Consulting Ecologist and Registered Soil Scientist. My firm, Carya Ecological Services, LLC conducts inventories of vegetation, wetlands, and habitat; wetland delineations; and ecological assessments - for open space grants, application reviews, and applications for open space/cluster developments. We work either as the lead firm or as a subconsultant. I have a Masters Degree from UCONN-Storrs, Dept of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology (1997) & a Bachelors from Brown U. in Biology.
Several other state-wide rare plants are common in this former cranberry bog.
This past Spring (May and June 2012) a group in south central Connecticut transplanted many blocks of peat soil, about 20″ X 20″, with very rare Adder’s Tongue Fern (Ophioglossum pusillum). This is an attempt to salvage the population from an area that is to become an active cranberry bog again, after many years of lying fallow except for mowing. The soil and vegetation blocks also contained the rest of the ecological community: royal fern, assorted sedges, rushes, and wildflowers, countless microorganisms, invertebrates, and – not to be forgotten – a seed bank. Watering and monitoring continues.
The destination area was closer to the road, also former cranberry bog, but still fallow. When choosing a location to place a block, great care was taken to replicate hydrology and aspect, though peat depth could not be replicated; the organic horizon was substantially deeper in the source area. It took over 100 man-hours of back-breaking labor by Carol Lemmon, a Board Member of the Connecticut Botanical Society, and half a dozen others (mostly volunteers) to move the population from the future cranberry cultivation area.
Maintaining the former cranberry bog as a wet meadow, rather than letting it revert to a red maple forest, requires regular mowing. Meadow, as a wildlife habitat, is in much shorter supply in Connecticut than forest. Phragmites australis control was also needed. This invasive would have completely overrun the entire diverse botanical community without expensive eradication. Fortunately with multiple rare and uncommon species, including several species of gorgeous pink orchids, funds have been found for the aspects of rescue, maintenance, and restoration that need paid skilled workers. The biodiversty and beauty of the unusual peatland wet meadow motivate volunteers to donate most of the man and woman power for execution of the rescue operation, as well as restoration and ongoing maintenance.
The Connecticut Threatened Adder’s Tongue has a simple, ovate leaf with a pointed tip, entire leaf edges (no teeth,) and is only abut two inches long. Its flower is a plain green spike, rather like a plantain flower. Adder’s Tongue looks for all the world like a Canada Mayflower leaf with a plantain flower. The photos below include a transplanted block with a few such leaves. For a clearer image, just google the scientific name. Blooming Pitcher Plant and some Rose Pogonia orchids are also shown.
I apologize for not including the location of this worthy project, quite likely to succeed, but it is CTDEEP policy not to divulge locations of rare species, for their future safety.
Ambitious rescue operation for one of the last populations of a Connecticut-Threatened plant speciesA population of CT Threatened Adder’s Tongue was transplanted, soil block by soil block into this wet meadow, from another nearby boggy wet meadow, soon to become a commercial cranberry bog again.
Why does food grown organically seem to taste better than conventionally grown food. Is this my imagination or due to some real difference? I read that levels of trace minerals (micro-nutrients) were usually lower in non-organic food. This makes sense for hydroponic foods, but why should conventional agribusiness crops have lover levels of trace minerals?
Truthfully, I’ve been somewhat sceptical about health and safety risks from GMO (genetically modified organism) crops? Inserting genes for disease resistance does seem sensible. The Environment Committee of the Connecticut Legislature happens to be reviewing a bill (HB 5117) that would require labeling all such food, so I read Hearing testimony and did some research.
A recognized concern, from a health and environmental standpoint, is the gene that has been spliced into crop plants, for a persistent bacterial toxin (from BT or Bacillus thuringensis). This toxin is now found in the blood of the majority of American women. It is a natural pesticide that attacks cell membranes – not just in the target pest caterpillars, but also membranes in rats and potentially in humans, especially fetuses. However, I did not see any data on toxin concentrations, and information on threshold concentrations for harmful effects is sorely lacking.
Analysis of potential impacts on adjacent ecosystem biodiversity from BT GMO crops has also been wholly inadequate. How will populations of economically insignificant species of caterpillars, moths and butterflies -and their predators- be affected by feeding on leaves and pollen from GMO plants along field edges? Ill effects on migrating monarch butterflies were in the news last year.
