been a busy beaver on the writing front though. Last year a couple months after the last post we launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise money for an educational video about Lake Ontario based on my latest book<br />
Saving The Beautiful Lake.<br />
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The campaign was a success and we spent a fair amount of the spring summer and fall doing video for the project. The script is now about finished. If anyone reading this wants to learn more Google "Kickstarter Lake Ontario".<br />
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The book is currently listed for sale at my on line store or can be ordered by e mailing me. The store is at <a href="http://www.chimneybluff.com/">www.chimneybluff.com</a><br />
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here's a bit from my press release<br />
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Gateley was moved to
write the 276 page book after she read a news article in 2013 that
described Ontario as the most polluted and impaired of all the Great
Lakes. She set sail that summer with two others aboard an elderly
yacht to circumnavigate the lake in search of how it became so
stressed.</div>
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“I've sailed the
lake for over forty years. It's incredible. We have eagles and
ospreys and a world class fishery. This is an amazing place. But we
also have two radioactive waste dumps, more than a dozen operating
nuclear reactors, and the most polluted harbor in Canada on Lake
Ontario that need to be contained and cleaned up.”</div>
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<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Saving The Beautiful Lake includes information on the threats of invasive species, legacy
pollution, the impacts of energy extraction and use, and health
issues associated with plastics and chemicals that disrupt hormone
function in animals and people. She says, “We have made progress
and we can still fix the worst problems. Nature is resilient, but
there are limits. I think we must act soon and I believe a new
relationship with our water is the only way it will happen.”</div>
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<br /></div>
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The book also
describes that new relationship and the work of grassroots groups
throughout the Great Lakes basin who are now working to implement it
by reviving the ancient enduring wisdom of the commons, a management
plan for sustainable water resource management.
</div>
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“Our ancestors
knew that water is a priceless gift that we must be grateful for. It
should not ever be a mere commodity to make money off of. It is the
responsibility of all of us to pass that gift on unimpaired to future
generations.”</div>
susan gateleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02670909101321051465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5497492966351166340.post-65747050826746113822015-02-17T08:54:00.001-08:002015-02-17T08:54:20.479-08:00
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Notes on winter 2015</div>
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Winter Lake Watching. Haven't been
able to do this for a few years. This year my proximity to the lake
combined with a lack of westward migration has made it easy to keep
tabs on the winter wilderness a half mile from my house. The ice
keeps growing.</div>
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According to the internet;</div>
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Between 1973 and 2013 the average ice
cover on Lake Ontario ran a little under 20%. But last year it was
around 60%. Welcome to the new age of the meandering jet stream and
associated “polar vortex” weather factors that many believe are
tied to reduced ice cover in the arctic and over all global warming.</div>
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Great Lakes ice cover nearly doubled
last week between Feb 7 and Feb 15.</div>
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It's catching up fast to last year's
totals. According to NOAA the usual maximum cover happens between mid
Feb and end of the month. NOAA tells us “ Lake Ontario's extreme
depth (86 m average; 244 m maximum) translates to tremendous heat
storage capacity. It also has a smaller surface area for heat loss.
In addition, cold air outbreaks from the northwest and west are
moderated by the waters of Lakes Superior, Michigan, and Huron. These
factors combine to keep ice cover on Lake Ontario at a relatively low
level most years.”
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Lake Ontario satellite photo from Feb
16 shows a big patch floating around in the middle of the lake and
lots of solid ice up around Main Duck-Kingston- Prince Edward Bay.
Looks like it's at least a third if not more covered now. At this
time last year it was 40 % covered. We're close to that now. We
topped out at 61.5% last year. Stay tuned.</div>
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A Michigan weatherman writes of the
spell of light winds contributing to rapid ice build up on his lake.</div>
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He might have that right. Feb 16 and
Feb 17 were both nearly calm here in North Wolcott. And our
thermometer showed a lonely digit of 1 F this am. One is a lonely
number here on the south shore. We even dipped negative barely last
night. First time we'd seen this. So it might be another tough year
for the ducks.
</div>
susan gateleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02670909101321051465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5497492966351166340.post-16886022678981602512014-11-24T08:16:00.000-08:002014-11-24T08:16:58.380-08:00Infrastructure the untold story
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<span style="font-size: large;"> photo of my good friend Roland Micklem on his Mt Top Removal campaign last year- he is now working with Save Seneca Lake (see below)</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Media coverage abounds on tar sands crude extraction and hydrofracking of
shale gas and oil over the last few years. There has been far less
coverage on another aspect of the unconventional oil and
gas plays- that of issues associated
with the 'infrastructure' needed to store and transport all that
shale gas and oil and tar sands dilbit. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Spectacular pipeline spills
and lethal railroad accidents have made headlines, and Bill McKibben
rallies the troops in Washington DC to protest the Keystone Pipeline.
But around the Great Lakes region the
quiet and rapid building of storage and transport facilities for
gas and oil goes on with little scientific or engineering study,
minimal regulatory oversight, and little media attention.
</span></div>
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</span><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">On the U.S and Canadian shores of Lake
Ontario, the drinking water supply for nine million Americans and
Canadians, two controversial infrastructure projects have local folks
riled up. The U.S. project is a proposed expansion of shale gas
storage in a salt cavern on the shores of Seneca Lake, largest and
deepest of the eleven Finger Lakes that lie within Lake Ontario's
watershed. The plan by a Texas based company called Crestwood is to
pump pressurized natural gas produced in Pennsylvania into an old
salt mine cavern located in the heart of the New York wine producing
region.
</span></div>
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</span><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Underground storage of natural gas in
salt domes has a poor track record. A similar storage facility in
2012 located in Bayou Corne Louisiana caved in creating a still
expanding sink hole, while in Kansas in 2001 gas migrated seven miles
underground before emerging from abandoned brine wells and
exploding.The salt caverns by Seneca Lake of interest to Crestwood
include one that experienced a massive cave in back in the 1960s when
it was being used to store LPG.</span></div>
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</span><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Dr. Sandra Steingraber, nationally
known activist, biologist, and college professor wrote in an op ed
published on the USA Today website on Oct 21, 2014, “Crestwood has
argued that key data about the structural integrity of these old salt
caverns is proprietary information. Both FERC and Gov. Andrew Cuomo's
Department of Environmental Conservation have complied with this
request for secrecy.”
</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
</div>
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</span><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Though little is known about the
geological integrity and suitability of the proposed storage area, we
do know that salt is already entering Seneca Lake. The <span style="font-weight: normal;">lake
has chloride levels two to ten times higher than the other nearby
finger lakes. We also know there is a connection to underground salt
deposits. If a cavern is physically disturbed and or collapses,
storage opponents fear their lake and its important recreational
fisheries could be permanently damaged. And we know that a certain
portion of whatever ends up in Seneca Lake will eventually make its
way to Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence.Perhaps the lake trout
fishermen could switch to bluefish or flounders. </span></span>
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</span><div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">The other proposed
energy transport infrastructure expansion that is drawing protestors
is on the north shore of Lake Ontario and falls within the
jurisdiction of Canada's National Energy Board which oversees gas and
oil pipelines. A company called Enbridge (which has the dubious
distinction of being responsible for a million gallon spill of toxic
all but impossible to clean up tar sands crude into a tributary of
Lake Michigan after its Line 6B split in 2010,) wants to start
pumping tar sands crude through a similar 40 year old pipeline that
runs along Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River. That line built
originally to move less viscous less corrosive imported crude oil
westward.
</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Though Line 9, aka
the Black Snake to opponents of its “re-purposing”, has not been
newsworthy in the U.S. press, a Chippewa band has managed to get
standing in the Canadian Federal Court of Appeal over treaty
violation issues and has challenged the Energy Board approval.
Enbridge had failed to notify the tribe of the proposed re-purposing
of the old line. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Possibly partly as a response to the tribe's court action the NEB recently told Enbridge that it
needed to install shut off valves at major river crossings and in
other environmentally sensitive areas. The company is appealing,
saying Line 9 is perfectly safe and already has plenty of shut off
valves due to something it calls IVP (Intelligent Valve Placement).
It wants to start pumping tar sands crude through the pipe this year
if it can get around the legal road blocks erected by the Thames
River Chippewas.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The appeal and
legal challenge has, for the moment, has delayed the re-purposing of
Line 9. It may be all that stands between us here on Lake Ontario and
another potential disaster in the form of an impossible to clean up
spill.</span></div>
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susan gateleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02670909101321051465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5497492966351166340.post-10806889217617958052014-10-30T13:07:00.000-07:002014-10-30T13:07:04.129-07:00
A glimmer of good news for our Great Lake.<br />
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Last Spring I wrote about the approval of Canada's National Energy
Board to allow the re-purposing of an old pipeline for transporting
tar sands crude. Line 9B also known as the Black Snake runs along the
north shore of Lake Ontario and crosses dozens of creeks rivers and
wetland areas like the one pictured above. Now, about three weeks ago, we see the Lake Ontario
Waterkeeper site has posted the following.<br />
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<br />
“Yesterday, the <a href="http://www.waterkeeper.ca/blog/2014/10/8/enbridge-pipeline-project-delayed-by-water-protection-concerns" target="_blank">National
Energy Board put Enbridge’s Line 9B pipeline project</a> on hold
until the company proves it is taking reasonable precautions to
protect our drinking water.<br />
Line 9B was originally designed to move natural gas, not bitumen
along Lake Ontario. Because the danger of piping bitumen far
surpasses the risk of piping natural gas, the increased risk to our
environment demands greater precaution.<br />
The NEB’s focus on water protection is warranted, if only
because 40 million people rely on the Great Lakes for drinking water.<br />
Demanding Enbridge build emergency shut down capacity on its Line
9B pipeline when crossing rivers is totally justified and reasonable.<br />
Further, the NEB’s decision sends an important signal beyond
Line 9B. It will apply to other projects, such as with the 3A-West
African Gas Pipeline and the Energy East Pipeline.<br />
Many Canadians have rightly become alarmed at the federal
government’s efforts to lower the bar for approvals of major energy
projects through its narrowing of public approvals and weakening the
<em>Navigable Waters Protection Act</em> and <em>Fisheries Act.</em><br />
The NEB’s decision to stand firm on protecting watersheds by
demanding safety shutdowns near rivers and key water crossings has
raised the bar back again – at least a little, at least for now.”<br />
<br /><br />
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The Waterkeeper update follows a
previous decision back in June to allow the Chippewa tribe legal
standing in Canada's Federal Court of Appeals re Line 9B. Under
Canadian Constitution the First Nation Inuit and Metis peoples must
be consulted by treaty on land use issues that can impact their
territories. Line 9 B crosses the Thames River that supplies this
Chippewa band with drinking water.
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A website titled chiefs-of-ontario.org
states “Deshkaan Ziibing (that translates as the Chippewas of the
Thames) demonstrated during the Line 9 public hearings held last
October that its members <a href="http://desmog.ca/2014/04/11/fate-rests-with-appeal-first-nation-neb-court-line-9-approval">exercise
their rights</a> by means of traditional practices (hunting, fishing,
harvesting) in the area occupied by Line 9, the Thames River valley
in case of Deshkaan Ziibing. A Line 9 rupture and the difficulties of
adequately cleaning up a bitumen spill in particular would infringe
upon Deshkaan Ziibing members' ability to exercise these rights.”
