Sunday nature journal - The Peregrine falcon and the Crow

Wednesday haiku- Platanthera ciliaris

Earth Angel - a painting to commemorate earth day

To commemorate Earth Day for an extra day I share this painting I did in 1997 titled 'Earth Angel' (acrylic on canvas) - part of a series titled 'New Allegories'.

Part 10 - Rose-tinted Green - navigating ordinances

Friday I had a meeting with some wonderful university students, a group from University of Illinois in Chicago (UIC) and a group from DePaul, Liam Heneghan’s students. It is always refreshing and hopeful to meet young people willing to take on the challenges our generation seems to neglect. The UIC students are helping to identify city ordinances that challenge the Bioshaft® design solutions and the DePaul students will help with the research to prove to the city that these concerns are met. This is where the rubber meets the road, as they say. We are fashioning a strategy to get support from the most enlightened of our representatives before approaching the authorities for permits. During the panel discussion hosted by the Institute of Cultural Affairs (ICA) I heard the familiar story about Chicago being the leader in many aspects of the green cities movement. Many cities actually make the same claim, but Chicagoans are comfortable believing they are the flagship community. I could acknowledge this if it was not pointed out by the students’ research, thus far, that at least sixteen ordinances exist that pose obstacles to our project. Also it was reported to me that when the bioshaft design process was briefly mentioned to a key person in the chain of command, her immediate reaction was resistance to the concept. This is a typical reaction of municipal employees that are in charge of safeguarding standards. Having worked at the municipal level for a number of cities I understand the reluctance to change, there is great fear of liability and enforcement mentality that interprets challenges to ordinances as crime, decisions are made usually under council of municipal lawyers whose natural tendencies are conservative. Job promotions are not easily given to those that question the status quo and cause tension.

Case in point: In the late 1990's I worked as a landscape planner for the Village of Schaumburg, a municipality NW of Chicago. One day I was given the task to create the planting plan for a creek mitigation project. This creek traversed city hall property and over the years had been channelized, straitened and due to daily fluctuations had scoured itself deep and was now quickly eroding the parking area. The engineering department had been placed in charge to stop this erosion. They had arrived at a plan that called for extensive use of gabion baskets and replacing the culverts under the bridges with new ones. In the past they had simply dumped gravel and large boulders at the scoured areas without achieving desired results. I saw the opportunity to remeander the creek, daylight portions of it, regrade the shorelines to accommodate flooding and proposed the replacement of culverts with bridges with a wide span to reduce velocity of flow. I used formulas found in a book on stream geomorphology  written by Luna Leopold. The engineering department was furious that I even questioned their solution. A debate began between the planning department and the engineering department. It escalated to the point where my job was placed in jeopardy. I had to endure meetings where the accusations were up front and personal. Luckily I had learned to deal with municipal conflicts and had saved all my e-mail correspondence which proved my version of events. This bickering prompted a visit from Village President Larson, one morning he stepped into my cubicle and asked to see my proposal. He took a good look and asked that I present it at the weekly council meeting. I quickly produced sketches to visualize the proposal and created a booklet with a full length of creek analysis including flood-prone areas, plant communities and fauna observed along with an historical map showing conditions before development for the city council members. The day of the meeting I displayed the drawings on one of the walls in the meeting room. The council members stopped to take a look at them before sitting down. The engineering department had come prepared to take me down. Before the meeting began one of the council women remarked on the beauty of the concept that was on display and asked if that was the plan? Mayor Larsen opened the meeting and a vote was taken, it was unanimous in favor of adopting my plan. When he asked if there were  objections everyone was silent. The debate I expected did not take place and my booklet remained closed in my hands. After the meeting my boss told me that I was never to repeat that, meaning the sketches, without his consent. I knew then that he in fact had not intended to support my work and only due to the impact my sketches had on the council members that a foreseen debate had not occurred. I began to search for other employment. Meanwhile, the engineering department reluctantly agreed to work with me but kept throwing obstacles in my way, the final battle was won when my hand drawn contours where analyzed through a hydrology modeler software by a local engineering firm. The results where unexpected, the revision needed was the shifting of one contour line the distance of five feet upstream  along the thalweg of the creek. The project was completed after I had left my job. Even though the hydrology model proved my contours, the engineering department could not bring themselves to follow them, resistance for professional pride was too strong resulting in some portions of this creek still prone to  erosion. The project was awarded Chicago Wilderness and EPA awards a couple of years later, the engineering department had no reservations accepting the awards and claiming the project.

