EPA’s New England

Dec 16, 2013

A New Tradition for Holiday Lights

energy, energy star, LED lights, New England Beacon 5 Comments

Each Monday we write about the New England environment and way of life seen through our local perspective. Previous posts

By Amy Miller

It’s that wonderful time of year again. Along the country roads and city streets of New England, our real-life world of brown leaves, brown grass and gray skies turns into a captivating fairyland. Twinkling icicles line rooftops and color radiates from evergreen trees.

When it comes to the energy consumed by holiday lights, though, I’m hoping this year marks the tipping point. I can feel it when walking through the aisles of my local big box store, and I can see it as I drive along streets sparkling with a bluer shade of white.

In fact, we Americans are finally making the jump to becoming an LED nation when it comes to our holiday light strands.

According to the Associated Press, one major national retailer is selling no incandescent Christmas lights at all this year. General Electric also expects two out of every five strings of lights sold this year will be LEDs. The drop in prices has been a major factor in ushering this trend forward.

LED lights will last far longer than our old lights. The LEDs can last up to 40 seasons, while the Department of Energy predicts three seasons for your old mini lights. LEDs are also less likely to break and don’t get hot.

According to the US Department of Energy, holiday lights use enough electricity to power 200,000 homes for a year. EPA calculates that if all decorative light strings in America met Energy Star requirements, national electricity usage would drop 700 million kilowatt hours a year and we would save about $90 million on electric bills.

Over 10 holiday seasons, the savings for one tree could be $105 for the large LED bulbs and $22 for the minis. Multiply that by a yard full of strands lit up all season, and it really adds up.

Many stores now display a variety of LED lights. Some are warmer in color, while some are brighter. EPA’s Energy-Star label on some boxes can also guide your decision.

All these lights are out there waiting, vying for our attention and waiting for us to come to our senses.

About the author: Amy Miller is a writer who works in the public affairs office of EPA New England in Boston. She lives in a great Maine community with her husband, children and many pets.

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Nov 25, 2013

The Bounty of the Sea

Diving, fish, mariners, New England Beacon, ocean, pollock, water 1 Comment

Each Monday we write about the New England environment and way of life seen through our local perspective. Previous posts

By Phil Colarusso

Thousands of silver fish flashed around my head in every direction. The school of pollock seemed to be everywhere at once and their sheer abundance was disorienting. It’s easy to understand how difficult it must be for a predator to pick out individual fish in this incredible moving mass of life.

I’ve only had the pleasure of being enveloped by large schools of fish a few times in my diving career. Even so, today’s schools are typically small compared to historical accounts of fish abundance. Mariners in the 19th century and earlier reported schools streaming past their boats for hours at a time, so they probably had millions of fish. In 2013, it’s rare to find these massive congregations.

We used to believe the bounty of the seas was endless. We’ve since learned that fish, like other natural resources, are finite. Slow declines in abundance can go undetected by fishermen, scientists and the public. But, if these changes continue over a long time, lower levels of abundance become the new normal state.

Scientists have coined the term “shifting baselines” to describe this phenomenon. Each generation of scientists regards the state of the natural world during their career as the normal state, but in reality, small changes over multiple generations result in dramatic differences. The ocean that I swim in now is a very different place than the ocean of Jacques Cousteau in the 1960s.

The logical question to ask is: “Where did the bounty go?” Unquestionably, a large percentage of it went into fishermen’s nets to feed the world’s growing human population, but that’s not the only thing that’s going on. The oceans are part of a system with a large number of interlocking components involved in an elaborate balancing act. A significant change in one piece inevitably has implications (both positive and negative) for others. For example, in New England, the overfishing of cod resulted in skate and dogfish populations exploding. Simply stopping the fishing of cod may not be sufficient to restore populations to their historic levels: cod fishing ended on the Canadian side of Georges Bank more than a decade ago with little population recovery.

However, while my oceans are different than the oceans of Cousteau, they’re still special places. As I was surrounded by pollock, it was impossible not to be filled with hope.

More information about the work of EPA’s scientific divers.

