Join us at the Ponds in Peril forum and learn what’s killing our ponds and how you can help. July 29th Sailing Camp Park, Oak Bluffs, 7:00 PM Call 508-693-9588 with questions or www.vineyardconservation.org

Sponsored by VCS with a grant from MA Environmental Trust

This summer, thanks to the Vineyard Conservation Society, many boat owners were given the opportunity to recycle their boat’s plastic shrink-wrap for FREE. Headed by VCS Board member Tomar Waldman, the shrink wrap recycling program has saved hundreds of pounds of plastic from getting into the general waste stream. It will be recycled into durable building materials at a facility in Western Mass. VCS aims to expand this program three-fold next year!

Please call VCS at 508-693-9588 for details

The Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) and the Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) are inviting communities to submit applications for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Hazard Mitigation Assistance grant programs. These competitive grants are available to assist communities with hazard mitigation planning and the implementation of hazard mitigation projects prior to a disaster. The program goals are to reduce overall risks to the population and structures, and reduce the reliance on taxpayer-funded federal assistance for disaster recovery. FEMA mitigation grants cannot be used for maintenance, repair, or projects already in progress. For details, see the Massachusetts FY-2010 HMA Grant Program memo (PDF, 47 KB). Pre-applications are requested by July 27 and full applications are due by October 30.

NOAA’s Coastal Services Center has released Good Morning, America! The Explosive U.S. Awakening to the Need for Adaptation (PDF, 567 KB), which provides an overview of the public, political, and scientific concern with adaptation to the effects of climate change in the United States.

The New England Marine Renewable Energy Center hopes to use a swath of ocean south of Martha’s Vineyard as a testing ground for the next generation of energy from the sea. The center, at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, recently received $950,000 from the Department of Energy to develop better energy technologies for offshore wind, waves, and tides. The center is working with the towns of Edgartown and Nantucket to develop a tidal energy project in Muskeget Channel, known for its fierce currents. The channel is between the islands of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket.

http://www.boston.com/business/technology/
articles/2009/07/13/
an_offshore_testing_site_for_wind_wave_and_tidal_energy/

This letter was sent to the White House on July 16:

The Honorable Barack H. Obama
President of the United States
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President:

You have repeatedly and appropriately called for a Clean Energy Technology Fund of $150 billion over ten years that could be funded from receipts collected from a greenhouse gas cap and trade program. The stable support this Fund would provide is essential to pay for the research and development needed if the U.S., as well as the developing world, are to achieve their goals in reducing greenhouse gases at an affordable cost.

http://www.grist.org/article/
2009-07-16-34-nobel-winners-write-president-about-climate-energy-bill/

On the afternoon of Sept. 25, 2002, a group of marine biologists vacationing on Isla San José, in Baja California Sur, Mexico, came upon a couple of whales stranded along the beach. A quick assessment indicated that they had died quite recently. The scientists radioed a passing vessel and sent a message to a colleague at a nearby marine-mammal laboratory, who came to the beach to do an examination.

They were beaked whales, of which there are 20 known species. Relatively small members of the cetacean family, they resemble outsize dolphins, and because of their deep-diving ways, they are among the least observed and understood. Curiously, the stranding on Isla San José followed by just one day the stranding of at least 14 other beaked whales 5,700 miles away along the Canary Islands beaches of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/12/
magazine/12whales-t.html?_r=1&hpw

Officials from two federally recognized Indian tribes say they are frustrated in their attempts to protect what they consider a sacred site from becoming part of an offshore wind farm.

The two tribes want federal officials to deny a permit to Cape Wind for Horseshoe Shoal and move the proposed 130 wind turbines to another site.

Both the Mashpee Wampanoag and the Wampanoag of Gay Head (Aquinnah) have two main objections to the Cape Wind project:

• It would destroy a sacred site where ancestors fished, hunted and possibly were buried.
• It would obstruct their view of the horizon, thus interfering with their spiritual well-being.

In letters to federal officials, both the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) and the Mashpee Wampanoag are critical of the federally mandated consultation process and object to the final environmental impact statement.

http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/
pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090715/NEWS/907150321