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."

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.

'Wild Geese," a poem by Mary Oliver

A very good friend sent me this poem, which I pass on to other friends of the White Geese.

Marilyn

****

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.


Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.


Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

- copyright Mary Oliver

Boston Con Com Considers DCR's Fake Vegetation Management Plan

1. Letter from Marilyn Wellons.
2. Analysis of Bob La Trémouille.

1. Letter from Marilyn Wellons.

The following was submitted to the Boston Conservation Commission this evening, August 16, 2006:

To the Boston Conservation Commission:

re: DCR request for an Extension Permit for Order of
Conditions DEP File No. 006-0971 for the Charles River
Basin Shoreline Vegetation Management Plan, and review
of vegetation management work performed during 2005
and work proposed for 2006, Charles River, Boston
(Riverfront Area, Inland Bank, 100-foot Buffer Zone).

Erosion, loss of habitat, and diminished water quality
are direct, practical consequences of flawed
vegetation management policies and practices on the
Charles. Recognizing this, the Commission has
attached Special Conditions to previous approvals of
the DCR’s Vegetation Management Plan.

In July, 2003 at Item 40, you specify that “[o]n the
banks between the Boston University Bridge and the
Western Avenue Bridge, the applicant . . . shall not
cut False Indigo in order to protect habitat of
herring and heron.” Otherwise, you instruct the DCR
to perform two cuttings each year, to a minimum height
of between 6 and 12 inches (Item 30).

While the applicant states in its July 5, 2006 Plan
that False Indigo provides “nesting areas for
songbirds and erosion protection along the shoreline,”
(CRB VMP Narrative, p. 4), it nevertheless lists it as
a “species of concern” without defining the term or
stating what the concern is.

I have found no definition of “species of concern” in
the literature on “invasive plants,” nor does the
Massachusetts Invasive Plants Advisory Group list it
as an “invasive species” since it is “native” to
Massachusetts. False Indigo’s problem seems to be its
uncut ultimate height of 12-13 feet. Unchecked, it
would in some places partially obstruct views of the
Head of the Charles.

It is for this reason I believe the False Indigo and
other plants in the prime Head of the Charles viewing
spot between the Weeks Footbridge and Larz Anderson
Bridge have been severely cut for at least ten years.
As a result, the remaining few, weakened plants cannot
provide adequate buttressing to the shore against the
prevailing winter winds from the northwest. At the
Commission’s site visit on August 14, 2006, we
considered the major loss of several acres of public
parkland to erosion there.

Taking only the example of False Indigo’s place in the
VMP, I would suggest that the Commission recognize the
plant’s virtues rather than consider it a “species of
concern.” I also suggest you prohibit its coppicing
on this small part of the riverbank for two years. At
the end of that time it should be possible to see if
greater vigor and the possible spread of the present
survivors succeeds in holding the shore.

Sections of the bank where there is no False Indigo
will surely continue to erode into the river, but the
DCR has no immediate plan to remedy the problem. The
uncut False Indigo, valued for erosion control, might
prove its great worth throughout the basin. If it
does not, the Commission would have lost little in the
attempt to find out since, again, the DCR has no
immediate plans to stop future erosion at the site in
question or to replace its lost acres of land.

In your review of the DCR’s vegetation management work
in 2005 and in 2006 to date, please see my enclosed
letter to you dated April 19, 2006 about unsupervised
cutting on the river.

Yours sincerely,

2. Analysis of Bob La Trémouille.

The nicest think I have to say about the DCR's fake vegetation management plan is that the DCR Chairman shouted me down when I tried to intersperse reality among the DCR's lies.

The DCR brags about leaving a foot of vegetation and ROUTINELY clear cuts on the Charles River.

The DCR has no honor.

Department of Conservation and Recreation Poisoning the Charles River?

Update, 8/31/06: The Cambridge Conservation Commission hearing mentioned below is now 9/11/06 at 7 pm, Cambridge City Hall Annex, corner of Broadway and Inman Street in Cambridge.

The DCR is apparently trying to get somebody to support its application. Since their reprehensible front organization the Charles River Conservancy was coming that night anyway, the hearing is now 9/11/06.

**********

This morning, WBZ Radio in Boston reported the sighting of possibly poisonous algae in the Charles River on the harbor side of the Mass. Ave. Bridge.

The Charles River White Geese have traditionally lived a half a mile east and west of the BU Bridge which is the next bridge after the Mass. Ave. Bridge going away from the harbor, perhaps a mile or so further west.

The Museum of Science mentioned in Marilyn's report below is perhaps half a mile from the harbor and built on the Charles River Dam. Going outbound (westerly) from there are the Longfellow Bridge, then the Mass. Ave. Bridge, then the B.U. Bridge.

Marilyn reports:

I suspect the poisonous algae bloom by the Museum of
Science is directly related to fertilizer at the new
"Teddy Ebersol's Red Sox Fields at Lederman Park."
Lederman Park is on the Boston side of the river by
MGH and the Longfellow Bridge, i.e., just upriver from
the Museum of Science. The "Teddy Ebersol's Red Sox
Fields" are regulation Little League fields
constructed in a DCR "public-private partnership."
[For more information on the fields and the DCR's
private partners see
http://www.bluemassgroup.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=2483.]

So there are now 6 acres of new turf, installed by the
DCR, on the banks of the Charles.

We know that one precipitating cause of algae bloom is
fertilizer runoff. Given the extraordinary rains
earlier in the summer, there was probably runoff from
the "Teddy Ebersol's Red Sox Fields at Lederman Park"
despite the newly installed drainage and irrigation
systems there. Whether the 6 acres of sod had been
treated with fertilizer before installation, whether
they were treated with fertilizer after, are questions
I think the DEP and appropriate public health
authorities need to ask.

I don't know of other large tracts of riverbank that
would have been treated with fertilizer.

The DCR does say all that rain led to a fungus
infection now killing the newly installed turf at the "Teeddy Ebersol's Red Sox Fields at Lederman Park." Consequently they asked for, and received
permission from, the Boston Conservation Commission to
apply "Tartan," a fungicide, on August 3, 2006.

So a further question is whether the DCR may have
applied "Tartan" between August 3 and the bloom.
"Tartan" is toxic to fish and aquatic invertebrates, and
98% stable in water. The manufacturer's data sheet
says, "Do not apply directly to water, to areas where
surface water is present . . . . Drift and runoff from
treated areas may be hazardous to fish/aquatic
organisms in adjacent sites. . . . Do not apply when
weather conditions favor runoff or drift" (Bayer
Environmental Science, Material Safety Data Sheet,
Tartan Fungicide, Revision Date: 02/09/2006). Killing
off fish and aquatic organisms with runoff or drift
from "Tartan" into the Charles at "Teddy Ebersol's Red
Sox Fields at Lederman Park" might contribute to algae
bloom.

Interestingly, the "Teddy Ebersol's Red Sox Fields at
Lederman Park" seem to be the prototype for the ball
fields the DCR and Cambridge plan for Magazine Beach.
Remember, the Cambridge Conservation Commission will
consider whether to allow this project at its upcoming
August 28, 2006 meeting at 7 pm at the McCusker
Center, 344 Broadway (corner Inman and Broadway).

Like the fields slated to be destroyed at Magazine
Beach, the fields where "Teddy Ebersol's Red Sox Fields at Lederman
Park" now are were also in the Mass Wetlands Protection Act's
category of "bordering land subject to flooding." The
Boston project replaced 6 acres of waterfront grass
with gravel, topsoil, an irrigation system, and sod,
plus regulation Little League fields, including
extensive chain-link fences and many klieg lights on
60-foot high poles.

This is essentially the plan for Magazine Beach's 7
acres: dig up wet dirt and grass, replace with
gravel, dry dirt, sod, and an irrigation system, and
add chain-link fences. All that's missing from the
plans are the klieg lights (for now).

The DCR says Magazine Beach would ordinarily be rich
habitat for wildlife, but it's already been so
developed by humans that it no longer is. As a casual
visit shows, there's plenty of wildlife--Canada geese,
gulls, ducks, hawks--at Magazine Beach all year round.
It is the pending Cambridge-DCR plans for the place
that will themselves destroy its ongoing value as
habitat, however.

The DCR began to destroy Lederman Park as habitat
several years ago when it sought to "upgrade" the ball
fields there. The DCR specifically cited geese and
goose droppings at Lederman Park as a problem in 2004
when it asked for, and got, US Fish and Wildlife's
permission to poison Canada goose eggs and otherwise
expel the animals from the lower basin.

Similarly the DCR and Cambridge have worked since 2004
to expel the Charles River White Geese from their
primary source of food, the "bordering land subject to
flooding," at Magazine Beach prior to the pending
"upgrade" of the ball fields there.