</div>
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Now admittedly the track record of the
U.S. and Canada in honoring treaties with the aboriginal peoples of North America is less than stellar. But still,
one wonders if the Chippewa appeal has possibly influenced the
National Energy Board to take another look at things. Re-purposed old
pipelines have a pretty bad track record with tar sands crude. Several such
lines including the 6B line owned by Enbridge (owner of 9B) that
crossed a tributary of Lake Michigan and the Pegasus line in Arkansas
have failed resulting in catastrophic spills.The 2010 Michigan spill
of over a million gallons of tar sand crude into a tributary of the
Kalamazoo River is the most costly inland spill ever to date.
</div>
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<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
There is evidence that the tar sands
crude is particularly hard on old pipes because of its physical
characteristics though the industry vigorously denies this. Tar sand
crude's high viscosity, the theory goes, can stress old pipes through large
fluctuations of pressure as it moves through the line. Reversing
flows in pipes as is proposed for Line 9B may aggravate existing
metal fatigue problems even further, as the pressure fluctuations now
hit in different areas of the pipe than were previously stressed. An analysis of the Pegasus Line
in Arkansas showed that manufacturing and welding methods of the time
left tiny “hook cracks” that may have been enlarged by the
movement and chemistry of the tar sands crude.</div>
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Stream crossings and other critical
areas should have thicker walled or double walled pipelines with
safety shut offs on each side. They should also have enhanced leak
detection alarms. If the tribes can achieve that much with their
court case it is at least a minimal precaution!</div>
susan gateleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02670909101321051465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5497492966351166340.post-87269429567287420062014-08-03T10:27:00.000-07:002014-08-03T10:27:12.097-07:00
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<span style="font-size: small;"> Blue Green Wake Up Call for Toledo- and other water drinkers!</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"> photo of blue green algae (cyanobacteria) bloom on left side</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">In Ohio on Saturday
August 2 a state of emergency was declared as polluted water hit the
water faucets along the west end of Lake Erie. More than 500,000 people in Toledo and its surrounding
areas depend on Lake Erie drinking water. They were advised not to
drink boil or wash their food in their tap water after a summer blue
green bloom sent concentrations of a potent liver toxin called
microcystin above EPA limits. </span></div>
<div style="font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;"> </span>
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;">A U. S. Senator from
Ohio called it a “wake up call”. This water advisory was not
from a chemical plant tank leak, a broken tar sands pipeline, or a
gas well, or a coal fly ash dump. It was a more insidious source of
pollution but one we know how to fix and can do so. If we have the
will to fix it. </span>
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<div style="font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Blue green algae ( aka
cyanobacteria) thrive on phosphate rich fertilizer from sewage and
manure large amounts of which can run off during heavy rains from
farm fields. Lots of rain plus lots of fall and winter spreading of
sprayed on liquid manure from big factory farms that isn't worked
into the soil for rapid uptake by growing plants create prime
conditions for these events. Lake Erie, a drinking water source for
11 million people has suffered a number of huge blue green blooms in
recent years. Closer to home a couple weeks ago I saw a small blue
green bloom at the south end of Fair Haven Bay and also at about the
same time during a hot calm spell I noticed a possible small bloom
in shallow water on the neighborhood open lake beach a few yards from
the mouth of a little creek.</span></div>
<div style="font-weight: normal;">
<br /><br />
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Toledo residents stripped
the supermarkets of bottled water in short order as the city
scrambled to pipe in supplies from other sources. Businesses that
risked exposing workers or customers to tap water closed.
Restaurants, public institutions like libraries, schools, parks, and
universities all closed. Anyone who thinks it is too expensive to
regulate the application of farm fertilizers should consider the
costs and lost revenues of a water advisory. Last year Toledo spent
an additional million dollars on water treatment. This year one
suspects they'll be spending a bit more. And we aren't even
considering health costs, vet bills for sick pets, impaired
waterfront property values or other possible costs- just the
immediate expenses that this bloom imposed on the city and its
residents. </span>
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal;">
<br /><br />
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;">There is a lesson here
folks. Mother Nature always bats last. And if you don't play by her
rules, you will pay.</span></div>
<div style="font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;">For more information on
current “HAB's” ( hazardous algae blooms) visit </span>
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;">http://www2.nccos.noaa.gov/coast/lakeerie/bulletin/bulletin_current.pdf</span></div>
susan gateleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02670909101321051465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5497492966351166340.post-50906955518103732252014-07-07T05:32:00.001-07:002014-07-07T05:32:42.565-07:00
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Slow Death in Appalachia</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
This deviation from the usual Lake
Ontario content is very much about living on the edge.
Land and water are connected, and we cannot have a healthy lake
without healthy land and an ethos that respects that wholeness.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
My friend Roland may now be dying for
the mountains. He has chosen to fast with another activist, Mike
Roselle, in the West Virginia state capital. It is a form of witness,
he says, to call attention to the brutal tragedy of blowing up
mountains to extract coal.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
He has made no promises to return from
this witness.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Roland is a Virginia native with a deep
and abiding love for nature and for a sustainable society. And he is
also a tireless advocate for social justice. He converted to the
Quaker faith many years ago and is a gentleman in every sense of the
word. He taught school and at summer camps where he introduced
children to the world of nature. Later he worked for an employee
owned business that distributed organic food throughout western and
central New York. He's been involved with various organic farms and
growers near his upstate home as a volunteer “farm hand” where
he and his bicycle were a long familiar sight to other travelers on
our rural roads. He's also been tireless in his outreach and
educational efforts on behalf of what he calls God's Creation.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
The environmental and social costs of
extreme energy extraction methods trouble him deeply. Mountain top
removal for coal uses large amounts of energy to move tens of
thousands of tons of top soil earth and rock to reach underlying coal
deposits. The rubble is pushed into valleys and creeks and wetlands.
More than 2000 miles of streams have been buried so far and hundreds
of square miles of Appalachia lie barren. Water and land are also
contaminated by dust and airborne pollutants such as selenium. And
local communities pay the price in human health impacts, flooding and
contaminated wells. In the end this grossly simplified leveled off
land is “restored” by pitiful plantings of trees and grasses, no
substitute for one of the richest and most diverse deciduous forest
and stream lands in the world. Bleak doesn't even begin to describe
this transformation. If affects all of us.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
It has driven Roland Micklem to make a
last stand. There are other ways to produce electricity. There are
ways to mine coal and to increase efficiency and reduce the use of
it. Destroying vast swaths of life giving land is a starkly immoral
act in Roland's view. Mountains gone forever, land forms that will
never nourish unborn generations of humans and other life is
unacceptable.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
If you agree with him call, or write
to.... Earl Ray Tomblin Office of the Governor, State Capital 1900
Kanawha Blvd E Charleston, West VA 25305 (304) 558-2000 or
1-888-438-2731
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
or submit a comment to
<a href="http://www.governor.wv.gov/Pages/SubmitaCommenttotheGovernor.aspx">http://www.governor.wv.gov/Pages/SubmitaCommenttotheGovernor.aspx</a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Please feel free to cut and paste from
this blog if you wish.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Then please send a letter or make a
call to your representative in Congress and ask them to pass H.R.
1837 the Clean Water Protection Act which will help protect mountain
streams and Great Lakes alike. All of us, like Roland, are running
out of time.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
visit ilovemountains.org for more ideas
to stop this brutal practice.</div>
susan gateleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02670909101321051465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5497492966351166340.post-69863575237989714142014-04-18T16:04:00.001-07:002014-04-18T16:04:11.632-07:00
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Ahoy all neighborhood Lake Watchers!</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Just in Time for Earth Day 2014</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi31hMffFhd4Ez-msi63dYtFlyRzLTYF2fL4SYNNLlLDd981RRAf6WcAxDW4tS4OVUb3QiaZopeYPUwYCClrHmGzq486pwrpUNPEDDYnFDqCTT-yPSm3eKvZnQNiA5zNJZtol4Ga9DRbFi2/s1600/sample+niagara+sm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi31hMffFhd4Ez-msi63dYtFlyRzLTYF2fL4SYNNLlLDd981RRAf6WcAxDW4tS4OVUb3QiaZopeYPUwYCClrHmGzq486pwrpUNPEDDYnFDqCTT-yPSm3eKvZnQNiA5zNJZtol4Ga9DRbFi2/s1600/sample+niagara+sm.jpg" height="211" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
On April 26 at 11 am a beach clean up
will commence at the end of Brown Road in Wolcott NY, sponsored by
Adventures in the Finger Lakes, Silver Waters Sailing, and Lakeshore
Environmental Action. Plastic trash is a pervasive problem throughout
the world as we have seen during the search for the missing Malaysian
airlines' Boeing 777 . While no one ever sighted the aircraft, they
found plenty of debris and trash in one of the most remote parts of
the ocean. Some of it was big enough to see from satellites. Here on
Lake Ontario plastic trash of various sizes and types is also a
problem. In 2012 Dr. Sherri Mason, a chemistry professor at Fredonia
State U, sampled several of the Great Lakes for plastic. She found
that Erie’s surface had the highest density of any waters surveyed,
averaging somewhere around 80,000 particles of microplastic per km<sup>2</sup>.
In 2013 volunteers including Lake Shore Environmental Action members
sampled Lake Ontario for the first time for her studies with
equipment loaned by Dr. Mason (see photo above). And plenty of plastic turned up in our
lake too.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
The problem with plastic in our
drinking water is that the small bits can actually attract insoluble
organic molecules through a process called adsorption. These
molecules are usually toxic, and if the plastic bit ends up in the
gut of a small fish or a waterflea or copepod, they may be taken up
by the animal and then passed up the food chain. We now know that
very small amounts of plastic can have big impacts on humans by
mimicking the action of certain natural hormones in our bodies. The
microplastics in Dr. Mason's samples came in part from the 40 plus
billion pounds of plastic bottles, bags and other trash that we toss
each year. It gets broken up and washed back off the beaches into the
lake where it floats around and sometimes gets eaten by birds or fish
or zooplankton.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Help us prevent this from happening by
doing two things. Recycle and avoid single use plastic material
whenever possible and join us at the end of Brown Road. Bring a black
and a clear trash bag. We will sort our 'treasures' for recycling as
much as possible.</div>
susan gateleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02670909101321051465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5497492966351166340.post-28756490353207017462012-12-28T13:42:00.000-08:002012-12-28T13:42:56.023-08:00Pirate Bill and the "Patriots"
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_mQd_lvO5Y14RbsoZ-Du4U6vpoKyPuzTfl9wNunxmh6ZejIA_TPHUHjpv-doWBFflTBJnJ-5gKIYMyCiVWtX7m47bTFjuseEfmobMWPUzAIy_-L8p9Xa4jEPn5E4g5Tk4YvVf7DLLCeg4/s1600/johnstonbill-portrait.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_mQd_lvO5Y14RbsoZ-Du4U6vpoKyPuzTfl9wNunxmh6ZejIA_TPHUHjpv-doWBFflTBJnJ-5gKIYMyCiVWtX7m47bTFjuseEfmobMWPUzAIy_-L8p9Xa4jEPn5E4g5Tk4YvVf7DLLCeg4/s320/johnstonbill-portrait.gif" width="255" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Another look back into the past of our area </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">An
interesting account of Lake Ontario region history is available from
Shaun McLaughlin who publishes on the Patriot War and the well known
historical personage of Bill Johnston. </span></span></span>
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Shaun
McLaughlin is a journalist and tech writer living in eastern Ontario.
