Atlantic CoastWatch March - April, 2006

Huge Forestland Deals in Southeast

News For Coastal Advocates
As part of a broad plan to “transition” most of its extensive US landhold-
ings to new ownership, International Paper (IP) recently announced the sale of z
173,000 acres of forestlands in the South and Southeast to The Nature Conser-
vancy, and of more than 5,500 acres to The Conservation Fund. The two groups will
jointly buy an additional 39,000 acres in South Carolina. Huge Forestland Deals in SE 1

In sum the deals represent what the conservation groups heralded as “the Dots Connect in Carolinas 1
single largest private and conservation sale in the history of the South, and one of
the largest in the nation,” representing the largest financial commitment in the Sayings 2
Conservancy’s 55-year history. Together, the two groups will shell out some
$300 million for the properties in return for what Conservation Fund president Larry Republicans Rank Selves 3
Selzer called “tremendous conservation outcomes.”

John Faraci, CEO of IP, noted that the “historic transaction demonstrated Publications 3
the compatibility of environmental, recreational and economic interests. We saw
this as an important opportunity to protect in perpetuity many of our most ecologi- Golfing on the Dump 4
cally significant lands.” The conservation deals represent only a small portion of the
company’s recent land sales; recently also announced were sales of 5.1 million Massachusetts & Mercury 4
acres to conventional buyers for a total of $6.1 billion.
ModMon on Shoal Water 5
IP’s declared intent to sell off the lion’s share of its forestland forms part of
its plan “to increase our focus and improve returns to shareholders,” as Faraci put
Sewage, Runoff and Coral 5
it. Washington Post columnist Allan Sloan put a different spin on the matter. “Inter-
national Paper Clear-Cuts Its Taxes,” headlined his April 11 story. It goes on to
show how, using perfectly legal manipulations involving loopholes, the company will Major Win for SELC 6
pay far less in taxes on its profit than what “you or I would owe Uncle Sam on a
$4.5 billion capital gain.” Courts & the Seashore 6

Beachdwellers vs. Corps 8

Dots Connect in Carolinas
z
Along the Catawba River in York County, SC, a few miles south of Charlotte,
NC, an unlikely partnership between a brownfields developer, a cultural foundation, Recurring
and “green” architect William McDonough is making rapid progress toward the
creation of a truly sustainable new community. It will be, reported the Charlotte
Observer, “the nation’s first mixed-use project to combine an environmental People; Awards; Species &
museum with an environmentally sensitive community as its working laboratory.” Habitats; Restorations;
Report Cards; Products;
Called Kanawha, the 350-acre development will feature about 750 single Funding
family residences and some multi-family homes, as well as an array of office,
institutional, and retail buildings. All these will showcase ultra-green design and Atlantic CoastWatch is a bimonthly
landscaping techniques. Binding the community together will be not the usual golf nonprofit newsletter for those con-
course, but a new, $48 million Museum of Life and the Environment whose function cerned with environmentally sound
will be to dramatize the cultural, historic, and natural-history links between the development along the NW Atlantic
people and their place. Seaboard.

The idea for this development dates from 1998, when Jane Spratt McColl, Coastal News Nuggets, a daily news
wife of the former Bank of America CEO Hugh McColl, donated 50 acres of choice headline service, is available through
land to the York County Culture and Heritage Foundation as the site for a new www.atlanticcoastwatch.org.
environmental museum. (Continued on P. 7)

