Saturday, September 23, 2006

Charles River White Geese evacuate, vegetation work, other musings

Bob La Tremouille reports on September 23, 2006, with comments coming thereafter.

1. Evacuations.
2. The Charles River White Ducks and their friends.
3. Destructive males with dogs.
4. Changes to the silly, obstructive, vegetation.
5. Analysis of "sicko."
6. Marilyn’s reaction.
7. Lois Martin Reports, October 2, 2006.
a. Lois reports.
b. Response.

1. Evacuations.

The Charles River White Geese apparently spent most of the morning at Magazine Beach. They had a period of snoozing between the western part of the Bumpy Memorial Goose Pond, with some swimming. They talked to each other and moved next to the grove of trees where they fed.

Suddenly, at about 11:45, the Charles River White Geese evacuated the area in great haste, some running, some flying. They left in a matter of seconds. When they got to the water, they started swimming toward the goose meadow.

The larger part of the Bumpy Pond was filled with mallards. When an SUV, New Hampshire plates CH C8148, came in they evacuated. The guy got out about a minute later loosing a large dog. The dog immediately ran to the Bumpy Memorial Goose Pond. He paused in the middle of the bridge, looking at the now empty area from which the mallard ducks had just evacuated.

It was gratifying to see how fast the White Geese evacuated. There was no apparent threat when they evacuated. I think they “knew” what was coming. They have displayed similar non-sensory perception in the past when Little Brook, their long time friend, was coming.

2. The Charles River White Ducks and their friends.

On the south side of the river, the Charles River White Ducks and their two mallard couples conducted their patrol, swimming back and forth in a stretch of the Boston shore about as wide as Magazine Beach.

3. Destructive males with dogs.

As I write, another sick male, also in an SUV, has driven up and let two large dogs run. Massachusetts registration 196 ZCA.

No birds can be seen on the ground. Two sick males who behave like they are closely related to the most environmentally destructive Cambridge City Councilor, Henrietta Davis, have destroyed Magazine Beach for free animals.

It should be noted that I support wiping out almost all of the silly limits placed on dogs in Cambridge by Davis-types. I support free running dogs in most city parks, where they are not destructive. Davis and her buddies want to emphasize permitting free running dogs in areas such as Magazine Beach where the dogs can be destructive to other animals. This "concession" is just more repeatedly destructive behavior by the Davis-types.

Nine Cambridge City Councilors apply the most draconian limits on dogs because they are living beings who don't happen to be human beings. Nine Cambridge City Councilors destroy dogs as much as they can get away with by their draconian limits on dogs. The exception to their attacks on dogs fought for by the worst of them is where they can use dogs to destroy other living beings.

What has been done and is being done in these various patronage projects to Magazine Beach is exactly what the nine Cambridge City Councilors are doing and fighting for throughout Cambridge’s wild areas. It is one of many steps beyond the draconian dog limits toward the destruction of nature in that part of our world which is the back yard of the City of Cambridge.

These nine hypocrites are destroying Fresh Pond for free animals with massive destruction of trees. They plan to destroy Alewife for free animals. The Charles River is an ongoing pit of destruction.

And the nine loudly call themselves "environmentalists."

4. Changes to the silly, obstructive, vegetation.

I conducted a tour of the shore line.

During the week before the day the Cambridge Conservation Commission rubber stamped the plans of the nine destructive Cambridge City Councilors, workers for the Department of Conservation and Recreation started maintaining the vegetation at Magazine Beach sold as native vegetation. A lot of vegetation was pulled up including some excellent flowers. A denuded area was perhaps ten to twenty feet from the water at most and maybe five feet at the least

Markings have appeared in the denuded area. Apparently the contractors are selling more “native” vegetation that has no business on the banks of the Charles.

Starvation walls were put up during the first work. Most of it has already collapsed, thankfully.

There are significant numbers of denuded areas right at the water filled with human trash, five to ten areas, ranging in width from ten to twenty feet. I cannot tell if these areas were made by the DCR or by fisher people. The uniform filling of those emptied areas with human trash is shocking. Perhaps this is trash from the river?

5. Analysis of "sicko."

A friend of mine read the above in front of me and she stumbled on "sicko." I have since rewritten it, but there is a lot to be said about the word.

