Blog Archives
The Potomac: America’s most beleaguered river, new report
The Potomac is the nation’s most imperiled river, according to a report issued today by the nonprofit group, American Rivers.
Pescados by Daquella manera (Daniel Lobo)
Creative Commons license
The river, which supplies drinking water to five million people in the Greater Washington region, suffers from a bad case of runoff from laws and factory farms, alike. those woes have turned the Potomac into a spawning ground for so-called “intersex fish” – male fish born with ovaries. Yikes! Scientists have linked the chemicals in lawn fertilizer and “chicken litter” (manure produced in large quantities at the region’s poultry farms) that get washed into the waterways where they wreak havoc of fish reproduction and create habitat-crippling dead zones bereft of oxygen, among other things.
The Washington Post today notes that U.S. Congress has failed to act despite growing evidence that what’s happening to the fish may be a disturbing sign of the human health implications. In fact, sentiment on Capitol Hill is moving in the other direction with Republicans periodically launching attempts to roll back the Clean Air Act, reporter Darryl Fears notes, quoting environmentalists.
The landmark federal law, which turns 40-years-old this year, has led to major improvements in the health of the nation’s waterways, experts say. At the time of its passage in 1972, some U.S. rivers were such reeking open sewers that they sometimes caught fire. Nevertheless, the Potomac is one of ten that continue face the most serious ongoing problems.
Besides the Potomac, today’s top ten list, of sorts, includes the following:
- Green River (which runs through Wyoming, Utah and Colorado)
- Chattahoochee River (Georgia)
- Missouri River (nine states in the central United States)
- Hoback River (Wyoming)
- Grand River (Ohio)
- Skykomish River (Washington)
- Crystal River (Colorado)
- Coal River (West Virginia)
- Kansas River (Kansas)
Berlin by Bike
Bikers at Brandonburg Gate
It’s day-four of my unexpected extended stay in Berlin. I’m one of reportedly millions of stranded travelers waiting for the skies to clear of volcanic ash. While the upper atmosphere may be a mess of sand, glass and whatever else an Icelandic volcano can spew, the weather down here is perfectly lovely. Last week, when I was officially working as part of a journalism tour of green building and architecture in Germany, every day seemed to be colder, rainier and more dreary than the next. As if timed to coincide with our forced vacation, the skies have lighted and spring is in the air – perfect for biking. And I’ve been doing a lot of it. While the subway system – or U Ban – is excellent here, I’ve opted to the peddling life of millions of Berliners.
My new friends, Lauren Browne and Charles Redell, rented bikes at the city’s central train station, the Berlin Hauptbahnhof, Sunday and rode all the way to the airport to rebook our flights. It’s about a 5 mile ride, nearly entirely on bike paths. If it weren’t for my unwieldly suitcase, I would would be tempted ride my rent-a-bike to catch my flight on Thursday (hopefully…) It might sound like one of those harrowing experiences in which you take your life in your hands, dodging and weaving through traffic. But nothing of the sort. I didn’t feel my life threatened once during the trip out there through Berlin’s stately cityscape, peddling along bike paths that aren’t the kind of here now, gone next block afterthought you find in Washington.
The DB “Call a Bike” service we used, is sort of like Zip Car for bikes or a higher-tech, touristy version of the District’s new bike share program. Each bike comes with a electronic locking system. We simply left our bikes outside the hotel overnight. I was almost surprised to find them still there in the morning. Now, on the third day of the rental, I found myself checking again to make sure the big red and white tank of bicycle is still there. It is! Another great feature is that once your done renting the bike, you just drop it off outside a subway station and call a telephone number to report where you left it. It’s 9 Euro a day or 36 Euro a week, which is on par with the cost of sightseeing by subway and a whole lot cheaper than bus tours or taxis. Besides it’s a wonderful way to see the city, soak up a little local color and get some exercise.
The romance of biking
Everyone seems to bike here. While you do see a few people in those tight little numbers that so many Washington bikers don even for the most mundane commute to the office, I’ve also seen the old and the very young. One portly old gentleman in a tweedy suit and cap crossing a throughoutfare. An younger guy with his dog on a leash – talk about multitasking! Biking and walking the dog – Cool. Another lady had a sort of a tricycle with a wagonback. Inside her two dashhounds. Every now and then, she’d reach back and give one of them a pat on the head. (Charlie has a photo of this lady in one of his blog posts.)
According to the German government: “About 80 per cent of people in Germany own a bicycle which makes a total of around 73 million bikes which are being used more and more frequently.” That compares to about 27 percent of the U.S. population over the age of 16 – about 57 million people – according to a 2002 survey , cited by Bicyclinginfo.org.The subway trains have separate cars reserved for people with bikes. The bike paths are beautifully integrated into the cityscape. Sometimes you ride in a specifically designated bike lane on the street, sometimes the lane moves up onto the spacious sidewalks. I haven’t seen any mishaps with pedestrians. Everyone seems to have enough room. Though there is so much bicycle traffic that it is important to ride like you drive, remembering others are behind you or may be turning from side streets. There are even special traffic lights for bikes! It’s not a perfect system. You still have scofflaws, for instance. I did seen a few daredevils running the lights.
