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Why Your Support Matters
by William Stewart, VCS Board Member |
 As the Island's only environmental education and advocacy organization, the Vineyard Conservation Society takes a broad view of what Vineyard conservation means. Our mission entails promoting awareness about a wide range of environmental issues; nurturing community support for workable solutions; and, when necessary, fighting to defend the Island's natural resources against exploitation and inappropriate development.
For example, we've been pushing for waste reduction since 1974. Now, thanks in part to VCS efforts, the Island's waste authorities are discussing consolidation, and there's recycling at the Steamship Authority and other public places. That's what community action is all about.
We received a grant from the Massachusetts Environmental Trust funding our Clean Water Initiative, to advocate for Island-wide waste-water solutions. We've been helping Islanders understand the threat, and the need for a comprehensive regional response. That's what public education looks like.
And when developers threatened to build a private golf course in the Southern Woodlands, the last big piece of open space in Oak Bluffs, we showed the Martha's Vineyard Commission how vital habitat and watershed would be destroyed. With VCS testimony to bolster their findings, the Commission decided to vote the proposal down. That's advocacy at work.
These are just a few examples of the work that can be accomplished with your support. If you are not a member, please consider joining the Vineyard Conservation Society.
508-693-9588 |
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| LOCAL NEWS |
DCR to clear 110 acres of pines in State Forest
By Nelson Sigelman
Published: January 8, 2009 |
 The Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) announced that work would begin next week to remove dead and dying red pines from about 110 acres of the Manuel F. Correllus State Forest.
The work is part of a three-year, 237-acre "emergency ecological restoration project," said DCR spokesman Wendy Fox in a press release. The project is intended to restore native trees such as pitch pine and scrub oak and reduce wildfire risks and public safety hazards.
http://www.mvtimes.com/marthas-vineyard/
news/2009/01/08/state-forest-clearing.php |
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Nantucket lawmaker takes Statehouse oath
By DAVID KIBBE
dkottaway@aol.com
January 08, 2009 |
BOSTON — State Rep. Tim Madden, D-Nantucket, was sworn in yesterday as the first islander in the state Legislature since Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket lost their seats in a redistricting more than 30 years ago.
A longtime House clerk joked with Madden that no one thought they'd ever see another islands legislator. Madden succeeds former Rep. Eric Turkington, D-Falmouth, who did not run for re-election after holding the Barnstable, Dukes and Nantucket seat for 20 years.
http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/
article?AID=/20090108/NEWS/901080317/-1/NEWS01 |
| Feature |
Bush will create 3 conservation zones in Pacific Ocean
January 6, 2009
Boston Globe |
 WASHINGTON - President Bush will create three more marine national monuments in the Pacific Ocean today, designating areas that will span 195,280 square miles and protect some of the most ecologically rich areas of the world's oceans, said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino.
The decision to make the designations under the Antiquities Act, two weeks before Bush leaves office, means that he will have protected more square miles of ocean than any person in history. In 2006 Bush created the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument in the northwestern Hawaiian Islands, an area of 138,000 square miles.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/
articles/2009/01/06/bush_will_create_3_conservation_zones_in_pacific_ocean/ |
Producing recycled paper products takes 80 percent less water, 65 percent less energy and emits 95 percent less air pollution than making it from virgin timber.
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| Calendar |
| Slow Food Potluck |
 Thurs Jan 15, Slow Food Potluck 6:30-9 pm, Ag Hall, West Tisbury. Bring dish using at least one local ingredient and place settings for group. BYOB. Business meeting also. 508-645-9466. |
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| Sheriff's Meadow Walk Series |
 Sat Jan 17, Sheriff's Meadow Walk Series 9 am, Sheriff's Meadow, Edgartown. 50th Anniversary season. Rain or shine. Free. 508-693-5207; sheriffsmeadow.org. |
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| Alpaca Farm Open House/Workshop |
 Sat Jan 17, Alpaca Farm Open House/Workshop 12 noon-4 pm, Island Alpaca Company, Oak Bluffs. Meet newest babies; refreshments; 2-part beginner spinner's workshop ($125). Pre-register for class: 508-693-5554. |
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| Announcement |
| FELIX NECK SUMMER CAMP |
 Let your child discover the joy and wonder of nature this summer - Felix Neck's Summer Camp Registration is open!
Our camp brochure and registration can be found by following this link:
http://www.massaudubon.org/PDF/
sanctuaries/daycamps/2009/felix_neck.pdf |
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| Recycle Update |
Cape sees market for recyclables in a slump
By Doug Fraser
dfraser@capecodonline.com
January 04, 2009 |
 Provincetown's Sandy Turner remembers when the town had to pay to have their recyclable materials hauled away.
"It was costing us $63,000 a year. It was only the past couple of years that we made money on recycling," said the deputy director of the Provincetown Department of Public Works.
But the recent collapse of the U.S. and world economies into a deep recession has also sent the market for recyclable materials into a severe slump, which means local towns are getting a lot less money for the metal, paper, glass and plastics they collect.
http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/
article?AID=/20090104/NEWS/901040329/-1/NEWS01
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| Water Update |
Putting water testing on the fast track
By Dave Copeland
Globe Correspondent / January 5, 2009 |
 A company's technology is helping a UMass researcher cut the search for traces of drugs and chemicals to just minutes, instead of hours Milford
Until March, David A. Reckhow worked in near anonymity as a professor and researcher in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
Reckhow studies drinking water, and it was in March when news outlets picked up on what he and other researchers had known for years: Tiny doses of prescription medications, whether through excretion or simply by being flushed down the toilet, eventually end up in drinking water supplies across the United States.
http://www.boston.com/business/healthcare/
articles/2009/01/05/putting_water_testing_on_the_fast_track/
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| Energy Update |
Hundreds of Coal Ash Dumps Lack Regulation
By SHAILA DEWAN
Published: January 6, 2009
NY Times
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 The coal ash pond that ruptured and sent a billion gallons of toxic sludge across 300 acres of East Tennessee last month was only one of more than 1,300 similar dumps across the United States — most of them unregulated and unmonitored — that contain billions more gallons of fly ash and other byproducts of burning coal.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/07/
us/07sludge.html?_r=1&hp
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| Climate Change Update |
| House bill reintroduced to focus on acidification of oceans |
 SEAFOOD.COM NEWS [Copyright 2009 HT Media Ltd.] - January 8, 2009 - Rep. Brian N. Baird, D-Wash. (3rd CD), issued the following press release:
Our oceans are becoming more acidic by the day, threatening the survival of everything from plankton, to shellfish, to coral reefs and countless other aquatic species. Yesterday Congressman Brian Baird (D-WA-03) took decisive action to reverse that by reintroducing the Federal Ocean Acidification Research and Monitoring Act (FOARAM). The bill overwhelmingly passed the House in 2008.
Go to the Water section for the rest of the press release
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| Wildlife Update |
Seal makes her way to fish hatchery
By Karen Jeffrey
kjeffrey@capecodonline.com
January 07, 2009 |
 SANDWICH — Like a chocoholic with keys to a Godiva shop, a young harbor seal found herself in sea mammal heaven yesterday — the Sandwich Hatchery.
And before she was captured and released on a salt water beach, the little seal managed to munch on untold numbers of four-pound trout.
http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/
pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090107/NEWS/901070328/-1/NEWS01
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Have ideas for content for the Almanac? Please send them along to:
marticamv@aol.com |
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