Her problems with the word pretty much gave me a choice. I could amend "sicko," or I could explain "sicko."

I am doing both.

It is my very strong opinion that the environmental destructiveness which centers on the City of Cambridge in turn centers on a truly reprehensible lobby which consists most visibly of developers and contractors.

These people make a lot of money cutting corners and destroying our world. They have contempt for pretty much everything except for money. If one of their ilk slackens and develops something approaching a meaningful conscience, the others will blackball them to hold them in line and make an example of them.

Some are viler than others but since they will not stand up to the others, there is no difference.

Mankind is not destroying our world. These reprehensible bastards are destroying our world as they destroy anything and everything which gets in the way of their making the almighty buck.

They will and are destroying every bit of animal life that gets in their way. They are destroying the ozone. They are mankind at its worst.

These people brag of their intent to destroy all animals on the Charles River. They are offended by the continued life of the Charles River White Geese. The sick bastards vary the excuses, but they brag.

These people are the sort of infestation decent people cannot understand exist in our world. By any reasonable standard, the flat out contempt these people have for anything that gets in the way of the almighty buck is flat out sick.

The two clowns with the loose dogs fit the stereotype to a T. The fact that the animals they would have killed got out of their way before these sick bastards could kill them does not excuse the stereotype and does not excuse those big dogs being loosed on animal habitat.

And nine Cambridge City Councilors pander to these sick bastards. And their bureacrats pander to these sick bastards.

Apologize? Hell, no.

6. Marilyn’s reaction.

My own reaction is that these dog attacks are the work of the Department of Conservation and Recreation and their little friends in Cambridge after the ConCom decision on Magazine Beach. It would probably take them about this long to get the word out after the vote and the need to finish up "restoring" their "restoration."

In short, it's their way of reclaiming the Bumpy Memorial Pond and Magazine Beach from the geese in case we didn't get the message at the ConCom hearing.

The geese probably know the vibrations from the SUVs as they approach.

I thought the "restoration" involved cutting down the plants at the water's edge, which would give the geese more room to come ashore and to evacuate when necessary. Maybe the DCR and friends thought that through and decided against that part of the plan (as told to me by the contractor).

7. Lois Martin Reports, October 2, 2006.

a. Lois reports.

Hi, I was over to feed the geese cracked corn on Saturday and this morning. Saturday only the white geese and ducks ate it. They seemed well. This morning there were canadas mixed in with them. Then they saw a dog and they left and the pigeons took over. It was a woman with a shepherd but she clearly made an effort to not come down this far. Every time she ran up and down with the dog, she stopped way before coming near the geese. There was an older man rowing with some man following him with a horn and they were in closer than the students who appear to make efforts to row in the middle of the river and not disturb the geese and friends. I yelled to them to row more in the middle but they ignored me. I took their picture.

DCR was over mowing but didn't come near the geese area at all while I was there (about 7:45 - 8:10 a.m.). I brought my binoculars and could see the white ducks.

How do you get near them? When I go over the BU bridge, it looks as though they are near Storrow Drive. Any bike riders I would bet can get near them.

b. Response.

I have separately given Lois very specific response to her questions. The Charles River White Ducks, Andrake and Daffney, clearly are near Storrow Drive / Soldiers Field Road, but they are separated from Storrow Drive / Soldiers Field Road by the vegetation which has not been destroyed, YET, by the DCR or its operatives.

It is of great value to note that Lois was one of the most important people assisting the Charles River White Ducks when they were abandoned at Magazine Beach.

They were very innocent when Lois helped them. They have matured fast.

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Charles River White Ducks make friends

Clearly, my visits to the Charles River in the BU Bridge area concentrate on the Charles River White Geese and the truly reprehensible behavior of nine heartless Cambridge City Councilors and the various bureaucrats.

Nevertheless, very, very, high on my list of interests are the Charles River White Ducks, Andrake and Daffney. I constantly scour the south bank of the Charles to keep an eye on these beautiful love birds. It is always a pleasure to see them perched on their favorite perch or to see them happily swimming around on the Charles. They seem to be wandering steadily further to the west exploring their world and learning more about it.

It was thus a pleasure, on Monday, September 18, 2006, that a person who is a regular on Magazine Beach pointed out that Andrake and Daffney have made friends who are accompanying them on their travels.