He has published several books on the Patriots War, Pirate Bill
Johnston, and other upper St. Lawrence River and Thousand Islands
history<a href="http://www.raidersandrebelspress.com/"> raiders and rebels press</a> </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> He calls his publishing endeavor Raiders and Rebels
Press.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">He
has self published two historical novels "Counter Currents" and
"Islands of Love and War" and a historical nonfiction work that the
History Press picked up,“The Patriot War along the New York Canada Border”. The so-called Patriot War is an obscure and little
understood episode in the history of U S-Canada relations. Yet it has
interesting parallels to more modern times.</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> In large part the trouble
started when Canadians in both Ontario and Quebec got sick and tired
of their corrupt unresponsive governments during the 1830s.
Immigration and differential treatment of recent immigrants from the
U.S. and economic hard times that resulted in a bank bail out that
ignored indebted farmers contributed to the resentments. People took
to the streets and shots were exchanged in 1837. Once trouble broke
out, folks on the New York side of the border were more than willing
to help out to keep the resentments bubbling. Among them was Bill
Johnston.</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Johnston
was probably one of the best known pre-Prohibition era smugglers on
Lake Ontario. Both before and after the 1812 war he was quite active
in “free trade” of rum and tea. A Wikipedia entry says he made a
little money on the side by passing information on to the U.S.
revenue agents on Canadian smugglers. One of his claims to fame
during the Patriots War was the burning of the steamer </span></span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Robert
Peel</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">One
reason for Johnston's fame was his ability to elude the enemy forces
thanks to his skill and good seamanship. An old account of his time
says The flagship of his fleet consisted of a 16-oared barge ( a long
narrow rowboat similar to a 'gig' only larger) manned by his
companions and mounting three-pound guns. The paper says the boat and
crew were able to make a speed of from 12 to 14 miles an hour, and
the small size of the craft gave it far greater mobility than a
steamboat,as it could take advantage of all the “nooks and crannies
that abound” in the Thousand Islands. </span></span></span>
<br />
<br /><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Learn
more about him and the Patriots War at McLaughlin's blog or at .</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://www.piratebilljohnston.com/">http://www.piratebilljohnston.com/</a></span></span></span><br />
susan gateleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02670909101321051465noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5497492966351166340.post-34315668056733995112012-10-10T14:20:00.000-07:002012-10-10T14:20:28.731-07:00
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino;"><span style="font-size: medium;">How Lake Ontario Got It's Name -a mangled history lesson</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVXpqV6COmal2k9t42hiQZyS-a-fkcVEVhS_vSK-OBcdN8lp7nmeLK3D8CkpkkVE7GsX-x_rCqxlWJD3CL_PcY8xhuVSLtKiNjqabtwG1tgyctKOKWg11YlWoLn3VcuCwrq1QE2pRR_Mi8/s1600/sailboat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVXpqV6COmal2k9t42hiQZyS-a-fkcVEVhS_vSK-OBcdN8lp7nmeLK3D8CkpkkVE7GsX-x_rCqxlWJD3CL_PcY8xhuVSLtKiNjqabtwG1tgyctKOKWg11YlWoLn3VcuCwrq1QE2pRR_Mi8/s320/sailboat.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Richard
Palmer, historian, author, and editor of various regional history works, sends along this newspaper story from 1857 telling how Lake
Ontario got its name. Since nobody knows the true origin of “Ontario”
this is as good a story as any. Note Saratoga Springs was a famous
health spa at this time. The writing style may be 19th century but the satire is timeless.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino;"><span style="font-size: medium;">"From
ancient documents in our possession of undisputable authority - for
the plausible reason that no one knows anything about them - we are
enabled to give the true derivation of the word, which, it will be
seen, owes it origin to a trifling incident that would probably have
never been recorded, had we not rescued it from the obscure pages of
the oblivious past.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino;"><span style="font-size: medium;">"A
few years after the first settlement of the country by the whites, a
venerable old gentleman from the north of Holland, named Myneer
Vonsnappentweezer, who was extensively engaged in the wholesale
ladder business, in the vicinity of New York, fitted out a
prospecting expedition, consisting of half a dozen whites, two
Irishmen and a Mohawk Dutchman, to explore the interior of the
country, in search of a suitable site for a cork-screw manufactory.
After a long journey through the wilderness, during which time the
party suffered the most terrible hardships, subsisting six weeks on a
bag of salt and a bottle of tomato catsup, the expedition finally
reached the ancient village of Mud Lock. </span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino;"><span style="font-size: medium;">"Here
the party fell in with a Kangapoojah Indian on his way to Saratoga
Springs with an invalid niece, who informed them of a very extensive
water privilege directly north - referring to the Great Lakes - and
offered to conduct them to the vicinity for the moderate compensation
of three plugs of nail-rod tobacco and a boot full of old Santa Cruz.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino;"><span style="font-size: medium;">"Having
secured the services of the guide, the party resumed their journey by
a circuitous route through the John Brown Tract, and came out at the
village of "Graball," now known as Mexico, though it still
retains the characteristics which its ancient name would suggest;
that this was the spot is established beyond a doubt, from the fact
that an oyster can and an old fashioned junk bottle labeled, "Pure
Old Cognac, vintage of 1532, were found a few years since in that
vicinity, where it is supposed the party halted for refreshment.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Upon
reaching the summit of a hill, the party were thrown into ecstasies
at the sight of a magnificent sheet of water spread out before them
and reaching as far as the eye could extend. The Indian guide on
beholding the scene, suddenly threw up his arms in wild
gesticulations, and apparently with deep emotions exclaimed "On
Thar I-Oh!" The sentence was here abruptly terminated by the
speaker having stepped upon a piece of scantling with a rusty nail
driven through, which penetrated through his halter and entered the
ball of his left foot just back of the first toe, and the concluding
exclamation of "Oh!" was occasioned by the sudden sensation
of pain; the remainder of his remark would have been to the effect
that several years previous, "on thar," - meaning upon the
lake - he had brought down seventeen "helldivers" and a
"shitepoke" with one barrel. (note to reader helldivers aka
grebes and shitepoke's aka herons are fishy tasting birds NOT
considered birds worth eating.)</span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIwJ3RcbAmhEUMIRQqILmPo7dqh1GNcLKc3iAPKAiABITWs1VuRn0zNxiCVun8K_1b-879rgVlnCirQJ7T8URpPGzezBNgGYKB-fDoCzK-lKL9g8uMVk2AzIRWpf00W3HUpBCFpryyNUz0/s1600/lakeontario.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="189" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIwJ3RcbAmhEUMIRQqILmPo7dqh1GNcLKc3iAPKAiABITWs1VuRn0zNxiCVun8K_1b-879rgVlnCirQJ7T8URpPGzezBNgGYKB-fDoCzK-lKL9g8uMVk2AzIRWpf00W3HUpBCFpryyNUz0/s320/lakeontario.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino;"><span style="font-size: medium;">"Mr.
Vonsnappentweezer, however, misunderstanding the character of the
remark, and observing the extravagant emotions of the Indian, joined
in his supposed enthusiasm, and catching up the broken sentence
exclaimed, "Ah! It is the On-tar-i oh!" "Ontario!"
"Ontario!" reiterated the remainder of the party, and from
that moment the name became established.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino;"><span style="font-size: medium;">"The
Indian shortly recovered from the pain caused by the accident, by the
application of a bottle of Persian Balm, which he happened to have in
his carpet-bag, but the connection which his misfortune held to the
origin of so prominent a name, was never before explained. Mr.
Vonsnappentweezer after his return, published a long account of his
explorations, which was extensively copied into the daily papers,
describing the extensive "water privilege" in the northern
part of the state, by the name so singularly bestowed.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino;"><span style="font-size: medium;">"Thus
it will be seen how the intelligent and enquiring mind can trace out and restore the legendary and doubtful
portions of history, and bring to light incidents that were never
before recorded, and undoubtedly never transpired."</span></span></div>
susan gateleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02670909101321051465noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5497492966351166340.post-16153105430549714512012-05-31T05:43:00.002-07:002012-05-31T05:43:56.212-07:00<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Beautiful Ambivalence- The Lake,
Maritime Heritage and Nature</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="font-size: small;">The duality of the lake is clear
in maritime history. This freshwater sea is a life giver and an
entity that takes life with the casual ease that we squash a mosquito
with. The lake kills, it steals our land and washes our houses away,
yet we insist on building cottages and lavish 4000 square foot houses
on the very lip of the land for a thirty year view. This ambivalence,
this paradox runs through much of life and is much on my mind these
days. These truly are the best of
times and the worst of times. A sunset is beautiful, but you're one
day closer to death with the sun's passing. Yet we linger and enjoy. Maybe that's the secret- finding beauty in
these strange and terrible times. The slug comes to mind. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"> </span>
</div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="font-size: small;">I've been battling them in
the garden lately as I hope to see at least a few beans germinate.
Slugs love just emerged bean plants. Though interesting with their
varied colors and their copious slime it's a stretch to see a lot of
beauty in a slug ( though the slime does dry to a nice silvery color
on the plant leaves.) But have you ever seen a stash of slug eggs?
They're amazing- like tiny translucent crystal pearls. Slime
transformed into something from a fairy tale. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"> </span>
</div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="font-size: small;">My world just became a bit
more beautiful. We got "Sara B" the schooner out of the barn. Like a
big black butterfly emerging from its cocoon after a long two year
transformation, she will hopefully soon spread her white wings upon
the bay and lake and sail off over the horizon. The homestead feels a
bit empty without her looming presence, but she's about to become a
boat again. It's time. It's time to stop skipping stones and wading
around in the shallows. It's time shove off from the shore and sail
again for a few more short days-<span id="goog_2097361376"></span><span id="goog_2097361377"></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>susan gateleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02670909101321051465noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5497492966351166340.post-2723260821679094202012-05-23T06:42:00.003-07:002012-05-23T06:42:46.662-07:00Martitime Tales<br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">Word yesterday in my e mail box is that "Maritime Tales of Lake Ontario" from the History Press should be in print and on sale by July.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">So, what
is your new book about? This is a common question for authors to deal
with, and the History Press marketing department suggests authors come up
with a list of easy to understand catchy 'talking points' as you
attempt to answer. They also suggest coming up with a tag line. I'm
leaning towards waters of wealth and treachery to sum up
the duality of nature in general and the lake in particular. </span>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Emily
Dickinson put it so well and so succinctly- 'sweet is the swamp until
we meet a snake.' Nature is beautiful and alluring but also
dangerous and dark. And so it is with the lake. It has been and still
is a source of wealth, spiritual energy, and great pleasure. But its
indifferent power takes lives every summer. Not long ago two people
died in the waves while swimming at the West Barrier Bar. Every year
anglers, duck hunters , and yes, sailors too, are claimed by its
uncaring waters, leaving families bereaved. Never take the lake for
granted an old timer told me once.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Lately
I see this yin and yang contrasting aspect everywhere. An
environmental writer in a farewell letter just before his death said
that we must learn to live in an age of contrasts and paradoxes.
