News and Insights

The movie “Everything, Everywhere, All at Once”, won in many Academy Award categories this past Sunday, including for best Direction. A youthful Westboro High School and Emerson College graduate Daniel Kwan is bringing an Oscar home as he was the co-director.

The movie is an interesting metaphor for all the complex multi-dimensional interactions that drive the natural world, its biodiversity, and its eons of evolution. So let’s borrow imagery from this Oscar winning movie to help us wrap our minds around the facts that the environment and climate is about everything, everywhere and all of our actions over time.

The movie is an imaginary multiverse that makes it possible for human minds to glimpse the complex reality of the world. and if we take that idea on board, maybe it will help us see new ways to help heal the Earth. Whether we are hearing about the California snowpack, right whale entanglements or the decline of bees, it’s hard to put all the Earth’s climate and environmental dynamics in context. But we must try.

With a nod to the Oscars let’s all try to think in a multi-dimensional broad-spectrum way as the movie does for a few minutes. First consider that “Everything” is a lot! Whether we are thinking about Pandas or Plastics and PFAs, it would take an extraordinary mind to take it all in and keep it straight. Even dedicated environmentalists need to tackle specific parts of all the issues.

So being at the evolutionary stage we are as a species and if we are desirous of helping the Earth to heal, we need to unpack these uses a bit. We can’t fix everything as individuals. But we can join in with others locally, like ACES and its Allies and globally by supporting international environmental organizations to play our parts in the drama of preventing extinctions and the decline of civilization.

“Everywhere” is a very big space to cover. We need to be thinking at eco-system scale. Exploring concepts like the Merrimack river’s watershed ecosystems, or the Gulf of Maine or the Great Marsh. Or planting pollinator gardens in networks from Newburyport to West Newbury to ultimately the Mexican Monarch butterfly flyway.

And the toughest idea of all to comprehend is ‘can we do everything all at once”? Clearly, we can’t do that. We are temporal beings, and we just can’t get all of it personally done all at once. But collectively and intergenerationally we have a real opportunity for reaching those goals. We just need to do a little at the time in each small way ‘now’ available to us and prepare the kids to continue the work.

As an example of things to do “now”, next time you go shopping for groceries, just buy as much as you’ll need with no waste likely and choose items in non-plastic containers.

And before you go, plan a shopping list so you might be able to save an extra trip by not forgetting something you’ll need in a few days. If you can walk to the grocery store, bring a reusable shipping bag and make it part of your fitness regimen.

If you need to drive for shopping, swing by a gas station to take a minute to correctly inflate your tires. It will save you money and rolling more smoothly reduces greenhouse gases. and as you head home, feeling good about doing your small, but important part, for Earth healing, be mindful of your driving style. Coast into stop lights don’t just break late and forget those gas wasting jackrabbit starts. That species belongs in their prairie home not on Storey Avenue.

Unfortunately, “yes we can’t” makes for an awkward bumper sticker. Because we can’t do it all, do it everywhere and do it right now! It needs the coda, that “yes we can”, over time and incrementally and with other voices and friends, everywhere and in future generations.

Ron Martino lives in Newburyport and is an ACES advisor/mentor.

Our Youth Corps members hope that you will sign up for our free newsletter [acesnewburyport@gmail.com] and act. Together we can get everything done, everywhere, that needs to be done now to help our Earth heal. To learn more about ACES and its Initiatives, visit https://www.aces-alliance. org/

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NEWBURYPORT — The city will soon have a better way of alerting residents when there’s a combined sewage overflow in the Merrimack River, thanks to five permanent notification signs being installed this week.

Roughly 550 million gallons of raw sewage is released into the river on an annual basis and the Merrimack River Watershed Council estimates there are 40 to 60 such combined sewage overflows per year.

Local public health departments are required by the state to provide signs at public water access points, letting people know when a CSO lasts more than two hours, or if it could pose a health risk.

In July, the Board of Health began issuing public health warnings for CSOs at five locations along the river each time there was an incident.

Public Health Director Laura Vlasuk said the city is installing permanent signs in those locations that will include a QR code which people can scan with their cell phones and take directly to the city website (www.cityofnewburyport.com/) for further, real-time information.

“The QR code is right on the sign and all you have to do is just click on it and check things. We want to let people know when these incidents occur in real time,” she said.

The CSO activation signs will be placed at Moseley Woods, Cashman Park, the boat ramp area near Tuscan Sea Grill & Bar restaurant, the Joppa Flats boat ramp and Plum Island Beach.

Harbormaster Paul Hogg said having a permanent place to post QR codes will give residents and boaters a chance to stay up to date on water conditions.

“This really streamlines things and it will be good to get the word out. You can go right on your phone and see what is going on,” he said.

The city will also continue to post CSO alerts on its website and send alert notifications to subscribers after each incident.

“I urge everyone to sign up for the alerts but sometimes people don’t want to have constant notification,” Vlasuk said. “So, this way, they can check it when they’re going in the water.”

The new sign system will also cut down on public manhours, according to Vlasuk.

“This way, we’re not having people go out and actually post these signs every time there is an alert and you can get accurate information as it is happening,” she said.

Hogg said his department works with the Health Department at least once a week between Memorial Day and Labor Day to test local waters.

“People really aren’t supposed to be swimming in the river but they will often pull their boats up to to sandbars, like the ones off of Joppa Flats and let their dogs go in swimming at low tide,” he said. “So, we want to let them know what’s happened and to be careful.”

Staff writer Jim Sullivan covers Newburyport for The Daily News. He can be reached via email at jsullivan@ newburyportnews.com or by phone at 978-961-3145. Follow him on Twitter @ndnsully.

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The things that we purchase, covet, rely on – SUVs, trucks, techno- items, gasoline, pavement, concrete, furniture, appliances, furnaces, airplanes, etc. – came from our home, the earth’s biosphere, mostly through major disruptions and even destruction via ongoing massive mining, drilling, logging, burning, explosives, water diversion and so on over the past 250 years to the present day.

We now must realize without further delay that we as one species, Homo sapiens, are latecomers to earth and that so much of how we live in this, and the last century are not compatible with the earth’s “wisdom” and ways.

Just think, everything that is basic to survival and life came about successfully over 3.6 billion years through chemical exchanges and interactions of millions of evolving life forms, especially the dominant microlife.

All this biodiverse life and the ecosystems they built produced oxygen, motility, food and shelter, nutrient flow, essential gene exchange, and photosynthesis long before Homo sapiens evolved. Indigenous peoples for centuries lived and flourished often through these ongoing, life-giving “gifts,” seeing land and seas, indeed all of nature, as sacred.

In that context, we must step back actively and courageously from our world, this economy based on relentless extraction from nature, which is already showing science-based indications of a perilous and even limited future for our children and grandchildren.

Many indicators are already here, such as soil degradation through mega-corporate chemical-farming, far too much fossil fuel dependency, the demise of bees, forest removal and the rapid unnatural extinction rate of many animals, plants, fungi and their ecosystems. It is definitely time to realize the one thing we have meaningful control over – ourselves.

It is time for each of us and our communities, cities to actually be the change that is needed such that we are a part of this amazing biosphere and not an outlier or outlaw. We cannot continue to live with self deception that the goal is to have wealth, lots of material stuff, more roads, plastics, techno-objects, big houses, shoreline living, big cars.

W-earth working toward: Humility – See yourself as part of and completely dependent on nature, not above it. Advocate for our very best friends – trees. Find out and share why trees are so very essential...

Biodiversity and human diversity are both crucial for a healthy future. Work, speak out for all the life, particularly indigenous peoples who live close to Nature and did not contribute to the climate crisis, and who are major caretakers of regions that are crucial for life globally.

Avoid being on the sidelines. Participate in peaceful, nonviolent educative protest to help stop disrespect of nature and to oppose warfare, one of the main destroyers of the biosphere and the future.

Be at least a “1 percenter for the planet”: For a livable future now and for the coming generations. There are about 720 hours in a month. Contribute 1% or seven hours per month. Make a bold list of what you can do/change in your personal life. Then gradually do it! Build your own personal green new deal that includes getting off plastics, excess fossil fuel use, pesticides/herbicides, junk food, products with palm oil, excess materialism ... .

Don’t give in to naysayers ... that is, those who say, “It doesn’t make any difference what you do.’’ Essential ethics/value changes will happen as a growing society of minds/souls actively prioritizes nature’s biosphere, its diverse life, and the future of our children/grandchildren.

Bottom line: There really is no choice.

Newburyport resident Dr. Douglas Zook is a global ecologist and science educator.

Our Youth Corps asks that you care about the matter of our biosphere and its importance to future generations and then act accordingly personally. To learn more about doing more for the future or if you have any questions, please send an email to acesnewburyport@gmail.com. To learn more about ACES and its Initiatives, visit https://www.aces-alliance.org.

Once a rare sight, Ospreys are now seen each spring and summer soaring over coastlines, diving into waters to catch fish and perching on their large nests. The use of pesticides, until they were regulated in the 1970s, had weakened Osprey eggshells and decimated their population.

As part of Essex County Greenbelt’s commitment to biodiversity, we have focused for the past 15 years on Osprey conservation by building and maintaining approximately 50 nest platforms, while also repairing existing platforms and assisting private landowners and towns who wish to install their own nesting platforms.

The graph shows the success of those efforts. Last year, there were at least 75 active nests.  

On a Greenbelt Osprey nest in Gloucester, a live webcam allowed viewers last year to watch parents Annie and Squam and the birth and growth of their three chicks: Pip, Squeak, and Ollie.

Biodiversity is an intricate web in which all the different species found in an area maintain balance and support life. Greenbelt recognizes that it is essential not only to the survival of most animals, plants, and other organisms, but also to the production of healthy food.  We now use sophisticated mapping technology to strategically identify land with diverse habitat value, and then focus on conservation projects most likely to protect it.  

“Our prioritization analysis evaluates each parcel on its value for conserving habitat, and what we call natural resilience, the habitat that's most likely to provide biodiversity in a changing climate,” said Abby Hardy-Moss, Director of Greenbelt’s Conservation Technology and Planning Division. “We then assign a rank based on the parcel's relative importance to every other parcel in the county.”

Kamon Farm in Ipswich, Camp Creighton in Middleton and the Lynnfield Woodlot are recent examples of conservation success stories using this data.

This commitment to biodiversity is one of the principles that defines Greenbelt, which has now protected over 19,000 acres of open space from development in the 34 cities and towns of Essex County.

We implement practical solutions, such as protecting grassland-nesting birds, including Bobolinks, EasternMeadowlarks, and Savannah Sparrows, which are among the most imperiled birds in the nation.  At Greenbelt’s John J. Donovan Reservation in Hamilton and others, the fields where grassland birds nest are not cut for hay during the time when the birds breed and produce chicks who cannot fly or walk when they are first born.

Invasive plants are one of the greatest natural threats to biodiversity inMassachusetts.  Many are so attractive and others so widespread that we may not realize what they are as they invade open fields, forests and wetlands, crowding out native plants.