The friends are quite a bit harder to see from the north bank of the Charles, but, with care and knowing where to look, they are visible.

It appears that Andrake and Daffney are joined in their exploration by two other duck couples, probably Mallards, so that it is three couples exploring the south bank of the Charles together, Andrake and Daffney and the two Mallard couples.

Andrake and Daffney, if you know what to look for, stand out. They are reasonably large white beings, nowhere near as large as the Charles River White Geese, but surprisingly close to the size of the Canadas, perhaps two-thirds their size.

Once you have seen them, look around for two pairs of smaller brownish shapes near them, the two Mallard couples.

It is quite lovely, quite beautiful.

It is a shame that the Charles River is being destroyed by sick, hypocritical governments. The Charles River could be a beautiful place; and it is a beautiful place, without the sick government types.

Sunday, September 17, 2006

Charles River White Geese Starting to Make Themselves at Home

Bob La Trémouille reports:

1. Report, September 17, 2006.
2. Update, September 18, 2006.
A. Moving further west.
B. Firefighters.

1. Report, September 17, 2006.

This morning, September 17, 2006, I saw the Charles River White Geese resting at Magazine Beach.

The Charles River White Geese have lived on the Charles River in Cambridge, MA for 25 years. Their habitat has been one half mile east and one half mile west of the BU Bridge on the banks of the Charles River.

They migrated in that limited area. They lived nine months of the year at Magazine Beach or across from the Hyatt Hotel. Three months of the year, they lived at their nesting area just downriver (east) from the BU Bridge.

That started to change in October 1999 when Boston University destroyed the vegetation in the middle of the nesting area and opened up the fence which protected the nesting area from the adjoining sidewalks. Boston University spent most of the next six months lying that they did not do it, until they were officially condemned for the act. Then they started bragging about it.

During the early period I have been heavily involved with the CRWG, essentially since that destruction of the nesting area, they fed at Magazine Beach and they slept at Magazine Beach or in the water off Magazine Beach, with frequent visits to the Hyatt Hotel Area.

At Magazine Beach, they had access to the entire area as long as they were within easy access from the Charles River so that they could retreat into the Charles for safety from predators. When they rested or slept, there always would be a guard on duty.

In September 2004 nine heartless hypocrites on the Cambridge City Council along with the regional govenment, the Department of Conservation and Recreation (formerly MDC) started starving the Charles River White Geese.

They destroyed the access of the Charles River White Geese to their food at Magazine Beach and at the Hyatt Hotel. These hypoocrites proudly call themselves "pro-environment."

The Charles River White Geese were left with access only to the nesting area, but there was no food there. It was destroyed in October 1999 by Boston University and, really the Destroyed Nesting Area was far too small to feed them.

The Charles River Urban Wilds Initiative has fed the Charles River White Geese since then with major gifts of lovely veggies from local merchants.

A few months ago, the Charles River White Geese were once again given access to a tiny portion of Magazine Beach, that portion on the eastern end of Magazine Beach, near the Bumpy Memorial Goose Pond.

But the CRWG have been trained. Those nine sick people on the Cambridge City Council and their friends the bureacrats trained them that there is nothing at Magazine Beach for them.

They have been gradually sneaking through a tiny opening at Magazine Beach, perhaps 5% of what they had had for most of their 25 years. They have come in the morning, furtively grabbed a little food and scurried back to the Charles River and the Destroyed Nesting Area.

Frequently the scurrying has been associated with the presence of a dog in the area. Occasionally, they just decided to go home, probably to take a nap.

This morning, I saw them sleeping at Magazine Beach for the first time in years.

They still leave Magazine Beach after a few hours, rarely staying after noontime. They still spend the bulk of their day at the Destroyed Nesting Area with many extended swims. They still are denied access to almost all of Magazine Beach and the training of the starvation attacks has held firm at the Hyatt Regency.

But at least they do do some sleeping near the Bumpy Memorial Goose Pond at Magazine Beach.

Now the nine hypocrites from the Cambridge City Council through the regional bureacrats have gotten rubber stamp permission to do even more harm, to the Charles River White Geese and to the Charles River Environment.

These hypocrites are going to dig up the playing fields and replace the playing fields with playing fields and poison. These hypocrites are going to "move" the parking lot at Magazine Beach and destroy one or more trees.