These are the best of times and the worst of times. Fossil fuel comes to mind. Fossil fuel gives us
unparalleled freedom of mobility and makes it simple and easy to heat
houses and produce electricity. The petrochemical industry has given
us fiberglass boats too! But it's also led to horrendous
environmental and social costs, like climate change and ocean
acidification. </span>
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<span style="font-size: small;">And
so it is with the lake. It gives and it takes away. We don't realize
how much it does do for us. Ask the folks who live near the Aral Sea,
a body of water in central Asia with a surface area nearly that of
Lake Superior that was almost sucked dry by irrigation. Their very
climate changed after it disappeared. Their growing season was
reduced by ten days. Toxic pesticide laced salts from its basin
have been blown by the wind up to six hundred miles away. When some
Soviet central planner decided irrigated cotton was more valuable
than the various products and ecological services provided by the
Aral Sea and so decided it should be sacrificed deliberately for
agriculture, he blundered badly. Over 40,000 people from fishing
villages alone were displaced and one best guess is that the lost
economic activity alone runs 2 billion rubles a year. (This estimate
excludes of the value of ecological services such as climate
moderation and ground water enhancement).</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Like
the song says, you don't know what you got til it's gone- will we
pave paradise and put up a parking lot here too? Or might we pay
attention to the lessons of history? There have been instances of
societies that learned from past mistakes. It has happened and it
could happen again. Though one does seriously wonder... (art work by Peter Rindlisbacher and shows the Hamilton, a 1812 War era schooner whose brief career due to a mistake in engineering is part of Maritime Tales).</span></div>
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</div>susan gateleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02670909101321051465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5497492966351166340.post-46885743535792459412012-03-29T05:57:00.003-07:002012-03-29T06:07:16.087-07:00west coast note<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXDMvRr6Su3oXrEgvSbP17aM_sVoT_UAeuzWdp4dkIAbZEh3EGFCq2mi1vZ7hhyphenhyphenxSAA3-N1t_sHyBRKjQdA9q9YfrUNUvP4_eL2Id7dlIG9z7lWQuo0HjdsSA7BLz-_NGkJ-I29ZP0k_WC/s1600/DSC00500.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 133px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXDMvRr6Su3oXrEgvSbP17aM_sVoT_UAeuzWdp4dkIAbZEh3EGFCq2mi1vZ7hhyphenhyphenxSAA3-N1t_sHyBRKjQdA9q9YfrUNUvP4_eL2Id7dlIG9z7lWQuo0HjdsSA7BLz-_NGkJ-I29ZP0k_WC/s200/DSC00500.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5725303952424375426" border="0" /></a><br /><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span style="font-size: 13pt;font-size:100%;" >The Beach Comber Goes West-written from San Diego a couple weeks ago<br /></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span style="font-size: 13pt;font-size:100%;" >Recently two refugees from winter's gloom visited San Diego's Balboa Park. We're from a rural area where the less worldly natives are called 'woodchucks'. I'm a transplant from the suburbs, so I consider myself a woodchuck in training, but on this day the big city glitz and glitter had overloaded and crashed our sensory input capacity. Mildly dazed, we meandered on to the Prado and I paused to peer into the tranquil depths of the pool in front of the lath house. Why do people throw money into pools? They should just buy a boat, I thought.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span style="font-size: 13pt;font-size:100%;" >While I was counting the dimes, a monster fish swam slowly past. It was at least two feet long and splotched with black white and flaming orange. Look at this huge goldfish I called out to my accomplice. Another tourist also gazing into the pond said that's a coy. </span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span style="font-size: 13pt;font-size:100%;" >I fancy myself as being quite the nature nerd. I took college courses in biology (forty years ago) and I can tell a raven from a robin. But I had never heard of a coy fish. It looked like a carp to me. A colorful shy carp? What was it feeling coy about? It was actually quite pretty and it seemed fairly bold. Several more lunkers drifted by, a pure white one shimmering like a ghost, a dark gray one, and a really fat blotchy black and orange whale that must have been a twenty pounder. They all looked like carp. They appeared to think I might have something to feed them as several hung in the water and gazed up at me open mouthed. </span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span style="font-size: 13pt;font-size:100%;" >When we got back to our North Park base, I fired up the computer and Googled coy fish. It turned out to be 'Koi', and yes they were carp. All dressed up in pretty colors but definitely good old Cyprinus carpio. I also learned people selectively breed them, and some of the patterns and color combinations of these gaudy fish are highly prized by carp connoisseurs. People pay thousands of dollars for a specimen with a particularly perfect pattern. And one Koi was reported to have lived in a royal pond in the Orient for 226 years. </span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span style="font-size: 13pt;font-size:100%;" >Just what makes a “perfect” pattern isn't real clear to me. While I couldn't quite see shelling out the price of a half decent used car for a glorified goldfish to brighten up my frog pond back home, I did enjoy watching them. These one percenters of the carp nation floated like brilliant fishy flowers in the tranquil pool next to the lath house and its botanical displays.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span style="font-size: 13pt;font-size:100%;" >Urban carp are thriving in elegant carefully kept park and garden ponds simply because of their pretty colors. Beauty, they say, is skin deep. But it's also in the eye of the beholder. I enjoyed the koi of Balboa Park. A lot of other tourists also admired them. Despite their gaudy garb they were still carp, though, just like the ones back home that lurk around in the weeds under my boat dock each summer.</span></p><br />PS since this was written I've returned to my neighborhood beach and am hard at work on a new venture tentatively titled "Dangerous Waters". Check the log on line at www.silverwaters.com for more on this project-<br /><br /><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><br /></p>susan gateleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02670909101321051465noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5497492966351166340.post-79381642392212368742012-01-27T16:32:00.000-08:002012-01-27T16:38:18.065-08:00part two Water Awareness Journey<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipzXqssyXPLB0BZFn096w1V6ENlDY2xvnthQ4arUh4ih5kzW-0n1hp7lEMQnNO3P6TUzxrWgvoISn9wm-709dvq0wtPhvmXxMlRyNM9Aiq0VeXoyJ4v2xA61KZGxIGMJfFaWjctiXoEuPw/s1600/DSC00238.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 133px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipzXqssyXPLB0BZFn096w1V6ENlDY2xvnthQ4arUh4ih5kzW-0n1hp7lEMQnNO3P6TUzxrWgvoISn9wm-709dvq0wtPhvmXxMlRyNM9Aiq0VeXoyJ4v2xA61KZGxIGMJfFaWjctiXoEuPw/s200/DSC00238.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5702474981299975714" border="0" /></a><br /><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span style="font-size: 13pt;font-size:100%;" >As we sped north towards Shreveport past Cypress stands draped with soft silvery Spanish Moss and more upland stands of oak, tupelo and gum a distant dark plume of smoke rose into the sky. We began passing huge flat fields of stubble. Rice. They're burning off the fields.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span style="font-size: 13pt;font-size:100%;" >Orange flames flickered at the base of the smoke- a hundred black vultures circled and swirled over the highway and a hundred more roosted in the trees beside the huge field. We flashed by the two half mile long lines of flame burning perpendicular to the highway. Each line slowly drew away from the other as it advanced across the field. We felt the heat in our car as we flashed past this apocalyptic hell field with its smoke and blackened charred earth. A bad day for the mice. A good day for the vultures.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span style="font-size: 13pt;font-size:100%;" >I learned from a farm newspaper picked up at a gas station that salt water intrusion now threatens the irrigated rice crop. In a land of fifty plus inches of rain a year, a forty inch rain fall is severe drought and ground water depletion is a real problem. The ag interests are seeking more diversions from the Mississippi. I wonder. How long will it be before we see increased withdrawals from Lake Michigan through the Chicago Canal to water the rice fields?</span></p><br /><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span style="font-size: 13pt;font-size:100%;" >We rolled north to Shreveport and near that city the first signs of the Haynesville shale gas boom appeared. Well pads, rigs, the distinctive plastic lined open pit lagoons for flowback water began appearing along the roadside. We overhauled a tanker spilling a dribble of water that sprayed onto the road. As we passed the red cab we saw Haliburton on the door. We then overhauled a second tanker, also dumping his load on the road. We did not test the liquid. We don't know for sure it was polluted. But why would a truck dump good water on the highway? As my co- captain observed- one truck, maybe a screw up. But two trucks traveling together?? That's a bit beyond statistical likelihood of simple stupidity or incompetence. That </span>looked<span style="font-size: 13pt;font-size:100%;" > an awful lot like standard corporate operating procedure. </span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span style="font-size: 13pt;font-size:100%;" >Louisiana is a poor and sparsely populated state. It has suffered severely from chemical contamination and oil pollution for decades. It's logical to assume that few people are monitoring the industry and even fewer thank they can change its behavior here. A Google search for environmental websites dealing with shale gas drilling here turned up very little in the way of activist information.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span style="font-size: 13pt;font-size:100%;" >A day and two tanks of gas later the little blue Honda and its crew were passing through the Permian Basin of west Texas. Here for eighty years oil has been extracted. Ten years ago the supply was dwindling and the basin was thought to be nearly sucked dry. Then fracking began. Today industry believes another 30 billion barrels of oil may be 'recovered' from the Permian. Odessa, Midlands, and Monahans are booming 24 -7. The trucks roll constantly, day and night on I 10. The lot in front of the motel we stayed at was full of trucks. More than two thirds had drilling gear or were tankers. On a Sunday morning they were rolling at 7 am. On Saturday I watched ten trucks go by four of which were tankers. An industry publication says it's like another Kuwait has been added right here in the good old USA. “It is almost as if the laws of scarcity have been repealed” gushed the industry observer.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span style="font-size: 13pt;font-size:100%;" >But not for Texas water supplies. It takes seven to nine barrels of water to produce one barrel of oil. And each well may use up to 13 million gallons of water. The drillers get it from ground water. Even as the worst drought ever recorded in the state has shriveled and parched Texas, they are pumping millions of gallons of freshwater into the oil wells and recovering and re using less than a quarter of it. This “unregulated gluttonous use of freshwater” as one Texas newspaper called it, has gotten so bad that Governor Perry signed into law last year a regulation that the drillers reveal the quantity of water used for each well. Pretty amazing considering how friendly Texas generally is to the industry.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span style="font-size: 13pt;font-size:100%;" >The drillers can use brackish water extracted from deeper under the ground. But it costs more and with the supplies of gas and oil on the increase gas prices and profits are dropping. This is not the time to spend more on recycling and cleaning up water. So use it up. Quick before the regulations get put in place. The last few surviving ranchers and farmers can go to work driving trucks. At least until 2020. Then the latest boom will go bust. Actually an industry paper reported on the day I wrote this that a “much needed correction” was in the works as the industry began cutting back on shale gas drilling investments. Will New York's moratorium stand?</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span style="font-size: 13pt;font-size:100%;" >We filled up the gas tank again and drove on.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span style="font-size: 13pt;font-size:100%;" >We drove past a dried up orange grove in Arizona and empty pastures in New Mexico. We drove past unused fields whitened and poisoned by irrigation salts. We drove over the Canal that supplies the hay fields of southern California. And we drove over the Rio Grande where I saw one very small puddle fed by a tiny trickle.