At Greenbelt, we work to remove invasive plants such as bittersweet, knotweed, blackswallow-wort, and glossy buckthorn from our properties.

Greenbelt also works to protect the Great Marsh, a coastal jewel of the Northeast, which is threatened by sea-level rise.  At our Cox Reservation headquarters in Essex, there are breathtaking views of the marsh, where organisms that live below the tidal surface create the most important habitat in New England in our marine food chain.

The Great Marsh is a nursery and foraging habitat for hundreds of species of fish, shellfish, birds and mammals. Shore birds, including herons and egrets, find a rich source of nourishment, while quahogs, mussels, fiddler crabs, and oysters live just below its surface.

The health of the Great Marsh is also essential to over 1,000 families who derive their economic livelihood from fishing and clamming. Hundreds of businesses depend on the dollars that tourism surrounding the Great Marsh brings.

We protect vernal pools at dozens of Greenbelt properties, including Farnsworth Reservation in North Andover and River Road in West Newbury.  These seasonal pools of water that fill with snowmelt, rain, and spring’s rising groundwater play an almost magical role in the cycles of life. They serve as a critical breeding ground for species of frogs, toads, salamanders, and fairy shrimp.

So much is provided by the natural ecosystems around us – they’re truly vital to life on earth. According to the World Economic Forum, biodiversity is declining globally, faster than at any other time in human history.  Greenbelt is doing its part to mitigate that.

Neil Ungerleider is a member of Essex County’s Greenbelt team who works to advance its mission of land conservation through his writing and photography.

Our Youth Corps asks that you care about the matter of OUR BIOSPHERE and its importance to future generations and then act accordingly personally. To learn more about doing more for the future or if you have any questions, please send an email to acesnewburyport@gmail.com. To learn more about ACES and its Initiatives, visit https://www. aces-alliance.org.

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Like DDT, the family of chemical compounds known as PFAS has almost become a household acronym. That’s a good thing.

When scientists discovered DDT was killing off the bald eagle — the symbol of American freedom — the insecticide was banned forever. The population of the bald eagle, and many other birds and animals, slowly but surely returned. Now, bald eagles are a frequent site across the North Shore and Merrimack Valley.

The story of PFAS (per- and polyfluorinated substances) is still in its relatively early stages. The reason for that is because unlike DDT, which was used as a pesticide, albeit in large quantities, PFAS is used in everyday products — and has been for more than 70 years.

According to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, an agency affiliated with the National Institutes of Health, PFAS are used to “keep food from sticking to packaging or cookware, make clothes and carpets resistant to stains, and create firefighting foam that is more effective. PFAS are used in industries such as aerospace, automotive, construction, and electronics.”

Not only are PFAS used in many products, it is ever present in the environment because it has been used for so long. These chemicals have been found in streams and rivers — including the Merrimack and Shawsheen — as well as New Hampshire water supplies.

In a perfect storm of circumstances, PFAS chemicals bond in such a way that they may take thousands of years to break down. Certainly, when it was created by scientists working for Dupont and later manufactured by 3M, it was probably considered a wonder chemical for all of its potential uses.

But it has now become an environmental and health nightmare. And, unlike DDT, which had quantifiable health effects on animals, the negative health effects of PFAS on humans are just now beginning to be understood.

“One report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey found PFAS in the blood of 97% of Americans,” according to the NIEHS. “Another NHANES report suggested blood levels of PFOS and PFOA in people have been reduced since those chemicals were removed from consumer products in the early 2000s. However, new PFAS chemicals have been created and exposure to them is difficult to assess.”

That last phrase should scare everyone: “difficult to assess.”

New chemicals which are known to be harmful to humans are still being introduced into the marketplace without any understanding of how they might be impacting people’s health.

This is what we do know, according to NIEHS: “Health effects include altered metabolism, fertility issues, reduced fetal growth and increased risk of being overweight or obese, increased risk of some cancers, and reduced ability of the immune system to fight infections.”

The agency goes on to say, “While knowledge about the potential health effects of PFAS has grown, many questions remain unanswered. Therefore, NIEHS continues to fund or conduct research to better understand the effects of PFAS exposure.”

This all highlights the importance of recent news that 32 Democratic senators, along with several independents, wrote a jointly signed letter to President Joe Biden calling for more funding in the federal budget to improve data and research, and fund testing and cleanup efforts for PFAS chemicals.

“The prevalence of PFAS combined with the adverse health impacts associated with exposure — including developmental effects, changes in liver, immune and thyroid function and increased risk of some cancers — requires a comprehensive approach,” reads the letter, which was signed by U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey of Massachusetts.

Statehouse reporter Christian Wade wrote recently that the lawmakers asked for more funding for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to address “critical research gaps” related to PFAS contaminants in drinking water supplies.

The federal spending package should also include money to provide blood testing to current and former service members — and their families — who served at more than 700 military installations where PFAS contamination has been detected in tests, they wrote.

The lawmakers also said more federal funding should be devoted to testing for PFAS in agriculture, the food supply, and consumer products.

They want the Biden administration to provide “financial support” to farmers, food producers and growers if they are forced to abandon PFAS-contaminated land or remove products from the commercial market.

The more people learn about PFAS, the more alarmed they get. It’s imperative for Biden to pour funding into this progressing health and environmental catastrophe. Millions of people are at risk. More research equals more information. More information should lead to stricter guidelines — or a decision not to use these chemicals at all.

Biodiversity loss and climate change are severe consequences of misunderstanding our place in the natural system.

The principal source of climate change is burning fossil fuels. Biodiversity is declining because of a devastating triple blow to its life-sustaining support systems through chemical pesticides, habitat destruction and climate change. The source of both is human behavior based on a Euro-American worldview that positions humans in dominance over an inexhaustible “glory hole” of natural resources. Other peoples, notably Indigenous peoples of North America, had and have differing worldviews.

This Euro-American worldview rationalized and powered the Industrial Revolution and prevailed unchallenged until now. Climate change is this worldview’s most consequential result, but that view is losing credibility. The belief in the Earth’s eternal resilience is impossible to subscribe to if you accept science, so a new worldview is evolving.

This is good news because it allows us to rethink our place on the planet and do something about it. Ironically, as the only species responsible for the devastation of the natural world, we are also the only ones able to renew the planet’s life-sustaining systems.

Science, under remarkable resistance, has been doing its job to inform us about the state of the environment, provide data-based predictions and suggestions, and develop technologies and techniques for remediation and repair.

Time for us to assume our role and make the political and behavioral shifts needed. No easy fixes here! No technological knights in shining armor to be sallied forth to the rescue. We face a biological/worldview problem that requires us to make lifestyle changes.

The Gulf of Maine Institute GOMI, https://www.gulfofmaineinstitute.org believes education is the critical cornerstone to the solution: thoughtfully and scientifically teaching ways to live in informed harmony with the natural world.

Such education aligns schools and communities with the common mission to provide youth the tools to become scientifically informed and civically engaged stewards. A safe, healthy, co-evolving world requires this now and forever. Education is the greatest gift we can pass on and is our best path to a good outcome.

As a result of their participation in GOMI, Newburyport High School (Note 1) and the Pentucket Regional School District now offer related courses, internships and habitat sanctuary garden https://homegrownnationalpark. org/ opportunities. At Newburyport High School, for example, students are studying the importance of the Great Marsh, why there is a rapid local population decline in the Eastern long-eared bat and the role of native plants in supporting pollinator biodiversity.

Pentucket Regional High School students are restoring the campus brook as a habitat sanctuary. They have built a “classroom in the woods” where students can take in all the sensory experiences of the outdoors while attending class.

In West Newbury, we are working with Wild and Native (WN2) and GAR Memorial Library to create learning habitat gardens throughout the town.

Under the mentorship of committed teachers and field experts, students engaged in these hands-on educational opportunities learn to define problems and create solutions.

Newburyport High School and Pentucket Regional High School are joined in their work via GOMI to similar courses and projects at North Shore Montessori in Rowley, Lowell/ Middlesex Academy, Bethlehem Elementary School in New Hampshire, Kennebunk High School, University of New England in Maine, and several schools in Nova Scotia.

Some things you can do: Encourage young people to consider careers in environmental work.

Get engaged locally. Be better informed on the issues: why native plants, insects, and bats are essential.

Support your school’s community- based stewardship learning programs and advocate for more.

Connect with local organizations like ACES and the Allies on climate change and biodiversity loss.

A problem is only solved once it is understood and acted upon. Shifting the way we engage with the natural world will require many acts and many hands, but no step is too small and none too big. You may be surprised to find that doing something has the added benefit of making you feel better.

John Terry, Ph.D., is with the Gulf of Maine Institute.

Our Youth Corps asks you to consider these and other ways to help with the future of our planet and environment. Please reach out to us about a project or important information that you might like to see shared. Send us a note at acesnewburyport@gmail.com . To learn more about ACES and its Initiatives, visit https://www.aces-alliance.org.

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Innsmouth is a mythical town on the trainline just south of Newburyport described in a popular 1931 novel. The authorH.P. Lovecraft describes a journey taken by a 21-year-old Oberlin Collegestudent exploring New England. While traveling he learns of a race of immortal fish-like humanoids known as the Deep Ones living in Innsmouth. They areshapeshifting mutant sea creatures born from mating with the local humans living on isolated marshes.

That was science fiction, but mutations due to chemical pollutants are real. According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) “mutagenesis” by environmental pollutants is a serious concern.Various mutagens pollute air, water, and food, possibly inducing mutations in humans, and are suspected of causing cancer and infertility.

There are many examples of threats to biodiversity including our own species. For instance, there is the chemical pollution issue like DDT that caused Eagle populations to plummet before its use was banned.

Unfortunately, there are other threats to biodiversity due to chemical byproducts in the 21st century. Things like PFAS (forever chemicals), PAHs found in coal tar parking lot sealants, and pharmaceutical residues from, well, everything in the medicine cabinet, that ends up in our wastewater stream. The problem with chemical threats is they are hard to see and perhaps harder to control. 

After many years of research and genetic manipulation, our food system is too full of chemical weed killers, fertilizers, and pesticides. We have largely monocultures with fewer varieties of livestock, trees, and grains, and many fewer insects and birds and bees that provide much needed biodiversity.

While New Hampshire and federal officials in 2019 said that Nashua’s drinking water was safe, that was despite some tests in that period showing elevated levels of toxic PFAS chemicals in the groundwater at the “Sylvester” Superfund site. It’s a site nearby the Nashua River, a major tributary of the Merrimack. It’s good that it was detected. But how many sites and spills along the Merrimack’s long journey to the sea are still undetected? Is testing adequate? Our problem is we can’t fix what we don’t know about. More research is needed.

A set of answers is conceptually easy but much harder to plan and implement and will take much longer but we need to start working on it.

We must shift away from many of the chemicals used in everyday life as best we can. We need to encourage farmers to crop rotate more and switch to natural fertilizers and pesticides given that they leech into streams and affect all the life forms it touches. Maybe heavily taxing or banning harmful chemical fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides will foster change. Maybe we should consider banning PFAS and PAH from all non-critical uses where they can negatively impact all species.