Atlantic CoastWatch
Vol. 10, No. 2
A project of the Sustainable
Development Institute, which
seeks to heighten the environmen-
tal quality of economic develop-
ment efforts, in coastal regions, by
communicating information about
better policies and practices. SDI
is classified as a 501(c)(3) organi-
zation, exempt from federal
income tax.
Board of Directors
Freeborn G. Jewett, Jr., Chair
Robert J. Geniesse, Chair Emeritus
Roger D. Stone, President
Dale K. Lipnick, Treasurer
Gay P. Lord, Secretary
Hart Fessenden
David P. Hunt
Simon Sidamon-Eristoff
Scientific Advisory Council
Gary Hartshorn
Stephen P. Leatherman
Jerry R. Schubel
Christopher Uhl
Staff
Roger D. Stone, Director & President
Shaw Thacher, Project Manager
Robert C. Nicholas III, Contr. Editor
Anita Herrick, Correspondent
Foundation Donors
Avenir Foundation
The Fair Play Foundation
The Madriver Foundation
The Moore Charitable Foundation
The Curtis and Edith Munson
Foundation
The Summit Fund of Washington
Sponsored Project
Environmental Film Festival in the
Nation’s Capital
March 15 - 25, 2007
Featuring screenings of documentary,
feature, archival, children’s and
animated films.
www.dcenvironmentalfilmfest.org
2
Sayings
“More than seven months ahead of midterm elections, both Democrats
and Republicans are nervous.
Republicans are feeling gravity’s pull—on their poll numbers at least—with
a president who has lapsed into strong negative approval numbers and an ethics
scandal knocking on their door. Democrats are hopeful, but concerned that they
lack a vision. And even though this is the same concern they’ve had for, oh, the
past 40 years, in 2006 it’s nagging them because party leaders think they have a
chance to actually take back some seats—maybe even a chamber of Congress or
two—if they can get voters motivated.
Both sides are looking for something to organize the election around.
Something besides Iraq, that is, which is a wonderful issue to chat about until one is
forced to come up with an answer. And while they cast about for agendas, the
issue for 2006 is staring them in the face.
What if this year’s midterm elections weren’t about blue politics or red
politics, but green? If there was ever a time for the environment to become a
political topic, a positive one for either side, it’s this year.
If talked about the right way, the environment can be used to link up key
issues in the campaign. It can be all about national security, if the goal is to encour-
age clean technologies that reduce foreign oil consumption. It can be about voters’
pocketbooks, if the point is to reduce driving or increase the number of hybrids that
burn less gas costing $3 a gallon. It can be a moral issue, if the question is steward-
ship of the land.
So far, however, other than a few throwaway lines in a less-than-memo-
rable State of the Union speech (remember that brief discussion of oil dependence
and switch grass), the environment has not been garnering a lot of attention in the
nation’s political discourse. Why is that?
Democrats appear still to be afraid of the topic and the hippie, tree-hugging
identity long associated with it. The war over the environment ended long ago.
Everyone is “pro-environment” now. But if a candidate elevates the issue and tries
to make it a major talking point, there’s still the fear of being branded a crunchy
liberal, or worse, Dennis Kucinich.
For Republicans, environmental talk just doesn’t come easily. After all, it’s
the conservative talk-show hosts who love to label the Democrats as flaky tree
huggers. And too often, the GOP-friendly business interests see environmental
rules as things to be fought, or worse, ignored.
But there are signs in the electorate that this kind of thinking is outmoded.
A poll conducted earlier this year by the Pew Research Center for the People and
the Press found that there are some environmental issues that score well with
Democrats, Republicans, and independents. All three groups were in favor of
“requiring better fuel efficiency for cars, trucks, and SUVs” (86 percent for, 12
percent against) and “increasing federal funding for research on wind, solar, and
hydrogen energy” (82 percent for, 14 percent against). There was even bipartisan
support for “spending more on subway, rail and bus systems” (68 percent for, 26
percent against).
And these issues can go beyond national security and clean air to job
creation. The befuddled US auto industry, which moves cautiously, would have no
choice but to jump more boldly into the world of green engineering if the govern-
ment gave it a kick. It’s also possible - not certain - that such a discussion could even
(Continued, p. 3)
 3
People

Republicans Rank Selves Lead story in the Spring 2006 issue of

the Gulf of Maine Times features
Jamie Hosker of Marblehead, MA, a
A New Mexico based group, Republicans for Environmental Protection,
dedicated surfer who loves spending 4
recently assembled its first-ever “Scorecard.” It ranks Republican federal legisla-
to 6 hours of a snowy winter day out
tors on the basis of their voting record in 2005 on such key environmental issues as
on the water. The paper reports no
the Endangered Species Act, Arctic oil drilling, and automobile fuel economies.
“dude” or “gnarly wave” chatter
from this enthusiast, but rather
Top-ranking member in the House of Representatives is New York State’s
earnest talk “about the issues that are
Sherwood Boehlert. Of the next 11 receiving the highest scores 8 are from
near and dear to his and every
northeastern states: Michael Fitzpatrick (PA), Jim Saxton (NJ), Michael Castle
surfer’s heart: water quality, beach
(DE), Frank LoBiondo (NJ), Nancy Johnson (CT), Christopher Smith (NJ), Wayne
access, and political activism on behalf
Gilchrest (MD), and Christopher Shays (CT).
of the ocean.” Head of the northern
Massachusetts branch of the Surfrider
Among Senators, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island nailed down the top spot,
Foundation, which has organized
with the Maine delegation of Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins in the number two
many successful beach cleanups,
and three positions. Most Republicans’ scores were close to the bottom. Special
Hosker said: “I think more than any
interests are part of the explanation, said Republicans for Environmental Protection
other sport, surfing creates environ-
policy director Jim dePeso, along with widespread beliefs within the party that
mental activists. You are embedded in
environmental threats are not real or cannot be addressed without impinging on
the environment you are playing in.
personal freedoms.
You swallow it, it’s in your ears, you’re
above it, you’re below it.”