The nine hypocrites like the situation on the Charles River below Massachusetts Avenue where the water is dead, killed by a comparable project near the Charles River Dam.

The nine hypcrites will loudly proclaim their concern for the environment, everywhere except in their own back yard, and the nine hypocrites will continue their sick ways at Magazine Beach.

Decent human beings still can see no sense whatsoever in any of these bizarre projects.

The very voluble contractors and developers on the city/state dole love the wasteful projects.

2. Update, September 18, 2006.

A. Moving further west.

They are now moving further west. They had been moving north further from the Charles than ever before, to the environms of the grove of trees which is threatened by the nine environmental destroyers.

Today, they were moving west along the river further into the outfield of the Little League field.

They are making themselves at home.

Definitely a good sign, except for the nine environmental destroyers.

They still do not stay much beyond noontime because this is no longer their home.

B. Firefighters.

I do not know if it is new or just that I have been paying more attention, but I have seen Cambridge firefighters on Magazine Beach a lot more than in the past.

Firefighters regularly go to locations throughout the city and pump water through fire hydrants. They are rather clearly clearing out crud in the water lines.

The frequency at Magazine Beach is quite a bit more than would be expected for just flushing one fire hydrant.

There is a fire hydrant just east of the parking lot by maybe 10 feet and perhaps 20 feet north of the Bumpy Memorial Goose Pond. A variety of fire vehicles use this hydrant with frequently spectacular displays of water pumping. They are probably ensuring that the vehicles are not clogged.

The power of the water varies with the fire vehicle. The biggest, most powerful, vehicles throw water so impressively that it makes an excellent show.

A lot of the water goes into the Charles, which is the usual target. A lot also goes into the Bumpy Memorial Goose Pond. The latter water is extremely valuable to the various water fowl in the area, the Canadas, the Whites, and the Mallards. The geese is particular love to drink from the Bumpy Pond and get fresh water rather than the salty water in the Charles River.

This morning, I stayed at Magazine Beach longer than I would have because I wanted to see the reaction of the Charles River White Geese.

They moved to the west along the shore, away from the fire truck and the Bumpy Pond. Some had been in the Charles. These returned to land and followed the others to the west.

Clearly they were not at all distressed, to my pleasure.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Flash! Cambridge, MA "Conservation Commission" Authorizes Greater Starvation Attacks, River Poisoning

We went through the motions, but we know just how bad appointees of the Cambridge City Manager are.

The Cambridge City Manager avoids appointing people who are meaningfully pro-environment to boards. When it comes to environmental destruction on public lands in the City of Cambridge, the Cambridge City Manager is the key.

The fact that nine fake "environmentalists" on the Cambridge City Council rubber-stamp him and that he is comrade-in-arms with the reprehensible state Department of Conservation and Resources just adds to the sickness.

Last night, September 11, the Cambridge "Conservation Commission" took a vote. THEN they allowed public comment.

Pro-environment people outnumbered the reprehensible DCR and its Charles River Conservancy front organization five to one. Nobody from the audience spoke in favor of this outrage and, I believe, eight spoke out against.

The Cambridge Conservation Commission reaffirmed a vote taken by the Cambridge City Council in December 1999, a vote the Cambridge City Council has reaffirmed by silence throughout the goose killings and even silence about reality, when a probable goose-killer went on to the rape and murder of a young woman where he had been killing geese.

The sick proposal approved by the CCC will dig up all the food for the Charles River White Geese at Magazine Beach. Dirt is being dug up to be replaced by dirt and poisons. The Charles River between the Mass. Ave. Bridge and the Harbor is poisonous to humans and animals because of a similar project near Mass. General Hospital and the Charles River Dam.

Cambridge’s rubber-stamp Conservation Commission authorized further river and animal poisoning when it authorized this outrage.

What were nine fake environmentalists on the Cambridge City Council doing at that time?

The Cambridge City Council had an agenda with the usual pious and false environmentalism. The Cambridge City Council kept the public from talking until after the start of the Conservation Commission meeting, with a possibly unprecedented delay of more than an hour and a half before the start of public comment period.

These nine environmental fakes took no chance on reality interfering with their propaganda.