About the author: Phil Colarusso is a marine biologist in the Coastal and Ocean Protection Section of EPA New England, and is an avid diver. He’s living the dream in Wenham with wife JoAnn, two kids, dog and white picket fence.

Nov 5, 2013

How Dark is Your Nighttime Sky?

Acadia National Park, ew England Light Pollution Advisory Group, meteor showers, New England Beacon, outdoor lighting laws, pollution, skies 2 Comments

Each Monday we write about the New England environment and way of life seen through our local perspective. Previous posts

By Amy Miller
When my sister cancelled our trip to Carter Notch this summer, it was not the mountains or hike I was saddest to lose. It was the darkness. Our annual pilgrimage to the White Mountains is the one night a year when I can sit in darkness among the stars.

Most of the year, I see the glow of a streetlight out my window. Behind my house, I can get in the shadow, but the light from my neighbor’s spotlight, the empty church parking lot, and the school up the road all add light pollution to the night sky.

We have had dark nights and light days through most of history. Today, however, two thirds of Americans cannot see the Milky Way at night from where they live. And, just about all of us live within the glare of some nighttime illumination. Even places like Acadia National Park are threatened by light from nearby cities. A friend of mine told me recently that people travel to Lyford Pond, in Maine, just to experience dark skies.

Each August, stargazers look to the skies to see meteor showers. Although you can see some of this yearly light show nearly everywhere, how much you can see depends on where you are: 50 or even 100 shooting stars an hour in Maine’s logging country, but only a handful in downtown Boston.

Some research suggests that night light creates stress, headaches and anxiety as our circadian rhythms are disrupted. And there are ecological costs, including disoriented migrating birds fly into buildings and sea turtles losing nesting areas.

In 1992, few towns had outdoor lighting laws. One of the first was written by Peter Talmage in Kennebunk, Maine. He was a member of the New England Light Pollution Advisory Group, a stargazer, and an engineer with experience in outdoor lighting. That law limited the intensity of outdoor lights and regulated the addition of new street lights.

Today, many communities nationwide are passing nighttime lighting laws. Others are voluntarily turning off street lights. Beyond light pollution, avoiding over-lighting at night saves several billion dollars a year and eliminates an estimated 38 million tons of carbon dioxide.

I rarely take the time to enjoy night skies. And when I do, artificial lighting prevents me from gazing into the starry universe I remember from childhood. Losing naturally dark skies is as sad as losing forests, fresh air or clean water.

Here’s some more information on enjoying a nighttime sky in a national park.

About the author: Amy Miller is a writer who works in the public affairs office of EPA New England in Boston. She lives in Maine with her husband, two children, eight chickens, one dog and a great community.

Oct 28, 2013

Adding Up the Impact of a Coastal Weekend Run

New England Beacon, Reach the Beach Relay, Reduce Reuse Recycle, waste, water 3 Comments

Each Monday we write about the New England environment and way of life seen through our local perspective. Previous posts

By Amy Miller

We ran the whole 200 miles of the Reach the Beach relay. Well, not each of us, but all of us together – 12 women from my town – ran the distance between Cannon Mountain and Hampton Beach, NH.

Staying up two nights; cheering on teammates; eating energy bars and date balls for a day and a half; and running three legs in the relay, in my case totaling only 14 miles, were really a blast.

But by the end, I started to wonder about the environmental impact of the relay and the string of vehicles and water bottles it involves. Each of the 450 or so teams had one or two vans and, each of those vans traveled slowly over the New Hampshire roads, dropping off runners, picking up runners, and pulling over to give the runners water. This, I thought, was one of the more frivolous uses of gasoline I had been part of in a while.

So, I decided to find out more about this relay and its environmental impact. Lo and behold, the web site indicates the organizers’ commitment to sustainability. Now in its 15th year, they pledge to ensure the race leaves the “smallest footprint possible on the environment.” To this end, they work with Athletes for a Fit Planet.

