Environmental Justice...Discussion Forum Post #1

As I post things for the discussion forum in my environmental justice class, I plan to repost them here. Expect something weekly!

(It should also be noted that I just got back from another fabulous weekend in Boston in which we embarked on the subject of urban environmental history. This trip involved a visit with the city's archaeologist at a burial ground from the 1600s. It is currently located in the middle of Roxbury. It was once located at the base of a peninsula, surrounded in ocean water. WHAT?! Not knowing ANYTHING about Boston's history makes these classes so much more fun. Who knew that the "Back Bay" is actually a FILLED IN BAY?! When you run out of land, I guess society's solution is to just build more. I actually read in "Something New Under the Sun" that, in total, man has "made land" approximately equivalent to the land area of Spain. Why didn't I realize this happens...? Midwestern biases...?

Also, for my environmental history class, I am currently creating a poster and a paper on the history of the Chicago River, and conducting interviews to document the history of C3. Fun, fun, fun. I am such a nerd.)

This week's EJ post:

I spent some time this evening perusing the Alternatives for Community and Environment (ACE) website. While I am very impressed by their work and efforts, I also find myself feeling overwhelmed. This group is well-organized into subcommittees and smaller groups (e.g., youth leadership, transit justice, legal services, etc.), but the over-arching theme goes against my "focused take home message" nature. They state their mission as "[to build] the power of communities of color and lower income communities in New England to eradicate environmental racism and classism and achieve environmental justice." WOW. Talk about lofty goals. I find that any ONE of their initiatives probably justifies an organization unto itself, yet they seem to be tackling every issue simultaneously.

I think this is, personally, my greatest challenge in approaching "environmental justice issues." The problem is so massive and systemic...where do you begin and where do you end? To "eradicate environmental racism" requires change on so many levels, and many of them aren't even directly addressing environmental issues, but those of policy, education, health, etc. What I wonder is, by trying to tackle all of these issues at once, are organizations like ACE actually diluting their impact? Would they be better off focusing on one issue (e.g., transit justice) and making measurable progress in that arena? Or, by working with everything at the same time, are they building a cycle of change that perpetuates itself?

I realize that all of these issues eventually need to be addressed (you can't really break them apart from one another), but I think my confusion/concern arises in thinking about thematic messaging. After looking at ACE's website, I know they are an "environmental justice organization," but I'm not entirely sure what they focus on or why. For example, when you go the the "Take Action" part of their webpage, they are currently asking people to lobby for youth jobs. That is a VERY important aspect of keeping youth off of the streets and in positive environments...but how does it fit in with the rest of the work ACE is doing? Would ACE obtain youth employees through that funding? Is it an issue of concern identified by the community? How will citizen action in that realm help ACE reach its goals?

I will be interested in learning more about other EJ organizations and their role within communities. Do most organizations tackle it all in response to communities' needs and interests? Or do they recognize their limits and really key on the "most significant issue" in their communities? Hmm...

Chicago Wilderness: Climate Change

I went to a really great conference on Tuesday hosted by Chicago Wilderness's education team. It was basically an introductory conversation regarding climate change education in Chicago, how we all might collaborate, and what resources are still needed. It was one of the best conferences I've been to in a LONG time, and I'm very excited that I will be serving on the Education Team's Climate Change Task Force for the next several years.

Some interesting resources I wanted to share:

Climate Literacy: The Essential Principles of Climate Sciences
This is a very nice distillation of the basic tenets someone needs to understand in order to fully comprehend climate change and its impacts. I believe it comes from NOAA.

Climate Communications and Behavior Change
This resource from the University of Oregon (yeah, Daisy!) and the Social Capital Project focuses on some research conducted re: climate change education, primarily language. They use the term "climate disruption" to convey a greater sense of urgency, and talk about "apocalyptic fatigue" in regards to how people tire of being warned of their impending doom. Teehee.