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span style="font-size: 13pt;font-size:100%;" >Drought and water scarcity, writes William deBuys in his book “A Great Aridness”, are a different sort of “natural” catastrophe. It comes on gradually and grinds away at the economic system built up upon a customary supply. In ancient times New Mexico and Arizona peoples successfully practiced dry land farming for centuries. Then seven hundred years ago the last great drought arrived. The society unraveled. Archaeologists have found large numbers of broken human bones and skulls- broken by human on human violence. </span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span style="font-size: 13pt;font-size:100%;" >Will forethought and science prevail in this fossil fuel dependent society of today? We have the technology to do it differently. We passed a 250 MW concentrated solar utility plant under construction west of Tucson. We passed a hybrid diesel delivery truck in Louisiana. I walked by a tiny smart car over by the library yesterday. Rain does still fall, at least occasionally. The sun still shines and plants still grow. For now.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><br /></p>susan gateleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02670909101321051465noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5497492966351166340.post-72939827385540688912012-01-26T15:39:00.000-08:002012-01-26T15:53:50.947-08:00water awareness part one<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;font-size:100%;" ><br /></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;font-size:100%;" >Our Water Awareness Journey</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;font-size:100%;" >I'll get back to the pellets and biomass soon. Right now while it's fresh in my mind I want to share observations of a cross country trip where we observed what happens when there is too much and too little water and people have made unwise choices regarding same.<br /></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;font-size:100%;" >The lake watcher headed west with her co captain and a crew mate from Wolcott a few days ago. Our first destination was the deep south where we became acutely aware of the impacts of too much water. We traveled from Mobile Bay west to the fabled French Quarter of New Orleans which largely escaped the rage of Katrina. Biloxi however did not. I had noticed the occasional groupings of live oaks around weedy plots as we drove the coast highway. When we neared the old gulf city of Biloxi these groupings became more frequent. Broken bleached snags and stumps marked the seaward median strip where once a complimentary row of oaks reached out over the highway to lace branches with the land side trees. We saw large multistory casinos with ripped and tattered siding exposing the steel beams beneath. A bill board touted Slab Removal 1.50 per square foot. We saw concrete street lamp bases still sprouting wires, bent and uprooted fire hydrants, and many many slabs with ragged live oaks and for sale signs usually listing a banking contact. It will be many years before Mississippi recovers from Katrina and its 25 foot storm surge.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span style="font-size: 13pt;font-size:100%;" >Do you think that just maybe the banks might decide not to finance new mansions with waterfront views there?<br /></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span style="font-size: 13pt;font-size:100%;" >The vital bustling colorful flavorful raucous French Quarter was largely untouched by Katrina. Humans are a resilient species and they're still busy trading and dealing and selling to the tourists in the Big Easy. We took a mule wagon ride ( mules stand the heat better then horses) with Daryl the guide and Willie providing pull. Before boarding I observed two notices taped to the seat backs. One had a three inch header PETA LIES the second with smaller print outlined the mule welfare guidelines of Willie's employer. He heads back to the barn when it hits 95 degrees. Daryl was a 22 year veteran of the tourism guide biz. He had been with his street wise mule for about 13 years. </span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span style="font-size: 13pt;font-size:100%;" >Do you know where The Music was born? Not in the French Quarter. It was born in the Treme ( pronounced Trem-may). Daryl told us with pride in his voice. This, I now know, was one of the city's oldest neighborhoods where the free people of color lived. He also told us a well regarded producer had created an HBO series about the area and he had a bit part in one episode as a dancer. Later we had a beer and listened to three young black male musicians and a young white female vocalist wail out the blues. The waiter smiled and thanked me when I put a tip in the muscians' jar. The 99 % are still scrapping and scraping by in New Orleans. They even spare the tourist a smile and a cheery hello now and then. </span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span style="font-size: 13pt;font-size:100%;" >Katrina largely spared the Lafitte swamp, too, but here we saw the first signs of drought. Crispy brown withered vegetation and dry bare earth lay beneath the tall straight Cypress trees and their knees. One tiny puddle of water under the boardwalk contained a dozen minnows. No alligators to our regret. But the treetops were busy with birds-winter warblers, sparrows, titmice and chickadees with an accent and slightly different plumage than New York black caps.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;font-size:100%;" >We stopped at the visitors center to inspect the restrooms and here a volunteer told us the swamp was under the influence of the great southwestern drought. But not to worry. The gaiters find holes, the turtles and fish repopulate, the birds go somewhere. But what the swamp can't deal with is giant Salvinia. This and a trio of other invasive south American plants how rapidly spreading through the bayous are weaving a choking mat of vegetation so thick you can walk on it in some places. You can't hand pull it- it takes a dredge and in five weeks it repopulates. A bit disheartened by this we moved on.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span style="font-size: 13pt;font-size:100%;" >Next hydro fracking and a historic drought in the Permian Basin of west Texas.<br /></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><br /></p>susan gateleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02670909101321051465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5497492966351166340.post-27627374276670752852012-01-11T07:24:00.000-08:002012-01-11T07:29:12.298-08:00pellets fish and clean water<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwA2HfqnW4bNsUjM_6oy3XHE8KtUffgAAf2VrnrT_6ZASCh75DBtzALo9nU5lh-vysZJf4ZDl1xZRsNm6wFuknH5Ujxci4pPJBc1smrQyo4aUzHkRol7KdbyRvi3O7jf89eYIc3lN8dK5a/s1600/w+barrierbar.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwA2HfqnW4bNsUjM_6oy3XHE8KtUffgAAf2VrnrT_6ZASCh75DBtzALo9nU5lh-vysZJf4ZDl1xZRsNm6wFuknH5Ujxci4pPJBc1smrQyo4aUzHkRol7KdbyRvi3O7jf89eYIc3lN8dK5a/s200/w+barrierbar.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5696396273018735570" border="0" /></a><br /><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span style="font-size: 13pt;font-size:100%;" >Pellet stoves happy fish and clean beaches. First in a series </span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span style="font-size: 13pt;font-size:100%;" >What has a wood burning stove got to do with a less smelly beach? Bear with me. This will take a couple of paragraphs. </span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span style="font-size: 13pt;font-size:100%;" >Erosion is not good for lakes. When dirt washes off bare land, it often carries antibiotics, persistent pollutant chemicals and endocrine disrupters and pathogenic bacteria with it. If the mud has come from a cornfield or some other land with row crops on it, the runoff frequently carries fertilizers that end up fertilizing algae and rooted weed growth in the lake. Too much nitrate and phosphate pollution from agriculture has caused toxic blue green algae blooms, near shore “dead zones” with no oxygen, and botulism outbreaks that killed thousands of birds on Lake Erie and Ontario. So how are pellet stoves mixed up with this?</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span style="font-size: 13pt;font-size:100%;" >Pellet stoves are an increasingly popular way to heat houses in the rural areas of the Great Lakes region. Most use sawdust that has been formed into little cylindrical pellets that look like rabbit chow. In areas with lots of trees, waste sawdust pellets bagged up as fuel are very competitive with propane and heating oil if you have a special stove to burn them in. Northern Europe has modernized pellet stove designs because the fuel burns much cleaner than cordwood. In fact, late last December a bulker loaded with 28,000 tons of pellets left a terminal near Norfolk Virginia for Germany where homes and businesses burn about 1.6 million tons a year. Europe in general is increasing its consumption of pellet fuel and one industry trade group predicts that use could double in eight years from the current 11 million tons to 15 to 25 million tons.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span style="font-size: 13pt;font-size:100%;" >But as clean burning easy to use pellet stoves become popular, the available sawdust supply dwindles. It takes seventy years to grow a decent sized tree. It takes seventy days to grow a field of perennial grasses or golden rod. And native grasses can make fuel pellets too. A hundred years ago people burned hay and straw and dried cow chips out on the tree less prairies. Straw stoves have been around for years in Scandinavia and in rural areas of the U.S. In fact back in the 1870s straw burning steamers were being used on threshing rigs. And people have burned wheat and rye grain in stoves. Back in 1988 when I saw my first pellet stove in Watertown it was burning spoiled corn kernels. So the interest in grass pellets now on the upswing simply continues the long standing practice of getting heat energy from farm crops and waste fiber.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span style="font-size: 13pt;font-size:100%;" >Stay with me for one more paragraph.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span style="font-size: 13pt;font-size:100%;" >Many grasses are perennial plants. They develop huge strong root systems that penetrate deep into the ground. A good hay seeding of perenial grasses that's fertilized regularly can last for at least a decade as the farmer takes off two or three cuttings a year. All that time, the grass holds the soil on the field even as it provides forage for cows, or cover for nesting birds and wildlife. Given ample fertilizer you can produce five tons of biomass per acre in the Lake Ontario watershed. That biomass, like wood, can be turned into pellet fuel and used in heating. At the time I wrote this the retail prices of wood pellets were running 260 to 300 dollars a ton. And it can reduce soil erosion and inputs of fertilizers and chemicals into Lake Ontario too One way it does so is if farmers plant wide buffer strips of grass near streams and creeks to soak up the excess manure they apply to their fields. This keeps the fertilizer out of the water. Planting perennial grasses on steep slopes also keeps that priceless resource we call 'dirt' in place. As Jared Diamond author of the ground breaking book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed points out, history shows repeatedly that when a society loses its topsoil, it can not long endure. </span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span style="font-size: 13pt;font-size:100%;" >In a press release from a German company announcing construction of a pellet plant in east Texas that will produce 500,000 tons of fuel a year German Pellets says;</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in">“<span style="font-size: 13pt;font-size:100%;" >Wood pellets are the fuel of the future. They are produced from the renewable raw material wood, meaning that a sustainable supply is guaranteed. In addition, wood pellets are significantly less expensive than fossil fuels. Pellets are a clean, CO2-neutral fuel, which means they do not contribute to climate change or pollute the environment. “</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span style="font-size: 13pt;font-size:100%;" >Possibly. But some folks right here in Ontario and Quebec and upstate NY and Vermont are thinking grass pellets may be the fuel of the future. Our next article will take a look at REAP and Cornell and some other endeavors to create sustainable affordable bio fuel from land that should not be growing corn. </span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"> coming next- can cattails contribute to 'energy independence' from the Middle East?<br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><br /></p>susan gateleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02670909101321051465noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5497492966351166340.post-85538112303017201392011-12-19T09:13:00.000-08:002011-12-19T09:25:51.100-08:00December cattails<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRDRCoVNzf-pLbPW0Lae8E1_UbSczLQHtFznu6KxSsAG_rr5fIso8Eqm6h3euv8qMTpyXdOSykpe2VN3rSsKf7XUI5PMDYUmTiK6dxXf-M3j4oEm-rLqgg3ZcHNf0x6Vowb6VVF1JQvAhH/s1600/cattail.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 133px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRDRCoVNzf-pLbPW0Lae8E1_UbSczLQHtFznu6KxSsAG_rr5fIso8Eqm6h3euv8qMTpyXdOSykpe2VN3rSsKf7XUI5PMDYUmTiK6dxXf-M3j4oEm-rLqgg3ZcHNf0x6Vowb6VVF1JQvAhH/s200/cattail.