In an interview with SEJournal, the

Publications quarterly publication of the Society of
Environmental Journalists, New York
z Washington Post reporter Michael Grunwald has long been a sharp- Times reporter and 2006 Guggenheim
tongued observer of such too-often heavy-handed federal agencies as the US fellowship recipient Andrew Revkin
Army Corps of Engineers. Now he has stepped forward with a detailed analysis of was asked what key points about
how the Corps and other sometimes well meaning engineers, politicians, and climate change should be stressed.
institutions have, in the name of progress, trashed Florida’s Everglades to the brink His response: “There are things going
of fatality. “If you live in Florida or find the environment to be important,” says an on around you that are profound, that
Amazon.com reviewer, “then you absolutely positively must read this book.” It is are transforming landscapes. And we
entitled The Swamp: The Everglades, Florida, and the Politics of Paradise (Simon & ignore them because they are
Schuster 2006). happening in this incremental fashion
that journalism just does not recog-
z In The Big Oyster: History on the Half-Shell (Ballantine Books 2006) author nize. A perfect example is coastal
Mark Kurlansky traces the course of New York City’s close association with the development and sea level rise. One
tasty bivalves. They were once harvested in all five boroughs, slurped in copious of the firmest things coming out of any
quantities from stalls on every street corner (all you can eat for 6 cents back in the climate model is that rising seas are
1920s), and exported worldwide. A “delicious history,” one reviewer called it. the new normal for centuries to come.
So if you are a journalist on the coast,
this immediately starts a series of
stories to see what is being done to
Sayings, Continued from p. 3 reflect that.” An example of what
Revkin would like to see better
elevate the political discourse in this country and get both sides in Washington covered: “Are we still granting flood
talking about fixing problems again, instead of trying to score points in the debate insurance to low-lying areas?”
or defend their team.
For years until her death in 2004,
Of course, considering the way things have been going lately, that’s wishful Betty Steflik of Flagler Beach, FL
thinking. Even if politicians in both parties take up the issue, it will probably come fought as a citizen and as a longtime
with more than a little cheesiness piled on top. I can imagine the debate already: city commissioner against overdevel-
“Senator, you said your car gets 31 miles to the gallon, yet government tests have opment of her community. She
proven it gets no more than 29. Your m.p.g. is a l.i.e.” But at least it would be a especially opposed a planned new
start. Both parties say they want to connect with voters and come up with a bold 65-foot bridge across the Intercoastal
agenda. Here’s an issue just waiting for someone, anyone, to pick it up. It’s cer- Waterway that she felt was out of
tainly better than talking about Dubai Ports World for another seven months.” scale. Now the bridge is being built
and Steflik’s daughter is spearheading
By Dante Chinni. Reproduced with permission from the March 14, 2006 issue of a move to name the bridge after her
The Christian Science Monitor (www.csmonitor.com). All rights reserved. mom. “It’s not the concrete and metal
 4
the bridge stands for,” she said in a
Daytona Beach News Journal inter-
view. “It’s her integrity and persever-
ance and courage.” Others took a Golfing on the Dump
different view. “It’s like naming a bar
after an alcoholic,” sniffed an old Long-bedraggled Bayonne, New Jersey, a town known for decaying
friend, Jack Plimpton. “She just hated industries, scrap yards, and a proliferation of toxic contaminants, has become the
that bridge.” latest community to join a new wave of development and prosperity along the
“New Jersey Gold Coast” between New York Harbor and the George Washington
Awards Bridge. The principal symbols of the town’s new affluence, reports the New York
Times, are two unusual, high-end, championship golf courses that are scheduled to
In recognition of the prominent role of open this summer.
coal burning power plants in generat-
ing mercury pollution, the Virginia The Liberty National Golf Club, which cost $129 million to build, carries an
chapter of the Sierra Club recently initiation fee of $400,000 and commands a spectacular view of the Statue of
bestowed upon the Mirant power Liberty. Two miles away is the Bayonne Golf Club, a Scottish links course with an
plant in Alexandria its coveted “Big initiation charge of a mere $150,000. Both courses, built on cleaned-up brownfields,
Mercury Polluter Award.” A certifi- are but a quick helicopter ride from the canyons of lower Manhattan’s financial
cate and an inflated giant fish, to district and are easily accessible to residents of the many new condominiums
symbolize mercury’s effects on newly built along the Gold Coast.
marine line, marked the occasion.
One executive involved in the dramatic shift, David Barry of the Applied
Species & Habitats Companies in Hoboken, points to one unusual factor in the feasibility of the courses.
Developers had what the Times called “an opportunity to make use of silt from
Widely noted was a recent midair turf recent port-dredging projects around the harbor demanded by ever-deeper
battle between two female bald generations of tankers and container ships. By offering their properties as so-called
eagles at a nest on the Maryland upland disposal sites, the developers were able to offset their costs with fees they
shore of the Potomac near the were paid to accept the dredge material. The silt, along with mountains of construc-
Woodrow Wilson Bridge. The resident tion debris and topsoil, was then used to cover up contaminants from the sites’
couple had been producing chicks previous industrial uses, and to shape the courses’ fairways, greens, rough and
since 1999; with the wounded resident bunkers.”
female in the hospital, the future is