We need to measure a wide range of pharmaceutical residues in waste waters discharged into rivers, including theMerrimack and all tributaries. We don’t know enough about mutagenesis yet and we must do much more academic research to gather the needed data. How much birth control and other hormonal residue is in our wastewater effluent? Is it affecting fertility and hormone balance in populations affected? What else might be in our waters and in our air that isn’t water or air? Which household products should we avoid, and which should we choose? Using AI, scientists, given time and funding, may be able to help identify priorities for change.

All species living in the Anthropocene, the age of human domination of the Earth, are under threat from mutagenic harm due to chemical and biological pollutants. We need to clean up our act in that regard. Let’s figure out how to move toward an environment with fewer chemicals and fewer stressors for all life forms. We can start by reading labels and buying the least harmful products for home and garden use.

Our Youth Corps asks you to consider how any chemicals are used and impact us. They hope everyone will care about the future of our planet and provide any thoughts about a project or practice that could counter the negative impact of any chemical. Send us a note at acesnewburyport@gmail. com . To learn more about ACES and its Initiatives, visit www.aces-alliance.org.

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ACES is looking forward to continuing our work to foster environmental stewardship and leadership in 2023. We support the accomplishments of our allies and partners and would like to share some of our collaborative achievements during 2022 with you, starting with the numbers.

In 52 opinion columns published in The Daily News, we continued educating the public about climate and the environment and the contributions of our allies.

In 12 months of a crisp and visually pleasing newsletter, insights were provided to keep our subscribers informed and engaged.

ACES completed a comprehensive survey of over 550 users of the Merrimack River [MRUS]. A 20-page report with 14 highlights, charts, and graphs was then created to impactfully portray the MRUS findings about the significant concerns about the health of the river.

We participated in four meetings with other potential collaborators to foster a“River Rescue” movement highlighting the MRUS report findings. The conversations included the Merrimack Valley District Commission, the MerrimackRiver Watershed Council, Newburyport Mayor Sean Reardon, and State Sen. Bruce Tarr.

ACES held 10 meetings with Reardon and staff on a variety of topics ranging from composting to school support programs to longer term projects for a greener, resilient, and sustainable community.

We participated in five meetings with the Greater Newburyport Chamber of Commerce& Industry to help shape and support their Forever Green Newburyport campaign.

Focusing on the ‘Think Globally’ aspect of our work, we covered seven global topics including Earth Day Events, COP27, and Prince Williams’ Earth Shot Prize.

Acting locally, we participated in painting over 15 signs at TinkerHaus in support of the Earth Day 2022 celebrations on the waterfront and had a booth of our own at this event.

With Newburyport High School and the City of Newburyport, we organized and held two environmental stewardship open houses which gave the opportunity for over 130 students to interact with representatives from 18 allies to explore internships and project-based learning experiences.

We helped launch the Pollinator PowerWorks team which raised over $2,500 through the ACES website.

And our subscriber list grew from about 400 subscribers to over 800.

We are grateful to The Daily News for providing a forum for our climate and environmental efforts in 2022 and we are grateful to all the folks who pitch in to help keep our human habitats healthy.

The numbers to paint by get much bigger as we look forward to 2023, a year to focus on biodiversity in our local region and in the world at large. 

We plan to put forward ideas that support and expand ways in which other species can thrive in the world. Notable challenges include dealing with plastic waste in the oceans, wayward fishing gear harming whales, and the migration of lobster populations northward as the Gulf of Maine warms.

We want to fortify those efforts that preserve and expand biodiversity by habitat rescue, such as Mass Audubon reinforcing the ribbed mussel population in our coastal marshes to stabilize it from sea level induced erosion.

We want to applaud the preservation of lands and waters as sanctuaries and natural areas, especially new efforts such as West Newbury’s recent expansion of its conservation holdings. and we will be supporting beekeepers, garden clubs, and butterfly lovers for planting more and more native species that support biodiversity and a myriad of species nearby.

Our youth corps asks, whether you see yourself as an artist, a science geek, or simply someone who cares about the future of our planet, please reach out to us about a project or important information that you might like to see shared. Send us a note at acesnewburyport@gmail. com.

To learn more about ACES and its initiatives, visit: aces-alliance.org.

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The importance of biodiversity is the large variety of food webs that it allows.

Even plankton eating whales have a short food chain primarily phytoplankton consumed by zooplankton eaten by whales. Much longer food chains related to biodiversity abound.

For instance, consider coyotes. They eat human food waste, roadkill, squirrels, rabbits, mice, birds, eggs and berries. Depending on where they are living, they are eaten by wolves, bears, mountain lions and alligators.

In other words, they are part of a very complex food web when one considers all the sources of the calories consumed by both their prey and their competitors.

Even crows live in the middle of a complex food web that can include being eaten by snakes, hawks, foxes, squirrels, raccoons, owls and eagles. Even domestic cats and dogs are also known to enjoy eating crows.

The complexities of most food chains are much, much greater and there is a significant chance for disruptions to those food chains and food webs from species extinction events. The impact of humans due to the increase in the world’s population is resulting in ongoing decline and extinction of species.

Habitat loss is probably one of the greater influences on individual species stress or extinctions, especially if it is occurring on a global scale.

The complexity of our global food webs is that gives life on earth resilience. Life has found a way to make almost any habitat livable and therefore there are many diverse food chains making up a resilient global food web.

With small changes in food chains and food webs, dependent species can partially adapt by raiding adjacent food chains. But large-scale and rapid changes don’t give species the time needed to adapt and nearby food chain changes may make inroads into.

It’s not just the variety of plants and animals that enjoy viewing, it’s the stability that the interdependencies of the complex food chains give life on Earth.

While describing and envisioning the complexity and importance of biodiversity food webs to the general public may be more challenging than the generalization that “climate change” represents, we need to take the time to do so.

That’s why ACES advocates for the importance of the variety of life that we have in our area. We need to also describe how the diversity impacts resilience and the ability of life to adapt to changes.

Our intention is to communicate in ways to emphasize the importance of biodiversity as it relates to the stability of local and global biospheres.

Media and advocates need to find the words that communicate the systems’ complexity to the average Joe and Jane busy with life, jobs and family. Then they may be motivated to personally act locally to preserve these ecosystems and thereby strengthen them regionally and globally.

One crisis that impacts our food security is the decline of bees, butterflies and other pollinators.

According to the USDA, three fourths of the world’s flowering plants and about 35 percent of the world’s food crops depend on animal pollinators to reproduce. That’s one out of every three bites of food you eat.

As they are critical for food chain/ web health and our survival, you might consider building a pollinator garden in your backyard or joining Pollinator PowerWorks to promote multiple gardens and thus help create a local pollinator migration corridor and maybe even regional migration corridor.

Lon Hachmeister is a member of the ACES board of directors. He suggests that if you’d like to contribute your ideas or some of your time to work with ACES on ideas like these, please drop us an email at acesnewburyport@ gmail.com. To learn more about ACES and its Initiatives, visit https:// www.aces-alliance.org.

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National Geographic says that “biodiversity refers to the variety of living species on Earth, including plants, animals, bacteria, and fungi.” Biodiversity is important because it produces ecological resiliency which allows ‘life’ to survive cataclysmic disasters. Globally it’s important for maintaining resilient ecosystems and livability and it is key to our quality of life and a thriving economy. Personally, it’s important for enhancing benefits like health, comfort and beauty in our lives.

Biodiversity is one of the drivers of our regional ecotourism economy with bird watching, hunting, fishing, whale watching, and nature photography drawing large numbers of out-of-state as well as international visitors.

As Parker River Refuge’s Matt Hillman wrote last week in this column: “Among the throngs are wildlife enthusiasts and photographers in a frenzy over the refuge’s charismatic and highly photogenic residents…. a pair of barred owls and a pack of coyotes.”

And it’s not just the refuge that has such wide variety of species. Lawrence has its winter crow roost with thousands of birds gathering along the Spicket River drawing wildlife photographers and adventurist tourists. Whale watching is a large economic engine with boats of ecotourists shipping out of Newburyport and Gloucester. We even have “endangered” whales in our coastal waters, including the Humpback Whale whose Latin name means ‘big winged New Englander’.

Biodiversity isn’t just about local eco-tourism though. It’s extremely important for the resiliency of all life on earth. As the planet warms, habitats are polluted and forests are cut. How will animals and humans adapt to those changes? Which crops can still grow? The lobster population of the Gulf of Maine is shifting northward. Some tree species are being found in higher elevations. Some species adapt by hybridizing with local residents.

For instance, as Matt Hillman referenced as a backstory to last week’s ACES essay “It is generally accepted that the eastern coyote is a wolf-coyote hybrid. Coyotes are relative newcomers to the east when humans exterminated all wolves and cleared all forest for farmland throughout the Ohio River Valley. This allowed the western solitary and smaller coyote to push eastward, hybridizing with Great Lakes and Canada wolves in the process. Their behaviors are now very much a combination of coyote and wolf.”

Biodiversity is a global concept. It includes all life forms on the planet, and it infiltrates every aspect of our own life locally whether we are aware of it on daily basis or not.

Because it’s so important to preserve biodiversity, ACES, and its allies advocate locally for setting aside and conserving a wide variety of land like West Newbury did with 32 more acres recently. Keeping a variety of wild lands and waters protected is a good policy to support, like ACES allies — Greenbelt, the Trustees, The Parker River National Wildlife Refuge, and Maple Crest Farm. Each of them and others conserve land and waters and provide public education to help spread the word about biodiversity.

Being conscious in planning for urban parks and trails, like in Amesbury, Newburyport, and Salisbury to be knitted together as a network bio-corridor is important. That’s so that many species can roam from paths to patches and make a larger, integrated ecosystem for the species living in it.

Let’s all focus in 2023 on “biodiversity”. ACES urges each of us to read about it and take on one or two small actions to preserve biodiversity near you. Leave some corners or edges of your yard to grow a bit wild. Plan and plant a pollinator garden using native plants. Put up bird houses. Have the kids make little rock and stick faerie houses. Chipmunks may move into them.

So please join ACES in making 2023 a year of biodiversity. Drop us a note at acesnewburyport@gmail. com and let us know how you would like to help.

To learn more about ACES and its Initiatives, visit https://www.aces-alliance. org.

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As temperatures fall and snow-cones give way to snowstorms, many visitors wonder how exactly the staff at Parker River National Wildlife Refuge occupy our time in the absence of piping plovers and eager beachgoers. Well, if you’ve visited recently, you’ve likely encountered crowd sizes more frequently associated with the hot summer months.

Among the throngs are wildlife enthusiasts and photographers in a frenzy over the refuge’s charismatic and highly photogenic residents. Namely, a pair of barred owls and a pack of coyotes. We need to ask the public to enjoy a magical moment with these icons of the refuge and then continue your journey to experience one of the refuge’s other recreational opportunities.