Fit Planet provided recycling bins, which were managed by volunteers. Race organizers suggested that teams use giant cloth bags, handed out at registration, to collect bottles, cans, glass, and paper, and then toss these items into bins at transition areas. The race course also hosted portable toilets that used non-toxic chemicals and recycled paper.

The Reach the Beach crew estimates vans and staff vehicles produced about 125 tons of CO2 during the race. To keep that total as low as possible, they urged racers to carpool, come by bus, and purchase $3 tags that offset an estimated 300 lbs. of CO2 – the equivalent of driving 150 miles in a 10-15 mpg passenger van. The offset comes from the wind, biogas, solar, and other carbon-reducing projects funded by proceeds from these tags. Finally, relay folks encouraged us to use bulk water and reusable bottles, which we did. I still feel a bit sheepish about all those miles just for a crazy physical stunt, but I was glad to see the organizers addressing these issues.

Sep 30, 2013

The Best and the Brightest, #NewEnglandFall

New England, New England Beacon, photographs, Photography, Photos, State of the Environment 0 Comments

Each Monday we write about the New England environment and way of life seen through our local perspective. Previous posts

By Jeanethe Falvey

Everything is starting to taste like pumpkin, the fancy squash are out on the streets, and the cool air is bringing on thoughts of apple crisp and pie. Summer wasn’t even over on the calendar before I overdid it on the maple sugar candy. Fall is simply glorious in New England, thank goodness. Summer’s end would be downright depressing if it weren’t for the vivid tones that will soon overtake our landscape and the scent of cinnamon and spice everywhere.

Photo by Jeanethe Falvey, Cannon Mountain, NH

The summer bunches are already replaced with early “leaf peepers.” Contrary to popular thought, these are not tiny toads, but larger, two-legged beings. You can spot them donning elongated bifocals and the latest flannel fashions from our finest outdoors outfitters. Peak season for sightings is between September and November.

We’re proud of our leaves, it’s true. So, from the Boston office, we hope you’ll join us in celebrating and embracing this beautiful time of year by sharing your photos with State of the Environment. This has been an ongoing EPA documentary of our environment today, created by your photos. While the project is not just about what’s beautiful, rather about what’s real, they’re often the same thing.

We’ll share our favorite submissions here over the coming weeks, and we have a sneaking suspicion they’ll also be shared at www.epa.gov/stateoftheenvironment as well. We do, after all, have a homegrown advantage …

Join us to document the best and brightest of our #NewEnglandFall. Here’s how: _________________________________________________________________________________

Take your camera or camera-phone next time you go apple-picking, pumpkin-patching, scenic-carpooling.
Sign up for Flickr (it’s free) and go to www.flickr.com/groups/ourenvironment
Click “Join Group.”
Upload your photos and follow the guide below to share your favorites with us.
Please put #NewEnglandFall in the title, description, or as a tag. This will help us locate it among the many other photos flying in from around the world. You can also tell us where the photo was taken.

Note: if you’re new to Flickr, it may take a few days for your friends to see the photo in the group. This is a normal, Flickr thing and it’s simply to verify that your account is sharing appropriate photos. _________________________________________________________________________________
In Flickr, your uploaded photos will look like this (below). The three-dot option to the right opens up the option to share further into the Flickr-sphere.

We look forward to seeing your splendid shots. Please let us know here if you have questions or comments. In the meantime, enjoy the slideshow below: scenes from our world today, thanks to you.

State of the Environment is open to pictures of our lives and planet as you see it. Individual scenes, taken together, build the larger picture of our environment today. Photos taken from 2011 until the end of 2013 may be submitted on Flickr. All levels of photography experience and skill are welcome.

About the author: Jeanethe Falvey, State of the Environment project lead, writes from EPA’s Office of External Affairs and Environmental Education, and is having her fill of pumpkin lattes in Boston, Massachusetts.

Sep 23, 2013

What to Say about Ramps

allium trioccum, Invasive Species, New England Beacon, plants, ramp, Ramp Action Alert, ramp tart 1 Comment

Each Monday we write about the New England environment and way of life seen through our local perspective. Previous posts

By Amy Miller

No matter how much you beg, I won’t tell you where I found them. I won’t even direct you to the state where the ramps were growing. Ramps colonies are top secret. This recently trendy delicacy, which may be described as wild leek, is not always easy to find.