One last observation. Last year the Charles River
Watershed Association declared the lower
Charles--between Lederman Park and the Museum of
Science--to be swimmable. The water was clean and a
perfect temperature. This year, after construction of
"Teddy Ebersol's Red Sox Fields at Lederman Park," we
have poisonous algae in the very same place.

Would the appropriate authorities please give us an
honest investigation of the possible link between
chemicals applied to land within 100' of the river and
the algae bloom?

Marilyn Wellons

Purple loosestrife, courtesy of the Department of Conservation and Recreation

From Kathy Podgers:

Below is a link to info about how destructive to waterfowl and wetlands this plant is. Although it is pretty, looks can be deceiving.

We never had this horror at "Magazine Beach" before the DCR started tampering with the natural environment there. Now we do need to remove some "invasives," courtesy of the DCR!!!

I just took some more photos there, to document that the area really is habitat to wildlife, and migrating waterfowl. After all, Magazine Beach is on the Charles River Estuary on the International Atlantic Flyway!

We should reserve, preserve this last remaining natural area for "Mother Nature."

http://www.nps.gov/plants/alien/fact/lysa1.htm.

Magazine Beach on the Charles River, Cambridge, MA, 8/11/06

1. Marilyn Wellons Reports.
2. Bob La Tremouille Responds.
3. Kathy Podgers Analysis in The Bridge.


1. Marilyn Wellons Reports.

I went down to Magazine Beach to have a look and gather goose feathers, as a friend had suggested. A pretty large contingent of the White Geese was offshore, including Brown Beauty and her cohort, plus the Toulouse and her family. There may have been
20-30 geese there.

I was sorry I didn't have any corn for them, and walked the length of MBeach to the overlook behind the old stone building, to see if the WG may have been coming ashore behind the Magazine Beach Swimming Pool, as they did in 2004. No evidence of that, I don't think it's now possible.

On the walk up and back near the river (no longer possible to walk along the shore), I saw purple loosestrife everywhere in the DCR-Cambridge "native" plant "restoration," all the way to the sole remaining willow upriver.

Purple loosestrife is flourishing in the drainage ditch parallel to the walk on the inland side, but it's really rampant at the Bumpy Memorial Pond. I think it'll take over the space between the pond and the river in no time as well as encircle the pond
itself.

Along the river there's also a bumper crop of very tall ragweed, which I don't remember either in such quantity or vigor before the "restoration."

Despite the expensive scraping out of all soil and plants at Magazine Beach in 2004, the targeted "invasive" false indigo is still right there. The DCR tried to get rid of it, at great expense to the Cambridge taxpayers, despite acknowledging that it holds the riverbank against erosion for free and is habitat for herring and herons. I was glad the false indigo had returned or never been eradicated.

A fellow in a motorized scooter was driving along the path, but for the most part he couldn't see the river (as was possible before the "restoration") because the ragweed and purple loosestrife and surviving designer plants blocked his view. He had to go all the way to the outlet of the Bumpy Pond at the boat launch to be
able to sit and look at the water. At 5' 7", I couldn't see the water for much of my walk.

When I turned to walk back to the parking lot by the Bumpy Pond, I saw the White Geese had come ashore and were feeding on the grass between the ball field and the parking lot. It was after 12 noon and I thought that was a great good sign. Andrake and Daffney [the two White Ducks, see previous reports (Bob)] were swimming close together across the river on the Boston side, happily, I thought.

2. Bob La Tremouille Responds.

The Charles River White Geese tried the land west of the construction zone in 2004. For good reason [see initial report on the two White Ducks, Andrake and Daffney], they are very much afraid of being exposed to predators. The land is quite steep. It would allow them to be rushed with little advance warning. Additionally, and I am no expert on geese, it seems that they are built for flat land not for sloping land. [They're built for the "bordering land subject to flooding" at Magazine Beach the DCR's continuing "restoration" will destroy, if the Cambridge Conservation allows it at its hearing on Monday, August 28, 2006, at 344 Broadway in Cambridge. The DCR has asked for an additional 2 weeks to prepare for the hearing, and August 28 is two weeks later than the date previously posted here (Marilyn). We don't know the time of the August 28 hearing yet.] The Charles River White Geese were also concerned about actual access from the Charles, a definite problem.

The current situation gives the Charles River White Geese access through about 5% of the shoreline to perhaps 10% of the land area of the Magazine Beach playing fields. They used to have access to at least 60% to 70% of the land. They DID NOT go farther from the Charles River than they could go and still safely retreat from predators.

Current plans of the Cambridge City Council and the Department of Conservation and Recreation are for more destruction. The playing fields will see their soil fully removed and replaced with soil and sprinklers. The sprinklers are considered necessary because nine city councilors and the DCR will have destroyed the wetlands to introduce those designer bushes which have no place on the Charles River and proved it by refusing to grow.

The parking lot around which feeding is now centered will also be destroyed and "moved," with destruction of perfectly healthy tree(s) and destruction of the current feeding area for perhaps a year (?).

I also need to apologize to the reader on the purple loosestrife problem. Kathy Podgers wrote an excellent analysis which I would love to post, but I seem to have lost it.

3. Kathy Podgers Analysis in The Bridge.

Kathy has an excellent analysis of Magazine Beach in the current issue of The Bridge. It is on line at http://bridgenews.org/news/082006/estuary.

Charles River White Geese Photos Included in Photo Display at Suffolk University in Boston - Announcement, Review

1. Marylin Wellons reports (8/6/06).
2. Bob La Trémouille reviews (8/7/06).
3. Marilyn Wellons review (8/9/06).


1. Marylin Wellons reports (8/6/06).

My daughter's boyfriend has pointed out the display of photos of the White Geese at Suffolk:

The Adams Gallery at Suffolk University presents photographers’ impressions of life along the 80-mile course of the Charles River in Exploring the Charles: Boston Herald Photo Project.

"The Boston Herald’s award-winning team of 19 photographers was dispatched to the 23 Massachusetts cities and towns along the banks of the Charles. The result is a dazzling collection of photographs capturing the people, wildlife and luminosity of the river’s environment.

Exploring the Charles: Boston Herald Photo Project is at the Adams Gallery, Suffolk University Law School, 120 Tremont St., Boston, 9 a.m.- 7 p.m. daily, July 17, 2006, – September 8, 2006."

http://www.suffolk.edu/spotlight/herald_exhibit.html

I can't paste the photo of the parents and goslings at the railroad tracks the Suffolk website shows.

2. Bob La Trémouille reviews (8/7/06).

I viewed the show this afternoon.

Suffolk Law has a lovely building and the gallery is in a highly visible front side location. The artist responsible are the photo staff from the Boston Herald.

It is a good sized show, presenting scenes from areas throughout the Charles River.

Four shots of the Charles River White Geese are given major prominence.

The first shot is the shot from the webset, Mommy and Poppy crossing the railroad tracks with a very tiny baby in the forefrotn, on the rail and dwarfed by Mommy, Poppy and the rail.

The second shot is two white geese yelling at each other, nearly beek to beek, with five babies on the ground below them trying to make out the goings on.

Third shot is Mommy and one baby looking at a second baby braking out of its egg.

Fourth is from the ground, close to two babies with Mommy and Poppy in the background. Poppy is glooking straight at the camera in a down angle. Two babies are each enjoying their own dark green leaf, very clearly a CRUWI contribution.

All truly beautiful. All emphasizing the major value of this beautiful gaggle to the Charles River and to Cambridge.

3. Marilyn Wellons review (8/9/06).

I did manage to see the photos today and the ones of the White Geese are astonishing. How on earth did he get the one of the gosling hatching?

There are also other great photos, of course, but the photographer who got the White Geese also has wonderful shots of the river and a great one of a homeless person on the riverbank.

Follow-up, Bumpy memorial, Two White Ducks

Bob La Trémouille reports.

1. Introduction.

Yesterday afternoon, at Magazine Beach, I spotted two small white beings on the Boston side of the Charles River swimming oh so close together. It was very nice to see the two white geese, Andrake and Daffney still getting along and happy.

2. CD.

The day before I had received a CD from a lady who does PR for the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority.

The MWRA owns and operates the pollution control plant which is between Magazine Beach and the BU Bridge. Their workers had been very close to the Charles River White Geese and, five years ago, the MWRA allowed us to have our first memorial for Bumpy on their property.

It was quite lovely.

The CD contained perhaps 50 or more photos taken during the 7/23/06 Bumpy memorial event. That CD showed me a very clear error I had made in my analysis of the attack on Andrake which was part of that event.

I emailed copies of five key photos to many who might be interested.

Key were the parts concerning the attack.

There are two before pictures. The first shows the dog and his master walking along and having passed the ducks, with the dog on leash. The second shows the master holding the dog’s leash in his hand and looking at the ducks with truly heartless look on his face. The dog bears a similar look.