I see even less less public concern with the largest category of GMO crops: those with an inserted gene that makes them “Roundup Ready”, able to tolerate its active herbicide ingredient, glyphosate, although application rates must be cranked up several fold. Interference with uptake of micro-nutrients by glyphosate was studied in Stuttgart, Germany, at the University of Hohenheim, over ten years ago. German researchers warned us that mineral-deficient plants would be more susceptible to soil fungal diseases; this is now well documented for many fungal diseases – most recently widespread Fusarium wilt in GMO Roundup Ready soybeans in the southern US. The Stuttgart scientists found two causes of the problem: 1) glyphosate firmly latches (chelates) onto soil trace minerals, making them unavailable and 2) it eliminates or suppresses soil microbes and invertebrates. These include beneficial mycorhizal fungi) which help the plant extract soil nutrients (trace minerals included), and earthworms, springtails, isopods and man other soil organisms that recycle nutrients from plant debris into soil (trace minerals included). [As glyphosate is only one of many agrichemicals that suppress populations of soil organisms, my first question was answered; I can now see a scientific basis for lower levels of trace minerals in non-organically raised foods!
Because Roundup application rates increase sharply when GMO Roundup Ready crops are planted, this micro-nutrient problem has become more severe. Scientists at several US midwestern universities followed the lead of the Stuttgart researchers, including Don Huber at Purdue in Illinois, Barney Gordon in Kansas, and Kurt Thelan in Michigan. They have continued to investigate the trace mineral deficiencies, particularly manganese, but also zinc and others, that are an unwelcome side-effect of Roundup use (glyphosate). [The URL of a review article is http://www.environment.co.za/gm-foods-crops-biofuels-pesticides/missing-micronutrients-glyphosate.html. It was posted out of Western Illinois University by Enviroadmin on Sunday, 23 May 2010.}
It is now also known that the inserted gene in GMO Roundup Ready soybeans interferes with production of a root secretion that solubilizes minor mineral nutrients. (This is in addition to glyphosate directly chelating micro-nutrients, and suppressing or killing beneficial soil microbes and invertebrates.) Attempts to cope with the problem by fertilizing GMO Roundup Ready crops with heavy dosages of micro-nutrients have been challenged by the chelating (tight-attaching) properties of glyphosate. Similarly, human assimilation of mineral supplements in pill form is usually poor, unless the dietary supplements are bulky and food-derived! I, for one, balk at swallowing horse pills three times a day.
Nor has there been adequate analysis of the impacts on surrounding ecosystems of expanded Roundup use on Roundup Ready GMO crops. How much has it reduced the extent of field edge buffers with grass and forb (“weed”) seeds that used to be available for songbirds? Such buffer strips between and around fields are still available in a sustainably managed organic farm. More and more weeds are evolving resistance to to glyphosate; the response is accelerated efforts to develop GMO crops resistant to other herbicides, that have their own suites of risks and side-effects – which will also not be adequately tested as this is not yet required by EPA.
I can envision genetic modification for the purpose of inserting blight resistant genes from related plant species or perhaps to improve crop quality, but only after far more rigorous testing than is the current practice – directed by a third party entity (not Monsanto Corporation testing its own GMO crops!). But inserting genes for herbicide tolerance – or insecticidal proteins – seems fundamentally unwise. Expansion of organic agriculture is important for the human diet as well as for the surrounding natural environment; not just to avoid possible pesticide residues, but perhaps more importantly, for the sake of nutritional quality.
A version of this post was sent to several Connecticut members of the Environment Committee, and published by CT NOFA (Northeast Organic Farming Association)
What is a drumlin anyway? A gremlin with an aptitude for percussion? Seriously, a rounded, elongated hill in the Connecticut landscape is probably a “drumlin”. The best known is Horsebarn Hill on the eastern side of the UConn campus at Storrs. Landing Hill in East Haddam was in the local limelight several years ago. Lately I’ve been working on Meetinghouse Hill and Misery Hill in Franklin. The Goshen Wildlife Management Area is another. The word “drumlin” comes from Ireland, where this land form also occurs.
The core of a drumlin hill is fine-textured, compact glacial debris, though bedrock may be underneath, poking through in a few places. The compact “hardpan” layer (in common parlance) may be over 100 feet thick, and dates from the prior Illinoisan glaciation (over 128,000 thousand years ago). Only the top layer, usually just a few feet deep, is sandier, looser soil, formed from the melting ice masses of the more recent Wisconsin glaciation, underlain by the compact till (scientists’ terminology).