uncertain. The attacking female was
thought to be trying to take over the Massachusetts Scores on Mercury
nest site. With similar occurrences
ever more frequent, says the Wash-
Something works! Massachusetts has long been a hotspot for mercury
ington Post, what is becoming clear is
contamination because of a concentration of incinerators and airborne contamina-
that after a period of rapid, post-DDT
tion from the Midwest. Seven years ago, accordingly, the state imposed the
growth the Chesapeake area bald
nation’s toughest rules for incinerators. And now, reports the Boston Globe,
eagle population is approaching
amounts of the metal have dropped by 32% in an indicator fish, the yellow perch.
saturation. It has grown tenfold in the
past 30 years, from fewer than 100
The finding comes as a result of research conducted by the state’s Depart-
breeding pairs in the late 1970s to
ment of Environmental Protection in nine lakes in the state’s northeast corner
about 1,000 now. More chicks have
where there is a concentration of incinerators. Though the Globe reports that state
hatched in the past 5 years than in the
officials and others were “stunned” by the extent to which the fish have recovered,
previous 25. Nests are occurring
but they add that current levels are still double what is needed to make the fish
along the Potomac every mile or two,
from those ponds edible.
vs. every 3 miles in the 1930s,
meaning that carrying capacity is
What brought about the turnaround was the DEP’s requirement, dating
being approached. Similar trends are
from 1998, that incinerators scrub 85% of the mercury—accumulated from old
noted in other prime eagle habitats in
batteries, thermostats, thermometers, and fluorescent lights— from their smoke-
Florida and Maine.
stacks. The seven incinerators in the target area have all met or exceeded that
standard. In addition, facing tightening rules, the last of the once numerous medical
During a critical stage in its annual
waste incinerators in the region shut down in 2003.
migration the red knot, a robin-sized
shorebird, pauses in Delaware Bay to
Not content with progress to date, the state presses on. A law requiring
fatten up on horseshoe crab eggs, laid
dentists to capture mercury from patients’ fillings will soon go into effect. And both
on those beaches, before resuming its
houses in the state have passed bills to phase out mercury in thermostats, autos,
journey to the Arctic. But conch and
and electric switches. But much as the state has done to control contamination
eel fishermen who use those crabs as
from mercury, which can cause severe illness in children and fetuses, it continues
bait have made them harder to find
to face a major problem: only about one third of all the mercury deposited in the
for the birds, whose population is now
state comes from local sources.
down to 15,000, with their extinction
 5
forecast by 2010 without firm reme-
dial action. Accordingly environmen-
tal groups have swung into action.
ModMon in Shoal Water “PEOPLE OF DELAWARE!” reads a
website posted by the American
Since the late 1990s, North Carolina’s Department of the Environment and Littoral Society, the Delaware
Natural Resources (DENR) has been providing modest funding for a program called Riverkeeper Network, and the local
ModMon, the Neuse River Estuary Modeling and Monitoring Project. The program, chapter of the Audubon Society. “Halt
run by a consortium of leading marine science institutions in the state, supplies a the harvest of horseshoe crabs and
regular flow of data on salinity, dissolved oxygen, Ph, turbidity and dissolved save the red knot bird from extinc-
organic matter in the Neuse River, where major incidences of fish and crab illness tion.” A local radio ad campaign is
and dieoffs have occurred. also in full swing to have Delaware
join New Jersey in a full harvest ban
MonMon sampling stations along the Neuse supply data of critical impor- rather than catch limits that have
tance to scientists in state and federal institutions working on other research failed to stem the decline of the bird.
contracts, as well as to commercial and recreational fishermen. The program has Though fishermen contend that
documented the effects of floodwaters on water quality during and after the recent continuing to harvest the male crabs
Hurricanes Floyd, Isabel, and Ophelia, and provides the data required for the state will not reduce egg production,
to measure progress toward water quality goals mandated in 1997 by the state Delaware environmental secretary
legislature. The ModMon consortium also spawned FerryMon, a complementary, John Hughes has said he plans to
innovative and widely replicated program to obtain data from ferryboats plying the support the full ban at an upcoming
Neuse and Pamlico Sound. meeting of the Atlantic States Marine
Fisheries Commission.
For all ModMon’s attributes, after many years of funding, DENR allowed
the funding to support the program to expire as of March 31, and the $125,000 Rising water temperature, says
needed to carry on the program is not included in the agency’s proposed budget. “I Lawrence Swanson of the Marine
just don’t understand this,” says project co-director Hans Paerl of the University of Sciences Research Center at the
North Carolina-Chapel Hill. “All the mid-level people at DENR see the importance of State University of New York (Stony
the program. We supply about two thirds of the data required for management Brook), is a “significant reason “for
decision making on fish kills, pfiesteria, and other such matters.” the dramatic decline of the lobster
population in Long Island Sound.
“We can’t do this for free,” Paerl continues. “Somebody has to pay the From 1991 to 2002, he reported, the
bill.” Currently the program continues on the books as a “no-cost extension.” But water temperature at the bottom of
shutdown looms unless appeals now on the table do the trick. And, Paerl adds, “It the Sound rose by about 1 degree—
better happen quick.” placing lobsters at the knife edge of
their survivable habitat.