A third photo shows the owner attacking me after I beat down his dog after the dog had put his teeth on Andrake’s neck.

3. My transmittal.

I sent these five photos to a number of people who might be interested.

The following was the main transmittal:

*************

This will follow up on my voice mail. The most important differences between the guy in the picture and nine city councilors are that

1. Davis is openly and aggressively fighting for his "right" to sick behavior.

2. Nine city councilors have pandered to this type of person and have made themselves his equal with their deliberate starvation of the white geese (the ninth has blessed it with his silence and the comment that the bridge closure was the first item of interest at Magazine Beach, clearly saying that starving the white geese has no value to him). The DCR/MDC behavior has been much worse.

These photos were taken by the PR person for the MWRA at the same time as your photographer was in action. I do not have his email. I did leave him a voice mail. I will try to give you as much of the sequence as possible (Yahoo allows 5 photos). I will be pleased to provide a copy of the CD.


The photos are numbered consecutively. The key ones are 6245 in the dog and master are walking by the ducks with the dog on leash and 6246 which shows him releasing the dog, and look on both of their faces. 6247 is the owner attacking me for defending the ducks.

And nine city councilors have very clearly and repeatedly shown where they are coming from.

4. Karen Parker Comments.

That was crazy. Why did the guy attack you because you helped the duck I suppose and he thought you were threatening his dog maybe? The look on the guy's face was that he wanted his dog to attack, what an asshole. Too bad that weren't some rabid animals we could sick on all 9 city councilors. Just kidding, Karen
I am glad the duck was saved.

You could tell by looking at the guy, he looked mean.

5. Summary.

“Mean” is an excellent description. It is a shame to have to associate with such people.

But, this is Cambridge, Massachusetts, a city subjected to a terrible state bureaucracy and terrible city government, if you are concerned about the environment and the beings who live in our environment.

But their hypocritical nonsense sounds so good\, and “mean” is putting it mildly.

If you would like a copy of the photos, please give me a ring at boblat@yahoo.com.

I strongly regret that I do not seem to be able to understand getting the photos on the blog. I have done it once and have not been able to duplicate my achievement.

DCR / MDC Open House: Environmental Destruction starts at the top.

Bob La Trémouille reports.

On Wednesday, July 26, in the early evening, the Department of Conservation and Recreation held a public meeting, among other things, to give people the false impression of how responsible they are.

DCR Commissioner Stephen H. Burrington chaired.

The open house was conducted at a boat club near Charles Circle off Beach Hill in Boston.

It appeared that almost all members of the public present were people brought by Friends of the White Geese and people from the environmentally destructive Esplanade Association. The Esplanade Association is joing with the misnamed Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and with the DCR in their ongoing fight to destroy all animal life they can get away with destroying on the banks of the Charles River.

The meeting was moderated by DCR Commissioner Stephen H. Burrington.

Barrington apparently was previously associated with an “environmental” group which has been involved on the Charles River. These “environmental defenders” have recently been bragging about a “victory” over Boston University. They “forced” Boston University to move a massive “replacement” for Boston University’s SECOND Charles River Boathouse. None of these “victors” have ever meaningfully explained why Boston University has any need for a SECOND large boathouse, explained why the existing not overly large boathouse meaningfully needs to be replaced, or explained why it cannot be replaced in place. Naturally the existing boathouse is in an out of the way location surrounded by the BU Campus and the BU Bridge, and the “compromise” is prime Esplanade land in a very valuable PUBLIC location.

Wednesday night was not a great deal different.

Among others, Barrington, presented his a new maintenance supervisor for this region. The new person transferred from the rural component of the department to the urban component of the department. The new person was quite surprised at the reaction of people in his new building to seeing a wild turkey nearby. He apparently was unaware that this part of the agency is aggressively fighting to destroy all animal life it can get away with on the Charles or probably other places.

The new maintenance supervisor bragged on the DCR’s vegetation management program in which vegetation is left a foot high near rivers.

Barrington shouted me down when I attempted to find out how recently the program had been implemented since the prior Friday, July 21, their representatives (obviously the Charles River Conservancy) had scalped all vegetation abutting the Charles between the BU Bridge and the Mass. Ave. Bridge in Cambridge except where the White Geese live.

This casual destruction of needed vegetation is now done twice a year throughout Cambridge and Brighton because the DCR and their representatives have contempt for the environment and for their own supposed policies. The DCR in reality wants the Charles River to look like a lawn, not like a river.

The shouting down by Barrington combined with the very real existence of the behavior shows exactly how high environmental contempt goes in the DCR.

The maintenance manager seems like a good man. I hope he finds a new job with an entity that deserves his respect.

Report on Urban Ring Advisory Committee Meeting, 7/25/06

Marilyn Wellons reports:

I attended the most recent Urban Ring Citizens Advisory Committee meeting, July 25, 2006, at the State Transportation Building. Again, the Executive Office of Transportation officials at the meeting reviewed the time table for hiring consultants to revise the Draft Environmental Impact Review/Statement and finish the revision for filing by November, 2007. That's not very long from now for that kind of work.

Members of the CAC were very concerned that they would have only an advisory role in the hiring of the consultants. Again and again they came back to that problem. I believe the problems with the Big Dig were hanging heavy over the entire meeting.

I stated my own interest in keeping the Grand Junction rail bridge in operation
for freight, and passed on to the meeting the Rail Committee of the Regional Transportation Advisory Council concern about keeping the Grand Junction open for freight and passenger service (by which I assume the Rail Committee mean the MBTA's current use of it).

Interestingly, when Codd, the EOT project manager, asked for a show of hands for
how many people were interested in Phase 3 (rail), the City of Cambridge representative raised her hand. As with previous Cambridge positions, I take this to reflect Harvard's desire for its own version of an Urban Ring Phase 3, i.e., light rail crossing the Charles over the Grand Junction bridge, connecting a spur from the Allston campus to the rest of the ring. Harvard's Allston website shows this connection (mode is unclear)

No official plan to date has showed anything of the kind. MBTA documents (MIS,
DEIR/S) and consequently the Secretary's Certificate refer to river crossings
in Phase 3 by tunnel only--whether the rail is light (Green Line) or heavy (Red
or Orange). A year ago a Sierra Club officer floated the idea that light rail over
the Grand Junction bridge was Phase 3. I and others responded that it was not any
official version of Phase 3.

The idea's definitely out there, though, gaining strength, probably with the
EOT-Harvard consultants and with them, EOT.

In general, EOT Urban Ring officials Codd and Woelfel did their best to say the
CAC should stick to Phase 2 and not follow up except tangentially on the Secretary's
May 20, 2005 Certificate for the DEIR/S suggestion to consider rephasing segments
of the Urban Ring, specifically, to advance Phase 3 rail in the central segment.

When I asked Woelfel after the meeting if he meant to discourage a serious consideration of rephasing, he said he didn't care if the CAC recommended it. However, there are problems with timing: if the feds think rephasing changes the "goals and purposes" of the Urban Ring, the project will have to start all over again from the very beginning, whereas now it's been in line for all these years. I think the point is that no one should be so foolish as to be held reponsible for
bringing the whole thing to a halt like that.

So the momentum among the EOT staff is definitely for buses.

I don't know enough about the MPO bureaucratic process to know if the "goals and purposes" of the Urban Ring change by phase. As Woelfel stated them from memory to me, they sounded as though they would be identical for all 3, almost by definition--public transportation in the Urban Ring corridor. This would almost certainly be true for the segment from Assembly or Sullivan Squares to Longwood and Ruggles, i.e., the river crossing, since the MBTA Major Investment Study says Phases 2 (bus) and 3 (rail) are redundant, and that if Phase 3 is built, Phase 2 seervice goes away. (All other segments of the Ring are "additive," and remain.)

Bumpy Remembered, Pond Dedicated

Bob La Trémouille reports:

Sunday, July 23, 2006, a number of us met in the parking lot at Magazine Beach near the new body of water created by the Department of Conservation and Recreation / City of Cambridge.

Participants included me, Marilyn Wellons, Ben Beckwith, Ellin Sarot, Ann Toop, Bill Cunningham, Annie Butler, Lois Martin, Lydia Vickers, Alcides Vidal, the new photo editor of the Cambridge Chronicle, Chris Dunham, and Barbara Allen, MWRA Public Relations. I have omitted at least 5 people, perhaps more like 8.

The event ran three hours, basically dominated by informal conversation among participants. The most exciting part of the meeting concerned the two resident white ducks and is separately reported.

Participants brought favorite photos of Bumpy and of the gaggle (including a couple of mine, brought by somebody else, which I appreciated).

The Chronicle attended and did an excellent photo spread on page two in their July 27 edition.