These soils are seasonally wet. Though the level summits seem, at first glance, to be well-suited to community development, they are challenging to develop, whether on drumlins or elsewhere, such as plastered onto the sides of traprock ridges. Most gently sloping drumlin hilltops in New England used to be productive hayfields, growing lushly in spring when soil moisture was available, going dormant in mid summer. Pockets of wet meadow were rich in flowers, like New England Aster. Drumlin fields make fine hunting territories for raptors like barred owl.
Colorful wet meadow perched on top of drumlin.
Multiple seasonal seepage wetlands and headwaters streams flow down drumlin hillsides. They are a valuable source of clean water for the drainage basin if the drumlin is undeveloped, they but may become conduits for construction runoff.
There is more groundwater discharge on the nearly level sections of drumlin hillsides than on the steep sections. These are also prone to septic breakout.
Only a small percentage of Connecticut’s soils are compact tills but a disproportionate share of construction site fiascos and problem-plagued new subdivisions occur on hardpan soils. Wet, silty, sticky hardpan soils, on drumlins and also in other landscape settings, can become a mire for heavy construction equipment because the snowmelt and spring rains “perch” on top of the hardpan. Saturated silty soils are highly erosive, often an erosion control nightmare. Flooding problems are more severe than on absorbent soils, and water pollution from lawns and septic systems becomes a problem at lower home densities. Break-out from home septic systems happens more often.
Typical complaints of drumlin residents: wet and moldy basements, icy sidewalks; soggy, fungus-infested grass, burned-out grass, and dying shade trees; extended sump pump operation (not energy efficient), mosquitoes, and septic odors; and polluted down-gradient ponds. These all become more of an issue for seasonally wet, drumlin soils, because more water stays at the surface, as it cannot soak into dense hardpan soil. (Runoff coefficients are higher, in engineering jargon.)
With careful home and septic system placement, curtain drains, and appropriate landscaping, one can avoid some of these problems – but only if home densities are relatively low.
Ironically, the loose upper soil layer of a drumlin is usually so shallow that it holds little reserve water during dry spells, so drumlin lawns need much irrigation in summer, though excess water is the problem in other seasons. Solutions: small lawns, partially wooded yards, and/or a meadow landscape with drought-tolerant grasses like Little Blue Stem, a.k.a. Poverty Grass.
A Plea for Guidance
Could CTDEEP and our Conservation Districts provide land use boards, planners, and developers with more guidance on drumlins’ multiple constraints? On-line mapping (Web Soil Survey or WSS) available from the Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) does show the approximate locations of seasonally wet, hardpan soil units, like the Paxton, Woodbridge, and Wethersfield soil series.
More guidance is needed to make sure fertilizers and pesticides are not applied before or after heavy rains. This happens all the time in Connecticut suburbs! Turf chemicals tend to run off drumlin soils, more than off more absorbent soil types, especially when the soils are already soggy.
Few understand that watercourse setbacks often need to be wider and septic system densities need to be lower on compact till soils, to protect down gradient wells, headwaters streams, pools, and lakes from excessive nitrogen, in nitrogen enriched groundwater and runoff. Because they reduce lot yields, these constraints need explanation in an official DEEP guidance document, preferably also in a CT Health Department memorandum!
Clear-cutting may seem to be more economical for the developer, who should be warned that this is not wise on a drumlin! To minimize future “water woes”, maximize remaining tree cover when subdivisions are built. The reason is two-fold: 1) to slow the velocity of the falling rain, and 2) because trees spew thousands of gallons of water into the air as water vapor (transpiration), helping dry out those surface soils. After clear-cutting, a drumlin hillside that used to be wet only in March and April may stay wet to the surface though June – and before long, one will see the tell-tale mottles and grayish matrix color of a jurisdictional Connecticut wetland soil.
Some, but not all engineers use underdrains and clay stops to prevent frost heave damage to roads and utility pipes, and to allow shallow groundwater to continue to seep down slope to wetlands that depend on this water source – instead of being shunted along roadbeds and sewer lines. Guidance is also needed in this area.