In other action, the Cambridge Conservation Commission further demonstrated its contempt for the environment by authorizing permanent nighttime disruption of wildlife and peaceful human use on the Charles River by authorizing essentially permanent lighting of bridges from water level.

Robert La Tremouille

Saturday, September 09, 2006

Algae bloom and the DCR

1. Marilyn Wellons reports, 9/9/06.
2. Prior Marilyn report with details, 9/9/06.
3. Chris responds, 9/9/06.



1. Marilyn Wellons reports.

Today's Globe has a small article on p. B4, "Charles swim canceled."

The DCR has canceled the first annual Charles River Swim set for today because of the algae bloom. From the article:

"Last month levels of the toxic algae, called microcystis, exploded to levels never before seen in the Charles. Although the concentration dissipated to just below what the World Health Organization considers an acceptable level, DCR officials said yesterday the counts have inched upward. They refused to issue a permit for the race."

We've heard nothing about the relation of this unprecedented algae bloom to the installation of six acres of fertilizer- and herbicide-treated sod this past spring at the new "Teddy Ebersol's Red Sox Fields at Lederman Park" and the application of "Tartan" (a fungicide stable in water and toxic to fresh water fish and invertebrates) to the same six acres of sod just before the algae bloomed. These Little League fields are immediately adjacent to the site of the bloom.

I've seen nothing in the newspapers about any public health officials' investigation of the cause of the algae bloom. The original report in the Globe said fertilizer runoff causes such things.

We are sure to hear no reports of this sort from the DCR, the proud agency responsible for installing the sod for Little League fields so close to the Charles.

Little League ball is not, after all, a "water-dependent activity." The DCR's much-vaunted Master Plan for the Charles wants to eliminate all "non-water-dependent" activities like skating rinks, swimming pools, and veterans' organizations from the river.

However, the DCR seems to have made quite an exception for the "Teddy Ebersol's Red Sox Fields at Lederman Park." We should hear from the DCR why this new, "non-water-dependent" facility was allowed so close to the river. Its grass will continue to need repeated applications of fertilizer and herbicides to maintain "the quality of turf our players deserve," as the DCR's representative told the Boston ConCom this summer. The counts will probably inch upward with runoff from the fields after every rain as long as the warm weather lasts.

The DCR may have denied the permit for the Charles River Swim, but they certainly didn't deny the permit for the "Teddy Ebersol's Red Sox Little League Fields at Lederman Park."

Marilyn Wellons

2. Prior Marilyn report with details, 9/9/06.

Please note Marilyn's prior report, 8/16/06, updated 8/31/06, entitled Department of Conservation and Recreation Poisoning the Charles River? It provides the key details of the poisoning.

Bob La Trémouille

3. Chris responds, 9/9/06.

I row everyday and its pretty nasty how much algae there is on the Charles... for animal species and humans. It's abnormal and any rhetoric flitting that the charles river is clean and/or cleaner than it has been is rubbish.

The algal bloom represents high temps., off-set water chemistry, and low oxygen levels.

I would not wish to be a fish right now... It's like trying to breathe in Mexico City.

Chris

Thursday, September 07, 2006

The Potemkin landscape at Magazine Beach

“Potemkin village. NOUN: Something that appears elaborate and impressive but in actual fact lacks substance . . . ETYMOLOGY: After Grigori Aleksandrovich Potemkin, who had elaborate fake villages constructed for Catherine the Great’s tours of the Ukraine and the Crimea.” (American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, copyright 2000, Houghton Mifflin Company: www.bartleby.com/61/0/PO480000.html.)


It will be interesting to hear the DCR’s story about Cambridge's own Potemkin landscape, the joint DCR-Cambridge “restoration” of Magazine Beach. Will the story be impressive enough at the Cambridge Conservation Commission's hearing September 11 to win the DCR a three-year renewal of the ConCom's permit, and allow the project to keep going?

The DCR's burden of proof is not very great. We know that regulatory agencies tend to go along with proposals from the regulated. And as it is, the ConCom is an agency of the same City Manager whose other agencies are the DCR's partners in this project. The ConCom has already given the DCR two extra months to get its act together at Magazine Beach.

The Cambridge ConCom's vice-chair, Kaki Martin, is, I believe, the project's designer. She has previously recused herself from meetings on this topic. Even so, it would probably be difficult for her Commission colleagues to face the obvious: as the workers at Magazine Beach told me after four change orders and two site visits by the responsible officials, including Ms. Martin, in a week, "they don't know what they're doing."