Two new residents at Magazine Beach, a pair of white ducks, apparently arrived Saturday, July 22. They were on the receiving end of behavior the Cambridge City Council would be “neutral” on, with a wink and a nod (see separate report on these beautiful animals). A dog tried to kill one of the ducks. The two little guys ran as fast as their little legs could, but the dog caught up and had his teeth on one’s neck. I disabused him with vigor.

As I recall, the Cambridge City Council or a committee of the Cambridge City Council wants dogs to run free on Magazine Beach. It may have been a committee chaired by most environmental destructive member, Henrietta Davis.

White Ducks arrive at Charles River, taught to swim, then see the world

Bob La Trémouille Reports:

1. General.
A. Weekend events.
B. Advances on Wednesday.
2. Bill's Report.
3. Update from Lois, July 27.
A. General.
B. Lois.
(1) Report, July 27.
(2) Your Editor.
4. Bill concurs with Lois.
A. Report, July 27.
B. Editor.
5. Photos.
6. Follow-up, July 31, 2006.


1. General.

A. Weekend events.

Last Saturday, July 22, two new residents appeared at Magazine Beach, and several of us, especially Bill Nauman, Allison Blyler, me, Ann Lynch and Lois Martin (by order of time spent as I gather it), have spent too much time there because of it.

I think the key work has been done by Bill Naumann and Allison Blyler of the Charles River Urban Wilds Initiative, Inc. and I commend them for their success to date.

Last Saturday, two white ducks were dropped at Magazine Beach.

In the six to seven years I have followed Magazine Beach closely, we have had three geese dropped at the Destroyed Nesting Area / Goose Meadow. All adapted successfully. One passed away of not really related causes after five years of residence. The other two are happy parents and give no signs of any meaningful problems.

This is the first time we have had ducks appear and the first time of animals appearing at Magazine Beach proper.

The twosome are very sweet guys and were not at all interested in being other than pets. They stayed in the grove of trees (soon to be partially destroyed) at the entrance of the parking lot, clearly awaiting the return of their master.

Sunday morning during our 5 year anniversary memorial of the death of Bumpy, the very great danger of their chosen location was driven dramatically home to me. And I have heard of the event from a number of third parties including at least one with a City of Cambridge badge.

The two ducks were attacked by a free roaming dog whose owner had left him off leash.

The male of the couple was caught and grabbed by the neck between sharp teeth. I was close enough to the situation and I very emphatically modified the behavior of the dog with two swift kicks to the body. The dog and master left.

Our Bumpy friends surrounded the male duck to see if he was harmed. He was not. Then we realized that our circle had kept the two ducks from seeing each other, so we opened up the circle to correct the problem. For perhaps ten minutes thereafter the duck couple, highly afraid of humans, very deliberately comforted each other in the middle of our human gathering, to keep away the really dangerous dogs.

The two ducks strongly liked making their home in that grove, but the safety issue was a very major reason why that was a bad idea.

The geese NEVER walk as far from the Charles as that grove of trees. They always leave themselves a direct, close way to get into the Charles the minute they see a predator.

B. Advances on Wednesday.

Pretty much all of us have been attempting to educate the ducks in the way of the world. The ducks started to follow Bill and Allison around after careful communing between the humans and the ducks.

Bill estimates that these two beings have led a very sheltered life as pets in somebody’s house, probably never seeing their parents. He also estimates that there was a dog in the house because, while the gaggle is very properly scared of dogs, the two white ducks have no such fear.

Bill and his associates have worked to get the ducks into the Charles with major success today, July 25. At first, the two ducks did not have the slightest idea what all that blue stuff was for. I was able to get them to drink out of the Bumpy Pond, however.

Wednesday, July 25, Lois reports that she and Bill got them to go into the Charles River. I understand Bill coaxed the ducks into the Charles by wading into it himself. When I arrived, they were enjoying the river with great vigor, diving, splashing and happily swimming. They definitely spent most of the rest of the day in the Charles River.

Bill calls them Andrake (André + drake) and Daffney (a feminization of Daffy, I presume).

Hopefully, the ducks will, at minimum, set themselves up close to the Charles, or even better, at the Destroyed Nesting Area / Goose Meadow.

2. Bill's Report, early stage:

I tried to lead Andrake and Daffney to the meadow via the water this afternoon. We hadn't really fed them today (seemed they were doing good foraging for themselves swimming around and eating grasses etc.) so I walked in the river with a bag of lettuce hoping they would follow.

Well, they accompanied me swimming, and talking, and eating the stuff. About two thirds the way they decided to head back. "drats" Maybe the consolation is they will expand their river horizon and in the meadow direction.... we shall see.

Hope they continue to stay near the water and away from the canines.

[ed. This was a fairly early report on Wednesday.]

3. Update from Lois, July 27.

A. General.

I understand from a report by Lois Martin on Thursday Morning, July 26, that she spotted them near the Mass. Pike exit. That would mean that they just found the place and already they are exploring more than do the CRWG.

B. Lois.

(1) Report, July 27.

Hi,

I went over to see the ducks and geese this morning between 7 and 7:30.

At first I could not locate the ducks but I am pretty sure they are on the other side of the river near the pike exit. I watched them and it appears as though it is them but I did not have binoculars with me.

They looked happy swimming and leaning into the water probably eating. The white geese seemed fine also. I brought them some more cracked corn. When I was there Tuesday Bill was there but no one was there this morning.

I will try to bring binoculars next time to check. But I hope they come back to this side when it gets cold because how will they survive by themselves over there.

Lois

(2) Your Editor.

I hope they will consent to visiting us on occasion they are beautiful creatures.

I will watch the situation closely.

4. Bill concurs with Lois.

A. Report, July 27.

Yep,

That was them ... As I pretty much saw what lois described at 6:30 or there abouts....

After I checked and fed the few that weren't at magazine, and hangin in the meadow, I biked over to the Boston side and saw em up close. They were swimming usually so close they were touching.

You could see them from the meadow too ... Looking out from near the B.U.Bridge across the way.

B. Editor.

It is striking to see two ducks behaving like love struck humans.

These two guys are so close.

5. Photos.

I do not have the skill to put photos on this blog.

The following are addresses of photos which, in turn, were provided by Bill Naumann of Charles River Urban Wilds Initiative, Inc. Thank you, Bill.

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/boblat/detail?.dir=/mail&.dnm=91ecre2.jpg&.src=ph&.tok=phQqNQFBC.8BQm9W

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/boblat/detail?.dir=/mail&.dnm=d407re2.jpg&.src=ph&.tok=phQpNQFBKa25QYcb

6. Follow-up, July 31, 2006.

I wandered over to the Boston side of the Charles River looking for Andrake and Daffney at about 1:00 pm on a day in the 80's.

With careful hunting, I found them and they made it very clear that they are not interested in being friendly to a human male. Intelligent of them.

They have a nice location, in the water under thick cover.

Similar to what they held on to at Magazine Beach with very major improvements.

They are in water, not dirt.
They are safe from dogs and humans.
They have cover but it is a lot closer.
They are in their element, not in the element of the worst predators.

Disadvantage: One gentleman has mentioned big snapping turtles in this area who find wild ducks a delicacy. They swim up underneath and grab. But this is a problem of the food chain, of free animals. Not a problem of sick human beings.

They look happy. And beautiful.

Climate change and “Restoration” of Magazine Beach

Kathy Podgers comments. Marilyn and Bob respond.

1. Kathy Podgers.

For the past 10 years, since the unusual weather we experienced in 1996, I have been following stories about the phenomenon of Climate Change. One fact is affirmed over and over again, that scientists (note I did not say environmentalists) around the world agree on the data.

Unfortunately, here in the USA, this alarming compilation of evidence has been turned into a political fodder, with the "test tube" environmentalists "blaming" the rebubs for "Global Warming" and the "Corporate Lobby" claiming that saving the planet will cause a loss of jobs.

Of course what is needed is a united front, based on the empirical evidence we all have access to, and which evidence itself is not in dispute.

While the sea levels have been steadily rising, and the temperature of rivers has been rising, causing the death, extermination, and disruption in the migratory patterns of wildlife, including land animals, airborne and sea animals, here in Cambridge some folks, suffering from compartmentalized thinking, cannot understand that the fish cannot swim upstream to spawn, that the geese cannot find habitat on the tundra due to the melting of the perma frost, and that wild life never seen in these northern parts settles in.

Unfortunately, even plant species never seen in these temperate climes have been appearing. And folks, who just do not understand the connection between the change in climate, and in the adaptation of both plant and wildlife to these severe changes, are attempting to "restore" our local environment to a time when the weather here was much different, much colder, and when the seasonal changes were significantly different.

I have recommended that folks go to see the film An Inconvenient Truth, so they can get a painless update on where we really stand today on this small boat, planet earth, that we all share. I wonder how many have seen it, or read the devastating data on this serious threat to our way of life? Perhaps the strategy of continuing to ignore this, and remaining ignorant of this Truth is convenient, so folks can continue to implement environmental strategies that are doomed to fail.

