Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Day 392, Poison Fed Grass looks even worse.

1. Day 392 at the Destroyed Nesting Area — Red Sox crowd.
2. Poison Fed Grass looks even worse.

Bob La Trémouille reports.

1. Day 392 at the Destroyed Nesting Area — Red Sox crowd.

Rush hour was quite busy at the Destroyed Nesting Area. The Red Sox are in town and a lot of people were driving and walking to the game.

For the first time, I had a bicyclist grab a flier passing me.

People were interested and concerned.

2. Poison Fed Grass looks even worse.

I walked through the environmental outrage at the Magazine Beach athletic fields and looked more closely at the introduced poison fed grass.

The grass varies in quality from one location to another. Some locations are nearly bare.

The bare stuff is clearly inferior to the native, environmentally responsible grass which has not yet been destroyed, at the top of the hill to the west of the bizarre athletic fields.

Some parts look quite good, but are they better than the native grass which does not and did not need poisons to survive? And does it make any sense whatsoever to destroy all that healthy, viable grass to introduce sickly stuff that needs poisons to survive?

I had an extended discussion with a woman exercising a Lab on the hill. Her comments without prompting agreed with what normal people have been saying for the past thirteen years. The hill could use some work. Working on the playing fields was silly.

She was quite shocked to learn of the plans to destroy the parking on the hill. We are dealing with incompetents who have contempt both for the environment and for the people using the environment. These continuing projects both destroy the environment and destroy access for normal human beings to the Charles River. First and foremost, these incompetents should be fired. Instead, the Cambridge Machine runs around spouting flat out lies that the incompetents are worthy of our respect.

Monday, April 19, 2010

Day 391 at the Destroyed Nesting Area; Magazine Beach “Improvements” Essentially Non Existent

1. Day 391, Marathon Crowd.
2. First view of “Improvements” at Magazine Beach — Good Stuff Essentially Non Existent.

Bob La Trémouille reports:

1. Day 391, Marathon Crowd.

On April 19, 2010, I once again set up at the far side of the BU Bridge because the east side is blocked of for the needlessly destructive BU Bridge repairs. This prevents leafleting next to the Goose Meadow. Similarly, leafleting of cars is now impossible, but the main target has always been pedestrians.

People, as usual, were very nice. Quite a few friendly beeps from the cars.

Clearly, a significant percentage of the folks walking were returning to their hotel from the Boston Marathon.

There were a lot of local residents, and they were interested.

The last person I leafleted discussed the various items of destruction with me and told me he would call Cambridge City Councilor Seidel. I informed him that I have posted on this blog Seidel’s commentary providing his definition of “environmentalism.” I informed him as well that Seidel voted for the destruction at Magazine Beach. This happened when he was on Cambridge’s version of a Conservation Commission.

2. First view of “Improvements” at Magazine Beach — Good Stuff Essentially Non Existent.

The normal reaction of people in the past when they were told of coming “improvements” at Magazine Beach has always been that work on Magazine Beach made no sense. There never was any need to improve it.

The fences are down. It is now possible to walk the construction zone.

The most overwhelming impression is that nothing of value has been done.

Then, when you look around, you realize that a lot has been done, and it is all either bad or could have been done without massive destruction.

Magazine Beach is now firmly walled off from the Charles River with a bizarre wall of introduced vegetation which hides the river from people using the playing fields, and starves the Charles River White Geese. The key bureaucrat has spouted “no intention to harm” for ten years, but explains that starving them, in his bizarre world, is not harming them, and he has publicly bragged of starving them.

The size of the playing fields has been significantly reduced by the massive drainage system to drain off the poisons needed by the introduced grass to keep from dying. The grass that was destroyed in this project survived for most of a century without poisons.

The playing fields have been rearranged, but you did not have to destroy to do that.

Then you realize that the area to the west of the construction zone has not been rebuilt.

It is impossible to distinguish between the two areas of grass: (1) the poison maintained stuff which was introduced in place of healthy environmentally responsible grass and (2) the healthy responsible stuff that has been there for the better part of a century and which is exactly the grass they destroyed.

The Bumpy Memorial Pond was introduced in the eastern end of the fields as part of the first destruction several years ago. It was intended to replace wetlands which were needlessly destroyed for the bizarre bushes. We always considered the Bumpy Memorial Pond bizarre because it was an artificially created pond feet from the Charles River with no connection.

The geese loved it. That may be the reason it has been destroyed. The pond has been filled in and it is now wetlands.

The wall of bizarre introduced bushes has been extended to wall off pretty much all of the Charles, vastly increasing blocking in the area near the Bumpy Pond and the small boat launch. That small boat launch is the only place clearly open for access from the Charles River. The massive increase of bushes is clearly designed to minimize the value of the poisoned grass to the Charles River White Geese.

Some people were playing on the softball fields. I do not know if they paid the $90 or so which is now required to use the fields even for pick up games.

Summary: reprehensible, stupid, a lot of destruction and less usable playing fields. Outrageous, but we are dealing with the City of Cambridge and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

The Cambridge Machine has no shame. The Cambridge Machine will be bragging.

Friday, April 16, 2010

Bridges: Urban Ring Phase 2, Charles River Bridges

Department of Transportation Secretary Jeff Mullan briefly spoke to the Metropolitan Planning Organization's Regional Transportation Advisory Council on Wednesday, April 14, 2010, following a presentation by Clinton Bench, who I believe is the Department's Deputy Executive Director of Planning.

In response to a question about Department of Conservation and Recreation's Charles River bridges transferred to DOT, Mullen cited work on all the bridges the DOT's Accelerated Bridge Program is responsible for repairing. He specifically mentioned those to the north that are in the ABP as part of the Urban Ring.

(As we were told when the public process for the Urban Ring 2 ceased: the Urban Ring Phase 2 is still alive.)

My follow-up question to the Secretary then was, how did DCR manage to evade ABP controls on the BU and Anderson bridges and expand the footprints? Mr. Mullan said he would look into it and get back to me.

Marilyn Wellons

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Bob La Trémouille responds:

This issue of footprint is major with regard ongoing environmental destruction and heartless animal abuse by DCR and Cambridge.

The DCR and Cambridge go out of their way to harm animal life on the Charles River by whatever means they have at their disposal.

The purpose is to kill off all animals living or visiting the first ten miles of the Charles River because they have a vision: they want a dead world on the Charles River, as they and their predecessors have worked to create a dead world on our planet.

The footprint at the BU Bridge (I am not familiar with the Anderson Bridge problem) was illegally expanded as part of the attacks on the Charles River White Geese.

The two have been heartlessly destroying the Charles River White Geese by destroying their habitat piece by piece.

The DCR is illegally installing a drainage system for the BU Bridge in the tiny meadow which is all that is undestroyed to the Charles River White Geese of their habitat.

Destroy, destroy, destroy, a little here, a little there, a lot of lying and false claims of sainthood, . . .

By contrast, a responsible entity, MassDOT is rebuilding drainage on the Western Avenue and River Street Bridges within the footprint of those bridges. And that is the requirement of the program under which they are working.

This destruction is a major part of the reason DCR and the Cambridge pols kept the meetings on BU Bridge planning as secret as they could from affected Cambridge residents.

This deliberate secrecy was the reason for the con games pulled by the Cambridge pols on the River Street and Western Avenue Bridge. They lied to the public with claims of "concern" by demanding that the responsible projects have public presentations in Cambridge while being very happy to keep the irresponsible BU Bridge project secret from Cambridge.