You can make ramp tarts, ramp grits, fried ramps, or ramps & eggs. They can be roasted sautéed, pickled, or puréed. They can be put raw in salads or stir fried.

Ramps, officially allium trioccum, are part of the lily family, which includes garlic, leeks, and onions. Slightly resembling scallions, they have a white bulb at the bottom, and below that are the roots. And they are among the first greens available in spring.

No matter where you live in the US, ramps may be growing wild. They’ve been around for a long time in the east, from Canada to Georgia.

Until the 1980s, though, ramps were not part of northeastern restaurant culture. The buzz began in food writing circles, and in 1983, a recipe for a ramp tart and cheddar-enriched ramps grits soufflé appeared in Gourmet magazine.

Now, the spring bulb is threatened with overharvesting. Lawrence Davis-Hollander, an ethnobotanist who lives in the Berkshires, sees a problem so serious he put out a “Ramp Action Alert.” Quebec banned ramp harvesting in 1995 and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park banned harvesting in 2004.

The problem is that overharvesting will reduce sustainability of ramps as well as their ability to reproduce. Even harvesting 25 percent could require 10 years to recover. In 2011, Davis-Hollander estimated over 2 million ramps plants were harvested for culinary purposes.

Wild food specialist Russ Cohen, who also lives in the Berkshires, has noticed whole patches being decimated. He also noticed that when ramp colonies are disturbed, the areas are susceptible to invasive species. Apparently, it’s not hard to wipe out an entire plant species, even one as common as ramps. According to Davis-Hollander, ginseng once was just as common as ramps are now. Yet it’s now virtually extinct from many woods, and generally scarce.

Ramps lovers who don’t want to give up the habit can follow some simple rules from Davis-Hollander: don’t take more than a fifth of the leaves and don’t dig out the bulbs. Also, enjoy ramps you find in woods, but don’t buy them commercially.

In other words, everything in moderation.

About the author: Amy Miller is a writer who works in the public affairs office of EPA New England in Boston. She lives in Maine with her husband, two children, eight chickens, chicken-eating dog and a great community.

Sep 16, 2013

A Gift from the Sea

Beaches, gray seals, harbor seal, New England Beacon, seals, water 4 Comments

Each Monday we write about the New England environment and way of life seen through our local perspective. Previous posts

By Phil Colarusso

“Let’s go to the beach,” my wife said hopefully. I looked out the window at the dark threatening skies and hesitated. It was Labor Day, and the last hours of summer were quickly running out. As I have gotten older, the end of summer has become a melancholy time for me. More so than birthdays, summers mark the passage of time for me. Labor Day brings the end of another summer and the prospect of another long New England winter. “All right, let’s take a chance,” I replied.

Photo courtesy of NOAA/NEFSC/PSB.

We arrived at a completely deserted beach. Apparently, all the other potential beachgoers looked at the sky and opted to stay home. We had a three-mile stretch of sandy beach virtually to ourselves – no walkers, no swimmers, no boaters, just us and the seagulls.

Halfway down the beach, I looked out to the water and saw a dog swimming towards us. We stopped and watched, and as it got closer we realized our “dog” was actually a harbor seal. It came ashore and wriggled up above the water line a mere 20 feet away from us. Three miles of deserted beach, and this seal chose to beach itself at our feet.

The seal eyed us suspiciously for a moment, then deeming us to be harmless, closed its eyes and went to sleep. Harbor seals routinely come ashore to rest and regulate their body temperature. Seals are capable of sleeping underwater or bobbing at the surface, but those are only catnaps. To get any real rest, they need to emerge from the sea away from predators.

Photo courtesy of NOAA/NEFSC/PSB.

A few raindrops began to fall and it was time to make a run for the car. The seal sensed our movement and looked in our direction as we began to reverse our course. I looked back at the lone figure on the deserted beach and I swear he gave me a nod as if to say, “see you next summer.”