The news that the initial reaction to the bioshaft proposal is one of refusal does not surprise me. However, we must ask, in the immediate aftermath of a powerful storm if it is wise to take a stubborn stance in defending existing ordinances. In a period of twenty hours Chicago received about 8.5 million gallons of rain causing vast areas to flood, the current infrastructure, including the Big Tunnel (costing billions of dollars), could not handle the flows, the reservoirs will be completed by 2030 and according to one expert it would still not suffice for storm events such as these. It would also be business as usual, treating this most precious resource as nuisance. Huge potholes swallowed multiple cars, geysers jetted out of manholes and locks on the Chicago River had to be opened to have the river flow into Lake Michigan carrying with it a lethal cocktail of untreated combined sewage outflows, debris and toxic chemicals. This obvious proof that our water management infrastructure is limited in handling these storm events, which in the climate change era are expected to intensify, not to mention the expected sea level rise that would create backflows in coastal cities, significant changes must be made including changes to existing ordinances. Some communities are putting their ordinances through revision. In a newscast the evening of the largest rain pour invited representatives spoke about the good of rain barrels and rain gardens, even though it was obviously clear that neither would have an impact; I did not know whether to laugh or curse, I did both. We have settled in a pattern of thought and practice where the least amount of change is preferred to actually tackling the problem at its core to solve it. We still hold high regard for technological tinkering rather than lifestyle change and biological earth-friendly solutions. In the aftermath of terrible devastation we must have the courage to adopt alternatives. There are no experts in this new era; the experts we often consult are the architects of the current system, most unable to see beyond the demagogy of their own professional silos. In the panel conversation at ICA familiar numbers were once again trotted out, a 20% reduction in our CO2 emissions by 2020 and a 50% reduction by 2050 from 1990 levels. Why is the year 1990 the defining marker? I don’t particularly remember it as a good year, the beginnings of the first Gulf War and the crisis in Eastern Europe just to mention two of the catastrophic events of the times and certainly not a good year for air and water quality. At the 2005 Society for Ecological Restoration conference held in Zaragoza, Spain, I attended a talk given by Bob Costanza on the planet’s carrying capacity, he pointed out that studies show the year 1975 to be the last time the Earth was in relative equilibrium, we have been losing ground since; so why 1990? The answer from the panel to my question was that these numbers are simply arbitrary goals that once met we can promote more reductions. OK, granted that these may be the political correct figures so as not to frighten any country away, should they be the numbers that those of us that wish to make significant change use? The 350 movement is an example of a science-based goal for carbon emissions, but there doesn’t seem to be one for water. It seems to me that as we pat ourselves on the back for achieving the minimum possible while witnessing biological degradation worsen; it is time to remove the rose-tinted glasses and embrace reality.

 

Sunday nature journal - The Robin and The Woodchuck

American Gothic - thoughts from SER conference, Wooster, OH

On April 11, 2013 I drove to Wooster, Ohio to attend the Society for Ecological Restoration (SER), Midwest - Great Lakes Chapter conference. I drove in the rain the entire eight hour long trip from Algonquin, IL. Wooster is surrounded by rolling hills of farm fields and small second and third generation wood lots, the original forests cleared long ago. The occasional horse and buggy trotting along the roads is testimony of Amish communities in the area. Two years back I partook with some family members in the Amish Country bike ride in Indiana and saw first-hand the traditional farming practiced by this community that still resists most modern conveniences. The Super 8 hotel, just off the main road is sandwiched between a Stake House Bar to the west and Bob Evans Restaurant to the east. The first day of the conference temperatures dropped, with showers and strong winds; ideal weather to spend indoors.

The Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center is on the south side of town, part of the Ohio State University network. This is the fifth annual meeting of this chapter and my first attendance. About one hundred plus members were here out of 250 or so. It is a small number compared to the thousands that attend SER’s international biannual conferences. I was scheduled to deliver my talk Saturday morning at 8:30AM; a time I thought too early for good attendance, however, as it turned out, the best time for me. Friday’s panel discussions were animated and provoked much interest on my part. Jeffrey Reutter’s presentation on the fate of Lake Erie struck me in particular. Reutter’s main point was the annual blue-green algae blooms, due to farm field runoff, posed direct threat to the Lake Erie fish and tourist industries and overall aquatic ecosystem. This tragic turn of events came at the heels of much success during the 1980’s when Lake Erie was the poster child for best example of ecosystem recovery following a steep decline during post WWII years, marked at its worse condition by one of the burnings of the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland (1969). After Q&A I approached Mr. Reutter and asked if creating wetland type habitats could help and briefly described my proposal of converting marinas to fish refugia. He thought it worthwhile and suggested I contact Sarah Orlando at the Ohio Clean Marinas Program. I have done so since my return to the Chicago area and there is an interest on her part to know more about the proposal. I e-mailed my sketches to her and awaiting a reply.

Back at the hotel I was woken abruptly at 2:30AM on the morning of April 13th, the day of my presentation, by someone slamming his body against the door to my room attempting a forceful entry. I called out for him to stop, he did for a minute or so only to resume. I phoned the front desk without receiving an answer so I called the police. Ten minutes later I heard the police officers’ conversation with this man, he was obviously high on something and from my window I could see him handcuffed, placed in the back of the squad car and driven off to sober up in the local jail. It proved impossible to go back to sleep, so I decided to sketch out a new concept, swirling in my mind, inspired by the algae growth problems, that of adaptable, transient wetland systems that can be moved about where most needed. Later that morning I was glad to be the first presenter, given my state of questionable wakefulness that would become burdensome as the day progressed.

I stressed my work to be associated with urban ecology and wanted to be part of the urban ecosystem session, instead I was placed in the coastal areas and wetlands session. Despite my disappointment in this selection I learned about the degradation of coastal wetlands from one of the talks that made my approach more relevant in ways I had not foreseen. 95% of coastal wetlands along the shores of Lake Erie have disappeared, those that are left occupy small areas  under stress and some only persist due to dike construction that prevent high water levels to flood them out, of course in these conditions they no longer function as coastal wetlands. The recent drop in lake levels is now prompting the removal of these dikes but if water rises again they will need to be rebuilt. Solutions being acted upon are the reclamation of inland wetlands to clean runoff before it enters tributaries to the lake and programs to educate farmers to stop using phosphor and nitrogen laden fertilizers; these are long term solutions. The short term solution still depends on direct applications in the lake itself. My proposal utilizes the more than 300 existing marinas along the Ohio coastline to create fish refugia and now includes treatment for algae blooms.

As I drove back to Chicago on the Sunday morning I was painfully aware that this often idealized bucolic landscape hid a treacherous secret. It is an American Gothic tale; beautiful historical farmstead architecture form picturesque façades below which flow rivers of poison. Having been born to farmers and shepherds of the Abruzzo region of Italy, I have a soft spot for the farming community’s way of life, perhaps an organic version of it can be refashioned for future generations. Spotting another horse and buggy, I wondered whether the Amish were contributing to the problem with the use of fertilizers, or if along with the watersheds, were themselves victims.

Wednesday haiku - Ode to Rachel Carson

Reading "On a Farther Shore - The Life and Legacy of Rachel Carson" by William Souder. The return of the Robins and their spring song, for me, is an anthem to celebrate one courageous woman's crusade that impacted our lives. However it is also a reminder that her biggest nemesis, Monsanto, is more powerful than ever and still promoting its chemical arsenal upon our lives.

The Lesson

   

 

 

 

 

 



 

Wednesday Acrostic - Spiranthes lacera

Sunday nature journal page - 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Article published in Illinois Audubon Winter 2009-10 issue. 


Wednesday haiku - Melanthium virginicum