Once aware of drumlins’ constraints and resources, town zoning boards will be able to guide development more appropriately, protecting valuable vernal pools and hillside streams, and at least a portion of the productive forests. For expansive overgrown fields on flat-topped drumlins, if the alternatives of farmland or grassland wildlife habitat are not possible, at least the damage to down-gradient headwaters resources, from a low density, large-lot residential community, with small lawns, will be much less than from a large, dense subdivision.
Euonymus alata, also known as burning bush, is at least a clear-cut villain, unlike some of the other invasives. I recall spending a long June day collecting vegetation data in an an immense Euonymus thicket, a former estate in Wilton. I did not even observe a catbird, the most common thicket songbird in Connecticut! And beneath the dense bushes, the ONLY plants growing were Euonymus seedlings.
This species must have high-powered chemical defenses. The glossy leaves look almost artificial (and might as well be), no holes where caterpillars or leaf beetles have nibbled. Pickings are slim for foliage-gleaning parent songbirds. No “chain migration” for this species with a suite of nearly pre-adapted species waiting in the new world, to make use of the new immigrant – and keep it in check, as has happened with the cherries. Gray’s Manual of Botany (Fernald) shows only two native cousins in this genus, and neither has a range that overlaps southern New England or Long Island.
Euonymus alata, from Asia, is an effective invader of forests, because it grows well in shade, unlike bittersweet, multiflora rose, everlasting pea, and Phragmites. It spreads well by runners as well as seed. Unfortunately, it thrives especially in the mineral-rich, sub-acidic soil of traprock (basalt) ridges.
Euonymus has overrun much of Peck Mountain, in north Cheshire, because suburban yards on the flanks of the traprock ridge provide abundant seed sources. As recently as the mid 1980’s the ridge crest and its steep talus slopes were botanically diverse and special. At that time they were clear-cut CTDEEP Critical Habitats, per the CTECO website (sub-acidic forest,sub-acidic talus slope, and sub-acidic summit catgories.) Since then, these habitats have become near monocultures of burning bush. The Euonymus even thrives in shallow soil pockets on ledges! Some rare Staphylea trifolia (bladdernut) and marginal wood fern remains on the steep west slope of Peck Mountain, and I last year I noticed a single non-blooming columbine patch. The oak fern, dwarf saxifrage, and anemonella appear to be gone.
After that Wilton experience and a recent eye-opening hike on Peck Mountain, I knew we had to get rid of the burning bushes in our own yard. Emotionally, it was not so easy. This is a beautiful shrub, especially when crimson in the fall, and it makes a dense, tidy hedge. The wings or flanges on the stems also look interesting in winter. Our bushes had special meaning because they been given to us by relatives who were dear to us.
Control was very quick and simple, from a practical standpoint. We snipped them with a lopper, and painted the freshly cut stems with Brush-B-Gon (8% triclopyr). For those who simply cannot kill their prize burning bush, thoroughly shearing off the seeds each September, with hedge clippers, will at least prevent further spread by birds.
Connecticut nurseries are still battling the environmental regulators, to prevent an outright ban of Euonymus alata, because this is such a popular, lucrative species for the landscaping business, especially for commercial sites.
For illustrations and discussion of other invasive plants, see the accompanying facebook album “Invasives- A Devil’s Advocate Perspective” (Sigrun Gadwa)
The extensive ridgetop hiking trails in central Connecticut are fairly well known, with their fine views, blueberries, and sunflowers, e.g the trails on East Rock, West Rock, Mount Higby, the Hanging Hills, Cathole Mountain, and Ragged Mountain. However, remarkably few people who live here realize that the Metacomet and other ridges are of volcanic origin. Why isn’t this part of every high school earth science class? The geologic processes described below have created a rugged landscape with mineral-rich, subacidic soil, steep talus slopes (fields of basalt chunks), cliffs, and exposed rock outcrops; these are all habitats for unusual flora and fauna, including rare species – another fact that is not widely known.
View from the southwest of Cathole Mountain (south end of the ridge, in Meriden)
Connecticut does not have cone-shaped mountains that once rumbled and spewed ash and lava. Instead the lava oozed more slowly from deep, elongated cracks, that started forming 200,000 years ago, when the supercontinent, Pangaia, began to pull apart. Tension between the freshly separated continents caused two elongated cracks (faults) to form. The land settled between two deepening faults, creating a rift valley. Molten lava oozed up through the deepest cracks and spread across the valley, and then cooled and hardened into traprock (basalt). Three separate periods of lava flows formed three beds of variable thickness. The middle bed (Holyoke Basalt) may be hundreds of feet thick.
