Bob La Trémouille reports:
1, Visibilities 356-362.
2. Cambridge City Council Pushes Governor.
A. Marilyn’s Letter to the Cambridge Chronicle.
B. Charles River Conservancy director only supporter.
C. Summary.
3. Marilyn Responds on Commuter Comments.
4. Ed: The hunt for food forced on the Charles River White Geese.
5. Marilyn Responds on the Charles River Conservancy.
1. Visibilities 356-362.
Monday, July 23 (356), Tuesday, July 24 (357), Wednesday, July 25 (358), Thursday, July 26 (359), Friday, July 27 (360), Tuesday, July 31 (361) and Wednesday, August 1 (362), Marilyn did visibilities at the Destroyed Nesting Area of the Charles River White Geese. The visibility on August 1 started at the BU Bridge and moved to the nearby City of Cambridge ball field.
Her response, as usual was excellent.
Marilyn reports:
Lots of people are taking the flyers, and I get thumbs-up signs and waves.
[ed: The latter come from passing motorists. The visibility location takes on a love-in type of thing based on the general love of the commuters for the Charles River White Geese and for the Charles River. This love is recognized by the Cambridge and state pols and bureaucrats. That love is exactly the reason for the repeated flat out lies.]
2. Cambridge City Council Pushes Governor.
The evening of July 28, Marilyn and Kathy Podgers responded at Cambridge City Council to a motion from the Cambridge City Council asking the governor the status of the next stage of environment destruction at Magazine Beach funded by the Cambridge City Council.
A. Marilyn’s Letter to the Cambridge Chronicle.
Marilyn did an excellent job of summarizing her position on the Cambridge City Council’s funding of environmental destruction at Magazine Beach in a letter printed in the Cambridge City Council today, August 2, 2007.
It read as follows:
********
David Harris, Editor
Cambridge Chronicle
To the Editor:
Your otherwise excellent article and editorial on the First Annual Charles River Swim Race failed to mention the cause of last summer’s unprecedented, astronomical algae bloom: 6 acres of commercial sod installed in the spring of 2006 at the Ebersol Fields at Lederman Park, by Mass General Hospital in Boston. “We’ve never seen an algae bloom like this before,” one water quality scientist was quoted as saying. There had never been those 6 acres of commercial sod at the river’s mouth, either.
The matter is especially important for the Chronicle’s readers, since our city is poised to install 7 acres of the same sod at Magazine Beach.
At Ebersol Fields, the DCR replaced existing ball fields with professional-level ones, to provide “the quality of turf our players deserve,” as a DCR spokesperson put it.
In the river offshore from those 6 acres before they became "professional level," water quality was B+ in August, 2005. A year later, in August, 2006, the river was dead from the Museum of Science dam to the Mass. Avenue Bridge. Runoff from those 6 acres’ fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides, and fungicide created a major public health hazard for humans and wildlife.
Taxpayers in the Charles River watershed have spent $60 million so far to clean up the river. We’ll spend another $19 million by 2013, without factoring in the algae. Taxpayers in Cambridge — where water rates continue to rise — are about to pay $1.5 million to pollute the river at Magazine Beach and make swimming impossible. The joint Cambridge-DCR “restoration” at Magazine Beach, even before the 7 polluting acres, has already caused an algae bloom in the puddle installed as there as “wetlands”
In this election year, it would be interesting to hear candidates’ justifications for the project. Our City Council has approved it and given the Governor the funds to proceed. With wisdom and enough calls from the public, he will think twice about water quality and withhold the funds.
I’m hoping to read all about it in the Chronicle.
B. Charles River Conservancy director only supporter.
Mr. Rob Johnson, a director of the Charles River Conservancy, was the only person, including members of the Cambridge City Council, who spoke in favor of the Magazine Beach project.
Mr. Johnson was a leader of the predecessor organization to the Charles River Conservancy, the “Friends of Magazine Beach.”
One of the first things that Friends of the White Geese did after organizing was to demonstrate at a supposed environmentally favorable project by “Friends of Magazine Beach.”
The Friends of the White Geese demonstration was in opposition to the destruction of the Goose Meadow a few months, and to the balance of these people’s destructive plans which include but very much are not limited to:
(1) The wall of designer bushes which has replaced the wetlands at Magazine Beach and should be removed; and
(2) The current proposal to poison Magazine Beach and the Charles River.
Not long after our demonstration against the "Friends of Magazine Beach," the "Friends of Magazine Beach" for all practical purposes disappeared and, Da Da, we had the Charles River Conservancy, which included directors of the "Friends of Magazine Beach."
