Vineyard Conservation Almanac

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In This Issue:

Local News:
A Nicely Coiffed Flower

Feature:
Useful Mutants, Bred With Radiation

Calendar:
Martha’s Vineyard Water Alliance meeting;
Island Plan – Livelihood and Commerce Forum;
The Low Carbon Diet Workshop;
More...

Island Plan Update:
Question of growth has no easy answers

Water Update:
Scientists at MIT unraveling the secrets of red tide;
$100M WHOI deal sealed

Climate Change Update:
Altar Call for True Believers

Energy Update:
Rule to Expand Mountaintop Coal Mining;
Cleaner Skies Could Mean More Landfills

LOCAL NEWS

A Nicely Coiffed Flower
By SUZAN BELLINCAMPI
Vineyard Gazette

If you blink, you might miss this one. It is an uncommon and unassuming plant, flowering in its petite glory, enticing the botanically inclined and anyone with an eye for delicate beauty. Ladies tresses, a rare orchid, brings me back to another time. Visions of Rapunzel and well-coiffed medieval European women come to mind. And though upscale ladies' tresses are very much on display all around the Vineyard, these ones are definitely down-scale - but no less elegant.

http://www.mvgazette.com/features/
nature/?document=20070831_nicely_coiffed

Feature

Useful Mutants, Bred With Radiation
By WILLIAM J. BROAD
Published: August 28, 2007
NY Times

VIENNA — Pierre Lagoda pulled a small container from his pocket and spilled the contents onto his desk. Four tiny dice rolled to a stop.

“That’s what nature does,” Dr. Lagoda said. The random results of the dice, he explained, illustrate how spontaneous mutations create the genetic diversity that drives evolution and selective breeding.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/28/
science/28crop.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

Energy Tip
Can sleeping save you money?
When it comes to your computer, it can. Just change your PC's energy settings or install an energy-saving app so that it automatically sleeps when you're not using it, and remember to turn it off at night. Then count the cash you've saved while your computer counts sheep.Cleaner air through zzz... Desktop computers can cause 1,500 lb of CO2 per year; enabling sleep mode can reduce energy consumption by up to 70%. Saving bucks. Save up to $75 per computer per year. It's as simple as popping some Valerian. Changing your PC's settings or downloading a program that does it for you is easier than you think.

Calendar

Polly Hill Arboretum

Mon, Sept 3, 2007
Offers guided tours daily at 2 p.m. Suggested donation of $5 at 809 State Road in West Tisbury.

Martha’s Vineyard Water Alliance meeting

Wed, Sept 5, 2007
12:30 PM, MV Commission, OB.

Island Plan – Livelihood and Commerce Forum

Wed, Sept 5, 2007
The last of this summer’s Island Plan forums will deal with the Vineyard’s economy and be held at 7:30 pm at the Harbor View Hotel, Edgartown. Members of the Island Plan Livelihood and Commerce Work Group will present a summary of the group’s findings and will ask for feedback from community members. Everyone is welcome and there is no charge.

The Low Carbon Diet Workshop

Wed, Sept 5, 2007
Vineyard Haven Public Library Evening Lecture Series, each Wednesday night in September, at 7pm, at the Vineyard Haven Public Library. It is a creative 30-day program to save money, save energy, and save the planet. Calculate your own CO2 footprint and create an individualized action plan to reduce it. The group provides support and inspiration for everyone to carry out his or her plans. Nan Doty, who has taken a training course by David Gerson, the author of The Low CarbonDiet will be leading our group. Please register at the front desk. Call 508-696-4211 X16 with questions.

Landscape Series Talk

Thurs, Sept 6, 2007
5-6 pm, Aquinnah library, 1 Church St. Lynne Whiting, education director of M.V. Museum. Also Sept. 20, 27.

Alpaca Farm Days

Fri, Sept 7, 2007
Open most Fridays and Saturdays, 11 am to 5 pm through September. Island Alpaca Company, 1 Head of the Pond Rd., Oak Bluffs. Visit and learn about alpaca. 508-693-5554, For dates and times, or www.islandalpaca.com.

Creating Bonsai

Sat, Sept 8, 2007
Polly Hill Arboretum, 1 pm – 4 pm
In this workshop, bonsai artist Ernie Carlomagno will instruct participants on the techniques of creating and caring for the horticultural wonders known as bonsai. Participants will have a hands-on opportunity to explore the training methods and create their own piece to bring home and enjoy. Ernie’s artistry can be seen at Donaroma’s Nursery in Edgartown, where he is the resident bonsai guru. $55/$50 members; Register early; Space is limited. For more information call 508-693-9426

Wee Farmers’ Harvest to Table

Sat, Sept 8, 2007
The FARM Institute will offer a program for tots (ages 3 & 4) from 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. Five Saturday sessions this fall. Each week will offer a different garden and/or animal focus. Sign-up for one or all five. Cost is $12 per session with a parent. Space is limited so register today to avoid disappointment. Call 508 627-7007x106 or visit www.farminstitute.org to learn more about what’s new on The FARM.