The valley gradually filled with sediment eroded from what used to be high mountains in eastern and western Connecticut. The eastern and western highlands are still many hundreds of feet higher in elevation than the lowlands of the Connecticut valley. Each successive bed of basalt (cooled lava) was buried by sediment that was compressed into a reddish-brown sedimentary rock, known as brownstone or New Haven Arkose. Total deposition was two miles thick at the Eastern Border Fault in Middletown. Climate conditions at that time were tropical, which accounts for the red, oxidized color of the sedimentary rock and its low mineral content.[1]
Because the rift valley was still deepening along the Eastern Border Fault (often called the “trapdoor”), the rock beds all tilted down to the east, by 15 to 25 degrees. The broad basalt beds were glued together by sedimentary brownstone. Eventually the beds broke apart into multiple, tilted “sandwich” chunks. Over time, especially during the periods of glaciation, the process of erosion exposed the higher, western, “up-tipped” edges of the these basalt beds, since traprock is considerably harder than brownstone. The sedimentary“glue” weathered away between the layers of basalt rock. The western edge of each broad basalt slab became a basalt ridge. A traprock ridge typically has cliffs and steep talus fields on the west side, and a gently sloping eastern slope, corresponding to the original easterly tilt of the rock formation.
The ridges often show an interesting triplet pattern: a central taller ridge corresponding to the thick bed of Holyoke Basalt, is flanked by two much lower parallel ridges, corresponding to the thin slabs of Talcott and Hampden Basalts). The far north end of Cathole Ridge shows this pattern very clearly.
Most of our traprock ridges originated as described above, from the western edges of cracked, tilted lava slabs. However, some “intrusive” formations like Sleeping Giant and West Rock[2] were formed underground. The oozing lava cooled slowly underground, rather than on the surface. In this slow-cooled rock, called diabase, crystals are larger and visible to the naked eye. The rock weathers more slowly, but mineral composition is identical to basalt. These intrusive ridges were buried by sediment and then exposed by weathering and glacial scour, just like the basalt ridges.
Central Connecticut’s continuous, above-ground traprock ridge system extends northerly into Massachusetts, but cracks in the rift valley oozed lava as far north as Newfoundland. Intermittently exposed basalt also occurs in Newark and Hoboken, New Jersey (the Palisades) and further west in the Pomperaug valley in Southbury and Woodbury, Connecticut.
The sub-acidic, volcanic soil on traprock ridges is fine-textured and less acid and richer in minerals, like calcium, magnesium, and potassium- than soil derived from brownstone, granite, gneiss or schist. Second, the thin soil, rocky outcrops, talus, boulder fields, and steep slopes are specialized ecological conditions quite different than that found in lowland forest, and are associated with a unique suite of plants and animals.
Partly open glades are characteristic, The “lawn” is actually Pennsylvania sedge, which remains low, naturally. A characteristic suite of plants (besides Penn Sedge) grows in this habitat.
These ecological communities have been designated as high priority “critical habitats” by CTDEEP. However, like the low public awareness of the ridges’ unusual volcanic origins, public awareness of the traprock ridges’ high conservation value seems surprisingly low, even in the towns where the ridges are major landscape features, like Meriden, Berlin, Cheshire, and New Haven.
Footnotes
[1] An infertile “tropical” soil with a reddish color forms from brownstone parent material unless it is enriched by basalt glacial till or by river sediment. The well weathered soils of the tropics are also known for their red color.
[2] The name of West Rock (in West Haven and Hamden) changes moving northward, first to Prospect Ridge, and then to Peck Mountain in North Cheshire.
Photos of the five critical traprock habitats may be viewed via links to public facebook albums (Sigrun Gadwa).
album1 West Peak Summit in September – CT Botanical Society Excursion
album2 Traprock Ridge Natural Resources of Central Connecticut
Yesterday at dusk I was near downtown Wilton, at the site of a future apartment building. I was trying to get out of an approximately 2-acre thicket of invasive shrubs and vines, after characterizing them. It was raining hard, so I was clutching my glasses, trying to protect my notebook. (Had not put on the uncomfortable rain jacket, as it wasn’t raining yet when I started my field work.)