The refuge’s primary mission is to conserve and protect wildlife and their habitats. When visitation pressures compromise that mission, we are obligated to intervene. We are fortunate to live and work in a place of unmatched beauty and biodiversity, and I have high confidence that our shared passion for conservation will allow all of us to enjoy these unique wildlife encounters in a responsible and ethical manner. But the reality is the Parker River refuge, with its relative ease of access and year-round wildlife viewing opportunities, never truly has a quiet season. Instead, we see different crowds of user groups shifting along with the seasons and available recreational opportunities. We have huge array of species, some resident year-round and many migratory. It’s this biodiversity that is a big part of visitor interest.

The refuge provides unique habitat for these many species who may struggle to survive in nearby areas of dense human development. However, we have recently seen these animals exhibiting a high degree of comfort with humans and unusual levels of activity during broad daylight. These behaviors may increase viewing opportunities for human visitors, but they also contribute to roadside traffic jams and increased potential for wildlife disturbance. Combined, these elements detract from the high-quality refuge that our resident wildlife require to thrive.

One common misconception we hear from visitors is that if an animal doesn’t flee, then it is not disturbed by the presence of nearby humans. A growing field of research reveals this to be false. By remaining close to an animal for an extended period of time, or by following it from location to location, humans often cause the animal to experience elevated stress levels and increased heart rate. Both responses are invisible to the human eye but may negatively affect the animal’s long-term health and reproductive success.

Consider this impact on our resident barred owls. While barred owls primarily rest during the day and hunt at night and twilight, some opportunistically hunt at other times. This has been observed with the barred owls at Parker River. Yet, it is impossible for us to know if they are truly displaying opportunistic hunting behaviors or forced to remain vigilant during critical resting periods due to the close proximity of photographers and other wildlife watchers. Further, crowds of visitors may deter smaller prey such as rabbits and voles from coming within striking distance. For this reason, we ask that visitors not only keep their distance and minimize noise disturbance, but also move on quickly from these encounters.

We’d love to see you soon at the refuge and when you join us please tread lightly and quietly and thus allow the wildlife to thrive.

Matt Hillman is project leader at the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge.

Our Youth Corps asks that if you care about issues like these and would like to learn more and possibly do a bit more or have any questions, please send an email to acesnewburyport@gmail. com. To learn more about ACES and its Initiatives, visit https://www.aces-alliance. org.

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The Charos family has owned and operated Captain’s Fishing Parties on Plum Island for over 50 years with four vessels in their fleet.

In 2013, Captain’s Fishing Parties purchased Newburyport Whale Watch. Our whale watching vessel the Captains Lady III is the largest in the fleet and is quite fast, reaching top speeds of 30 knots.

Captain Chris is usually found on the Captains Lady III, but his brother Ryan can make appearances as well, however, he focuses more on the day-to-day running of Captain’s Fishing Parties managing behind-the-scenes tasks along with their dad, George.

Whale watching is very cool. Each day is different from the next, making it an adventure for our passengers and our crew. The most common question is: “What’s the best day and time to go whale watching?” The correct answer is: “We will let you know at the end of the season,” every day is different.

Whales are majestic animals and are mammals just like us. They give birth to live young, nurse their young, and have about the same body temperature as us but are huge in comparison to humans.

For example, the finback whale (the second-largest whale in the world) has a brain that weighs 12 pounds compared to the human brain of roughly 3.1 pounds, their intestines are 380 feet long, five to six times as long as their body and consumes 2 tons of food each day!

Humpback whales are fascinating. Growing evidence suggests humpback whales could be the nicest animals in the world. They care for other species and don’t hesitate to intervene to save other individuals from predators.

They are “ocean superheroes.” Humpbacks are known for their magical songs that can travel long distances in the ocean, sounding like moans, howls and cries that can continue for hours on end.

Singing helps them to communicate with others and it helps in finding a suitable mate. Humpbacks have the longest pectoral flippers in the whale world, growing to 15 to 16 feet long.

The smallest whale we see is the minke whale, one of my favorite species who always keep us on our toes. They reach lengths of up to 30 feet, about the length of a half school bus.

They can be tough to keep an eye on due to their erratic and unpredictable swimming patterns. A distinctive feature of a true minke whale is the white stripe they have on their pectoral flippers, giving it the nickname of “minke mittens.”

Not only do we see the whales listed above but we also can see harbor seals, grey seals, ocean sunfish (Mola mola), sharks (sorry no great whites as far as I have seen) and many sea birds.

Newburyport Whale Watch is a “Whale Sense” company. Whale Sense recognizes companies committed to responsible practices and follow the strict guidelines for viewing whales in their natural habitats.

Experience the wonder of whales with Newburyport Whale Watch on The Captains Lady III. We are located at the 54 Merrimac St. boardwalk in downtown Newburyport. Our full-time schedule began Friday, June 16. Book online at newburyportwhalewatch.com. Reservations are highly recommended or call 1-800-848-1111.

“With every drop of water you drink, every breath you take, you’re connected to the sea. No matter where on earth you live” — Sylvia Earle.

This column was coordinated by ACES youth corps member Caleb Bradshaw. To share any comments or questions, please send an email to acesnewburyport@gmail.com. To learn more about ACES and its Youth Leadership Initiative, visit https://www.aces-alliance.org.

ACES tries to contribute to the health of our world, our society, and our communities by looking for opportunities for positive action through an environmental lens. That requires examining the entirety of our environments, including fields, wooded areas, waterways, farmlands, and cities. We try to understand how all elements interact to produce a healthy ecosystem, especially our regional ecosystem. How do we think through the needed planning, investment evaluations, green space requirements, zoning, allowed uses and what are the roles of the private and public sectors to make for healthier and more green, resilient, sustainable communities? The answer is one step at a time, holistically, and collaboratively.

For example, environmentalists and urban economists alike agree that repurposing and reusing old buildings, whether private or public, should often be the first option vs demolition. A city’s character is often reflected in its old buildings and Newburyport has done a great job over the decades of preserving the character of old Newburyport and ultimately hitting a good mix of old and new ideas to make it work well. A case in point being the highly successful downtown mixed-use preservation efforts with Inn Street and Market Square.

A recent Daily News article about repurposing the Brown School building strikes ACES as an interesting “thought experiment” to sort through a holistic approach and comprehensive criteria including environmental impact considerations. The Brown School and the empty Kmart represent options for environmentally conscious development.  There may be additional uses that could address the general needs of our communities to recycle and consider public property up-cycling and reuse, a key tool for achieving long range environmental goals.  

Considering the opportunity for economic development, might the city offer planning flexibility, perhaps even a lease arrangement whereby the empty Kmart can be repurposed? Mixed uses such as a business incubator, indoor soccer facility, kinder care option, or trampoline play club should be studied. 

These are opportunities to have multiple options that can use comprehensive criteria when being evaluated. Such an integrated approach might involve a community’s economic development, planning, social services, conservation, and housing entities plus private interests via the Chamber of Commerce and other coalitions. We are proposing a process with the optimal mix of collaborators to include in the city’s Master Plan updates while considering the increasing and critical need to account for changing climate and environmental considerations.

Additionally, perhaps there are sites for small community gardens when there is not a large piece of land for other uses. For example, open space around Geoffrey Hill on Low Street leading up to the Newburyport Powder House built in 1822 could be repurposed with a small community garden including a small section for pollinator plants.  There are other potential projects which would all require collaboration.

Another successful example of such rehabilitation and reuse can be seen with the Tannery complex. Perhaps the Salvation Army might want to up-cycle its complex in Newburyport to add some affordable senior housing. What about considering the now under used C&J bus lot at Rt 95 for mixed use development? The city needs more housing and a hotel too. It seems large enough and located ideally for commuters to build condos, a hotel, and apartments. It would provide new market demand for the Storey Ave commercial district and west end.

ACES’s point is not to suggest a specific solution to any specific projects with environmental considerations. Rather we see the need in every civic discussion for system-wide, holistic ecosystem thinking. Hopefully such an approach would lead to solutions to multiple needs simultaneously. Good solutions to address specific community needs are always about collaborative thinking and considering the ’system’ as a whole.

Our Youth Corps asks that if you care about issues like these and would like to learn more and possibly do a bit more or have any questions, please send an email to acesnewburyport@gmail.com. To learn more about ACES and itsInitiatives, visit https://www.aces-alliance.org.

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On the Monday before Christmas, thenGov-Elect Maura Healey announced that she’ll appoint Melissa Hoffer to become the state’s first “climate chief.” Hoffer currently serves as the U.S.Environmental Protection Agency’s principal deputy general. In her new role she will be responsible for overseeing climate policy across every state agency and“ensuring that climate change is considered in all relevant decision-making.”

She’s going to need collaboration and support from all the state’s agencies to reach the Commonwealth’s aggressive climate goals. Whether committing to powering the electrical grid with more renewables or electrifying public and personal transportation, Massachusetts has ambitious short- and long-term climate goals and it’s going to take all hands-on deck to achieve them. In making this appointment Governor Healey said, “The creation of this position sends a clear message that Massachusetts is a global leader in the fight against climate change and that it will be central to all of the work we do across the administration.”

ACES sees this new cabinet position as an exciting prospect, which can serve as a model for every city and town in the state. Ms. Hoffer is an accomplished environmental lawyer and administrator, who spends her spare time raising Nigerian dwarf dairy goats at her farm in Barre, northwest of Worcester and just east of the Quabbin reservoir.

Every community ranging in size and density from highly urbanizedLawrence to bucolic Boxford will need everyone’s participation to make the needed changes. Coastal Newburyport, Ipswich, Salem, and Gloucester have made progress on climate and the environment in a variety of ways. But there is a lot more that can be done from electrifying school buses to readying our infrastructure for electric vehicles charging. Advancements such as those will provide business opportunities with clean tech innovators, wave and wind energy and green sea “carbon farmers” seeking coastal places to grow. All those changes will challenge the resources and traditional ways of doing things by mayors, city councils, school boards, public works, police, and harbor masters.

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City planners and planning boards will need to adjust their focus and shift gears to reflect state initiatives. Maybe a community allows a bit more housing to be built while the town sets aside more green space, thus achieving both environmental and housing goals? With new focus and energy in a new Massachusetts administration, could there be more flexibility for small regional solutions? Could initiatives be developed so towns like West Newbury would be incentivized to collaborate with cities likeHaverhill or Newburyport to develop new ideas to achieve climate goals? State, regional and county agencies like the MassachusettsDepartment of Conservation and Recreation, the MassachusettsDepartment of Transportation, Mass Fish and Wildlife, Merrimack Valley DistrictCommission and the Merrimack Valley Regional Transit Authority may also need tore-conceive their roles and methods to contribute to the governor’s new climate urgency. Essentially, every element of governmental structure that can help address our climate crises must get creative and collaborative to include all environmental stakeholder organizations. This is a key to foster the needed push for a livable climate for future generations.

ACES is looking forward to hearing details from our new climate chief. Then we will do our best to support her and the Commonwealth to help lead the country with climate solutions.

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In the now classic movie “Grease”, John Travolta sings his love to Olivia Newton John - “cause the power, you're supplying, it’s electrifying." That song has us rocking in the streets to celebrate the New Year. That’s because we are hearing what the City is doing in the new year to try to reduce our electric rates while also bringing a clean energy deal to us in 2023.