The ongoing mess of the last two years tends to confirm this view. Uncollected rubbish decorates the shore. Jersey barriers, plastic fences, and orange pontoons have blocked humans' access to the river and wildlife's access to onshore habitat. Construction of the "lagoon bridge" was shoddy, non-compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Construction of the riverside road was not to original specifications and is eroding. A stable border of tough, erosion-fighting plants, "native" by anyone's definition, was ripped out and replaced with "coir fascine logs" and expensive plants to realize a fashionable fantasy. Some of these coconut logs sway with the waves or have disappeared downstream. Growing out of and holding others in place are fine stands of purple loosestrife, high on the DCR's list of "non-native invasives" and never before seen at Magazine Beach. Purple loosestrife favors disturbed sites.

Although purple loosestrife did't grow at Magazine Beach before 2004, it's the kind of plant the project was to eliminate, and its appearance--you can't miss that rosy purple--is an embarrassment. The DCR-Cambridge team's remedy has been to disturb the soil further, to rip it (and everything else, including those expensive new plants) out, till the soil, and sow grass seed. Unfortunately the loosestrife was already seeding, and its zillions of seeds, as well as each tiny tilled bit of loosestrife root, will grow.

So what you see at Magazine Beach now is a relatively narrow border of plants at the shore and a 20'-wide, tilled and newly seeded strip of dirt between it and the eroding walkway. Within this strip are a few of the trees and shrubs planted in 2004 (the others went last week with the purple loosestrife) in varying states of health. The view is, the team hopes, one of order and control despite some apparently dead plants.

This is Cambridge's Potemkin landscape, constructed for the authorities for 7 pm on September 11, 2006. After that--even now the most recently ripped-out plants are regenerating--it will yield a bumper crop of loosestrife and other opportunistic plants nature uses to heal raw wounds.

If the DCR-Cambridge remedy serves its purpose, though, it will win the team another three years, in which they can apply to the ConCom for permission both to apply herbicides to the waterfront "invaders" and to loose the Charles River Conservancy "volunteers" on the place. (Please see other blog entries on the DCR and CRC "vegetation management.")

Finally, renewing the DCR's permit will also allow the team to proceed with plans to remove the 7 acres of soil and grass with ball fields now at Magazine Beach and replace them with 7 acres of gravel, topsoil, sod, and an irrigation system and new ball fields and fences.

The prototype for the fields at Magazine Beach is the DCR's "Teddy Ebersol's Red Sox Fields at Lederman Park," 6 acres of riverfront installed this spring. Unfortunately the acres of sod that replaced the grass naturally growing there was not, in a turf-grower's words, "organically grown." Like golf courses, regulation ball fields are heavily treated with chemicals. I believe it was runoff from these 6 acres of chemically treated sod, retreated with "Tartan," a fungicide, shortly after August 2, that caused the toxic algae bloom first noticed on August 9, 2006. (See blog entry on algae bloom.)

It would be interesting to know whether ball players' health, like golfers', is consequently at greater risk. Since children are to play on these fields I worry about the long-term consequences of "Tartan," for example They may or may not be like DDT, whose effects appeared decades after use.

The DCR's Master Plan for the Charles River gives lip service to privileging "water-dependent activities" over "non-water-dependent activities." The former includes watching waterfowl or being one, the latter, playing Little League ball. The DCR and its partners nevertheless seek to eliminate waterfowl everywhere on the river but especially at Lederman Park and now Magazine Beach, yet are bent on installing expensive state-of-the-art playing fields on the same river, where they do not belong. They do not belong because the chemicals necessary to maintain the turf should not, according to the label on "Tartan," for example, be applied near bodies of water. The DCR and Cambridge seem not to care.

At Magazine Beach their plan is to destroy what is there and replace it with another, more expensive, in this case inferior, even dangerous version of border and ball fields. It wastes our resources and destroys our public assets, including our public health, but keeps the creators of our Potemkin landscape in business.

Marilyn Wellons

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

On goldenrod

Marilyn Wellons reports:

Today's Boston Globe has a small but beautiful photo of Maine's Mt. Desert Island, with a fine spray of goldenrod in the foreground (p. E1, lower left corner).