Five times I painfully pushed towards the outside, only to reach either a chain link fence, a truly impenetrable mound of multiflora rose, or a pile of logging debris – so I retraced my steps. I prayed on and off, felt like Tom Sawyer trying passage after passage in the cave. Or Sleeping Beauty, having woken up on her own, trying to escape through the thicket of roses that had grown up around her palace. I remembered another consulting job site: a tall, impenetrable multiflora thicket surrounding a small farmhouse occupied by an elderly widow. Mowing had ceased when her husband had died.
Eventually, a patch of stately, thorn-free Japanese knotweed (like bamboo) was my gateway to the road and safety, my “prince”. I am so grateful to this grove of invasives, although Jap. knotweed is one of the most villified.
Growing up, I always thought of this plant as a privacy hedge, because the womens’ outdoor shower at the Nissequogue Point Beach Club was shielded from the prying eyes of outsiders by a knotweed thicket. Half a century later, I returned to find the same cold shower and the same dense thicket with large heart-shaped leaves. What a persistent monoculture! Overtime the knotweed at the Wilton site might well replace the multiflora rose (that is if the apartments weren’t built). At least it’s handsome, with bountiful nectar, welcomed by insects in late summer, when pickings are slim elsewhere (before all the goldenrods are in bloom.)
This is the king of the clonal perennial species, and the hardest of all the invasives to eradicate. Even after aggressive herbicide application, sprouts will come up the next year … and the next. The latest control technique is to drill a hole into every tough, hollow stem in the knotweed patch and then inject herbicide into the hole; repeat for three successive years.
In about 1990 we applied Milky Spore to our lawn, just once, in the fall, after several years of trapping Japanese beetles in funnel shaped plastic bags with flower-scented lures. I’ll never forget the sickly sweet smell after it rained, and the dead beetles started decomposing! Milky Spore Disease was outstandingly effective, already the following summer. Over the past 20 years it has been rare to spot even one beetle.
Then why do I keep hearing reports of failures from various people? We even received a refund from the mail order company the next year, as many people had reported failure. How were their lawns different from ours? I wish a research agency would do a systematic study! In the meanwhile, perhaps internet comments can begin to solve the mystery.
Gadwa Case in Cheshire CT.
1: Our high beetle population at the time of application must have allowed an initial build-up of high spore concentrations.
2. We live on an exposed ridge top in central Connecticut – Hardiness Zone 5b.
3. We had used no herbicides or insecticides, but some chemical fertilizer (granules about once a season), and had initially added much composted cow manure & peat moss to our four year old lawn.
4. Our soil was a stony, well-drained fine sandy loam (largely subsoil, stripped of topsoil when the house was built), derived from glacial till, sunny in 1990.
If it were only clear how to make Milky Spore Disease work, I’m sure this natural one-time control would be preferred by most to repeated applications of long-lasting broad spectrum neurotoxins, such as imidacloprid! Imidacloprid is toxic to ALL insects, be they pests or benign, and harms human health as well. It has a half life of up to 730 days, and migrates through the soil. Imidacloprid is the active ingredient in Merit, Preen and Bayer Advanced, among others. The new formulation of GrubEx has Chloratranilipole, also a systemic, broad- spectrum insect neurotoxin, toxic to aquatic life – but with less risk to mammals (like us) and birds and somewhat less persistent.
Very High Toxin Concentrations found in Arctic Whales
The link below is an article sent by a colleague on the surprisingly high levels of toxins, found in arctic whales. Concentrations of toxic heavy metals like cadmium and chromium, were orders of magnitude higher than the danger levels for human fish consumption. At every step in the food chain, a persistent metal toxin (slowly- or non- biodegradable) bio-magnifies (tissue concentration becomes higher). Metals in road runoff that reach the ocean biomagnify in seafood. Abroad in many countries, DDT, which persists indefinitely, like metals, is also still used. Persistent toxins are also transported thousands of miles though the oceans, in currents- potentially the gulf stream- and by wind-driven surface flows, and also by migrating fish and whales. (This is similar to the insecticide bio-accumulation problem mentioned in my recent zigzag dogwalking post.)
Oil Toxins will not be contained in the Gulf
The take home message: not just the Gulf of Mexico and its coastal marshes are threatened by the Gulf Oil Spill, and that threat is not just in the distant future.
