Mon, July 7, Nature Tours with The Trustees of Reservations on Chappaquiddick are offered daily, including Fishing Discovery tours, Cape Pogue Natural History, Lighthouse or Quest tours. For details and reservations, call 508-627-3599.

The Island Plan will hold three forums this summer, to present and discuss preliminary findings from two new work groups and the Steering Committee, and to give members of the community the opportunity to provide their input. Each forum is open to the public, is free, and will take place at 7:30 pm.

This summer’s forum’s are:

• Transportation, Monday, July 14, 2008, at the Katharine Cornell Theatre in Vineyard Haven
• Built Environment, Monday, August 4, 2008, at the Union Chapel in Oak Bluffs
• Development and Growth, Wednesday, August 27, 2008 at the New Ag Hall in West Tisbury.

Additional information can be found on the Island Plan website – www.islandplan.org – or by calling 508-693-3453.

One of the most vivid symbols of global warming is the torrents of melt water that drain from the lakes that form each summer on Greenland’s ice sheet.

Recent studies have shown that this water, which flows deep into the ice through natural drainpipes called moulins, allows the ice to slide faster over bedrock toward the ocean. And the faster the ice flows, the faster sea levels rise. But a Dutch study using 17 years of satellite measurements in western Greenland suggests that the movement associated with the meltwater is not as rapid as had been feared.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/04/
science/earth/04greenland.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Almost 3,200 buildings on the Vineyard sit on land which could be inundated by the storm surge of a category four hurricane. Even a category one storm would put almost 400 buildings at risk.

The daunting statistics come out of work done by the Martha’s Vineyard Commission, which plotted the location of structures on the Island against so-called SLOSH (Sea, Lake and Overland Surges from Hurricanes) maps from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

http://www.mvgazette.com/article.php?17154

First published in the Vineyard Gazette on July 1, 2008. Reprinted with permission from the Vineyard Gazette. Copyright Vineyard Gazette 2007. All rights reserved.

Coffee grinds, apple cores and curly orange carrot peels: straight to the trash they go in most households. But on Island farms, these food scraps (along with egg shells, wilted greens and watermelon seeds) go to the compost. For the farmers, this trash is treasure.

“It’s like crop insurance,” explained Jim Athearn of Morning Glory Farm last week as he stepped down from his tractor.

“We have sandy soil,” he continued. “The goal of every farmer or agriculturalist is to increase the organic content matter of their soil so things will work better. This helps a lot. Things grow more uniformly. They grow faster and lusher.”

Go to the Recycled section for the rest of the article

BOSTON — A wastewater management bill sponsored by a Cape lawmaker passed unanimously in the state Senate yesterday.

Crafted by state Sen. Robert O'Leary, D-Barnstable, the Massachusetts Clean Water Act would provide financial assistance for wastewater planning to communities that have achieved specific state water quality and management standards.

http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/
pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080702/NEWS/807020359/-1/NEWS01

EVERYWHERE WE turn, Massachusetts residents are feeling the sting of high energy costs. With crude oil more than $140 a barrel and gasoline more than $4 a gallon, the price of fossil fuels strains household budgets and the Massachusetts economy as a whole. Oil and gas are taking a toll on the environment, too. Greenhouse gases emitted from these fuel sources are disrupting the climate and endangering the Massachusetts coastline.

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/
editorial_opinion/oped/articles/
2008/07/02/a_clean_break_from_the_fossil_fuel_age/

IN the closing months of 2006, thousands of American bee hives were found to be almost entirely devoid of bees, victims of a mysterious phenomenon now known as colony collapse disorder. A study of 150,000 managed bee colonies in 15 states, commissioned by the Apiary Inspectors of America, found that from September 2006 to March 2007, roughly one-third of the colonies were lost.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/30/
opinion/30farley.html