By negotiating an aggregated electricity sourcing agreement for the City to lower our electricity bills we are all being offered a lower rate per kWh. Not only are our electrical bills going to be lower in this era of rising prices, but they will also be dramatically greener thanks to the state’s challenge goal of 54% produced by clean green methods. In fact, we can do better because according to data recently compiled by the U.S. EnergyInformation Administration (EIA), renewable energy sources provided almost 70%of the new U.S. electrical generating capacity added during the first eight months of 2022.

Ultimately electrifying everything is the way to go for a better climate outcome since electricity is moving rapidly towards cleaner sources of production as coal plants are shut down and wind and solar power rise dramatically and maybe now, we’ll have fusion power in the next decade. 

By electrifying everything we mean heating, cooling, cooking, transportation, and factory uses. Over time, but with prudent haste, we need to move toward eliminating everything that involves burning fossil fuels. That will mean changes like encouraging building codes that emphasize electric heating and cooking, gas mileage improvements to favor electric vehicles, maybe even phasing in electric school busses. We as individuals don’t have to wait. Even if you currently heat with oil cook and cook with gas, you can still do your little bit better for climate by regulating your heat, and using a crock pot, electric air fryer, griddle, or toaster oven whenever you can.

This kind of electrical rate deal was made possible by evolutionary changes in utility regulations made by our elected officials who istened to what advocates and scientists around the state weresaying. Rewriting the regulatory model was slow, hard, collaborative work. Itneeded to balance the good it could do with preserving existing jobsand the needs of utility businesses.

The team that made this cost reducing agreement happen here in the Clipper City should be very proud. It’s a team that spanned several CityCouncil terms and leadership from both former Mayor Holaday and Mayor Reardon and included City Energy coordinator Molly Ettenborough’s expertise and many volunteers on the City’s Energy Advisory Committee. In many ways this new community aggregation agreement has built on all that prior work brought forward.

ACES is grateful for all that work and for everyone who has contributed to this continuing journey towards “Net Zero” energy that produces no greenhouse gasses and thus helps slow down and ultimately reduce global warming. 

We read dire headlines about droughts, floods, sea level rising, climate changing and more. But a new year brings new hope. For 2023 that hope includes cheaper and cleaner electricity for Newburyporters. And then we smile when we think back on that song from ‘Grease’, “You’re the one that I want” because Newburyport really is electrifying. 

Happy New Year from all of us at ACES

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Our Youth Corps asks that if you care about issues like theseand would like to learn more and possibly do a bit more or have any questions,please send an email to acesnewburyport@gmail.com. To learn more about ACES and its Initiatives, visit https://www.aces-alliance.org.

You’ve seen the TV ads. The one where you give an expensive car as a holiday present and it’s too big to wrap, so you put a big bow on top and drive it out among the evergreens with snow falling. Well, there are some large gifts ACES Allies bring to Greater Newburyport we want to place under your trees in the snow.

We need to put a big bow on these gifts in our area that are in the “too big to wrap” category. Greenbelt, The Trustees, the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge, the Great Marsh Coalition and Farmer John at Maple Crest Farm who all bring us open spaces to roam, marshes to explore trees and gardens, art and history preserved.

These stewards of land and other natural resources protect and share the Massachusetts places people love for their exceptional scenic, historic and ecological value.

We’ll need lots of ribbon to wrap some of these gifts. Ribbons like all the rivers and wonderful trails advocated for and supported by other steward organizations.

The Parker River Clean Water Association, The Ipswich River Watershed Association and The Merrimack River Watershed Council are all striving to have clean and healthy waters. The Coastal Trails Coalition, which is composed of citizens and communities in the Lower Merrimack Valley who work together to advocate for and develop the Coastal Trails Network, a public system of interconnected bicycle and pedestrian trails that is enhancing local recreation, conservation, education and tourism opportunities.

Like the Riverwalk in Amesbury, and the Ghost Trail in Salisbury, and others that provide environmentally sound responsible ways to live our lives in the Seacoast.

Over in the kid’s corner under the tree, we’d like to thank those rising teenagers at the Newburyport High School Environmental and Interact clubs who bring us the gifts of their activism and leadership, and who will do even more as they leave for colleges and careers. They are a smart and committed generation and we can take climate solace in the knowledge that there is a new generation that cares and is working for a healthier Earth.

We look toward the trees and hanging from the edges of green branches are beautiful ornaments like Audubon’s bird miniatures, GOMI’s seashell pendants, driftwood upcycled into charms at Tinkerhaus, handmade origami animals from the kids at Merrohawke, and sea glass “butterflies” by Pollinator PowerWorks folks.

Bells are ringing at the front door; you open it and it is a choir of clear and strong women-led voices singing holiday cheer and a new year. Women in Action Huddle, Forever Green NBPT and Climate Cafe’. Maybe, you want to add your voices too?

Outdoors, Uncle Sam has preserved for us a big present from all the parties that comprise the Great Marsh Coalition, including the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge.

It’s decorated with colorful birds, hollies and red berries throughout the year. It’s especially beautiful during the winter season as a sparkling sea and maybe snowy owls and eagles fly by. Bring your kids out there for a gift of nature up close and lovely on one of the premier birding spots in the world!

We have many big gifts to celebrate locally and ACES would like to thank all of those gift givers — ACES Allies — who make our lives happier, healthier, and we urge you to support them and we want to wish you all Happy New Year 2023.

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“These trees which he plants, and under whose shade he shall never sit, he loves them for themselves, and for the sake of his children and his children’s children, who are to sit beneath the shadow of their spreading boughs.” French theologian Hyacinths Loyson.

The spirit of the holiday season causes me to think about the joy that is possible from living gifts for others at any time of the year. November 12, 1996 is the birthdate of my daughter Corinne. One of the happiest days of my life. We had been expecting her for nine months and now here she was. I remember clearly that day doing the fall clean up at Atkinson Common when my beeper went off with the 911 and I jumped in the truck to go to the hospital.

Life was changing in our family and I wanted to mark Corinne’s birthday with something special that would commemorate this day forever.

I had been working at Atkinson Common for several years and was attempting to start a memorial tree planting program. What better way to remember a loved one than to plant a tree for someone’s memory. I took it a step further and decided that it would be great to plant an American Beech tree for Corinne’s memory growing up and for her to bring her friends, kids and grandkids to visit and sit under a majestic beech tree planted by her parents.

I remember the day we planted the tree. We brought Corinne in her basinet and she watched as I dug the hole for the tree and placed it in. We had our picture taken in front of it and the tree wasn’t much more than 6’ tall. As time went on Corinne grew and so did the tree. During Kids day in the Park at Atkinson Corinne would get her picture taken with her friends in front of “her” tree. I never thought much about it knowing that the tree was in a great spot and would be cared for by the Atkinson Common group in perpetuity.

When I took on the position as parks manager for the City of Newburyport I then realized just how large the tree had grown. Corinne was in college, time had passed. I just didn’t realize how quickly it had.

As word got around the Newburyport Tree Commission that I had planted a tree for my daughter 25 years earlier, they were interested in the story. Corinne and I had our pictures taken in front of the tree once more for a press release for the Tree Commission. Rather than Corinne being an infant or a teenager she was a beautiful young woman as tall as me and now the tree was 35 feet tall.

I see the tree daily. It brings back good memories of Corinne every time I walk by or pass it while mowing. It warms my heart knowing that because of a decision by her mother and I to plant the tree decades ago, it is a generational event that she will be sharing with others when as she has a picnic under its arching boughs.

It never occurred to me at the time the importance of the tree in my life. The living gift that my daughter enjoys and, looking forward, her children and her children’s children. I hope that you will consider a living gift of any type during this holiday gifting season. It can be planted at anytime and the memories last forever.

This column was coordinated by ACES youth corps member, Ana Satir. She asks, if you care about issues like these and would like to learn more and possibly do a bit more or have any questions, please send an email to acesnewburyport@gmail.com. To learn more about ACES and its Initiatives, visit https://www.aces-alliance.org.

Mike Hennessey is the City of Newburyport’s parks manager.

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NEWBURYPORT — Newburyport High School students got a good look at potential green internships and community service opportunities when the Alliance of Climate and Environmental Stewards presented the 2022 Environmental Stewardship Open House Wednesday afternoon at the school.

The Alliance of Climate and Environmental Stewards, or ACES, is a network of organizations and individuals dedicated to climate and environmental health.

The Newburyport-based non-profit organization organized the first Environmental Stewardship Open House, which saw 19 local ally organizations, such as the Merrimack River Watershed Council and the Gulf of Maine Institute fill the high school cafeteria Wednesday afternoon.

ACES president Art Currier said Wednesday’s open house was designed to offer NHS students a chance to discover project-based learning experiences in their local area.

“These organizations can give students rich experiences in a whole host of potential projects,” he said.

NHS junior Grace O’Malley had a chance to talk to senior Johnny Owens, who was representing the Massachusetts Audubon Society Joppa Flats Education Center.

Owens said he has been volunteering at the education center for the past six years and was telling his fellow high school students about the volunteer teen naturalist positions that are available.

“They do a lot of the education, especially during the summer time. That has been a great opportunity for the Massachusetts Audubon Society and I hope they do something similar for the little kids too,” he said.

O’Malley said she learned a lot about Massachusetts Audubon Society volunteer opportunities from her classmate.

“You can help out with a lot of family things. I wasn’t looking for an internship until I got here,” she said.

Senior Ibo Sava said he was a fan of the 3D map of the area that the Merrimack River Watershed Council brought in.

Meanwhile, high school principal Andrew Wulf said Wednesday’s open house was a tremendous opportunity for, both his school, and ACES.

“This has been a great collaboration, as we are working to strengthen internship and work experiences for our students. That way our students can experience their interests before they graduate and have a better idea of what they do, beyond high school,” he said.

Although Newburyport High School does not require its students to fill a set number of internship or community service hours, Wulf said each student can work toward accumulating service credits.

“If a student, from freshman year to senior year, accrues 75 hours of community service, that counts as 2.5 credits. That way, their schedule could be more flexible by their senior year,” the principal said.

Parker River National Wildlife Refuge visitor services manager Ella Webber said she was also letting plenty of students know about all of the internship opportunities that her federal program provides on Plum Island.

“Short-term internships and fellowships can help someone get a foot in the door for a conservation career and we also do a lot of mentorship and career building, to figure out what a long-term career would like as they think about college and what they want to do with the rest of their lives and how that might fit into a possible federal career in conservation,” she said.

Sophomore Priya Kaur, president of the Newburyport High School Interact Club, said her fellow students seem to be excited about the information she and junior Nolan Smith were providing about the club during the open house.

“They know that their friends are also doing it and it’s a really chill, low commitment when it comes to community service,” she said.

Smith said he was also getting a positive response from his fellow high schoolers.

“Everyone seems to like Interact Club. They like to participate and it is about service above self,” he said.