I never cease to marvel at the power of activily ignoring the approaching storm until the levee is breached.

Spending time on Lake Erie for the past 60 years has shown me the powerful force of Mother Nature. There is no man made devise, no technology, no business plan no smart bomb, that can return the environment of the Great Lakes to what it was in the 1950's. I have witnessed this environmental shock with my own eves, gradually, it changed, over 50 years.

However, the changes that are about to pull the blindfolds off those of us living here in Cambridge are approaching at break neck speed. Folks are rushing to Alaska, Greenland and Antarctica to watch the glaciers "calving." Soon they will be rushing to put flood insurance into place, but not realizing the ins co's are beating them to the punch by getting legislation passed that would allow them to deny flood ins even to folks who do not live on a flood

So, I wonder, why do folks believe that if we dam the Charles, it then is no longer an Estuary? Has anyone sent a telegram informing Mother Nature that the wetlands at "Magazine Beach" are no longer part of her "flood management plan" because the habitat has been destroyed? LOL

The Estuary that we refer to the Charles River is still an estuary. What will be the effect upon our local environment if the Sea leval on the other side of the dam rises 5' in 5 years? how about a 10' rise.

Gee, want to make fun of me, belittle me, how about read this message, but not respond to it, continue to ignore it, and wave more silly banners declaring how we are the beat and the brightest and Mother Nature has no dominion here!

Copied here please find the most recent article that provoked me to share my opinion on Climate change with you all. Perhaps we could dispatch our resident experts in "Non Native" or "Invasive Species" to Antarctica, to aid them in their "Restoration" efforts?" Please note I am not being sarcastic, I and drawing a picture.

Enjoy your evening, downpour and all, and get used to it; welcome to the realities of climate change.

ever your good neighbor,

Kathy

Trees could grow in Antarctica within century: scientist
Wed Jul 12, 1:30 PM ET

Trees could be growing in the Antarctic within a century because of global warming, an international scientific conference heard.

With carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere set to double in the next 100 years, the icy continent could revert to how it looked about 40 million years ago, said Professor Robert Dunbar of Stanford University.

"It was warm and there were bushes and there were trees," he told some 850 delegates in the Tasmanian capital Hobart, the national AAP news agency reported.

The delegates are attending the combined meetings of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research and the Council of Managers of National Antarctic Programs.

Dunbar said climate experts were predicting a doubling of the levels of carbon dioxide by 2100, "but it actually looks like it's going to come sooner unfortunately."

Scientists blame greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, produced mainly by the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil, for causing rising temperatures worldwide.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060712/sc_afp/australiaantarctica_060712173026

2. Marilyn Wellons.

This is excellent.

For me, one of the exciting things about birds is that they're descended from the dinosaurs. Paleontologists are now pretty certain that's the case, that birds' ancestors survived catastrophic climate change after the asteroids (I think there were at least two different ones) hit the earth (Alvarez theory, as I remember).

I've wondered if migratory patterns began with the flying dinosaurs' search for habitat after the explosions. The patterns would co-evolve with the animals themselves, of course, over the course of millions of years.

So it makes perfect sense that birds' migratory patterns are changing with climate change.

And your point about plants' and other animals' movement is very well taken. See Stephen Jay Gould's article in Arnoldia (An Evolutionary Perspective on Strengths, Fallacies, and Confusions in the Concept of Native Plants, Arnoldia, Vol. 58, No 1 [1998], pp. 2-10) for a discussion of change in plant and animal populations.

A further point, of course, is that landscape design and our own government parks agencies are the last redoubt of nativist thinking in this country. See the article by two German professors, "The Native Plant Enthusiasm: Ecological Panacea or Xenophobia?" Arnoldia, Vol. 62, No. 4 [2004], pp. 20-28. Well, maybe not the very last redoubt, but certainly in there.

Marilyn

3. Bob La Trémouille

The extreme and belligerent hypocrisy of nine Cambridge City Councillors cannot and should not be ignored.

For these hypocrites to claim that all is well with them “saving the world” and destroying Cambridge makes exactly the opposite of what they tell their constituents: an excellent case study in destroying the world while spouting extreme hypocrisy.

Report on Transportation Issues, including Charles Street in Boston

Marilyn Wellons reports:

I attended a meeting of the Regional Transportation Advisory Council (RTAC), a group that advises the Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO). The MPO is responsible, among other things, for all transportation projects receiving federal transportation funds and all "regionally significant" transportation projects regardless of funding source. The Central Transportation Planning Staff (CTPS) serves as staff to the MPO and other organizations.

One member of the RTAC asked what the status of the Charles Street project is. Apparently this is a City of Boston and Mass Highways project that backs up Storrow Drive and the Longfellow Bridge at the Charles Street MBTA station, also under construction. There are problems of safety (ambulances can’t get through the crush to Mass General Hospital—the RTAC member said he lives two blocks away and would die of a heart attack before he could get to the hospital) and air pollution.

The project is already two years overdue and won’t be done for two more years.

The CTPS response was that the implementing agencies have bridges to work on (Mass Highways is the implementing agency for the Department of Conservation and Recreation's [DCR] highways and bridges that connect to the Charles Street circle) and the state is paying 50% of the Big Dig costs. Therefore things are slow. (I would think the fatal tunnel accident will also complicate transportation funds and planning.)

Talking with the RTAC member after the meeting, I mentioned the DCR’s Storrow tunnel, Longfellow and BU Bridges, and Mem Drive “Historic Parkways” Phase 2 projects as bearing on his question, and the RTAC member immediately added the Bowker overpass to the list. The Bowker overpass refers to Storrow Drive at the Fenway exit over Commonwealth Avenue and, according to previous statements by the DCR, like the Storrow tunnel is also in imminent danger of collapse. (See how close the Bowker is to the Storrow tunnel on the map at http://web.mit.edu/awhitlow/www/Kenmore%20Square%20Annis%20Whitlow.pdf).

I said DCR won’t say anything about the Mem Drive project (they won’t even say who knows anything about it), hasn't mentioned the Bowker even when discussing the tunnel, except when I asked, and has delayed releasing specifics about the Longfellow Bridge. And now of course the DCR has added the BU Bridge to its “all falling down” list.

I said all these projects are related, and that I bet they’re all in suspension til Harvard (the “600-pound gorilla” in the mix) reveals specifically what it wants for the Allston campus. Then all modifications to these "problem" structures and all priorities will fall into place, justified as the optimum and in the public interest.

On that score, we’re still waiting for public release of the Harvard-funded Executive Office of Transportation (EOT) study of transportation alternatives in Allston, which I understand is now circulating among the parties. These parties surely include not only Harvard and the EOT, but also the City of Boston, the Mass Pike Authority, the Port Authority, and CSX (the bigger of the two local railroads at the Beacon yards in Allston), and the DCR as well. There may be an executive summary of Phase 1—logistics and freight—issued at the end of the summer. The study’s Phase 2—infrastructure—may be done by late winter, although its due date is as late as June, 2007.

Marilyn Wellons

*******

The RTAC member cited an editorial by the Beacon Hill Times about Cambridge Street. Mind you, it was written before the fatal accident in the Big Dig tunnel. Here it is:

Cambridge Street commentary by times staff

From Mayor Menino to State House denizens to all the folks who live in the West End and the north slope of Beacon Hill, the only thing being talked about is what appears to be an abandoned construction site on Cambridge Street.
The reasons do not seem to be complex. From what we can glean—and our reporting, we have to acknowledge, is imperfect since everyone we talk with dodges and weaves—the problem is one of priorities. The contractor and the sub-contractors have no sense of urgency, and the Massachusetts Highway Department either has no authority over them or chooses not to wield any.

Cambridge Street construction began in February, 2003. As everyone points out to one another, no work of any consequence has taken place between Charles Circle and Bowdoin Street since last fall.

John Lepore, whom we continue to defend as managing the best he can with the resources he has been given, remains optimistic about completion. He promised that he will provide a chart to The Beacon Hill Times tomorrow that will outline the work to be completed and when it will be done.

We will publish that chart next week on the front page. We will continue to follow this project—on the front page and even through the winter—until the last tree is planted and watered.

We continue to marvel: Mass Highway, which doesn’t have enough authority or competence to complete a half mile of roadway in three and a half years, is the agency Governor Romney wants to take over the turnpike authority, which runs the best roads in the state. If Governor Romney were in Massachusetts more often and driving down Cambridge Street, he might realize his folly.

(http://www.beaconhilltimes.com/#ST1645.5 4)

Cambridge Conservation Commission and Magazine Beach

On Monday night, July 10, the Cambridge Conservation Commission heard the Department of Conservation and Recreation's request for a three-year extension for DCR work at Magazine Beach. I submitted the letter posted here.