At the exit point of the beach is a sign that reads “Take Just What You Need.” On this last day of summer, my wife and I got just what we needed: a gift from the sea to sustain our spirits through the next long New England winter.

Editor’s Note: All marine mammals are protected by the Marine Mammal Protection Act. This law makes it illegal to touch, disturb, feed or otherwise harass marine mammals without authorization.

More information if you encounter a seal or another marine animal on a beach in New England is available from the New England Aquarium’s Marine Animal Rescue Team.

More information on seals found in New England is available from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Sep 9, 2013

New England Students Recycle

binders, Post-Landfill, reuse, school, University of New Hampshire, Volunteers, waste 3 Comments

Each Monday we write about the New England environment and way of life seen through our local perspective. Previous posts

by Jeri Weiss

After cataloguing every pen and binder in my son’s school supply pile, we’re still left with a long list of things to buy before he heads back to college. Could it be true that none of last year’s binders could be used again? Didn’t we just buy him a fan for his room last year? What happened to the extensions cords and that plastic bin for his extra school supplies?

Last week I saw how college students at the University of New Hampshire (UNH) are changing how we can think about back-to-school shopping. A few years ago, a group of UNH students were appalled at the amount of furniture, clothing, and useful stuff being tossed out at the end of the school year. They learned four times as much trash got picked up in May as in other months throughout the year. They realized lots of stuff tossed out was in good condition. And they saw thousands of items that could be cleaned and re-sold in the fall to a new crop of students.

The UNH students raised $9,000 and developed a plan to collect unwanted items in the spring and store them. Student volunteers helped clean and organize items before the Trash 2 Treasure yard sale in fall. The first year the sale was in a tent and raised $12,000. The next year they needed a larger space and made $20,000. This year, the third Trash 2 Treasure sale was so big it was moved to the UNH Hockey Arena.

According to UNH, the sale diverted 45 tons of waste last year, bringing the total amount diverted over three years to 110 tons. This has saved UNH about $10,000 in disposal fees. The total raised over the three years was $54,000. Through the sale, parents and students saved about $216,000 at the sale.

This is Reuse at its finest.

The students who started the Trash 2 Treasure sale have expanded. They have gotten themselves a board of directors and advisors. They call themselves the Post-Landfill Action Network and hope to support other colleges and universities. Schools that don’t have similar programs can get funding and resources to start one. And the network will support schools that already have move-out programs to help them improve.

It’s great to see students taking action, and to watch as they work to help other colleges and universities reduce their waste. Maybe next year my son will buy some gently used binders and plastic bins at his own school’s yard sale rather than buying new supplies he won’t need in a year.

Learn more about Post-Landfill Action Network: www.postlandfill.org.

About the author: Jeri Weiss works in EPA’s Boston office, where she is one of the region’s experts on recycling and waste management issues.

Aug 26, 2013

Be It Ever So Humble, There’s No Place Like Home

climate change, crab, eelgrass, hermit crab, invertebrates, New England Beacon, ocean, Seagrasses, water 3 Comments

Each Monday we write about the New England environment and way of life seen through our local perspective. Previous posts

By Phil Colarusso

Wednesday had been a long day in the field, and it was great to be home. It was early evening and I was processing the last seagrass sample. Seagrasses provide habitat for many organisms, so it is not unusual to find small invertebrates crawling around in our eelgrass samples.

I poured the last sample bag onto the sorting tray and separated the small rocks, shells and other material from the shoots of eelgrass. It was at this point I saw it: a small hermit crab lay motionless. It had ditched the snail shell it had been living in, which I subsequently found among a small pile of rocks. The crab was dead and I was immediately overwhelmed with guilt. Hermit crabs only leave the safety of their adopted shells, their homes, under periods of extreme stress. As I contemplated the poor crab’s fate, I wondered what extreme event it would take to make me leave the security of my home. I have lived in homes that survived hurricanes, the snow and coastal flooding of the Blizzard of 1978, and countless other events.