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5687890863652165138" border="0" /></a><br /><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span style="font-size: 13pt;font-size:100%;" >A December Canoe trip thoughts on the amazing cattail and other ecology</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span style="font-size: 13pt;font-size:100%;" >Anne Dillard writes that she takes walks to keep an eye on things. So, to check up on the lake on a unexpectedly mild still day of subdued soft sunshine in mid December I went for a short canoe trip along the shore. I pulled out on a patch of gravel and went ashore to inspect a small wetland that we call The Swale. It's mostly full of woody shrubby button bush but here and there a few cattail spikes had managed to establish. Possibly they took root last year when the water levels were low enough to expose more mud than usual in the Swale. A very faint barely detectable south wind was filtering up the length of the brown and gold swamp. The low winter noonday sun back lit the cattail spikes as they spread their seed. The silent flight of countless tiny sparks of life brought all kinds of thoughts profound and otherwise to mind. The fuzzy seed heads shone brightly, like incandescent torches against the dark background as they released streams and clots and clumps of seed. The bits of fluff looked like sparks off a July Fourth sparkler. </span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;font-size:100%;" >How many? A multitude. A vast swarm. A blizzard. An uncountable quantity. A number too great to even consider. Life flowed past me constantly. Some would go on to found dynasties and cattail empires of their own in a ditch or pond somewhere. Most would soon land on the lake's cold placid surface to expire. Strange to think how full of life the air usually is. Pollen grains, tiny seeds. Spider silk, midges, spores and cysts, they're all up there, like the plankton in the Gulf of Maine I once studied. We just don't see all that aerial plankton being sent aloft during the growing season by all sorts of reproductive plant and animal apparatus hard at work distributing new life.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span style="font-size: 13pt;font-size:100%;" >On this mild still winter day the thought of all that life around me unseen was oddly comforting.<br /></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;font-size:100%;" >When I got back ashore I asked Google how many seeds are in a cattail head. About 300,000. And How many stalks per acre? About 86,000. So a one acre marsh can crank about 25 billion plus potential cattails. I think I'll stop right there with the cattails.<br /></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span style="font-size: 13pt;font-size:100%;" >for the rest of the ecology check the log on line at silverwaters.com<br /></span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><br /></p>susan gateleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02670909101321051465noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5497492966351166340.post-24687908301454830232011-10-31T06:08:00.000-07:002011-10-31T06:49:49.187-07:00all souls day beach<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZSWq_8yjji9hc_ZzcJ3x6TkPZs1598buP159N5ArI99XwGjACb945tbZS3ysitXuIAADDgkKL6B5erWcLlmejmfbJqhoX4-S98a_v6w6IgMMmtZEV-ox_JJnxoQlgxmduurtSA11OMmPy/s1600/DSCF1364.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZSWq_8yjji9hc_ZzcJ3x6TkPZs1598buP159N5ArI99XwGjACb945tbZS3ysitXuIAADDgkKL6B5erWcLlmejmfbJqhoX4-S98a_v6w6IgMMmtZEV-ox_JJnxoQlgxmduurtSA11OMmPy/s200/DSCF1364.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5669651734782786098" border="0" /></a><br /><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span style="font-size: 13pt;font-size:100%;" >Halloween , as fall shades into late fall is a time when dim ancestral memories of a more “spirited” time come to mind. These days the season seems to be mostly devoted to candy, plastic pumpkins, inflatable yard decorations, and other consumer based sorts of activities. This is only appropriate and very much in keeping with modern times when foraging and farming have been replaced by shopping as the major human activity in North America. But now and then spirits still stir the awareness as one walks an empty fall beach. </span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span style="font-size: 13pt;font-size:100%;" >What message were the spirits sending us yesterday as we strolled by a calm lake in the crisp morning air?</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span style="font-size: 13pt;font-size:100%;" >I moved the printed message a few feet closer to the lost rubber ball to make the photo a bit more dramatic.(click on the photo to enlarge and read) . Seemed like a good thought as the ghouls and ghosts walk the streets and the divide between life and death thins on the eve of all souls day. This was traditionally a time when the opportunity for contact and communion between the living and the dead was strongest. It's also the time of Mexican folk festivals associated with the Day of the Dead, honoring lost infants and children. And as light levels dim, leaves fall, days shorten and nights grow cold, it does feel like the cold death of winter draws near. The year we knew as 2011 grows old. Soon it will die and the child of 2012 will appear. These darkening days we need to look for and attend to the future. It is coming.</span></p>susan gateleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02670909101321051465noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5497492966351166340.post-84600713558457981042011-03-23T07:39:00.000-07:002011-03-23T07:51:39.696-07:00A Woman's Quest<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">One Woman's Quest for a better toilet<br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">In honor of World Water Day on March 22 I am publishing a tribute to a young entrepreneur in England who is working towards cleaner water.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Americans “ love to flush and forget” says Virginia Gardner, recent graduate, industrial designer and founder of the small startup company Loowatt. But the practice of crapping in our drinking water and then using chlorine to kill the pathogens (potentially creating toxic trihalomethanes in the process) is deluded if not downright stupid. Humans, however, are nothing, if not ingenious. In October 2010 the WTO ( World Toilet Organization) founded in 2006 by another visionary named Jack Sim whose motto is 'live a useful life', held its annual summit in Philadelphia bringing together activists, engineers, and health experts at a showcase and information exchange for contractors and the general public on sustainable sanitation. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Waterless toilets that compost waste can operate effectively to produce pathogen free compost without power or water. They have been popular for years with owners of seasonal homes and cabins as they are simple to install and need no costly water hungry septic system. However, the developed world with its existing infrastructure of sewage plants and waterlines has lagged in adopting the technology more widely, while cost has limited their use in third world countries. But time and water are running out. Yemen, some believe, could be the first nation in modern history to run completely out of water. Using less and not putting human sewage in it, is vital to the health and productivity of billions of humans and to earth's water, too.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">There are a number of intriguing new designs for waterless toilets coming on the market. Virginia Gardener presented a paper at the WTO on her toilet that generates power. She first worked on the project as a graduate student at The Royal College of Art in London. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">After a couple of false starts (the red wriggler worm model was a little too “earthy” and was quickly scrapped) she worked out a system with an inexpensively produced waterless toilet to collect poo in an air tight package that is then transferred to a separate biodigester. This in turn creates and collects methane for use as a cooking fuel along with liquid fertilizer and solids that can be composted. The digester is a basic low tech affair wrapped in insulation made of hemp and flax fibers to preserve heat during the process. ( the methane producing bacteria require a warm environment for efficient gas production.)</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">A test toilet was set up at the Willowtree Marina near London's Heathrow Airport in the fall of 2010 and Virgina and her co workers at LooWatt continue to refine the concept and it's market. For more on her endeavor and that of the WTO (helping save our water one flush at a time). And don't miss The Big Squat on Nov 19 2011! </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">visit http://www.loowatt.com/ ( where a short and enlightening video describes the concept of human generation) </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">and Jack Sim's effort http://www.worldtoilet.org/index.asp</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p>susan gateleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02670909101321051465noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5497492966351166340.post-18209077987870171952011-03-06T11:32:00.000-08:002011-03-06T11:49:30.565-08:00Beach College<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoalFta_B_gz_Wy42I2ztZXs_xaNaNw9SQJAosbNpOZKby_XFNRPms_pdG-O8jnsWh4DqJ_T_qkBvMs6_58NvEjVzI_5MTfXELmWnRRGsCHkTGnbeTG1p3QoGRoDF2kR9TvCzk4D3i_BV7/s1600/beach.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoalFta_B_gz_Wy42I2ztZXs_xaNaNw9SQJAosbNpOZKby_XFNRPms_pdG-O8jnsWh4DqJ_T_qkBvMs6_58NvEjVzI_5MTfXELmWnRRGsCHkTGnbeTG1p3QoGRoDF2kR9TvCzk4D3i_BV7/s320/beach.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5581056307055359698" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigq8X7b87980h8waTDVYRsdIt91x3jyaQyTeUkmG2xSpdfyf4MxHD6iU4F4qg1n59UB05N9iXDoEcrPg8lmou3uQI41hRxLKfMgitcRMRYDn6iE_cgdssoApdtKhB0Cn_b9f5mRfHsuHiE/s1600/missionbay.jpg"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigq8X7b87980h8waTDVYRsdIt91x3jyaQyTeUkmG2xSpdfyf4MxHD6iU4F4qg1n59UB05N9iXDoEcrPg8lmou3uQI41hRxLKfMgitcRMRYDn6iE_cgdssoApdtKhB0Cn_b9f5mRfHsuHiE/s320/missionbay.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5581054989493650338" border="0" /></a><br /><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;font-size:100%;" >I'm offering an introduction to Beach College on May 5 6:30 pm at the Brown Road branch campus Wolcott. As I wrote last month on the LOLOL (Lake Ontario Log On Line at www.silverwaters.com) strong connections between nature and families are vital to everyone's well being and beach college is a fun way to enjoy and strengthen some of those connections.<br /></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;font-size:100%;" ><br /></span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;font-size:100%;" >I've headed to the edge ever since I could toddle. My first salt water experience was a visit to a sandy beach somewhere near Boston where family relatives resided. I slogged through what seemed like miles of deep sand so different from my native narrow pebble beaches. I saw and chased gulls the size of eagles (when I was five years old.) And I waded into icy seawater up to my ankles and quickly retreated. Then I told my mother I liked my little beach back home with its summer warm lake much better. A year or two later a trip to a finger lakes cottage introduced me to fossil hunting on a narrow bit of rocky shore. I still recall the thrill of discovery, the greedy gathering, the delight I took in my horde of fossil brachiopid shells and small horn corals which I thought were fossil teeth from a giant carnivore. Several jars of them kicked around my house for years. </span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;font-size:100%;" >In college and beyond when I started cruising with various sailboats, I advanced my littoral studies after landing on many more beaches. I explored sandy beaches on the Chesapeake where I once stranded my Lighting on a falling tide. I peered into tide pools on Maine's coast and pried mussels off the rocks of Cape Ann to steam for an impromptu clam bake in a biology lab. One August night during a red tide I discovered a low tide mudflat that illuminated with a flash of cold fire under each footstep. And as millions of tourists have done through the ages, I walked the glorious white sands of tropical beaches.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;font-size:100%;" >Beside the water, alone or with family and friends, endless varied treasures and memories await the beach college student. Perhaps you'll find a message in a bottle or some useful item of salvage. Perhaps a fossil worm borrow, sea lily stem fragment, bryozoans, cephalopods, or a brachipod shell fragment will turn up. </span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;font-size:100%;" >Science tells us the more awareness an organism has of its environment, the better its chances of survival are. Our environment consists of more than computer games, shopping malls, highways, and fast food restaurants. It includes air, water, and beaches. For your own good and that of the planet, take a course at Beach College this summer. </span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p>susan gateleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02670909101321051465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5497492966351166340.post-30627908947368034632011-02-07T16:59:00.000-08:002011-02-07T17:11:20.496-08:00Saving Water<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB2kZyw4MwFTAb0-fVzf920fbTtrM9u3MktJKCoCwtf0bI4y9BGPiIKjbAKzEe1k5IbTFSxFBjjdzwjto0jrtu8U6zghJbssSZYkj46k9vwhczKD7sreCnGVbqEQUV3AmCbfdqZQTivNQR/s1600/desert.