A bit of background: In September, 2004, even as the bees were tumbling in the flowers, this project ripped out a beautiful stand of plants all along the riverfront, and planted, at great expense, items chosen by the DCR's design consultant.

These delicate designer plants have been protected for almost two years by barriers on land and in the water that just coincidentally have kept the White Geese from feeding at Magazine Beach. The destruction of the flowering plants and the starvation of the White Geese are part of the same misguided policy of eradicating species deemed "non-native" and "invasive" from the Charles River parkland. The DCR and City of Cambridge have jointly been pursuing this policy at Magazine Beach.

As you can see from the letter, the Cambridge Conservation Commission believes lawn grasses are "native plants." However, they are no more or less "native" than the Charles River White Geese themselves. Whether "native" or not, the grass at Magazine Beach's 7 acres is the White Geese's primary food source. Only their friends' year-round efforts to protect the geese and to provide other food have kept the animals alive since the beginning of the project at Magazine Beach.

The City of Cambridge is footing the $1.5 million bill for this work on state parkland.

The Conservation Commission voted to continue the hearing to its August 14, 2006 meeting.

*******

To the Cambridge Conservation Commission:

re: DCR request for 3-year extension, DEP File No. 123-166, Magazine Beach

The original Environmental Notification Form and Notice of Intent for this project were in error. In concept and execution the project has been flawed. Consequently the request for a three-year extension should be denied.

The ENF Project Narrative (September, 2003) acknowledges that much of the land subject to flooding at Magazine Beach, i.e., the target of Phases 1a and 1b, is “often considered to be valuable wildlife habitat, especially [as at Magazine Beach] within the buffer zone of a bank or bordering vegetated wetland.” The Narrative asserts, however, that Magazine Beach’s habitat is not protected because it has been “so extensively altered by human activity that [its] important wildlife habitat functions have been effectively eliminated.” This is patently false.

The habitat value of such land at Magazine Beach has not yet been eliminated. The project before you will do so, however. It is, itself, a critical part of the DCR’s progressive elimination of habitat at Magazine Beach, is itself an environmental crime the Wetlands Protection Act is designed to prevent. As executors of the law you should deny the DCR’s request and pursue remedies for the damage done to date.

The history of the fallen willow at the upriver portion of Phase 1a, shown on all plans submitted to the Commission, indicates the problems of the DCR’s representations on this score. The tree provided valuable habitat for turtles, waterfowl, and other animals. The DCR cut up and removed the viable, living tree during the course of the project, then failed to tell the truth about it at a December 1, 2005 public meeting in Cambridge.

Further, Magazine Beach’s grassy meadows are the primary food source of the Charles River White Geese and, after the DCR’s exclusion of Canada geese from much of the lower Charles, of Canadas as well. Large groups of Mallard ducks and gulls of all sorts also rest and feed there. The habitat value of Magazine Beach is great, but doomed if the Commission grants this extension.

The ENF claims the project conforms to the Coastal Zone Management Program’s Habitat Policy #1, and will “enhance the existing habitat value of the Charles River bank” (p. 11). To the contrary, at minimum, Phase 1a has already prevented waterfowl from feeding there, beginning in September, 2004, and destroyed the willow. Completion of Phase 1a and Phase 1b will permanently destroy this primary source of food.

Thus, rather than increase public access to and uses of the Charles River, the project will permanently reduce them. Softball, soccer, small boat launchings, wildlife viewing, and quiet enjoyment of the air, land, and water were all possible before the project. To date, Phase 1a has already greatly diminished passive uses: gone are the White Geese and easy public access to the length of the water’s edge. If the Commission grants this extension, it will permanently remove Magazine Beach from the city’s (and region’s) scarce stock of passive open space—critical habitat for humans who enjoy time with the natural world on the river.

To cite only a few more examples of the agency’s failure to comply with the Order of Conditions, please note that erosion on the new walkway has not been remedied, the disturbed area by the puddle has not been reseeded. Beyond this, the DCR’s bridge at the riverfront fails to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act and has already caused at least one bicycle accident. Only another major infusion of capital and an extended Order of Conditions will remedy these failures?

At Magazine Beach, the Commission faces a fundamental problem of the DCR’s “vegetation management” and “restorations” involving “native” or “non-invasive” plants. In its original Order of Conditions (July 15, 2003) at No. 36, the Commission assumes that lawn grasses are “native” plants (it does not specify whether “native” to North America, the East Coast, southern New England, or the Charles River, and from what date). Although you accept these grasses as “native,” they are no more so than the Charles River White Geese: early colonists had to import seeds for pasturage to North America, and lawn grasses are descended from the imports.

Conceptually, the project aims to “restore” Magazine Beach to some landscape it never was. The plants that grew on the lower Charles from the last Ice Age to the damming of the Charles changed with time and the course of the river, but they were always plants adapted to tidal flows of salty water. The section of Magazine Beach this project is to “restore” may have been entirely underwater, or tidal flat. In either case it did not have the plants the DCR’s designer chose for the banks of the now-freshwater Charles.

It may be time for the Commission to clarify issues of “native” and “invasive” plants in order properly to evaluate such “restorations.” The science of the terms is obviously confused (see Stephen Jay Gould, “An Evolutionary Perspective on Strengths, Fallacies, and Confusions in the Concept of Native Plants,” Arnoldia, Vol. 58, No 1 [1998], pp. 2-10); the confusion affects the Commission’s acts. Extending the Order of Conditions without a public process of clarification would be a mistake.

At Magazine Beach, the wind, water, and birds planted the asters, goldenrod, convolvulus, false indigo, and other plants that the DCR, with the Commission’s consent, eradicated there in September, 2004. These formed a stable, low-cost, beautiful, and “native,” even “natural” border at the river’s edge. Interestingly, it lacked purple loosestrife, a “non-native invasive” in the Commission’s terms. Following the “restoration,” however, purple loosestrife is now at Magazine Beach and will be spreading.

The Commission may wish to grant the agency the benefit of the doubt, as in so many previous DCR projects. Given the fundamental errors grounding the DCR’s effort here, you would in that case abdicate a grave responsibility to the public to protect our wetlands and associated resource areas.

Yours sincerely,
Marilyn Wellons

The Bumpy Memorial Goose Pond?

Bob La Trémouille reports:


1. White Geese observed at Magazine Beach.
A. Background.
B. Sightings.
2. Matters of consideration.
A. 95% of Magazine Beach still barred to and from the Charles River.
B. Coming plans for destruction.
C. Training of the Charles River White Geese by 20 months of starvation tactics.
3. The Bumpy Memorial Goose Pond.
4. Clean up government, the banks of the Charles River and the destructive plans for the Charles River.


1. White Geese observed at Magazine Beach.

A. Background.

For quite some time, we have been getting occasional reports of White Geese being seen in the early morning in the eastern end of Magazine Beach.

I have viewed them there in increasing numbers over the past three weeks.

This is the area where Cambridge and the state bureacrats destroyed five healthy trees to put in an artificial puddle perhaps 20 feet from the Charles River. Once they put in their puddle, they had to put in a bridge. Since they put in a bridge, they advertised it as for bicycles, but made it dangerous for bikes. In recent weeks, the new, expensive pathway which replaced the inexpensive asphalt pathway and replaced wetlands has been washing away.

B. Sightings.

First I observed a momma, poppa and four adolescent babies at about 8 am on June 9. They were east of the bridge between the puddle and the Charles.

On June 15 at about 7:15 am, there were perhaps 20 geese, including a number of this year's babies, in the same area. They looked quite lovely and were enjoying the puddle.

Friday, June 23 at 6:55 am, it appeared that the entire gaggle was resting west of the bridge between the puddle and the Charles River. They did graze on the grass between the parking lot and the softball field. They went further from the river in this area than I have previously seen them. That was rather necessary because the area nearest the puddle is badly worn.

Access from the Charles was obtained in an area between the bridge and the Charles and in an area just to the west of that location which has been worn down.

2. Matters of consideration.

A few very major matters of consideration:

A. 95% of Magazine Beach still barred to and from the Charles River.

First and foremost, approximately 95% of Magazine Beach to which they had access is still barred to them by the bizarre designer bushes and by many other pieces of obstructive ground vegetation, none of which has ever been seen on the Charles River before.

Just as access to Magazine Beach from the Charles River is barred, access to the Charles River from Magazine Beach is barred. This is by a project which was launched with a media event of people swimming in the Charles River in a location where passage is now blocked over 95% of the frontage.

Swimming in the Charles? Nonsense!!

Concern for the environment and for animals in the environment? Nonsense.

Similarly, it is silly to think that access to a tiny part of Magazine Beach gives the Charles River White Geese access to the entire area.