This afternoon I heard on public radio (Faith Middleton Show) that health problems from indoor air pollution are worst in the most energy efficient, air-tight homes (LEED- certified). I also heard that on average Americans spend less than 95% of their waking day indoors. The Yale PHD interviewed praised his own leaky windows, for the healthy outdoor air they let into his house. (Research was done by Environment and Human Health, Inc. )
This is a very real problem, a major contributor to childhood asthma. I have heard that it can be addressed without squandering energy by systems of ventilation that include heat exchangers – and by choosing building and decorating materials for minimal off-gassing- like wool rugs – or straw mats, rather than synthetic carpet with backings and adhesives that generate unhealthy gasses. It would be great for sustainable farmers to have a stronger market for sheep wool! Faith Middleton pointed out that better labeling of materials is needed, so that homeowners and contractors can make informed choices.
If structural changes are not possible in the short term, it helps to periodically open multiple windows to air the house, on warmer days in winter, and to spend more time outdoors. My mother did not give me and my siblings a choice; we were sent outside to play and did indeed find interesting things to do. A diverse natural environment with some wildlife, insect life, and wildflowers will hold your childrens’ interest longer! Obviously we breath fresh air while hiking and walking the dog.
Consider also that time spent working in the yard, is time breathing healthier air- typically also with less dust and mold spores than indoor air. Pulling out lawn weeds, trimming bushes and raking weeds by hand is more time consuming than using power -tools. It seems to me that the yard would be more inviting to many adults, with greater variety of plantings – and self-seeded plants – native and non-native, to keep track of and tend. My husband is not a trained horticulturalist or ecologist, but enjoys spending time outside with me, following my lead, and listening and learning as I point things out. He now is able to recognize and mow around attractive native perennials – like buttercups and daisies – that crop up in the lawn, even before they bloom!
The outdoors is also more welcoming in summer, if indoor and outdoor temperatures are similar. At our house in Cheshire, Connecticut, in lieu of air conditioning, we use airflow drafts though open windows and screened doors, and shade from an “umbrella” catalpa tree (pruned each fall) on the south side of the house. Our extended family’s vacation house on Long Island is shaded to the south by two large hemlocks. It has a long, narrow shape with many windows on both sides, allowing for excellent cross ventilition. A screened second floor sleeping porch sleeps up to five (on cots) and is a pleasant place to spend time (read, sleep, or just rest and listen to the birds outside) even in very hot, humid summer weather, typical of Long Island.
Tomorrow, June 12th, is the birthday of my brother, who believes lots of work and play outdoors is the key to good health. We’ll be touring three demonstration alternative “organic” lawns in Newton, Massachusetts (Ecological Landscaping Assoc. http://www.ecolandscaping.org/), one with a solar house. I expect to learn more ways to spend time outside on my piece of land, and have a fine-looking, dog-safe and wildlife-friendly, “organically ” landscaped property – fodder for a future blog post. One way I know from childhood is to welcome black locust trees* and clover, which take nitrogen out of the air, by means of symbiotic rhizobium bacteria – free fertilizer! See photo below.
Sleeping porch: comfortable on hot LI nights- and days- in a pre-airconditioning house
*Black locust is on the invasive species lists of some states. It can spread aggressively, fertilize, and change, sandy infertile natural habitats, as on the Cape in Massachusetts, but in a home landscape , in a pasture, or as a street tree, it is just fine, in my opinion (and that of other Long Island “natural resource professionals” and farmers). Its abundant nectar is valuable for bees. Black locust is in fact native to the US – is from further south and west than Long Island and southern New England.
When walking my dog Mackie in our tidy, suburban neighborhood, I zigzag back and forth across the street, trying to avoid lawns that are aggressively chemical-treated, as Mackie is always “nose to the ground” unless he hears something of interest in the distance.
Mackie and I zig zag between sidewalks that border apparently safe lawns. I look for clover leaves, variably green color (not evenly dark green) , and small, low-growing patches of lawn wildflowers. This odd behavior is based on convincing anecdotes I have heard of repeated cases of the same cancer occurring among different dogs with similar exposures to pesticides. It is also based on my reading of the results of epidemiological studies, summarized in the informative publications of Nancy Alderman’s non-profit, Environment and Human Health, Inc. based in North Haven. Dogs are even more vulnerable to cancer than children, and we have already lost two family dogs to cancer: Tejana and Poka. Poka died at Age 11 of jaw cancer, and would have died at 10, without expensive surgery. Tejana lived to 15, but then during her first five years she was walked in urban vacant lots and on beaches, not in suburbia.