Sewage, Runoff and Coral Restorations

Few rivers have as long been ne-

Scientists have long suspected close links between what flows out of
glected as the Pequonnock in grungy
sewer pipes into the water, as well as nonpoint runoff that is loaded with toxic and
Bridgeport, CT. It is, reports the New
nutrient pollutants, and the health of coral reefs. Now, reports the South Florida
York Times, a stream that, while still
Sun-Sentinel, scientists in that region have moved far closer to firm documentation
running, “flows all but unnoticed in
of that unhealthy connection.
places, behind rotted warehouses,
around withered pilings and under-
Working in Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties, a team of
neath rumbling roadways. In some
scientists deliberately cut holes in corals, then monitored recovery rates. They
spots it is dammed to a near stand-
found that corals located near sewage pipes or runoff hotspots are much slower to
still.” Yet this stream remains the
recover from wounds than those farther away. In some instances, wounds in corals
city’s “creaking spine,” the paper
near sewage pipes expanded instead of healing.
continues. It reports two differing but
significant restoration initiatives. On
Said biologist Philip Dustan of the College of Charleston, one of the study’s
Steel Point, a bedraggled peninsula
authors: “This is something we should have done 30 years ago, when we saw that
located near where the river flows
the reef was degrading. People have said you can’t prove this is happening. Well,
into Long Island Sound, developers
we’re beginning to prove this is happening.”
with aid from the state are seriously at
work on on a long-stalled multi-use
This summer, Dustan and his colleagues will launch a more detailed effort
project, involving environmental
to gather precise information about which particular chemicals, fertilizers, or
cleanup, that may cost $1 billion. A
nutrients do the most damage. The findings could lead to tighter sewage treatment
groundbreaking is expected this
requirements as well as to educational efforts to steer people away from using
summer. Upstream, near I-95,
chemicals found to be doing severe damage to the reefs. Recycling treated sewage
schoolchildren with support from the
for irrigation would help, said one official.
state’s environmental protection