These are prey animals. They are very much in danger from attack by carnivores such as dogs or irresponsible humans. Whenever they go on land from the Charles, they are very much aware of the possible dangers. They always keep a convenient route handy by which they can escape a predator by retreating to their beloved Charles River.

That wall of bizarre vegetation denies them retreat in about 95% of Magazine Beach.

B. Coming plans for destruction.

But it gets worse. The plans are yet in place to destroy all the grass at Mazazine Beach to put in grass and sprinklers. Cambridge and the state bureacrats want the sprinklers because they have been / are destroying wetlands and because the contractor lobby likes work.

C. Training of the Charles River White Geese by 20 months of starvation tactics.

Next, the Charles River White Geese have been trained by 20 months of starvation tactics. They have been trained that their 25 year feeding grounds is no longer their feeding grounds. This would explain why they only come in the morning instead of all times of the day, as they did in the past. They need to be untrained.

And they need their access restored. Everywhere.

3. The Bumpy Memorial Goose Pond.

But they did love that puddle.

I would suggest that the puddle be renamed the Bumpy Memorial Goose Pond to reflect the importance of the Charles River White Geese to the Charles River and to memorialize the political killing of their longtime leader in 2001. But also to reflect the fondness of the Charles River White Geese for the puddle.

The money has been spent. The Geese like the result. Memorialize them by naming the puddle for them.

4. Clean up government, the banks of the Charles River and the destructive plans for the Charles River.

Additionally, we need nine city councilors who are protecting the environment in Cambridge, rather than playing their political con game of destroying Cambridge's environment while claiming to be defending the world.

And we need to get rid of very destructive state and city bureacrats.

A nice start would be to move those bizarre designer bushes which are creating the bizarre starvation wall.

A good new location would be someplace where that vegetation makes sense. Danehy Park in West Cambridge comes to mind. It certainly makes no sense on the Charles River at Magazine Beach.

But first and foremost, the coming destruction must be cancelled. It is a strikingly silly waste of money.

Additionally, and by no means the least of considerations, interference with animal feeding must be ended.

Mankind and the wild have shared this area for the better part of a century. Mankind has no business destroying it.

Storrow Tunnel Reconstruction Related to Memorial Drive and to Harvard Expansion in Allston

On June 13, 2005, Marilyn Wellons submitted the following objection to the ENF on the Storrow Drive Reconstruction project, submitted to the Massachusetts Environmental Protection Agency:

*************

Public comment on the Storrow tunnel ENF closes today, before the release of the Harvard University-funded EOT study of transportation alternatives in Allston. Harvard proposes to use either Storrow Drive or the Mass Pike to connect its Allston campus to MIT and Cambridge over the BU or Grand Junction rail bridge. Although Harvard's website, www.allston.harvard.edu, shows this connection as part of a public transportation project, the Urban Ring, no such access (except for eastbound Storrow traffic to the BU Bridge) is now possible from either Storrow or the Mass Pike, nor are there official plans for any. The EOT study will consider such a connection and bear directly on the Storrow tunnel's environmental issues. Because of closed public comment on the tunnel, however, its findings will escape public comment and, possibly, MEPA's consideration.

Like the proposed work on the Storrow tunnel, the DCR claimed its work on Memorial Drive ("Historic Parkways Restoration") between the BU and Longfellow Bridges improved Charles River parkland. In fact, the project has already limited access to Mem Drive, instituted two westbound turns outbound from the Mass. Ave. bridge, and will destroy hundreds of trees and straighten the Drive to improve sight lines. These long-planned changes will allow Memorial Drive to handle a greater intensity of traffic for any temporary diversion of traffic during work on the Storrow tunnel. If the state accepts Harvard's plans for its new "Urban Ring" river crossing, the diversion will be permanent.

Is is possible the DCR did not know about the apparent need to repair or replace the Storrow tunnel when it changed Memorial Drive? Claiming an increase in parkland, the DCR is working on both sides of the Charles to transform the transportation network and divert public resources to subsidize Harvard's development in Allston.

Because the EOT study of transportation alternatives in Allston will reveal Harvard's plans in greater detail, and because Harvard's plans are driving the DCR's plans, please do not act on the submitted ENF until you have this information and additional public comment informed by it. MEPA needs them to assess the Storrow project properly.

Cleaning up the Homeless, Alewife, Cambridge, MA

Bob La Trémouille reports:

1. Introduction.
2. My proposed letter: Cleaning up the Homeless.
3. Dan Geer - Endangered Specie.
4. Roy Bercaw - Police, Bread and Jams.
A. Roy.
B. Your Editor.
C. Roy - Email for Bread and Jams.
5. Cambridge Chronicle.
A. Publication.
B. Editor's Explanation.
6. Letter to Boston Globe.


1. Introduction.

The Cambridge Chronicle printed a letter to the editor in its June 1, 2006, edition on behalf of the “Friends of Alewife Reservation.” The letter may be found at http://www.townonline.com/cambridge/opinion/view.bg?articleid=507167.

A typical piece of its sort, patting themselves on the back for a very destructive cleanup of the Alewife reservation.

I responded with a letter to the Cambridge Chronicle. Roy Bercaw and Dan Geer responded with their comments on my response, all below.

2. My proposed letter: Cleaning up the Homeless.

The following was sent by your editor to the Cambridge Chronicle for publication. This includes one further edit by me.

***********

Taken from a Chronicle letter:

"The most remote part of [several ponds] . . . got cleared from trash . . .

"Huge amounts of homeless shelter debris, some abandoned, was cleaned up. [Name withheld] commented: 'It was so sad being involved with the homeless possessions and their makeshift shelters. What can we do when they don't want to be with society.'"

Apparently these seven people went to about as wild an area as they could find and destroyed the meager possessions of homeless people living as far away from humanity as they could get.

And these seven people are spouting pious about how sad it is to destroy the meager possessions of these homeless people who went as far away as they could go to be out of people's way.

That people could publicly spout pieties about such behavior is a condemnation of our community.

Fresh Pond is seeing thousands of trees being destroyed by our city council and its friends. All wetlands and animal habitat on the Charles and hundreds of trees are being destroyed by our city council and its friends. Beautiful animals are being deliberately and heartlessly starved. Deliberate starvation is inflicted on the white geese on the Charles. Deliberate starvation is inflicted on untold numbers of unseen other beings on the Charles River and on Fresh Pond. By our city council and its friends.

And these seven people are bragging in public about destroying the meager possessions of homeless people who did nothing worse than try to live away from humans. It is very clear that these seven people are the sort of people nine city councilors are trying to please.

Those nine city councilors spout comparably lovely words while they lead the charge to destroy anything and everything in Cambridge which dares to be different, especially parts of our environment.

These seven and the nine city councilors will all be very pleased to tell you how much they are improving the community.

And they will all tell you how much they are concerned about the environment of our world and about improving the lot of the needy people in our world.

While they destroy what little has not been destroyed of the world around us, and destroy the meager possessions of their homeless victims, and they deliberately starve their victims, as with the Charles River White Geese, or with the homeless whose meager possessions are now casually destroyed and their tormentors spouting pious.

Cambridge has gone a long way. The lovely words are still here. The actions are strikingly different.

3. Dan Geer - Endangered Specie.

Bob,

Think of homeless people as a species. Note that 90% of all endangered specie are so endangered by habitat destruction. Assume that City Father (the one) is not stupid. The rest follows.

--dan, who does have a dog in this fight

[Ed. I assume the "City Father" is City Manager Healey.}

4. Roy Bercaw - Police, Bread and Jams.

A. Roy.

I saw your letter about removing the belongings of the homeless in Alewife. It is a matter discussed by the Council previously for the city parks, especially Cambridge Common. There is a system for the police holding their belongings when they are found.

It is a matter for the homeless advocates like Bread and Jams. You can leave them a message or any of the shelters perhaps the Multi Service Center also and On the Rise. They should be at the Council each week to embarrass the Council.

B. Your Editor.

I would agree with Roy that Bread and Jams should be constantly on top of the City Council. Regrettably, in response to his comment, I have gone to their website and determined that they do not allow emails to be sent to them. You have to fill out their form. That says too much. [ed: on looking at the website closer, if you know what you are doing, you can figure out the email address.]

With regard to police holding the possessions. Once again regrettably, this is not a police matter. This is a matter of "volunteers" cleaning up the wildest part of Cambridge, MA and trashing everything they consider not in place. These are the sort of people who have been running around the Charles River for the past four years poisoning every goose egg they can get away with.

C. Roy - Email for Bread and Jams.

One email address for Bread and Jams is: kmccraw@breadandjams.org.

5. Cambridge Chronicle.

A. Publication.

The Cambridge Chronicle published this letter on June 8, 2006, minus the paragraph that starts "Fresh Pond is seeing thousands of trees being destroyed . . ."