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB2kZyw4MwFTAb0-fVzf920fbTtrM9u3MktJKCoCwtf0bI4y9BGPiIKjbAKzEe1k5IbTFSxFBjjdzwjto0jrtu8U6zghJbssSZYkj46k9vwhczKD7sreCnGVbqEQUV3AmCbfdqZQTivNQR/s200/desert.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5571117836852626818" border="0" /></a><br /><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">HOW How To Help Our Water by Conserving It </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">This is the fourth in our HOW Helping Our Water series, published in several local media that expands upon items from Sid's list (first published in my book Twinkle Toes and the Riddle of the Lake).This one is posted with a nod to arid southern California where the author is now visiting. Item number 7 from Sid's list is Save Water and the photo shows what southern California looks like without input from the Colorado River.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So why should we who live near a freshwater sea worry about saving water? Unlike San Diego with annual rain falls of 8 inches a year, don't we have lots? Yes, but when we use it, it gets DIRTY. Since the dawn of time dilution has been the solution to pollution. But Earth now supports 7 billion people, and that “solution” just isn't working too good anymore. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> Somehow, I have long found the logic of drinking water and then crapping in the same water supply a bit offensive, if not downright deluded. Increasingly, others agree. This was made clear at the 2010 Annual World Toilet Summit, the biggest yet, held in Philadelphia last fall.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">As several participants at this year's trade fair and technology showcase for plumbers noted, the U.S. with its regionally abundant water supplies lags far behind China, Europe and even the so called Third World when it comes to adopting more efficient toilet technology. We're still stuck with our mindset of disposing of human crap by treating it with chemicals to kill pathogens and then dumping it in our drinking water. However, groups like PHLUSH (Public Hygiene Lets Us Stay Human) and the WTO ( That's World Toilet Organization, now active in 58 countries, NOT the global money men) are trying hard to make friends and influence people on behalf of the waterless toilet.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">These toilets have improved dramatically since the 1970's. I personally know three people with composting toilets who are quite satisfied with them and can testify there was no more smell associated with their use than with a conventional set up. And they're simple to install too, no pricey septic system required! You can even get them for marine and RV use.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> If you can't swallow the price tag for one aboard the boat or stomach the idea of a waterless toilet in your house, then at least spring for a low flush model if you haven't already got one or put a brick in the toilet tank of your old dinosaur. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">While the the toilet and flushing same is one of the biggest household users of water, a lot also goes down the tub and shower drain. The Minnesota extension service website estimates 75% of the typical 260 gallons a day used by a household of 4 goes down bathroom drains or toilet thanks to lavish and frequent baths and showers. Admittedly, a leisurely long soak in the tub is a great stress reducer, but there are good reasons to NOT bathe every day.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> Too much bathing can dry the skin causing itching and discomfort. And recent research shows it also totally messes up the intricate balance of our skin's 'ecosystem' of bacteria. The 'good' bacteria present on our skin help us stay healthy so it's very much in our interest to not wash them all down the drain every day. Dr. Richard Gallo of San Diego's UCSD studies healing and wound repair. He has found our skin makes natural antibiotics that reduce skin infection, and that some of our skin bacteria actually fight pathogenic bacteria like the infamous Staph aureus of hospital fame.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Less frequent hot water baths save energy, too. Less electricity use directly impacts Lake Ontario, home to a whole fleet of power plants- all of which use water to cool their turbines, cooking a whole lot of plankton and adding still more chemicals to the lake in the process. Low flow shower heads and shallower baths in the tub help, too.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Along with numerous daily showers and toilet flushes, the other big area for household water savings is irrigation. As written about previously in the lawn care column, good soil with lots of organic content and appropriate grass plantings can help your lawn withstand dry spells. Mulch the flowers and vegetables, too. If you do water the lawn and garden, follow practices like morning irrigation and water deeply to encourage root growth. Sometimes, you can water those special dry areas of the lawn by hand. And by all means, start up an old fashioned rain barrel.</p> There are many good websites on water conservation. <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> check out eartheasy.com for water saving tips in house and yard</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">composting toilets- http://www.comparethebrands.com/compare/134</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p>susan gateleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02670909101321051465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5497492966351166340.post-49718724827707605902011-01-09T11:39:00.000-08:002011-01-09T12:01:06.186-08:00Ice water and antibiotics<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGtMtaqtw5RACHvl_A53DrMc2ywKTRt86VHXVPjIY9wZNKa2NcBexiTtmHKXWzw-E0u3eAg0uDgXqoVKG2q6yCMeYqewwZTksPJVcaJ6-b_q1QRqj_1RSBwZPVXkIpQfLYjFu3erbJYII0/s1600/closeup.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGtMtaqtw5RACHvl_A53DrMc2ywKTRt86VHXVPjIY9wZNKa2NcBexiTtmHKXWzw-E0u3eAg0uDgXqoVKG2q6yCMeYqewwZTksPJVcaJ6-b_q1QRqj_1RSBwZPVXkIpQfLYjFu3erbJYII0/s200/closeup.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5560275452181256466" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk-Nfoo6S2fxoDmTYsDXnhuZ2zcelg09imfrbpsD-LT4ZCWpIbenkadlHaETeXIVHspJue2zjUY5oWo1oi9h5wQH1m2uZPqar8Zsm7xRwNwip_MAJvJPfd0fEmq3hv20lqny_WDGAuVxq3/s1600/ice.jpg"><br /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjae-NxAGUcP5FyGbieE3bnA1CNhsHu3fq_jy8Q6GwLDzBBdUtFwtnjOi_LV1Ur5qHW4v0NTTR1DPiK1_MpeystB_RCAyOMcYU-IaGNYxyTt-wADZ2pGQhKwCYXE2IH7z0VCeeJUEgDPwXq/s1600/ice.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjae-NxAGUcP5FyGbieE3bnA1CNhsHu3fq_jy8Q6GwLDzBBdUtFwtnjOi_LV1Ur5qHW4v0NTTR1DPiK1_MpeystB_RCAyOMcYU-IaGNYxyTt-wADZ2pGQhKwCYXE2IH7z0VCeeJUEgDPwXq/s200/ice.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5560274682801231362" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxqBrxyUXG7s0yytaEimklssO_wTrsdeZhEbAs-7-sMThyphenhyphenslYiR4_JWIdXIdKpy5PzNyQG2gQNkrZ3JVFVWgNeXUaLOpy3ZLx1IItiOtbc1JE7nIrMXcm_04fZkEZqSVoTi0zl-tGmPtqm/s1600/bgm.gif"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 129px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxqBrxyUXG7s0yytaEimklssO_wTrsdeZhEbAs-7-sMThyphenhyphenslYiR4_JWIdXIdKpy5PzNyQG2gQNkrZ3JVFVWgNeXUaLOpy3ZLx1IItiOtbc1JE7nIrMXcm_04fZkEZqSVoTi0zl-tGmPtqm/s200/bgm.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5560274376168561218" border="0" /></a><br /><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:100%;">This is a follow up to the recent post about manure and other affairs on the lake shore. The edge walker mushed through the snow for a check on ice development at the edge Jan 8. The ice forms and melts and reforms with astonishing speed this time of year. The photos taken round 0900 are interesting if you check the radar image. In the distance in the photo on the left you can see the cloud bank that clearly shows in the radar from that same time.<br /></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:100%;"> A couple hours later the light south wind had shifted north and the cloud bank moved south and by 1400 hours we had a short but heavy snow fall. It looked like classic fluffy lake effect, though the band formation perpendicular not parallel to the surface wind was very different from the usual lake snow band.<br /></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The ice formations suspended from the anchor ice in the top photo had disappeared completely three hours later, merged into a solid wall.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Below is a link to legislation we will be tracking and writing more about in the future.</span></p><br /><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><a href="http://atwork.avma.org/2010/12/10/bill-of-the-week-newyork-sb80-sb85/"><span style="font-size:100%;">http://atwork.avma.org/2010/12/10/bill-of-the-week-newyork-sb80-sb85/</span></a></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:100%;">This week, New York pre-filed </span><a href="http://www.cqstatetrack.com/texis/viewrpt?report=4d0256242e6&sid="><span style="font-size:100%;">SB 80</span></a><span style="font-size:100%;">, which would provide that no person shall engage in the non-therapeutic use of antimicrobial agents in cattle, poultry, sheep, swine, or any animal raised for the purpose of providing food for human consumption, including animals that provide non-meat food products such as eggs and milk. In addition, it would provide that no person shall sell, expose for sale, or transport for sale within New York, regardless of place of origin, any food product derived from an animal that has been subject to non-therapeutic use of antimicrobial agents.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> <span style="font-size:100%;">The quote below is from a food industry website that states the benefits of antibiotic use in dairies outweigh the dangers. Apparently the bacteria inside the COW aren't developing resistance which means the industry will want to keep using the antibiotics in question. But meantime outside bacteria are developing resistance! Not all observers including me agree with this website's conclusion of no danger to humans.</span></p> <p>“<span style="font-size:100%;">On the basis of this review, we conclude that scientific evidence does not support widespread, emerging resistance among pathogens isolated from dairy cows to antibacterial drugs even though many of these antibiotics have been used in the dairy industry for treatment and prevention of disease for several decades. <i>However, it is clear that use of antibiotics in adult dairy cows and other food-producing animals does contribute to increased antimicrobial resistance.”</i></span></p> <p style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The italics are mine. Other scientific studies in peer reviewed journals that are not funded by the food business clearly show increased “gene swapping” occurs in water and soil below CAFO farms. This can lead to antibiotic resistance moving between different bacteria. The Union of Concerned Scientists website states that perhaps 70 % of pharmaceuticals used in agriculture are fed to “healthy” farm animals to promote growth. Beef cows in crowded feed lots, pigs, chickens and dairy cows kept indoors in large buildings are subject to unnatural behaviors and stresses. The antibiotics are fed to boost their immune systems and keep them from getting sick. Dairies use lesser amounts of antibiotics than some types of CAFOs but do use them both on adult cows and on calves. The following comes from www.sustainabletable.org. They quote an annual 18,000 deaths and 4 billion dollar a year as costs from antibiotic resistance which they say is almost certainly an underestimate that doesn't include all the lost days at work etc. </span> </p> <p style="font-style: normal;">“<span style="font-size:100%;">Although everyone is at risk when antibiotics stop working, the threat is greatest for young children, the elderly, and people with weakened immune systems, including cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy, organ transplant patients and, in general, people whose health is compromised in some way” </span> </p> <p style="font-style: normal;"><br /></p> <p style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size:100%;">More soon on this topic. My guess is the well entrenched dairy biz in NY will lobby for an exemption. Do we really want that!?</span></p> <p style="font-style: normal;"><br /><br /></p> <p style="font-style: normal;"><br /><br /></p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p>susan gateleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02670909101321051465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5497492966351166340.post-2497360199105384672011-01-06T14:53:00.001-08:002011-01-06T15:28:19.891-08:00more dead birds and manure?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9xkMHSpuNwXgl6iq-NkVShnw3gShIM5D5lgy1ttHdwzmjS26DoBKQLVLPEYtTgtmyY56U3SOPtm1F-W7x97BjHZ3CaCaRbhQtvSynDIXScHLAc7T7HXfgp8i359EH-lC-594_wEfCRu37/s1600/manure1.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9xkMHSpuNwXgl6iq-NkVShnw3gShIM5D5lgy1ttHdwzmjS26DoBKQLVLPEYtTgtmyY56U3SOPtm1F-W7x97BjHZ3CaCaRbhQtvSynDIXScHLAc7T7HXfgp8i359EH-lC-594_wEfCRu37/s200/manure1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5559215788281622258" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:small;">Awhile back I wrote about manure's impact on excess water and aquatic plant growth.Excess weeds and algae that grew and then rotted and promoted botulism outbreaks that in turn killed thousands of birds on Lake Ontario a few years ago. Last summer a bad blue green algae bloom on Sodus Bay got the attention of the homeowners there. Certainly manure spread on fields upstream could be contributing to the problem of too much fertilizer in the bay. Several members of the Cafo Awareness Network are planning to sample water next spring in an effort to determine if indeed manure on fields in Rose might be finding its way into the waters of Sodus or East Bay. Then I heard abut the new pit.