department are restocking, with
brown and rainbow trout, a pond in
the river previously drained for
cleaning recovering. In a long-blighted
city with little going for it in recent
years, long run by a corrupt mayor
now in prison, these developments
constitute real progress.
Last year volunteers for the Barnegat
Bay Shellfish Restoration Program
began nursing baby clams offshore,
reports the Press of Atlantic City.
Then they put them in protective mesh
bags and placed them in locations
around Barnegat Bay that remain
secret to ward off vandals and
poachers. This spring and summer
they will spread them out on the bay
floor, then begin the cycle all over
again by planting 1.2 million baby
clams and about 50,000 oysters as
well. The goal is to bring about a
major revival of the bay’s long-
stagnant shellfish population. And this
is but part of a wider effort to restore
Barnegat Bay. Other features include
an energetic public relations and
education campaign run out of
Rutgers University.
Reports
The success of an effort to preserve
312,000 acres of working forest in
eastern Maine helped propel the
Arlington, VA-based Conservation
Fund past the 5 million-acre mark of
total lands the organization has
protected since its founding in 1985.
In its newsletter Common Ground, the
fund reported that it had received top
efficiency ratings from two charity
watchdog organizations including an
A+ from the American Institute of
Philanthropy.
Environment Canada, a federal
agency, reported that the winter of
2005-6 was the nation’s warmest
since record-keeping began in 1948,
with temperatures between Decem-
ber and February 3.9 degrees above
normal. All the last 10 winters have
been warmer than normal, the agency
said, though it is not yet willing to
affirm that the warming is a trend
rather than an aberration.
Chemical releases into New Jersey’s
air and water were 30% lower in 2004
than in 1998, reported the EPA in its
6
Major Win for SELC
A hot Georgia issue for the past several years has been the application, by
Land Resources Companies of Atlanta, to build a marina called Cumberland
Harbour less than two miles west of the Cumberland Island National Seashore. The
plan called for construction of the largest marina ever to be permitted on the
Georgia coast, with facilities for a fleet of more than 800 boats. Involved would be
extensive construction in an environmentally sensitive region that hosts sea turtles
and manatees as well as right whales, of which only 300 survive.
After this proposal had been approved by the state’s Coastal Marshlands
Protection Committee in March 2005, the Southern Environmental Law Center
(SELC) sued the Committee, charging that the development would endanger a
number of protected species in an environmentally sensitive area. Recently
Administrative Law Judge Michael M. Malihi agreed, arguing that the Committee
needs to assess the impacts of the entire development, not just that portion of it
located in marshland.
The decision was hailed as a “major win” for SELC and conservationists.
According to SELC, it reaffirms the obligation of the Committee “to protect
Georgia’s marshlands from the impacts of large-scale development by considering,
among other things, prevention of polluted stormwater runoff, impervious surface
coverage, impacts to marine life, and buffer design and maintenance.
Courts & the Seashore
The recent thumbs-down for the proposed Cumberland Harbour marina
development project on the Georgia coast, hailed as a “major win” for conserva-
tionists, is but one of several such victories. Others:
z In Massachusetts, a state Superior Court decision strengthens environ-
mental safeguards for the Westport River and every other river in the state that
empties into the ocean. The court ruled that the Westport River near where it flows
into Buzzards Bay is indeed a river even though the water is salty and the area has
other characteristics “not particular to a river.” The decision entitles the Westport
to special protections under the Massachusetts Wetlands Protection Act.
z In Old Saybrook, Connecticut, the wetlands commission rejected, by a 4-3
vote, a proposal to build a golf course and more than 200 luxury houses across
1,000 acres of what the Hartford Courant describes as “one of the last undisturbed
coastal forests” in the state. The vote, the paper continued, “prompted a roar from
the flannel and denim-clad crowd of 50,” of whom many had worked for several
years to thwart the project.
z Rhode Island’s Coastal Resources Management Commission (CRMC) failed
to approve a major expansion of Champlin’s Marina on Block Island’s landlocked
Great Salt Pond. The marina owners wanted to displace some 25% of the public
moorings in the pond, almost double the number of boat slips in the marina, and
privatize 13 acres of now-public water in the pond. While the turndown was being
celebrated as a political victory for environmentalists, the legal battle goes on: the
owners of Champlin’s have filed an appeal to the state’s Superior Court.
z An appeals panel in New Jersey recently upheld state Department of
Environmental Protection (DEP) regulations requiring 300-foot buffers adjacent to