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Last Friday after a busy week in Boston as Prince William and Princess Kate met with Mayor Michelle Wu and Gov.-Elect Maura Healy, went to a Celtics game and toured innovative businesses like Greentown Labs, an incubator for environmentally oriented startups they announced the winners of the Earth Shot Prize.

The Earth Shot Prize was designed to find and grow the solutions that will repair our planet this decade and to regenerate the place we all call home in the next 10 years. It was a “green carpet” event with younger and older generation of performers on the stage with Billie Eilish and Annie Lennox performing at the ceremony and Prince William-founded environmental organization awarding $1.2 million prize to five winners.

Even those skeptical of the British royal family’s global position, might admit this event had glamor with the Princess in a high fashion green gown, and serious promise for the future of our Earth.

The overall winner in the “protect and restore nature” category was Kheyti, an Indian startup, that has developed a simple solution that is already having a considerable impact. Its Greenhouse-in-a-Box is designed for small-hold farmers and the crops they grow, offering shelter from unpredictable elements and destructive pests. Kheyti also trains and supports farmers to ensure their greenhouse is as effective as possible. The results are dramatic.

Plants in the greenhouse require 98 percent less water than those outdoors and yields are seven- times higher. Ninety percent cheaper than a standard greenhouse, they are more than doubling farmers’ incomes, helping them invest more in their farms and their children’s education. Using less water and fewer pesticides, they are protecting the planet too. It might be an innovation that part time New England farmers might check out to add to their own income.

But it was earlier in the week when we heard that the Royals had visited Greentown Labs that our antenna went up and we began to relate it to our ACES Newburyport foundation story. When the Newburyport Clean Tech Center [NCTC] nonprofit was formed a number of years ago, Greentown Labs was one of the first places we visited to gain insights into the evolving incubator. ACES today is the same non-profit that was operating as NCTC back then.

One finalist “LIVING SEAWALLS” developed in Australia attaches artificial marine-friendly habitat panels to existing structures to help sea life thrive. Sea defenses like walls, jetties, and groins are fitted with habitat panels which are cleverly designed. Resulting in 36% more marine life after just two years growing, adhering to the surfaces, with further increases expected through time. Many species of invertebrates and seaweed, as well as multiple species of fish thrive among the panels. So when we looked closer this one stood out as something our friends like State Sen. Bruce Tarr and the Merrimack River Beach Alliance and allies like Storm Surge and Blue Ocean might want to investigate. This one might deserve vetting or a small pilot for use locally.

It’s not too difficult to envision our Merrimack jetties and Boston harbor seawalls dampening more wave action, attracting more fish and growing seaweed that can sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Green technology was at work for this advance in Australia. Why not here? With the large-scale dredging of the Merrimack River underway both for navigation and as a sand source to protect Plum Island from sea level rise, this additional possibility for the future could be implemented with relevant technological advances as financing opportunities arise.

Because ACES tries to relate global phenomenon to what we can be doing locally to help the cause of climate this year’s Earth Shot prize seems to offer lots of food for thought. You might like to explore the Earth Shot web site (earthshotprize.org) and if you see something you’d like to help out with as part of acting locally on climate then contact us and sign up for our newsletter and we’ll try to connect you to others of like mind. Why not dive in and work with us to help.

This column was coordinated by ACES a youth corps member, Ana Satir. She asks, if you care about issues like these and would like to learn more and possibly do a bit more or have any questions, please send an email to acesnewburyport@gmail.com. To learn more about ACES and its Initiatives, visit https://www.aces-alliance.org.

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By the early 1900s, the continent’s wild turkey population had been reduced to an estimated 30,000 birds. It’s been written that is a smaller number than today exists for orangutans, polar bears and African elephants, all species with futures causing considerable angst among conservationists. Rampant poaching and habitat destruction offered little hope for the wild turkey’s future. But fast forward to today: 7 million turkeys room around the country, occupying almost all suitable habitat and even expanding beyond their original range. Thanks to efforts by ACES ally the Massachusetts Audubon Society to bring turkeys back to Massachusetts in the 70’s and the United States banning DDT in 1972, we now have both turkeys and eagles back in the Merrimack Valley.

Now NOAA Fisheries has developed a comprehensive fish management plan for the Merrimack River watershed aimed at restoring economically important fish, and the habitats on which they rely. The plan published in 2021 (www.fisheries.noaa.gov/feature-story/problem-plan-restoring-migratory-fish-merrimack) looks forward to a variety of strategies to restore salmon, shad and sturgeon to the river. Such a restoration, sometimes by dam removal or unblocking, a re-wilding of the river, would enhance eco-tourism as well as supporting greater numbers of eagles and osprey which feed on migratory fish.

In some cases the valley may be a bit too wild. Hunting for wild game as food has recently expanded in Massachusetts as the state has opened up the number of deer allowed to be taken in response to the dramatic over population in our forests. Its success remains to be seen, but striking the right balance between the deer population and the recreational hunting economy and now adding, if only in a small way, to regional food security would seem beneficial.

Here in greater Newburyport bees and butterfly restoration is being encouraged as networks of native plants are the focus to encourage pollination for our farmers and orchardists. ACES ally Pollinator Powerworks has been one group leading in this areas. Will that help farms grow more food and maybe become regionally self sufficient in honey? Will there be more Monarch butterflies for kids to stare in wonder at?

In Newbury, invasive tree species of Norway maple are the center of debate as some want some of them them removed as damaged and invasive and others wanting to keep every tree. In West Newbury Maple Crest Farm and surrounding the Artichoke reservoir, NHS students have researched, designed and implemented an informative “Tree Walk.” The idea is to educate people on native trees, any of which were used in earlier times for remedies, furniture, flavorings. and can the American chestnut which once filled the slopes leading down to the Merrimack be restored after a disastrous early 20th century disease carried into America by an invasive tree species? It’s possible because there are now disease resistant American chestnuts growing in select nurseries and soon ready to be replanted as a reintroduction into our local forests.

Our forebears enjoyed a much healthier and productive ecosystem before the industrial revolution. Can we allow and encourage our towns and cites to become more wild than during the height of the industrial era? Can we restore our valley ecosystems to enhance resiliency, reduce flooding and expand the potential for food security? Isn’t it time to re-wild the Merrimack River Valley? Can we bring back the salmon, herring, and shellfish to early 19th century levels? Can we do it in a way to remake it into more self-reliant food source or at least a bigger ecotourism and economic resource as a fisherman’s destination?

Can we work together to create a vision of re-wilding our local “nature stores” as a way to a better life in the valley? Can we find ways to better manage waters, fields and forests and to provide habitat for animals and native plants to thrive up and down the Merrimack Valley? We can if we find ways to better manage waters, fields and forests and to provide habitat for animals and native plants to thrive up and down the Merrimack valley. With whole ecosystem thinking and cooperation between neighboring towns and states, we think we will.

This column was coordinated by ACES youth corps member Ana Satir. She asks, if you care about issues like these and would like to learn more and possibly do a bit more or have any questions, please send an email to acesnewburyport@gmail.com or sign up for ACES newsletter here: https://www.aces-alliance.org/contact.

I’m writing about the Nov. 3 front-page article about ACES’s Merrimack River Survey written by Jim Sullivan of The Daily News. It’s good to see more attention is made concerning the condition of the river.

I’m a West Newbury resident and enjoy boating on the river. The water quality? Not so much. The brown slicks and smell of disinfectant coming from sewage treatment plants upriver is worse than all the “no wake” zones we boaters have to put up with.

Without a doubt, the biggest threat to the river are combined sewer overflows (CSOs), when heavy rains overwhelm treatment plants and they discharge untreated wastewater.

This has been well-publicized by the Merrimack River Watershed Council, who monitors the river after CSO events. Fixing this problem will take time and be a huge cost.

One pollutant, however, which is easier to fix, is to ban the use of coal tar sealcoating products used on driveways and parking lots. These products contain high concentrations of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which are toxic to human health and the environment.

Coal tar is a byproduct of the coking process and has a strong creosote-like odor. If a parking lot stinks on a hot summer day, it’s coal tar you’re breathing.

Like PFAS, most people don’t know about this new emerging contaminant. Dust and fragments wash off the parking lot surface into storm water drains and wetlands and accumulate over time. PAH concentrations in coal tar sealants can exceed 100,000 ppm (mg/Kg).

I’m a scientist and expert in this field. My business, Sitelab Corp., worked with Chesapeake Bay Trust on a federal U.S. Environmental Protection Agency grant with the Department of Energy and Environment in Washington, D.C., to develop a laboratory protocol to test and certify driveway sealants.

Products with PAHs below 1,000 ppm qualify for gold certification. Products with PAHs below 10,000 ppm qualify for silver certification. Regulators around the country are starting to ban the use of coal tar and other high-PAH sealcoat products to help protect their watersheds.

Sitelab is working with Austin, Texas, and Charlotte, N.C., who enforce the 1,000 ppm limit and require manufacturers to have their products tested by a certified laboratory prior to use. See this list for examples: https://site-lab.com/2022-JUNE10-CERTIFIED-SEALCOATLIST.pdf

A large number of cleaner, PAH-friendly products made with asphalt are available and contain no or very few PAHs. The bucket brands sold at retail stores are all asphalt-based.

These products are mostly used by homeowners on driveways and represent only a small percentage of the market and environmental impact. Most sealcoating is performed at the commercial level on parking lots, like shopping centers, schools and office buildings, where coal tar is most often used. Urban runoff is bound to carry these compounds into the Merrimack.

Maine recently passed a ban into law with a 10,000 ppm PAH limit, which is too high, but a good start. New York State and Canada also just passed bans and both have plans in the works to lower the limit to 1,000 ppm as a result of my outreach effort.

If our neighbors are doing it, we should, too. It’s time New Hampshire and Massachusetts take action. Ask your elected officials to get legislation started. It can only help the river.

This site is a good resource with map showing bans in US: https://coaltarfreeusa.com/bans-2/.

This column was coordinated by ACES youth corps member Ana Satir. She asks, if you care about issues like these and would like to learn more and possibly do a bit more or have any questions, please send an email to acesnewburyport@gmail.com or sign up for ACES newsletter here: https://www.aces-alliance.org/contact.

ACES is wrapping up its three-year-long survey of Merrimack River users and the insights are disturbing. Survey responses show that 95% of river users are concerned to very concerned about the current and future condition of the Merrimack River and 73% of respondents believe its unhealthy to be in the water of the Merrimack and to use it as a source for drinking water, which 600,000 people already do. ACES released the results from our user survey analyses available to civic leaders and officials and the general public in November.

The survey report may be downloaded: https://www.aces-alliance.org/post/merrimack-river-2022-survey

In 2016, the American Rivers Association listed the Merrimack as one of the country’s 10 most endangered rivers. The U.S. Forest Service has ranked the watershed as the most threatened due to forestlands development, the fourth most threatened due to water quality issues, and the seventh due to loss of habitat for at-risk species. Though there are plenty of other pollutants such as micro-plastics, chemicals and storm runoff that are of concern, addressing Combined Sewer Overflows (CSOs) provide a starting point for restoring the health of the Merrimack.