Gardening Class

Sun, Sept 9, 2007
1-3 pm, Native Earth Teaching Farm, 94 North Rd., Chilmark. Rebecca Gilbert, potluck snacks; recipe, seed, plant swap. $15 per class. 508-645-3304.

Events at Felix Neck

Mon, Sept. 3, 10, 17, and 24, 2007
Guided Kayak Tour, 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm Fee: $28 Mass Audubon Members, $35 Non-Member per person Registration required 508-627-4850 x 101, Join a naturalist on an exciting kayak adventure.

Mon, Sept 3, 2007
Kayak Quest, Felix Neck Sanctuary, 9:00 am - 1:30 pm, Monday—Friday (Schedule for up to 2.5 hours) Fee: $30 Mass Audubon Members, $40 Non-Member per boat (all equipment included) Registration suggested 508-627-4850 x 101- call for availability Enjoy Sengekontacket at your own pace on this self-guided tour.

Island Plan Update

Question of growth has no easy answers
By Steve Myrick
August 30, 2007
MV Times

How much, and how, should the Vineyard grow?

The question seems deceptively simple, but, by the end of a public forum on development issues being considered for the Martha's Vineyard Commission's (MVC) Island Plan this past Wednesday, it was clear the answers will not be simple at all.

Intended as a course for the kind of future the Island wants, the Island Plan will outline the actions necessary to steer that course over the next 50 years.

http://www.mvtimes.com/news/
2007/08/30/island_growth.php

Water Update

Scientists at MIT unraveling the secrets of red tide
Anne Trafton, News Office
August 30, 2007

In work that could one day help prevent millions of dollars in economic losses for seaside communities, MIT chemists have demonstrated how tiny marine organisms likely produce the red tide toxin that periodically shuts down U.S. beaches and shellfish beds.

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/
2007/red-tide-0830.html

$100M WHOI deal sealed
By Aaron Gouveia, STAFF WRITER
August 24, 2007
Cape Cod Times

WOODS HOLE — The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution accepted the largest single monetary award in its history yesterday. It will create a system of offshore, remotely controlled, ocean observatories.

The $97.7 million from the National Science Foundation and Joint Oceanographic Institution's Ocean Observatories Initiative, along with $10 million from the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, will be used to build and deploy a system of buoys, linked to stations on the ocean floor. The stations will house unmanned underwater vehicles controlled remotely by scientists, which will collect data and transmit information back to scientists on shore in real time.

http://capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/
article?AID=/20070824/NEWS/708240330/-1/NEWS01

Climate Change Update

Altar Call for True Believers
BY JANISSE RAY
Published in the September/October 2007 issue of Orion magazine

Are we being change, or are we just talking about change?

If I ever preached to the choir, this luncheon was it. The sixty people in the room were professed environmentalists, all of them on the advisory council of an earth center at a college that advertises itself, rightfully, as strongly committed to environmental responsibility. Seated to my right was a friendly but road-weary woman who had arrived minutes before from Chicago. She had rented a car at the airport and driven straight here.

“When will you return home?” I asked.

“I’ll go back this afternoon,” she said.

My white cloth napkin lay folded in my lap. Two silver forks waited to the left of my plate. In minutes I would rise to speak at a meal for which and only for which one woman had flown from Illinois to North Carolina. In fact, I was speaking about the climate crisis. Could anything I said be worth those 750 pounds of carbon dioxide blasted into the atmosphere?

http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php
/articles/article/342

Energy Update

Rule to Expand Mountaintop Coal Mining
By JOHN M. BRODER
Published: August 23, 2007
NY Times

WASHINGTON, Aug. 22 — The Bush administration is set to issue a regulation on Friday that would enshrine the coal mining practice of mountaintop removal. The technique involves blasting off the tops of mountains and dumping the rubble into valleys and streams.

It has been used in Appalachian coal country for 20 years under a cloud of legal and regulatory confusion.

The new rule would allow the practice to continue and expand, providing only that mine operators minimize the debris and cause the least environmental harm, although those terms are not clearly defined and to some extent merely restate existing law.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/23/us/23coal.html?
ex=1345521600&en=3d104859e0d4fa55&ei=5090&
partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

Cleaner Skies Could Mean More Landfills
By ANNA JO BRATTON
08.26.07, 2:15 PM ET OMAHA, NEB.
Forbes.com

As the nation's coal-fired power plants work to create cleaner skies, they'll likely fill up landfills with millions more tons of potentially harmful ash.

More than one-third of the ash generated at the country's hundreds of coal-fired plants is now recycled - mixed with cement to build highways or used to stabilize embankments, among other things.

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/
2007/08/26/ap4054580.html

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