Berlin’s neighborhoods are full of little cafes and shops of all types. Perhaps another byproduct of a culture – unlike ours – that doesn’t revolve around the car. If you are on your feet or on your bike, you are probably more likely to do your shopping on your street or one nearby, anyway, rather than trekking out to Costco or a Wal-Mart superstore. I wonder if there are any studies or statistics on that? Anybody know?
(By the way, the green building tour that brought me to Germany was quite interesting; We visited, among other things, loads of “passive homes” – houses, coop-style buildings and schools that take extraordinarily little energy to heat, cool and light. I’m getting around to telling you about that, but the drama – and fun – of being a volcano refugee has distracted me. I’ll get back to that soon, though, promise.)
Tweets Galore, But Same Old Politics Dominate Obama’s State of the Union Speech
Millions of people tuned in to hear President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address Wednesday night – and those were just the online viewers.
For the first time in history, the speech was not just broadcast live, it received the whole social media treatment: Facebook, Google, Twitter, and YouTube – not to mention live streaming via a special iPhone app – all of these online technologies figured prominently into the White House strategy to take Obama’s message to the widest possible audience. And, the Republicans countered with their own online speeches and chats.
All week, administration insiders heralded the address as a game-changer for the embattled president, whose approval ratings are sagging as midterm elections near, but the real game changer may be the speed and degree to which social networking has embedded itself into the country’s political process.
Read the rest of this post on allvoices.com.
Trivia Question of the Day
image from DC Metrocentric
Greenlines – Copenhagen Summit Edition
With the UN climate summit getting underway in Copenhagen tomorrow, the web is a buzz in stories about the talks and whether they could yield an international action plan to curb greenhouse gas emissions and head off more global warming. Here are a few highlights:
UK newspaper, The Telegraph, has a nifty climate change timeline that stretches all the way back to 1824, when a French physicist described “the greenhouse effect” for the first time.
Though expectations remain low for a meaningful accord, President Obama has changed his travel plans and will now be on hand for the critical negotiations that could led to an international agreement on cutting the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean an accord in the offing. The Associated Press is reporting: “Twenty congressional Republicans, including the top House GOP leadership, sent a letter to the president Friday expressing their ‘grave concern’ that the U.S. delegation might commit to mandatory greenhouse gas emissions reductions.”
Copenhagen officials are gearing up to crack down on protesters converging on the city. Among those planning to march Dec. 12 are Apa and Dawa Sherpa, the Nepalese mountaineers and activists, who talked about global warming’s threat to the Himalayas at GreenAccord last month. Hopefully, they will stay safe and out of the pens Copenhagen law enforcers have installed to hold arrested activists.
Some experts say its too late to head off at least some climate change. If you agree, you might want ot check out Washington Post on what the Dutch are doing to adapt to climate change and a future with higher sea levels and storm surges.
Let them eat kelp! Speaking of adaptation, the Los Angeles Times has a story on a couple of kelp farmers in Maine who are trying to revolutionize the American diet with seaweed. The stuff, which they sell to Whole Foods Market, among other places, is good for you and good for the environment. Kelp grows fast without need of fresh water, fertilizer – or land, for that matter. It also cleans the ocean, sopping up excess nutrients and the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. The story suggests we may all one day be eating more ocean veggies. So far, however, the aquatic farmers struggle to overcome the “yuck” factor.
Is Your Recycling Being Tossed with the Trash?
Good Morning folks!
Trash and Recycling waiting for a ride.
It’s a particularly fine, crisp autumn morning here in D.C. and I’m feeling fine. How about you?
My mood can be attributed at least in part to the fact that a story I spent months on hits news stands today.
I don’t want to spoil the ending for you or anything but, in a nutshell, here’s the scoop: Some private haulers in DC only pretend to recycle your carefully separated newspapers, cardboard and bottles. Instead, they often dump it into their trucks along with the trash, then cart it off to landfills or transfer stations that supply the dumps. That’s what I found after spending months tailing garbage trucks and staking out dumpsters behind apartment complexes, condos and commercial establishments all over the District of Columbia.
What’s perhaps even more surprising, the city hasn’t issued a single ticket for this offense in years. Here’s a quote from Nancee Lyons, a DPW spokesperson, that didn’t make it into today’s Washington City Paper story, an online version of which can be found here.
“Currently we have no authority to write citations unless they are at a DC trash transfer station,” Lyons says.
In other words, inspectors, who see a hauler scofflawing the recycling on a DC street can’t do a thing about it. That seems to make a mockery of the city’s recycling law, particularly considering how often this happens.
Have you ever seen trash guys throwing out recycling and trash together in the same truck? Please share your stories in the comments section.
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