BEAT’s Blog

I saw this news story and thought, “How terrible. Why weren’t the locals outraged?”  Can you imagine the outcry if this sort of thing ever happened here?

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, large quantities of pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) are entering our waterways.  Environmental agencies used to believe that the source was primarily industrial and agricultural, but recent evidence points the finger at residential sources.

What do you do when you have unused prescription medications, or cosmetics, or common products such as sunscreen, medicated lotions, or aspirin?  What about the cleaners, insecticides, herbicides?  Many people flush these materials down the drain.  Even when you don’t intend to send these chemicals down the drain, you may be.  A large percentage of the pharmaceuticals you take in end up passing through your body unchanged.  And all of these materials go straight to our waterways.  Wastewater treatment plants neither detect them nor modify them.  In many communities, putting them in the trash sends them to landfills, where they find their way into the soil or sometimes into groundwater.

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Newspapers have  a responsibility to separate their news stories from their editorials.  When, on July 6, the Berkshire Eagle ran their supposed news story entitiled “Airport upgrade intended for all,” they were neglecting this responsibility.  First of all, what prompted this article.  If you read carefully, you will discover that the news event that prompted the story was the fact that airport spokesperson Randall Christiansen had spoken.  The story has nothing to report other than this man’s words.  So what did he say that prompted the Eagle to announce that the airport is “for all.”  He said, “There’s still a sense out there that pervades a small portion of the community that this is a rich playground for the rich and famous….”  Nothing else in the story addresses this point.  There is no supporting evidence offered to support the position that this is a minority opinion, and there is nothing in the story that explains how the expansion will benefit the average person in Pittsfield; and yet the title proclaims this revelation. Read more…

Why is it that people, whether in an office in Pittsfield or on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, always think they understand public safety issues better than the regulators. Recently, Bruce Collingwood, Pittsfield’s Commissioner of Public Works and Utilities, stood before the city council during budget hearings to discuss the mayor’s new budget. Mr. Collingwood was asked by a councilor to explain the fact that his department had asked for $106,000 for environmental monitoring but had received only $30,000. Why did this happen and what were the implications of the mayor not putting the full amount in Mr. Collingwood’s budget the councilor wanted to know.

Mr. Collingwood explained that the city had “elected” not to do this monitoring although it is required by the state.
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The ICOET (International Conference on Ecology and Transportation) is amazing. There are people from Mexico, Canada, the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, Cameroon, Norway, Portugal, France, Sweden, Taiwan, Ghana, India, Republic of Korea, Nigeria, and Switzerland, all working to help wildlife get across roads. I especially liked the photographs of wildlife crossing rope bridges over roads in Australia – sugar gliders and marsupial possums.

I am sorry I missed Pittsfield Green Drinks tonight, but I was there in spirit. BEAT is a member of the TransWild Alliance, a group of conservation advocacy organizations working to protect wildlife and natural resources from the devastating impacts of highways and associated development. And I went out with other TransWild Alliance members for our own version of Green Drinks here. All our conversations revolved around wildlife and roads. Very interesting!

Tomorrow we go on field trips around the Duluth area to see what great projects have been implemented here.

Good night from Duluth,
Jane

BEAT has been warning the City of Pittsfield about the dangers of undersized culverts. As I said in a previous post,

“BEAT has also been arguing to apathetic ears that Pittsfield has been installing undersized culverts at road crossings. We hate to say ‘we told you so,’ but part of the flooding is a result of the city being unwilling to force engineers to do a little extra work or spend a little extra money. Apparently the city would rather force homeowners to go out and buy sump pumps.”

Here’s an amazing video from Freeport, Maine that underscores the danger of undersized culverts. The video was captured by WMTW.com photojournalist Kevyn Fowler in Freeport, Maine during a storm. It shows the collapse of a road when water flow exceeded the capacity of a culvert. The culvert makes its appearance at the very end of the video.

This is a fun little video about consumerism in 7 short chapters. BEAT had nothing to do with its creation; we just saw it, liked it, and decided to pass it on. (If you don’t see it right away, give it a minute. It will appear.)

Chapter 1

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