Goldenrod is one of summer's final gifts. True to its billing, it's golden, with clusters of small yellow flowers the bees love, and its long, branching stalks are little rods.

True to the vision of the Charles River parkland's original designers, goldenrod grows along this urban estuary to combine, like goldenrod at Acadia National Park, with other plants to give us a bit of rural beauty in early September.

Or at least it does until the DCR's volunteers cut it down. They're busy at this annual task right now, just when wild bees are gathering honey for the winter, just when the DCR's ostensible constituency, the general public, is out for the last fine weather and the pleasure of these flowers.

The DCR's agent, the Charles River Conservancy's "volunteer coordinator," would have me believe I'm the only person who looks forward to seeing goldenrod and grieves when he and his crews deprive us of its beauty every fall.

Last year, as his "volunteers" clear-cut everything along the lagoon behind the Publick Theatre in Boston, he initially denied to me that there was any goldenrod there, or that he had given permission for the crew to cut it down. Goldenrod is, in the DCR's own terms, a North American "native," hence not "invasive," hence not in the Master Plan to be eradicated from the land. Nor does it block any views of the Charles River or the lagoon.

When I picked up the fallen stalks, he admitted he had, when the "volunteers" with the loppers asked if it was ok to destroy them, told them it was, although the target plant was an oriental bittersweet. He then argued to me that he had a great job, educating children about the environment.

This year our goldenrod conversation was a different story. Standing in the same place as last year, looking at the stands of budding goldenrod and other fall flowers waiting to be felled by his imminent clear-cutting, the same person challenged me: "What is it with you and goldenrod? No one else objects to cutting it down. There's nothing wrong with cutting it down."

Now goldenrod is a well-known and valued member of cultivated fall gardens and wilder places in New England. I suspect that the previous year's "volunteers" asked if they should cut it down because they knew that. I have no way of knowing if the "volunteer coordinator" spoke the truth and I'm the only person who's ever objected to him or the DCR or CRC about cutting it down. Nevertheless, I cannot believe I am the only person who objects to the mindless destruction of this and the other fall flowers.

And, if there's nothing wrong with cutting down the goldenrod, why had he bothered to lie to me about it last year, then admit it was true? So when I began to recall this, he and Richard Corsi, the DCR official at his side, both announced that the topic was a waste of time and stalked off. "And you can put that in your blog," said Corsi with some emphasis.

Unlike a year ago, when the "volunteer coordinator" first denied, then acknowledged what he'd done, this year he was defiant. I believe the change is important, since his defiance followed immediately upon another denial. He had said his crews last year hadn't cut plants on the far of the lagoon. If they didn't cut the plants on the far side, I said, cutting them here on the near side has itself exposed the Publick Theatre's portable toilet, dumpster, and old scenery to passersby. In my opinion this is not a service to urban people out for rural views.

Richard Corsi repeated that the DCR had nothing to do with clearing the far side, and that in fact he thought the view of the Public Theatre's backside revealed by the DCR's "vegetation management" was pleasing.

Again, the "volunteer coordinator's" statements may be true. However, I was standing in the same place, discussing the same project with him, the very same person who had acknowledged lying to me about the cutting a year ago. He was standing with a public official who has repeatedly misrepresented the DCR's role in illegal "vegetation management" to the Boston Conservation Commission. Consequently I have no more reason to take his statements at face value than I do the DCR official's. And I wonder if the young man's association with the DCR official has emboldened him to defiance, which in time may settle into the more comfortable misrepresentations his senior exhibits.

This year's goldenrod conversation took place on the Charles during a site visit by the Chair and Executive Secretary of the Boston Conservation Commission to consider the DCR's "vegetation management" policies and serious erosion along the shore, especially in front of Harvard Business School. For other aspects of this visit, please see the blog posting, "DCR 'vegetation management' and the Boston ConCom."

Sunday, September 03, 2006

Environmental Destroyers Target White Ducks.

The fourth week of August 2006, the Charles River Conservancy, acting on behalf of Massachusetts' Department of Conservation and Recreation started destroying riverfront vegetation immediately next to the home of Andrake and Daffney. Andrake and Daffney's home is next.