The Charles River Conservancy conducted a “swim in” at this project in 2005, the year after they, the City of Cambridge and the state pols and bureaucrats, destroyed the wetlands and started to starve the Charles River White Geese.
The CRC claimed that this batch of stuff would assist swimming in the Charles.
A quick view of the wall of designer bushes now blocking access between Magazine Beach and the Charles River readily shows just how much of a flat out lie the "swim in" was.
The poisons that nine city councilors and their pol and bureaucrat buddies are poised to introduce once again demonstrate just how much the CRC (and their pols and bureaucrats) lack credibility.
The CRC has run around for the past five years poisoning the eggs of water fowl on the Charles River. For the same period, they have run around destroying more and more protective vegetation on the Charles River needed by migrating birds such as cranes.
For one of the directors of the CRC to be the only public supporter of poisoning Magazine Beach and the Charles River, says a lot about the project at Magazine Beach and about this developer funded group.
The only person standing in the way of this continuing outrage is Deval Patrick, Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
C. Summary.
Is Governor Patrick on the side of our world or on the side of the destroyers of our world? The latter group includes NINE Cambridge City Councilors, and the Cambridge and state pols and bureaucrats.
There is a very major difference between reality and the repeated lies of the destroyers.
3. Marilyn Responds on Commuter Comments.
Motorists and passers-by are very concerned about the White Geese's trips across the road to get to the grass.
I always point out that the geese can no longer get to their primary sources of food, the grass at Magazine Beach and on the river by the Hyatt. Since 2004 the White Geese have been confined to their nesting area, now their ghetto, by the Cambridge and DCR projects in both places. They cross the road now because they have to--and didn't for 20 years previous to the joint Cambridge-DCR starvation campaign.
Then people ask why the DCR and Cambridge would do that. I mention the cover story, that the White Geese are said to be "not a native species." We all know that humans are "native" to Africa only, but apparently humans are exempt from this stringent standard for living on and around the Charles River.
4. Ed: The hunt for food forced on the Charles River White Geese.
The Charles River White Geese frequently commute from their Goose Meadow to grass located under Memorial Drive. This was extremely difficult before the first attack on the Charles River White Geese, by Boston University acting on behalf of the Department of Conservation and Recreation. In October 1999, BU removed sections of fence which kept the Goose Meadow safe from people at the same time that BU destroyed the goose meadow.
Since the starvation campaign was commenced in September 2005 by nine heartless Cambridge City Councilors and by their pols and bureaucrats at state and local level, the Charles River White Geese have hunted for food wherever they can find it.
Their search for food includes a dangerous walk across the on ramp to Memorial Drive from the BU Bridge. This on ramp constitutes the northern boundary of the goose meadow.
The Charles River White Geese are extremely cautious pedestrians, especially given their lack of formal education in traffic laws. The Charles River White Geese will stand on the sidewalk next to the on ramp. They will look and look and look until they think it is safe to cross. Trouble is that, after all that cautious looking, they cross the on ramp like a bunch of geese. They walk with very little speed. Many of them will wander all about in the process of crossing the on ramp.
I have frequently seen commuters patiently watching their progress with admiration for their individual beauty and determination. Many will get out of their cars and take photos. I have never seen drivers treat these travels with lack of respect.
5. Marilyn Responds on the Charles River Conservancy.
Robb Johnson was the only person who spoke in favor of
the MB scandal. Remember too that his Friends of
Magazine Beach organized the annual volunteer cleanups
of Magazine Beach a week or two before BU's graduation
ceremony there--without telling the volunteers they
were subsidizing BU as well as the DCR.
When we pointed out the timing, FOMB rescheduled the
next cleanup for after the graduation and then
dissolved, discontinuing them altogether.
His organization was the one the DCR solicited the
anti-White Geese memo from. When I followed up on
their statements about the White Geese, I found the
people they quoted disavowed what the memo attributed
to them. In fact, one official has been completely
misrespresented.
While Johnson was speaking about the plan for Magazine
Beach he favored, Kathy Podgers pointed out to me that
his organization approved the plans in secret, that in
subsequent public meetings people told the DCR the
plans didn't do what they had wanted done--clean up
the pool and fix the old stone building at Captain's
Island made from granite in the original magazine.
As it is, the plans Johnson and the DCR are pushing
will do away with the turnout and parking at the
swimming pool. Everyone I talk to about that says
it's not only crazy, but should be stopped.