<br /><br /></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:small;"> </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:small;">I took a drive over to Savannah- Spring Lake last weekend. As a card carrying member of Cafo Awarenness Network I felt obligated to check it out. I found a hill overlooking a forty or fifty acre wetland complete with two eagles perched in shoreline trees surrounded by more forested hills and farmland. The view was of some of the prettiest landscape in the county though I suspect it's hard to keep bare soil on these hillsides in a rain. Atop the hill sat tons of manure in piles. Across the street a couple acres of mud and a collection of parked heavy equipment suggested the rumored manure pit in the making was well under way.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:small;">So why worry? Who cares? This farm is following “best management practices” isn't it? Well for one thing, best management practices are quite simply not the best, even when scrupulously followed. In other areas of New York state wells have been ruined and streams and bays have been clogged with algae and weed growth because of too much manure spread on too little land. A solid inch of manure laid down on top of snow on a hillside with a creek at the bottom (see photo) will not stay in place when the snow melts.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:small;">What if a little too much fertilizer goes into a swamp? What if there is a little tiny fish kill? It's just carp and suckers and bullheads. Who cares if the birds in Montezuma have to deal with rotting algae and polluted water next summer? Who cares if the folks on Sodus bay can't get their boats through the weeds at their docks? </span> </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:small;">Well for one thing, it's not just fertilizer. All CAFOs (yes, dairies too) use at least some antibiotics. Peer reviewed studies have documented increased 'gene swapping' that transfers antibiotic resistance between different types of bacteria downstream from CAFO operations. Some of these bacteria can sicken humans.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:small;">Too much fertilizer in drinking water has been linked to bladder cancer in humans.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:small;">In other parts of the US rural homeowners have successfully sued and appealed to reduce their property taxes because of stench and pollution associated with CAFO agriculture. If their taxes go down, other town residents must take up at least some of the slack or suffer the consequences of budget cuts. Do you want to pay more for milk at the grocery or more at tax time?</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:small;">A 3000 cow dairy produces four times as much sewage as Syracuse. Where will the farm go next? Will it expand again into your neighborhood?</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:small;">There is another reason to care. Get ready for a Big Word folks. Too much fertilizer in water chokes out native plants and kills off native animals. Tough hardy “weeds” take their places. This survival of the fittest in a polluted world reduces Biodiversity. Take my word for it. Lost biodiversity is a bad thing. It's bad for economic, physical, and to some people maybe most important of all, for moral and spiritual reasons It's stupid too.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:small;">Read more about the problem and what we can do about it here.<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://newyork.sierraclub.org/conservation/agriculture/Wasting_NYS_Report.pdf">http://newyork.sierraclub.org/conservation/agriculture/Wasting_NYS_Report.pdf</a></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:small;">please note there are also a couple of pig feeding operations in the area of the photos. I am not claiming any particular origin for the manure spread in photograph. I am saying however, it is poor practice whether it's cow shit or pig shit wherever it's from.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div>susan gateleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02670909101321051465noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5497492966351166340.post-11458126919644916052010-12-31T14:00:00.000-08:002010-12-31T14:17:12.579-08:00A New Review for Twink<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijHp7-kFaXTGsevyOjGxWLQGEw-3q_yNksSiThDibhknWyBqCgkxygjU_Ggyq3c_aGrLTGwJHUHT5zyk8RzULEXN9mgzkivqjteg7GTDbrluFSSe9UTpPsnmZCizFeADR5Uh2smyTeAos4/s1600/riddle_cover6.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 133px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijHp7-kFaXTGsevyOjGxWLQGEw-3q_yNksSiThDibhknWyBqCgkxygjU_Ggyq3c_aGrLTGwJHUHT5zyk8RzULEXN9mgzkivqjteg7GTDbrluFSSe9UTpPsnmZCizFeADR5Uh2smyTeAos4/s200/riddle_cover6.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5556973279994547890" border="0" /></a><br /><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I was poking around the Internet with no particular objective in mind and was surprised to find this book review of Riddle of the Lake. It ran in the magazine last winter. I was pleased to see the reviewer considered the cats' antics amusing. Others have told me the books message of environmental change was NOT unduly depressing but I was happy to see this reviewer apparently agreed. Having said that change continues and not all of it is for the best. More soon.<br /></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Book review from Life in the Finger Lakes Magazine by Laurel C. Wemett<br /><strong>Twinkle Toes and The Riddle of the Lake</strong><br />By Susan Peterson Gateley<br />Ariel Associates/Whiskey Hill Press<br />www.silverwaters.com<br /><br />Paperback: $15.95 </p>The notion of three landlubber cats sailing one of the Great Lakes is the perfect plot twist for author Susan Peterson Gateley’s latest book. The action unfolds through the perspective of a cranky but determined cat named Twinkle Toes. She and her mother, Dusty, and her cousin, Miss Piggy, reluctantly accompany “Skipper Sue” across Lake Ontario to Canada in the yacht Ariel. Along the way, the feline protagonist regularly “converses” with Harry, a seagull, among other lake dwellers.<br /><br />The book will appeal to youthful readers and adults alike. A strong underlying ecological theme steers the reader to learn about some of the disappearing species on the lake.<br /><br />Gateley’s narrative captures cat attitudes perfectly, and Pat Cooper’s illustrations add appeal. The journey through fair weather and foul naturally tests the cats’ endurance. From seasickness to repeatedly sneaking ashore, the trio’s amusing escapades help illuminate the serious changes in the lake’s environment.<br /><br />Part two of the book is called “Skipper Sue’s Notebook.” It offers a lengthy appendix filled with fascinating historical data and essays on assorted ecological topics.susan gateleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02670909101321051465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5497492966351166340.post-22133970340280713012010-12-30T14:56:00.000-08:002010-12-30T15:18:59.532-08:00A New Year a New BlogWhen I initiated this experiment I stated I'd be writing about Lake Ontario, beach combing and other topics. After a four year hiatus, the blog is steering a new course. You never know what will turn up when you go for a stroll on the neighborhood beach. Likewise, this writer never knows what the next story will be as I amble through life itself. But I do know this. Tom Wolfe was right when he said there are stories all around you.<br /><br /> I sometimes finds unexpected topics that cry for coverage. Like shale gas. A friend of mine down in Pennsylvania who I met through sailing on Lake Ontario is watching a well that's going in behind her house. And last winter the 'thumper trucks' were all over the next town south of here doing seismic tests for gas. So I wrote two articles on shale gas fraking and the concern about its impact on local water for a regional magazine. I've also sent out magazine stories on circumzenithal arcs, sailing an old schooner without a motor, an all female tall ship training program and lake based wind turbines.<br />Last fall I posted to a personal blog about beach combing ( and other activity) in Denmark. We fly all the way over there as tourists for ten days and what do we do? Fill our pockets with Danish beach pebbles for keepsakes!<br /><br /> A few months ago I was amazed to learn that Oswego County was being considered for an 80,000 cow feedlot operation, the biggest concentration of bovines east of the Mississippi in connection with the new ethanol plant in Fulton. (I guess they feed the cows left over crap from the ethanol plant. ) What has this got to do with Lake Ontario? Well, the ethanol plant grain is coming in by barge through the port of Oswego. And the manure from 80,000 cows has lots of potential to be of interest to lake watchers.<br /><br />So hang on to your hat. Anything goes this time around. More soon if I can remember my password!susan gateleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02670909101321051465noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5497492966351166340.post-77933573528866914892006-12-22T13:23:00.000-08:002008-12-08T19:11:23.503-08:00the (intermittant) shifty shore series begins<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmGmkryT5PZ_GgQxKvTL5yuyKLBKSMY5hj6EzFVu6lHkvyEGdeS8gwpAemMpr_n3e6auYokPNU4PGaGraY_8SPwB5eA__TXzX9Ui82KbyQRkAfhaBMeXa_i8pt2HArjuRJmzmPvYpxdhOR/s1600-h/scotts1.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5011468023164922082" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmGmkryT5PZ_GgQxKvTL5yuyKLBKSMY5hj6EzFVu6lHkvyEGdeS8gwpAemMpr_n3e6auYokPNU4PGaGraY_8SPwB5eA__TXzX9Ui82KbyQRkAfhaBMeXa_i8pt2HArjuRJmzmPvYpxdhOR/s200/scotts1.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><div><br />Winter weather makes walking the shore more difficult. While we're indoors I'm going to start a series on our shifty shoreline and its social and natural history. This will be an occasional series as time and research dictates.<img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5011468255093156082" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIp3cnjF6rYEPI1f92sdHcOdc606O0sgEJIpq0ebQXxd22TcXhSms-imfwZcDgY_zqDhsFm6SMzZa5Rst2CHR879wP1m4Xux5wEgFjB2LuYYe8GpGsi1J3h9ORersT2tUCIOUX8ja_xpTj/s200/scotts2.jpg" border="0" /><br /><br />(the two photos are of Scotts bluff an actively eroding pile of glacial till near my home-the pinacle in the left photo shows in left side of photo above)</div><div></div><br /><br /><div>Ecology is about connections. In late December my good friend Roland launched a Civil Disobedience action at a Scotts Bluff home building site. He did so because he wanted people to understand the connection between luxury resort home construction on the lake shore and the relentless fraying of the tapestry of life that continues to thin as threads are broken and lost.</div><br /><br /><div><br />How do you make people see that there are connections between their personal lifestyle choices and the general well being of our planetary life support system? I'm going to give it a shot though I'm not optimistic about any impacts or understanding that may result.</div><br /><br /><div><br />The shore of a great lake, like that of an ocean, is a shifty restless piece of real estate. It's dynamic and inherent instability makes it an interesting place. That's part of its appeal as a home site. But no homeowner wants to see his house be washed away by that shiftiness. So inevitably human ingenuity comes to the rescue and the beach is “armored”, locked away and entombed beneath a pile of large rocks. Now you have a view but no more beach. Problem is, your neighbors or public shoreline lands nearby also don't have a beach if enough homeowners go the “hardening” route in order to protect their own little piece of paradise.</div><br /><br /><div><br />On Lake Ontario, as elsewhere, material eroded from the shore becomes the beach. It then is moved along on the south side of the lake as “drift” carried generally west to east. Seawalls that stop erosion also shut down the beach formation process. Any unarmored land, once it loses its beach, will erode even faster since the waves strike directly upon the foot of the shore. So the more you “harden” the worse erosion gets for unprotected land. No one, shoreline owners and the general public alike, gets to enjoy a beach either.</div><br /><br /><div><br />For the rich guy with his “trophy house” who doesn't care about anything but a view, this may be acceptable. But for those of us who cherish walking along the water's edge, the world is a poorer place for no longer having beaches. And as we shall see, the vanished beach literally makes us poorer, too, as it usually ends up costing the taxpayers (many of whom don't own waterfront property) a great deal of money.</div><br /><br /><div><br />In posts to come we'll look at how some other communities are trying to deal with and “manage” beach erosion. There have been some truly spectacular foul ups in this endeavor. Guess who is paying for them?</div>susan gateleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02670909101321051465noreply@blogger.com3