A sense of discomfort gnawed at me as my tired mind wandered. Our oceans are home to millions of species. Global climate change, ocean acidification and eutrophication are some of the processes making our waters inhospitable to many plants and animals that live there. Warmer water temperatures change the normal distribution of animals and plants. Shellfish, which use calcium carbonate to build shells, will find that harder and harder to do as ocean pH levels continue to become more acidic. Sensitive habitats, such as coral reefs and seagrass beds, rapidly decline as waters near shore get over-enriched with nitrogen. What happens to all the fish that depend on those habitats? What do you do when you can’t go home?

Photo by Giancarlo Lalsingh (Tobago_Pictures on Flickr)

As I was putting away my scuba gear, something fell out of my fin. In the dark it looked like a small rock. I picked it up off the garage floor with the intent of throwing it into the backyard. I realized it was not a rock, but another hermit crab, still tucked snugly in its snail shell. There was but one thing to do. I hopped in the car and drove the 15 minutes back to the nearest salt water. I returned this crab back to a safe location and he scrambled away. As he wandered away, I marveled at the resiliency of life. It reaffirmed to me the importance of the work I do. Nothing is more important than that place we call home.

Read more info on EPA’s work to protect ocean and coastal areas in New England.

Connect with EPA Divers on Facebook

About the author: Phil Colarusso is a marine biologist in the Coastal and Ocean Protection Section of EPA New England, and is an avid diver. He’s living the dream in Wenham, Massachusetts with wife JoAnn, two kids, dog and white picket fence.

Aug 19, 2013

A Morning By The Lake

beach, New England Beacon, Pawtuckaway State Park, rain, Region 1, vacation, water 3 Comments

Each Monday we write about the New England environment and way of life seen through our local perspective. Previous posts

By Amy Miller

My family arrived at our campsite to a gray, evening drizzle. Not too wet to enjoy a kayak, nor too wet to keep us from making a fire and eating turkey dogs off sticks. The beach umbrella propped against a picnic table was ample protection. And we got our reward for persevering. “It doesn’t get much better than this,” remarked a woman on the lake trail as she ogled the double, 180-degree arch of vibrant color like you only expect in children’s books. I looked for the pot of gold.

The rain stopped in time to set up in the dark. The winds whispered above, sending droplets onto our tent. By morning the sky was clear and the islands of Pawtuckaway Lake were calling us out in our kayaks.

Pawtuckaway State Park sits in the middle of southern New Hampshire. Straddling the towns of Raymond and Nottingham, Pawtuckaway has trails, waterfront campsites, rock walls, marshes and a lake with nooks, crannies, big islands, little islands, blueberry-filled islands and a beach.

Unfortunately, it also can have contamination. The beach was half-closed when we were there. Not totally closed, but trimmed with yellow warnings signs that it might not be safe to swim. The problem, according to a nice woman who got my phone call, is that sometimes the bacteria count is too high at the beach. It was only 125 counts per 100 milliliters of water, close to the 88 count cut-off. Outside the beach area the lake was fine, and a few days later, by August, it was all fine again. The bacteria is caused by people and animals, mainly geese and recreating crowds. Beavers and other animals that love the marshes don’t help, nor does rain. But the warning signs didn’t seem to bother the hundreds of people grilling recipes from India, Malaysia, Dominican Republic, Jamaica and Maine. The sun blazing overhead, dozens of people were splashing about happily.

The state tests the water every other day or so. Since 1996, and more regularly since 2000, they have taken 461 samples. Of those, 34 have come back above acceptable standards. The geese, and people who feed them, are apparently among the first offenders.

When we tumbled out of our tent in the morning, a great blue heron was sitting comfortably at the water’s edge, as if to say “Welcome to my campsite; you may stay, if you like.” We stared at him for about 30 minutes.

Then we decided to make breakfast, smokey toast and hot cocoa. We knew not to share it with the ducks, and the heron knew not to ask.

More EPA info on beach monitoring in New England states, including New Hampshire lakes.

About the author: Amy Miller is a writer who works in the public affairs office of EPA New England in Boston. She lives in Maine with her husband, two children, eight chickens, dusky conure, dog and a great community.

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