I began zig zag dogwalking after I heard several stories from the most dynamic trainer of organic landscapers in southern New England, Chip Osborne, out of Marlborough, Mass. He was the keynote speaker at an Ecological Landscaping conference in Springfield, a few years back. He told the class that he used to work in a greenhouse. His dog would lie under the potting table, with occasional drippings falling on them (with dissolved fertilizer, fungicide, etc.) The dog, and then its successor, died of the same cancer.
He told a second anecdote: a lady in a new residential community/cum golf course walked her dog on the lovely course every day. Her dog died of a nose cancer. She got a new dog, and walked the dog along the same route. Her new dog also got cancer, the same type – and she moved out. Of course dozens of fungicides, herbicides, and insecticides are applied to golf courses, so it is very hard to know, without a real epidemiological study. The story teller quit his propagation occupation and went on to start a successful organic lawn care business, and also teaches many training workshops for other landscapers, transitioning to this approach. He testifies for citizens groups as well.
The man believes in what he teaches; he knows that the organic approach to landscaping is not only better for the bees and other insects and wildife; it is safer for people and dogs.
As John Stuart Mill (1806 to 1873) said:
“One person with a belief is equal to a force of 99 who have only interests”
I heard Chip give an articulate presentation to a Westport land use board, explaining how one achieves sustainable affordable lawn care without chemical applications, refuting advocates of tire crumb athletic fields for children.
Besides the health of children and pets, lawn care practices can affect our water resources. My subdivision was built before the days of stormwater management. Whatever folks apply to their lawns (e.g., excess fertilizer and pesticides) may also wash over the curb along the pavement into the catchbasins, and thence into the River.
When walking the dog, we use a pooper-scooper or plastic bag, not just to avoid being verbally attacked by my neighbors, but also to keep the feces from being washed by the rain into the extensive system of catch basins, which dump directly into the streams in our neighborhood.
Not only does our neighborhood have fewer wildflowers, wild bees and beetles than it used to; the tributary streams fed by runoff (2 mg/l of nitrate last time I tested our stream ) are nearly devoid of life. The Ten Mile River, dowonstream also has fewer aquatic insects to feed trout , dace, suckers, and wood turtles.
Friends say: why don’t you just walk your dog in a park? Here in north Cheshire, we do have lovely open space behind us, The Ten Mile lowlands are great for hiking and free runs but only in the non-growing season, unless one is a bird watcher coated with bug spray. We can manage driving Mackie to a park maybe once a week, but not three times a day! Fortunately traffic levels are low in our neighborhood, except in late afternoon and early morning, so zig-zagging across the much-too-wide road is pretty safe.
It is a relief to visit Ships Hole Farm in Long Island, with no dog-walking constraints related to pesticide anxiety.
Violets and a dandelion- early spring lawn wildflowers at Ships Hole Farm.
As a scientist I do understand, that we are dealing with possible health risks, and that the majority of applied chemicals are likely not hazardous to humans. However, the other matter is that a sustainably managed lawn is a diverse and interesting mini-ecosystem, and can be lovely as well. It dos not harm fauna, like Northern Flickers , song sparrows, flower beetles, honeybees, and moles. …. more fun to walk past and look at- and probably safer- than a lawn that receives an intensive turf chemical regimen.
Bluet is a lovely lawn wildflower, with grasslike leavesNaturalized white violets, an attractive, even low groundcover
Flowering bushes buzzing with bumblebees may also indicate a safe lawn. Sadly, it is years since I have seen a honeybee in my Cheshire neighborhood and the miniature solitary bees have also become very scarce. However, I still do find honeybees on vacant lots (just yesterday on Broad Street in downtown Manchester) and in poorer neighborhoods. On those properties there is probably little use of expensive, beetle grub insecticides (imidocloprid is a neurotoxin that also harms a great many other insects, including bees.)
View from the southwest of Cathole Mountain (south end of the ridge, in Meriden)
Partly open glades are characteristic, The “lawn” is actually Pennsylvania sedge, which remains low, naturally. A characteristic suite of plants (besides Penn Sedge) grows in this habitat.