Combined Sewer Overflows, or CSOs, occur when there is too much rain for a community’s sewage system to handle, discharging untreated sewage into the water. Though there is increasing awareness of this problem, there are still many who do not realize that it might be best to stay out of the river or not fish or collect shellfish from the river after a heavy rainstorm in five major population centers along the river.

To better understand the public perception of the health of the Merrimack River for various non-commercial uses, ACES has conducted a three-year survey of river users to quantify what they think about the health of the river, beginning with a pilot survey of adult masters-level rowers in 2019 and a basin-wide general user survey in 2021. The surveys provide an understanding of what people are seeing and experiencing when they actively use the river, whether it is someone who paddles in the Merrimack every day or someone who just happens to live nearby and may have questions about their drinking water.

Users are demanding immediate action to control CSOs either by engineered solutions relating to existing sewer facilities and storm drain structure as well as natural solutions such as expanding conservation lands adjoining the river, establishing living shorelines and planting more trees

When asked if the periodic overflow releases of sewage into the Merrimack River causes human health hazards, 88% agreed or strongly agreed that CSO discharges into the Merrimack River do pose a hazard to human health. We also found that although over 70% of our surveyed user population say that the Merrimack is not suitable for swimming, and yet almost 10% of them regularly swim in some river sections. Regarding what actions should be taken to address declining health of the Merrimack, 66% of surveyed river users list fixing the CSO issue as their highest priority.

With recent federal funds made available to fix our county’s declining infrastructure problems, there should be plenty of financial resources to improve the Merrimack River CSO issue. It’s important that federal, regional, and local governmental, business, and organizational leaders act on this problem. As environmental stewards, we are providing this report (see link to report below) to foster the collaboration among all stakeholders and the public in the watershed to address and “rescue” the river so we have a healthy watershed. We trust that facts in the report will marshal the impetus needed for all the above parties to secure the grants to jump start the process.

Lon Hachmeister is an ACES board member who lives in Newbury and led the survey effort.

This column was coordinated by ACES youth corps member Ana Satir. To share any comments or questions, please send an email to acesnewburyport@gmail.com. To learn more about ACES and its Initiatives, visit https://www.aces-alliance.org.

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In 2017, the transportation sector contributed 29% of greenhouse gases across the country. Greenhouse gases come from passenger cars, freight and home delivery trucks, trains, buses, and airplane travel.

“How can American society reconcile people’s seemingly boundless love affair with their vehicles with the need to reduce carbon emissions?” says Bruce Lieberman writing in “Yale Climate Connections”.

Getting a grip on climate change means we need to get a grip on our transportation choices. We have many tools to manage a change to less polluting transportation but a lot of it is yet ‘disconnected’. To do the right thing, do good and get a return on needed investment, we’ll need to become proactive and knit together the whole of our transportation infrastructure. Some of what it will take is changing our personal habits.

First some things are obvious. Driving less by planning trips better or choosing hybrid work from home options are good. Deploying electric vehicles is a good tool to control emissions, but that takes community wide infrastructure like building out networks of charging stations. That might include helping locally owned gas stations to make successful transitions to other business models and uses. Using other means than cars to go places can be a big help like choosing to take a fuel-efficient bus or walk or bike.

Locally we are fortunate to have the Merrimack Valley Transit Authority buses, formerly known as the MVRTA now rebranded as “MeVa”. The name stands for Merrimack Valley but also has Hispanic linguistic echoes of ‘going’. The new buses are becoming more and more climate neutral, and they charge nothing. They are free. In Amesbury, Mayor Kassandra Gove has recently worked with MeVa to move some stops around based on local knowledge of what works best for people walking to the bus stops. This is a good example of connecting their community transportation network more effectively.

Maybe plan a bus little adventure with friends to Amesbury to a brewpub to discover the local bus routes? Or head to Lawrence for real Italian cookies at Fisichelli’s on Union Street or Tripoli’s on Common Street. Have fun on the way and have fun when you get there.

Walking more is good for you and good for our climate. Strolling around the network of the Coastal Trails Coalition’s trails or The Trustees or Essex County Greenbelt properties is an excellent option. Ask yourself why not walk instead of driving to a coffee shop or to get a haircut. Maybe a supermarket is close enough for you to walk but one big shopping a week is too much to carry home. Why not consider walking two or three times a week and bring along one of those little folding grocery carts with a pull handle. Or maybe sign up for one of their home delivery options and not walk at all. This is a reasonable climate option because the delivery trucks plan efficient routes and are using electric vans for delivery more and more.

A solution to our transportation climate problems might just involve a bit of new zoning that encourages neighborhood business and safe, well-lit sidewalks that allow us to walk or bike to safely. ACES ally Newburyport Livable Streets advocates and educates the public on these issues and Mayor Reardon of Newburyport has a plan focused ran on a fix the streets agenda. Why not take the opportunity to make your mobility choices pro-climate and walk, bike, and take a bus more often more consciously? Why not make new transportation adventures an opportunity to develop your own little climate game and help the environment?

A resident of Newburyport, Ron Martino is an ACES advisor/mentor and member of the communications team.

This column was coordinated by ACES youth corps member Ana Satir. To share any comments or questions, please send an email to acesnewburyport@gmail.com. To learn more about ACES and its Initiatives, visit https://www.aces-alliance.org.

After the enthusiasm of COP 26’s prospective gains and commitment to climate actions, the COP 27 summit in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, starting this Sunday will take place amid confusion and backsliding in implementation of needed climate action.

When Russia invaded the Ukraine with all its terrible climate harming missile and munitions blasts, the world went into a period of disbelief and shock. Then it scrambled and improvised to cope with the auxiliary economic and health blow back from the war. Many of their responses and strategies crosscut differently in the way they effect climate.

With Russia using oil and gas as a weapon to squeeze Europe forcing them to abandon Ukraine, many market participants sought for ways to cope by urging reductions in energy use, or perhaps to make war time profits by opening up more oil and gas leases, keeping coal generating plants scheduled for shutdown operating for longer.

While these pro-fossil fuel actions seem like a short-term good idea given inflation and the coming cold winter in Europe, in the long run, they are terrible for climate.

Germany continued burning more coal than its plan and its commitment to COP26. Britain changed prime ministers and welcomed a new King Charles. The former a Tory seen as somewhat ‘soft’ on climate issues and the later, a long-time climate advocate. But in the arcane, a least to us Americans, way of British government the prime minister said he wasn’t going to go then changed his mind as is going. And the King face into his obligation to remain a-political and is forecast to not be there and to lower his advocacy voice for climate, at least in public. President Biden will be there and whatever the election noise next week back home, his presence will send a strong signal that America wants to do the right things about climate.

Meanwhile, giant fossil fuel corporations like Exxon Mobil took it as an opportunity to lobby harder for more oil leases and drilling permits. While other companies, like General Motors, decided they are ‘all in’ for electric vehicles and are rolling out a full range of EVs.

In the United States, the COVID relief bills and the Inflation Reduction Act are bringing lots of funding for projects to cope in various ways with global warming and its resulting processes including sea level rise and worsening flooding and droughts. On a regional basis, the Merrimack River’s issues in Newburyport and Lowell are, as of this week, getting project money committed as are many other Massachusetts and U.S. cities and states. It helps that Massachusetts Congressional members, like Richard Neal and Katherine Clark, held key positions in the last session of Congress. It’s another proof point that elections have consequences for all residents of this region.

One is tempted to overuse the quote from “A Tale of Two Cities” by Charles Dickens about our time being both “the best and worst of times”.

The COP27 sessions start this weekend and lasts until Nov. 18. Coincidentally, between local, regional, and national elections next Tuesday and the final counting and perhaps run-off, you may be hard pressed to see this global gathering at the top of your news broadcast or running in banner headlines in the local papers. But please try to follow it a bit. Please plan to vote if you haven’t already. Every vote for a candidate who understands the importance of pro-active environmental stewardship for the well-being of our future generations – more exactly our children and theirs – is very important.

Accordingly, while you are making your choices, please consider the matter of the long-term health of our planet and the environment as one of your personal priorities.

This column was coordinated by ACES youth corps member Ana Satir. To share any comments or questions, please send an email to acesnewburyport@gmail.com. To learn more about ACES and its Initiatives, visit https://www.aces-alliance.org.

ACES is wrapping up its 3-year, opinion survey of Merrimack River users to determine how they feel about the health and condition of the river and the insights are disturbing.

Survey responses show that 95% of river users are concerned to very concerned about the current and future condition of the Merrimack River and 73% of respondents believe it's unhealthy to be in the water of the Merrimack and to use it as a source for drinking water, which over 600,000 people currently do!

Most Merrimack River users (84% of responders) want sustainable action taken to find and fix CSO hot spots either by engineered solutions relating to modifying existing sewer facilities and storm drain structures and nonpoint source areas by natural solutions such as expanding conservation lands adjoining the river, establishing living shorelines, and planting more trees. ACES is making the Merrimack River User Survey report from our survey analyses available to you and to legislative leaders, local officials, stakeholder organizations, and the general public with the following link.

There is an increasing awareness in the Merrimack River Basin of “occasional problems” with the quality of Merrimack River water due to Combined Sewer Overflows (CSOs). CSOs occur when too much rain enters an outdated combined sewer and stormwater system, and it is necessary to discharge untreated sewage into the river to prevent the system from backing up into residential homes. However, many river users still do not realize that if they are using the river downstream of one or more of the five major CSO sources along the river it might be best to stay out of the river and not fish or collect shellfish from the river after heavy rainstorms. To better understand the public perception of the health of the Merrimack River for various non-commercial uses, ACES has conducted this survey of river users to quantify what they think about the health of the river. The survey provides an understanding of what people are seeing and experiencing when they actively use the river, whether it is someone who paddles in the Merrimack every day or someone who just happens to live nearby and may have questions about their drinking water. When asked if the periodic overflow releases of sewage into the Merrimack River cause human health hazards, 88% agreed or strongly agreed that CSO discharges into the Merrimack River do pose a hazard to human health.

We also found that although over 70% of our surveyed user population say that the Merrimack is not suitable for swimming, and yet almost 10% of them regularly swim in some river sections.

Regarding what actions should be taken to address the declining health of the Merrimack, 66% of surveyed river users list fixing the CSO issue as their highest priority. With recent Federal funds made available to fix our county’s declining infrastructure problems, there should be plenty of financial resources to improve the Merrimack River CSO issue. It’s important that federal, regional, and local governmental, business, and organizational leaders act on this problem. As environmental stewards, we are providing this report to foster collaboration among all stakeholders and the public in the watershed to address and “rescue” the river so we have a healthy watershed. We trust that the facts in the report will marshal the impetus needed for all the above parties to secure the grants to jump-start the process. ACES BOD and the River Survey Team

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Newburyport has been a leader in the adoption of clean energy and sustainable practices with a strong commitment to advancing renewable energy sources. The city’s Energy Advisory Committee and its designation as a Green Community have helped residents, businesses, and municipal operations save money while driving a responsible transformation in the way energy is generated and consumed.