Ed. Note: The Fresh Pond reservation is located about half a mile south of the Alewife reservation which is the principal subject of this entry.

B. Editor's Explanation.

I posted the following on the Cambridgeport list on June 8, 2006:

The Chronicle is to be commended for its prompt printing of my response to the homeless attacks.

Reading that letter, it became painfully clear to me (as a bcc has commented) that the letter was excessively wordy. The editor responded to the length of the letter by deleting a paragraph which tied in nine councilors' destructiveness and which made the matter more relevant to Cambridgeport.

If you are interested, the full letter (with comments) is the first entry on the Charles River White Geese Blog, address below.

I did not include on the blog the communication on the length in the comments I published, nor did I include another responding to that communication or a third responding to the second because the three communications went afield and included somewhat personal comments, plus really were not on point. I had the same problem this listserve has had on occasion and I was aggressively trying to calm things down (I thought).

6. Letter to Boston Globe.

On June 11, I submitted the following to the Boston Globe (with some clean up edits):

**********

The following letter is submitted responding to the racism letter in today's Globe:

**********

Editor
City Weekly
Boston Globe

The real attitude toward diversity in Cambridge is demonstrated by the following statement by Cambridge "leaders" which appeared in a recent Cambridge Chronicle letter. They went out to Alewife and cleaned things up. They commented in their letter:

"Huge amounts of homeless shelter debris, some abandoned, was cleaned up. [Name withheld] commented: 'It was so sad being involved with the homeless possessions and their makeshift shelters. What can we do when they don't want to be with society.'"

The homeless apparently in large numbers went to as wild a part of Cambridge as they could so that they could find a place to sleep with their meager belongings.

The homeless were followed by "improvers" who destroyed those meager belongs and spout pieties about it.

The reality is that most residents of Cambridge say terrific words, and most mean those terrific words. There is very major trouble, however, with too many people in Cambridge who call themselves "leaders." The people who did this attack on the homeless have very major connections among the most visible of Cambridge residents.

Pieties are lovely. Reality is what these "leaders" did to the homeless at Alewife and then bragged about in the press.

*************

For more details, please see my blog, below which ties the problem into the behavior of the Cambridge City Council. See also the letter in question, posted on line at http://www.townonline.com/cambridge/opinion/view.bg?articleid=507167.

Signers were: ELLEN MASS, Cambridge; JOHN WALKER, Cambridge; STEW SANDERS, Belmont; OAKES PLIMPTON, Arlington; ANN TENNIS, Cambridge; KATHY CONNELLY, Belmont; DON BOCKLER, Belmont (taken from the on line citation).

Robert J. La Trémouille
875 Massachusetts Avenue, #31
Post Office Box 391412
Cambridge, MA 02139-0015
617-283-7649
visit our blog: http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com
visit our website: http://www.charlesriverwhitegeese.org

Does the Cambridge City Council Have Nine Heartless Animal Abusers?

From Bob La Trémouille

1. A few caveats.
2. Craig Kelly, Introductory
3. Craig Kelly, Specific.
4. Show me I am wrong.


1. A few caveats.

A. There are two principal contributors to this blog and we try to identify ourselves with each posting.

B. We have worked together on Friends of the White Geese since spring 2000 and we do generally agree with each other.

C. On the matter below, I am really not certain what Marilyn’s opinion is, but I feel quite strongly about wanting to get this out, and if she disagrees I will be quite pleased to add an appropriate comment.

D. Marilyn is out of state for an extended period. When she is out of state like this, she can be difficult to contact.

E. I would be very happy to be talked out of this opinion. If I keep my mouth shut, it will just fester and, should I be wrong, I will not have learned that I am wrong.

2. Craig Kelly, Introductory

That being said, I am very concerned because Councilor Craig Kelly is starting to look to me like just another animal abuser in a political situation stacked with animal abusers.

I was happy to see him running and I would have been very happy if he had defeated one of the “liberals” on the Cambridge City Council.

Trouble is he defeated one of the “conservatives.”

The closer a member of the Cambridge City Council resembles an environmentalist, the more destructive to the environment they tend to be.

They brag about saving the world on environmental initiatives and dead silent on the destruction of the environment in Cambridge by misbehavior by the City of Cambridge and its allies.

The combination of bragging about nonlocal matters which are creditable and dead silence on destructive environmental matters in the City of Cambridge by Cambridge and his buddies creates a very false impression.

3. Craig Kelly, Specific.

I tried to give Kelly the benefit of the doubt, but his total silence on the outrage on the Charles River and the outrage at Fresh Pond, etc., have caused me to have increasing doubts.

Monday night, the Cambridge City Manager reported to the Cambridge City Council on the bizarre project at Magazine Beach by which the City of Cambridge has been barring from the Charles River White Geese their principal food source for 18 months.

Monday night, I very effectively communicated the extreme lack of responsibility of this project including the starvation attacks on the white geese.

The explanation for this heartless behavior has been consistent: a wall of silence.

Monday night, all Kelly had to do was speak on the City Manager's report.

Monday night, Kelly joined that wall of silence.

5. Show me I am wrong.

Kelly looks to me like just another hypocrite claiming to be saving the world. The world saving claims are used to hide their own destruction of the environment of our part of the world as part of the government of the City of Cambridge.

Outrageous, irresponsible. This is the City of Cambridge.

More on environmental justice

At a MoveMass meeting on May 19, 2006, Stephanie Pollock, formerly with the Conservation Law Foundation and now with the Northeastern Center for Urban and Regulatory Policy, spoke about public transportation and land use policy. She reported on work underway jointly between the Center and the Urban Land Institute, a developers' group.

Rather than summarize her very informative talk, I'll just note two things of interest to those of us following the interplay of planning for the Urban Ring and Harvard's "Allston Initiative."

1.) Pollock began by emphasizing the importance of transportation to successful development. "You can't," she said, "develop just anywhere and then expect transit to parachute in." We see that access to public transportation leads development, she said, and gave examples.

This contrasted, I thought, with the gist of an MBTA Urban Ring planner's statement that "Transportation is not the tail that wags the development dog. It has to be the other way around. You have to decide that somebody is going to build something and then you ask the question how to get people in and out of there" ((quoted in The Urban Ring, Envisioning an Interconnected Boston, by Michael Keegan, www.numag.neu.edu/9703/UrbanRing.html).

A synthesis of these two positions is probably underway in the real world right now, as we await the results of the Harvard-funded study of Transportation Alternatives in Allston for the Executive Office of Transportation. The alternatives will include the reconfiguration of the Mass Pike and public transportation, including the Urban Ring, as well as the Beacon freight yards, vital to Boston's economic competitiveness.

On the Urban Ring, I understand the Phase 2 Citizens Advisory Committee has not yet chosen consultants for revision of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement/Report. In fact, it seems that the contract has not yet been put out to bid. This is a delay from the schedule suggested earlier this year. Possibly the RFR depends on the delayed EOT study.

2.) Because of the importance of access to public transportation to development, there are many in the region that want it. Pollock listed 12 "entities" that have asked for it just this year. They are: Roxbury, Dorchester, Mattapan, Hyde Park, Lynn, City Square in Worcester, the City of Worcester, Fall River, New Bedford, Harvard University, Assembly Square in Somerville, and the City of Somerville.

When I pointed out the list failed to differentiate between Harvard, which is asking for public transportation for a project in the future, and places like Roxbury, Dorchester, Mattapan, Fall River, New Bedford, and Somerville, for example, where existing populations have been underserved by public transportation for years, Pollock responded that the list was only a list--these entities had been the 12 asking for public transportation.

While this is certainly true as far as it goes, that public transportation planners would so quickly place Harvard alongside these communities where environmental justice is a real, live issue, is problematic, I think.

The Urban Land Institute is frankly a developer's organization. Harvard's Allston Initiative will spend billions of dollars over the next 50 years or so--some of it on transportation. I wonder how great the development resulting from any transportation project in any of the communities listed above would ever be, compared to what Harvard plans for Allston. If developers can calculate this, what will the planners and legislature do?

So although "environmental justice" is one criterion for choosing among competing public transportation projects, it seems a slender reed to withstand Harvard's plans to get to the head of the list. As Kathy Spiegelman, Harvard's Chief Planner for Allston said, whatever the Urban Ring is, they want it.

Toward that end, along the line of Harvard's apparently favored route for the Urban Ring Phase 2, Cambridge is confirming Cambridgeport and East Cambridge as "environmental justice" communities in a federal block grant application right now.

(I'm waiting for the announcement of a "public-private partnership" with Harvard for the Urban Ring, analogous to one for developing the Charles River Parklands with Harvard to its specifications, especially near the relocated Fogg Museum at 1380 Soldiers Field Road.)

Marilyn Wellons