some rivers, streams, and reservoirs. The state builders’ association had sued,
arguing that the DEP did not have the authority to impose such rules and that they
were unreasonable. Jeff Tittel, executive director of the state Sierra Club, called
the ruling “a major victory for clean water and open space.”
 7
annual Toxic Release Inventory,
reflecting an overall national down-
ward trend in chemical pollution
Dots Connect in Carolinas, Continued from p. 1 released into the environment. But
total releases in New Jersey, including
Then Van Shields, director of several existing museums in the county that the disposal of contaminated land,
operate under the foundation’s auspices, began to think more broadly about continued to rise—by 6.2% between
developing the site in a more ambitious way that would dramatize the “connected- 2003 and 2004.
ness,” as he puts it, between people and other systems.
The EPA’s Toxic Release Inventory
A chance encounter with McDonough fortified his idea that well organized also reports that, pound for pound,
development could improve the site rather than degrade it. He organized commu- IBM was the nation’s top water
nity discussions about the nature of this development, and commissioned architec- polluter for its industry type in 2004,
ture students at the University of North Carolina and Clemson University to come and the largest water polluter in New
up with an overall plan for the site that would abide by principles of “new urban- York State. According to the
ism.” Over time, the evolution of these ideas led to the selection of McDonough as Poughkeepsie Journal, much of this
the architect who would supervise the “ecologically intelligent” design for the pollution comes from a $5 billion
community and also plan the museum that would be its centerpiece. microchip plant in East Fishkill, NY that
emits large quantities of ammonia and
Once local stakeholders had been won over to a set of ideas extending far copper into the nearby Gildersleeve
beyond the limits of conventional development, and convinced of the favorable Brook. New waste treatment invest-
underlying economics, the foundation in 2004 set about to find the right developer ments will, says the company, stanch
to make it happen. Winner of this competition was Cherokee Partners Limited, a much of that water pollution, which is
large firm based in Charlotte that had made its name for acquiring, cleaning up, and already well below permitted limits
developing brownfields sites in urban areas. Cherokee’s CEO, Tom Darden, had even as production increases.
begun to ponder the question of how to make the firm’s development activities as
environmentally responsible as its cleanup work had become. With help from Products
McDonough, Darden had come to see how working at Kanawha could be what
Brian Goray, Cherokee’s manager for the project, calls a “great lab for us to get The invasive weed called Phragmites
onto the sustainable development track” australis grows fast and tall in marshy
areas, suffocating fields and ditches
Currently, teams of specialists are making preliminary plans for the and crowding out native species
development. They are working in sectors as diverse as maximizing energy important to wildlife. Aquatic herbi-
efficiency, improving air and water quality, restoring the riparian ecosystem, cides are widely sprayed from
mounting museum exhibits that will maximize community interactions and making helicopters to control the fast-spread-
the museum a regional center for the study of sustainable practices, and planning ing plant. But, reports the Halifax
soccer fields and grassy rooftops to double as rain gardens. Ground is expected to Chronicle Herald, local roofer Jef
break in about a year on this effort to fashion an ultra-green, museum-centered Aschenbach has found that it is “ideal
community into a living exhibition of the principles of sustainability. for thatching,” and is “tall, tough,
waterproof, and insulates extremely
well.” He harvests the weed where
With Appreciation he can in Nova Scotia and New
England and sells it by the bundle.
Ironically, wetlands protection laws
We note with special thanks major contributions received from Nina prevent him from operating in some
Rodale Houghton and Hamilton Robinson Jr, as well as much appreciated incre- parts of the US.
ments of support from these other recent donors:
In low salinity artesian water pumped
Leslie Cronin from 1,000 feet below ground, reports
Helen C. Evarts the Palm Beach Post, OceanBoy
Anita G. Herrick Farms in Clewiston is raising Pacific
Edward & Sarnia Hoyt white shrimp free of hormones,
Sally Ittmann antibiotics, chemicals and preserva-
Lucy Lowenthal tives. OceanBoy, said by the paper to
Mr. & Mrs.Wright Palmer be the only commercially viable US
Malcolm Peabody Jr. producer of organic shrimp, has
Herschel Post increased its production from about
Charles Raskob Robinson 100,000 pounds in 2001 to at least 2
William D. Rogers million pounds in 2005 even though its
Roy Rowan prices are considerably higher than
Sidney Buford & Susan Bailey Scott for foreign imports. With the organic
John A.H. Shober category claiming 20% of the huge 1.2
Sally Wardwell billion pounds a year shrimp market,

