Mon, Aug 25, 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.

This Monday, August 25, the film, FLOW (http://flowthefilm.com/) will screen for the delegates at the Democratic National Convention. FLOW will screen at the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis a week later. Local water author, William E. Marks (www.watervoices.com) has a "significant presence" in FLOW, and has spoken and signed books after screenings at Sundance, Lincoln Center, and the DC Environmental Film Festival.

FLOW will be the opening night film for the MV International Film Festival on September 11, and will screen again at Noon on September 14.

As a member of the Conservation Commission, you are responsible for local administration of the state’s Wetlands Protection Act. If your community has its own local wetlands protection laws, your commission also administers local wetlands permitting. In many communities, the Conservation Commission also oversees open space planning and acquisition and stewardship of municipal land set aside for conservation through direct ownership or through conservation restrictions.

http://www.mass.gov/czm/stormsmart/other/local_officials/con_com.htm

The Island Plan’s Livelihood and Commerce Work Group released its preliminary recommendations about the Vineyard economy. These findings derive from a series of inquiries, from meetings with many Islanders (farmers, fishermen, health care workers, school officials, entrepreneurs, employees, and others), and from the work of consultants John Ryan of Development Cycles and Michael Shuman and Doug Hoffer of Training Development Corp (summarized in Ryan’s Martha’s Vineyard Economic Profile.

Go to the Island Plan section for the rest of the proposal.

EAST MONTPELIER, Vt. — Hundreds of gallons of groundwater flow to the surface in rivulets here each hour, helping to create this town’s signature spring, a lush current typical of northern New England. Just uphill, a meadow stretches to the doorstep of Daniel Antonovich, a businessman with plans to bottle and sell about 250,000 gallons a day from the spring.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/21/us/21water.html

Dr. Mercola's Comments:
The biggest study ever into organic food – a four-year EU funded project called the Quality Low Input Food (QLIF) project – found that organic food is FAR more nutritious than ordinary produce, and can help improve your health and longevity. You're likely to hear more about this again, once they publish their findings in full, which is expected to occur by the end of this year.

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/
archive/2008/08/12/12- foods-you-don-t-have-to-buy-organic.aspx?source=nl

A Woods Hole scientist believes he may have found a key culprit behind a mysterious disease linked to a dramatic drop in lobster populations from Buzzards Bay to Long Island.

In research conducted this summer, Hans Laufer found that common man-made chemicals used in plastics, detergents and cosmetics had infiltrated the blood and tissue of lobsters, making them more vulnerable to a particularly virulent strain of shell disease.

http://capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/
article?AID=/20080822/NEWS/808220333/-1/NEWS01