I have previously reported the coming of Andrake and Daffney, the Charles River White Ducks. They were abandoned at Magazine Beach, and stayed in a grove of trees waiting for their master to come back.

I saved Andrake from being killed when a person sicced his dog on the ducks. Disturbed people do nasty things following the lead of the regional and Cambridge, MA governments.

Bill Naumann of the Charles River Urban Wilds Initiative taught the ducks to swim. They were very innocent and very beautiful, but they apparently were kept in very restricted quarters. They did not know what all that blue stuff was for until Bill enticed them into the Charles River.

Once Bill taught them what the river was for and after we had left Magazine Beach that day, the White Ducks set out to explore the Charles River. They made themselves a home in vegetation covering the Charles River on the Boston side.

They are now directly at risk because of the contemptible behavior of the state agency charged with defending the local environment, the Department of Conservation and Recreation of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

We are faced with a government agency responsible for management of nature, but which is beligerently unfit to manage nature. The Department of Conservation and Recreation has contempt for nature. The DCR routinely destroys nature. The DCR, along with the City of Cambridge, is an excellent example of man destroying our world by destroying his back yard.

DCR and Cambridge are offended by nature. DCR does a lot of lying. Cambridge does a lot of saving of the world outside its back yard. Both routinely destroy their back yards.

One of the things that both Cambridge and the DCR are most offended by is that the Charles River looks like a river.

The DCR is determined to correct that. The DCR routinely destroys river vegetation which has the nerve to make the Charles River look like a river.

The sick project at Magazine Beach is just one example.

The DCR commonly works through a group which is funded by developers / contractors do the most outrageous of its dirty work. This group calls itself the “Charles River Conservancy.” The DCR has been sanctioned by the Boston Conservation Commission for CRC environmental destructiveness and for CRC contempt for environmental regulation acting on behalf of the DCR.

The Charles River Conservancy has poisoned every goose egg it could get away with on the first ten miles of the Charles River for the past four years. We yelled about the White Geese. They stopped poisoning the eggs of the White Geese after two years of poisonings. This year I have seen only one Canada Goose baby because of the DCR and CRC's environmental destruction.

The DCR through its agents harass water fowl because water fowl have the nerve to exist in land areas next to bodies of water.

The behavior of these people is stereotypical of man's destruction of man's world.

The DCR brags about a “vegetation management plan” under which they say they do not cut vegetation next to bodies of water shorter than a foot. The DCR is lying. The DCR and the CRC routinely prove the DCR liars by the activities of the CRC on the banks of the Charles, clear-cutting native vegetation.

There have been heron viewed off Magazine Beach. That was before the DCR got busy destroying the vegetation they, like the Charles River White Ducks, need for their protection. If you want to know what happed to the wild birds, the answer is quite similar to what happened to so many free animals in the City of Cambridge. Government made it impossible for free animals to live. All the while these hypocrites toss pious nonsense about how pro-environment they are.

The Commissioner of the DCR in a recent public meeting, proved himself a very major part of the lie about protections for wetlands vegetation. One of the DCR managers bragged about the fake vegetation plan. I tried to discuss reality. The commissioner shouted me down.

Approximately every six months, the real vegetation management plan is implemented by the CRC for the DCR and the CRC does their own bragging. The CRC on behalf of the DCR scalps the Charles River. They do this because the DCR and the CRC are offended by the idea of having a river in their world. The DCR and the CRC wants parks, not rivers, grass, not wildlife. And in any case, the developers and contractors who are funding the CRC are offended by nature because they do not make money out of nature.

When you see the people making the loudest noises about Canada Geese, ask yourself is there a developer or contractor somewhere around? These are the people destroying our world, through sick government aencies.

The Charles River White Ducks and all other animals who use vegetation for shelter on the Charles River are very much at risk from these reprehensible entities.

Last week, the CRC started destroying riverfront vegetation immediately next to the home of Andrake and Daffney, downriver, to the east.

The destruction is particularly sick because Andrake and Daffney have chosen a home in an area which is quite wild. There is no real river bank between the local highway and the Charles River at this point,

But we have sick people who have contempt for nature and who are part of that portion of mankind who are destroying our world.

This is written on September 3, 2006. The attack just to the east of Andrake and Daffney occurred a little bit more than a week ago. The sickos could attack Andrake and Daffney at any time.