Several years ago, many Newburyport residents and some of the city’s municipal operations enrolled in the Nexamp community solar program. That program, which offers discounted solar credits to subscribers, helps to both reduce electric costs and promote the expansion of clean energy on the grid.

Now, thanks to the strong relationship with Newburyport, Nexamp has chosen the city for its new home energy storage pilot program. As part of this limited program, and with the support of the Newburyport Energy Advisory Committee, Nexamp is offering free home energy storage systems exclusively to Newburyport residents. For those who choose to participate in the program, Nexamp will install a battery in your garage or basement at no cost. This battery provides homeowners with access to an automated source of backup power while also helping to reduce the utility upgrades needed to meet area electricity demand.

Nexamp looked at several communities for this pilot program but selected Newburyport because of its existing relationship and the high percentage of aging grid circuits​ in the area. Home energy storage systems will help address grid demand while offering a number of resiliency advantages across the service area.

Interested residents do not need to be Nexamp community solar subscribers to participate in this free pilot program, but there are some requirements and restrictions to ensure a successful installation. If you are interested in participating and would like to learn more, schedule a time to speak with Mike Spiro, Director of Consumer Products for Nexamp at https://calendly.com/mspiro-nexamp/intro-meeting.

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Fifty years ago, on Oct. 17, 1972, Congress passed the Clean Water Act. Since its passage, the Clean Water Act has opened the way for restoring our rivers and preventing pollution around the country.

The Merrimack River has been a big beneficiary of those changes in law and corporate behavior. Dyes and chemicals from textile and vinyl fabrication plants in Manchester, Lawrence, and Lowell have been curtailed. Heavy metals from chrome plating facilities and strong chemicals from paper mills upriver have also been reduced dramatically.

Sturgeon have slowly returned to the river to spawn in Haverhill. Salmon have yet to be well restored as dams, especially at Lawrence still seem to be an obstacle to their spawning runs. But there is hope now. Fifty years on from the passage of the Clean Water Act, the Merrimack has made progress toward restoring its glory days.

And as we celebrate let us toast the Ipswich and Parker rivers locally too. ACES Allies Ipswich River Watershed Association and the Parker River Clean Water Association have stood as guardians of those rivers. They monitor them and they advocate for them and have kept ‘eyes on the prize’ of cleaner water and healthier watersheds.

And we are lucky locally to have the Marine Biology Lab of with its headquarters in Woods Hole continuing its research on the estuary and marshes of the Merrimack River via it long standing Plum Island Ecosystem LTER [ long term estuary research]. Plum Island is a fitting place to speak of because the great grandmother of world environmentalism, Rachael Carson whose books like the Silent Spring galvanized environmental awareness worldwide, wrote one of her first short pieces on the health of Plum Island’s birds.

The Merrimack is lucky to have advocates and researchers like the Merrimack River Beach Alliance, ACES Ally the Merrimack River Watershed Council, governmental entities, and advocates such as the Merrimack Valley Planning Commission and elected officials including Senators Tarr and DiZoglio and Mayors Reardon and Gove and numerous selectmen from Salisbury, Newbury, West Newbury and other river communities.

But threats remain! Increased population growth and development of riverside lands have added more non-point storm run-off pollution to the river’s burden. Plus, climate change has apparently made rain events more potent with combined sewer overflows (CSOs) now an all too frequent occurrence.

New technologies and products have created newer 21st century threats to the river’s health. Disposable plastic containers and the resulting water-bourn micro-plastic fragments are showing up in studies as detrimental to human health. PFAS, so called ‘forever chemicals’ that are used in many products and processes today such coatings and fireproofing are showing up more too. Pharmaceutical residues such as from antibiotics and birth control pills are not filtered out easily and can potentially cause human health concerns and disrupt fertility and endocrine systems. Warming temperatures mean that the river’s temperature will likely be changing and that can have effects on fish populations as well.

Industrial pollution of the 19th and 20th centuries has largely been dealt with as new pollution from those sources have largely been forestalled both by the Clean Water Act and changes in global trade and automation that moved those jobs away from our local river, the Merrimack. But riverside development has meant that natural wetlands have been disrupted and we need to ask ourselves how development too close to the river can be discouraged. There is a need in the whole river watershed to focus on rebuilding wetland water storage capabilities. Perhaps even by new farm ponds being encouraged as part of needed local food production capability in the face of climate change.

Yes, 50 years after the passage of the Clean Water Act new work is needed. But let’s take a pause at least during this week in 2022 to celebrate its great accomplishments and the leaders of the past who help that happen.

This column was coordinated by ACES youth corps member, Ana Satir. To share any comments or questions, please send an email to acesnewburyport@gmail.com. To learn more about ACES, visit website https://www.aces-alliance.org.

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The image of the earth as one whole organism and the realization of which human beings are an integral part can be a challenge for us to envision.

Many of us see ourselves as outside nature and maybe even as masters of nature. For those living in cities who purchase their food in air-conditioned grocery stores where each item is carefully placed in shiny stainless steel refrigerators or neatly stacked shelves, we have created an “other worldly” place.

Nature is our world. It is messy, uncontrollable, beautiful and difficult to understand. If we have the means to visit national parks, we know the power of waterfalls, rivers and the great ocean itself.

But we often live in constructed communities where humility about our fragile lives is difficult to keep in perspective. We forget how each of our choices to use the resources of the earth has an impact on the lives of others, significantly those in more fragile places on our globe. In Kenya right now, families struggle to have water to drink, cook and wash. Goats and giraffes are dying.

What can we do? Small Solutions Big Ideas is using the abundant natural resources we have here in Greater Newburyport – our marshes, rivers, small forests, and seashore to bring youth closer to curiosity and eagerness to understand nature.

We are doing this by creating a public wildlife mural created by local youths and with contributions from our youth community in Kenya, Africa.

There are two more art workshops available free to the public for children ages 7 to 11 at the Parker River Wildlife Refuge Center, July 9 and 16.

You can sign up or just show up at 9:30. We are grateful for the stewardship of the Parker River Wildlife Refuge Center for their welcoming this project to their facility and for the support of the Newburyport Cultural Council and Massachusetts Cultural Council in understanding the significance of nature to youth via artwork.

Newburyport is abundant in artists who spend hours contemplating the changing colors of the marshes, the sky and the flight of birds. Experts acknowledge that their creative work offers opportunities for all of us to be reinforced by the beauty that they share.

We need to ensure we provide opportunities for our youths to feel that close to nature.

Research by the British RSBP group documents: That people with a greater connection to nature are more likely to behave positively toward the environment, wildlife and habitats … and may be critical for future nature conservation.”

Bill McKibben in a recent Atlantic article calls this destructive heat the “fire” we have created digging coal, extracting oil which we now depend on.

We don’t yet know all the solutions to greening our environment, but we can assist youths in understanding the complex web of life and be prepared for the future.

This mural will be celebrated on Aug. 6 (1 to 6 p.m.) in the outdoor areas of Pleasant Street’s historic Unitarian church.

Youth art will be displayed, Megan Hiango’s sculpture made of broken lobster pot grates will be an interactive art piece. Our Kenyan youths will be present through their videos and art to provide a global perspective.

We invite other environmental groups to join us, contact us to set up a table and let the public know of your work. A highlight of the afternoon will be a 3 p.m. performance by a nationally known spoken word poet, Jordan Sanchez, along with our local NHS “Poetry Soup’ geniuses, who performed at the Juneteenth celebration, and knocked us all off our feet.

Jordan’s poem “Climate Denial” can be previewed online: https://thejordansanchez.com/tag/climate-denial/. Please join us.

If you are a youth and have your own art, bring it along. Contact us on Facebook /smallsolutionsbigideasafrica, website: http://smallsolutionsbigideas.org or email: sandra@smallsolutionsbigideas.org.

Sandra Thaxter is a founder and president of Small Solutions Big Ideas.

This column was coordinated by ACES youth corps member Caleb Bradshaw. To share any comments or questions, please send an email to acesnewburyport@gmail.com. To learn more about ACES and its Youth Leadership Initiative, visit https://www.aces-alliance.org.

If you are like me, you have a lot of friends that have either bought second homes in Florida or moved there permanently. Like many others, I like to go to Florida for at least a week or two every winter – just to warm up from our cold New England weather.

But little did I think of Florida as the front lines of our battle against climate change. Hurricane Ian changed that.

During Ian’s landfall, I sat snugly in a Firehouse Center theater seat, watching a movie, “2040,” that was hosted by the local group Storm Surge. It was a surreal experience.

While western Florida was getting battered by 150 mile-an-hour winds and 17-foot storm surge (in communities 5 to 10 feet above sea level), I sat cozy and dry, and kept comfortable by a climate control system that helps storms like Hurricane Ian form more frequently and become more deadly. I heard the air conditioner come on, fueled by fossil fuels. and then I started to feel guilty.

The movie comes on, a tribute to the producers, and the sponsors in that it’s not another gloom and doom, we’re screwed, “it’s too late” epitaph. “2040” is a story presented through the eyes of children – those young folks that will be adults in 20 years. It’s a different portrayal of climate change and what we can do about it.

“2040” was less about guilting us into action, and more about showing us that technology – and incentives – that can save us are ready for the planet. Sure, in my lifetime climate change and frequent extreme weather events have gone from a probability to a certainty.

As the movie explained, we have crossed the tipping point, and the conversation is no longer how do we reduce our carbon emissions, but now must include how we extract carbon from the atmosphere and remove the carbon that we have already emitted.

Our ability to do that might mean life or death for our species. Real solutions highlighted in the movie were things like “marine permaculture,” which includes seaweed farming that can provide food, fuel, and fertilizer while reducing carbon emissions, and in some cases removing carbon from the ecosystem.

My favorite was the eco awareness dashboard – a way that a community can watch the climate effects of what we do in real-time – on an online webpage, or a continuously updated billboard. This is what has allowed Oberlin, Ohio, to be proactive about many changes needed.

To view the Oberlin dashboard, click on this link: https://oberlin.environmentaldashboard.org/cwd

With the movie’s emphasis on technology and practices that are here today, I came out of the theater feeling hopeful. Hopeful this is a battle that can be won. Hopeful that our country realizes that we are all on the front lines – not just Florida, or Puerto Rico. Hopeful for my grandchildren.

Our turn in Newburyport to experience severe climate-change induced weather will come, I am sure – but “2040” left me with a sense of a path forward.

Thank you, Storm Surge, and the Firehouse for providing the space, for helping our community understand what’s at stake, and what a way forward is.

We now have an opportunity to have many individuals in our communities engage with and contribute to environmental stewardship types of organizations and municipal initiatives/projects to support collaboration and have a local positive impact.

Punta Gorda, Puerto Rico, Bangladesh – we’re in this together, worldwide. and we can do it.

This column was coordinated by ACES youth corps member Ana Satir. To share any comments or questions, send an email to acesnewburyport@gmail.com. To learn more about ACES and its 4 Initiatives, visit https://www.aces-alliance.org.

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