Tax-deductible contributions for Atlantic CoastWatch are urgently needed.
OceanBoy seems poised for rapid
further growth.
From their headquarters in
Pittstown, NJ, Maria and Stubby
Warmbold operate Citilog, a
company that salvages the “good
wood” from dead urban trees
headed for the waste stream, and
from others such as hemlocks that
have been ravaged by invasive
insects. Using traditional Amish
processing methods, the couple
fashions Forest Stewardship
Council-certified timbers and
finished products at its mills. “Good
wood should never go unwanted,”
say the Warmbolds on their
website, www.citilogs.com.
Funding
In 2004, reports the Bangor Daily
News, Interior Secretary Gale
Norton heralded a $50 million
restoration plan for the Penobscot
River as “perhaps the most
significant step to restore the
Atlantic salmon in the past cen-
tury” and a prime example of
“cooperative conservation”as
favored by the Bush administra-
tion. The $50 million project
involves removing two dams,
refitting five others, and thus
reopening 500 miles of habitat for
salmon and other androgynous
species. But to date, says the
paper, the president’s federal
budget has yet to cough up a nickel
toward the plan’s $14.5 million in
federal funds for dam purchases.
Atlantic CoastWatch
Sustainable Development Institute
3121 South St., NW
Washington, D.C. 20007
Tel: (202) 338-1017
Fax: (202) 337-9639
E-mail: susdev@igc.org
URL: www.susdev.org
www.atlanticcoastwatch.org
Beachdwellers vs. Corps
Until recently, opposition to beach replenishment projects has come princi-
pally from scientists such as North Carolina’s Orrin H. Pilkey Jr., who thinks that they
are expensive and too often futile, and from environmentalists. This year, though,
comes evidence that people occupying the very dwellings that the nourishment
efforts are meant to protect also lack enthusiasm for them.
In the 20 towns along New Jersey’s Long Beach Island, reports the New York
Times, there is considerable citizen opposition to a $71 million scheme to create
125-foot beaches and new dunes that would rise to 22 feet above mean high tide. It
reports that “hundreds” of homeowners opposing this plan, put forward by the US
Army Corps of Engineers and the state’s Department of Environmental Protection
are refusing to sign easements required for the work to begin.
“The easements are in perpetuity, they say,” the Times continues, “and
specify no limitations on dune sizes. Some homeowners also argue that the ease-
ments do not include any requirement that the Army Corps maintain the dunes,
repair any damage to the views or remove any danger created for swimmers.” In
Long Beach Township, said the mayor, only 40 of 600 required easements have been
signed. Failure of the agencies to achieve signed easements by September 30, the
end of the federal fiscal year, will cause the federal and state money for the massive
project to disappear.
On New York’s Long Beach Island, the Times adds, “debates are raging over
a similar plan to build high dunes.” Residents complain that views would be blocked
and that the dredged sand would be brown and coarse, not fine and almost white as
is the sand now there.
Hurricanes and Warming
Many scientists have been reluctant to assert a direct link between climate
change and the increasing violence and frequency of Caribbean-bred hurricanes. Not
so Greg Holland of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, reports Reuters:
“The hurricanes we are seeing are a direct result of climate change,” he said at a
recent American Meteorological Society gathering. “It’s no longer something we’ll
see in the future, it’s happening now.” The wind and water conditions that fuel storms
in the Caribbean, Holland added, “are increasingly due to greenhouse gases. There
seems to be no other conclusion you can draw.”