EPA's Climate Change, Wildlife, and Wildlands Toolkit
Nifty resources for people working with youth.

Chicago Wilderness Climate Action Plan for Nature (CAPN)
This resource really focuses on the preservation of biodiversity despite climate change, and its role in climate change mitigation and adaptation in Chicago. It parallels the...

Chicago Climate Action Plan (CCAP)
...which is the focus of a lot of C3's work. CCAP focuses more on the built environment, energy efficiency, and people than CAPN which looks much more at the greenspace and the areas directly surrounding Chicago (going into Wisconsin, Indiana, and Michigan).

I also had the opportunity to visit the Field Museum's new Climate Change Exhibit. I think it did a GREAT job of explaining the issues without being TOO doomsday-y. I definitely want to visit again if anyone wants to go with me. It's only here until November 28th, though, so we'll have to get moving...

Maybe some of that might be useful to my cohort and/or colleagues!

The End of Days (just kidding...kind of)

I’m acclimating to life apart from my fellow grad students, but it surely is NOT easy. I expected grad school to be very time-intensive and challenging. I mean, I’m earning a Masters in two years WHILE working full-time (often 50+ hours per week, at least for the next few months). Plenty of people told me I was nuts, and I was prepared for stress and a packed schedule. But you know what I WASN’T prepared for?

This weird isolation! I feel ENTIRELY out of sync with every person in my life. And I have some wonderful people in my life – it’s nothing against them. By way of a better explanation…

I was crazy busy during my undergraduate program, working and conducting original research and taking more credits than I probably should’ve. BUT I WAS SURROUNDED IN OTHER, EQUALLY CRAZY PEOPLE! If I was cramming for an exam, odds were good that I had another friend in the class who was cramming along with me. I had a regular study group that met for 20+ hours per week when I was taking organic chemistry. My closest friends held my hand through physics. We were all dedicated, over-achievers and we socialized THROUGH our academics. No one was intent to drag me away from my studies. Everyone understood if you said for the umpteenth time, “Sorry, I’ve got to go work on a paper – maybe next time?”

Even aside from being on a different schedule than everyone I know and not having any good study buddies, I am ALSO struggling because I can’t find a SPACE to study. If I’m home, all I want to do is sleep. I’m not on a college campus, so coffee shops don’t stay open past 10pm (even in Chicago). If I want to do some late night work (which is the only real time I have), you want to know what I’m resorting to? STUDYING AT THE BAR.

So, in conclusion, I WAS expecting a packed, stressful schedule…I was NOT expecting to become an unintentional alcoholic/social outcast.

A saving grace is certainly the rest of my cohort. I think we’re all feeling it; in response, we have organized conference calls on Skype on Monday nights. It’s a way to talk through the work we’ve been doing and also to commiserate over our challenges. It’s like a long-distance, weekly “you can do it!” hug.

That said, IS THERE ANYONE IN CHICAGO WHO NEEDS A STUDY BUDDY?!?!

Anyway, my research is proving very interesting. I’m working on my research paper (due in mid-October), and I have chosen to focus on a topic with which I have less familiarity in an effort to really challenge myself on an urban ecology subject. Looking back over my journaling activities, I can say with great authority that Peter Del Tredici and his crazy vendetta against the native/invasive plant distinction got me the most fired up…and so I’m researching plant ecology in Chicago. I’m looking at whether or not Peter’s argument holds water in Chicago, considering the natural history of the area, ecosystem services, and human connections to plant life. And, so far, Peter’s faring pretty well…maybe all this native/invasive business IS malarkey in a city. Oh my.

In addition to writing this paper, I plan to present my “findings” to a bunch of my co-workers to get their response as regional experts. Surprisingly, that part makes me the most nervous. I work with some very intelligent people, and I’m not sure I’m ready to write a paper and get it torn to shreds. But it’ll be good for me. So, my goal is to finish a fairly fine-tuned draft by Labor Day so that I might present to them, do some minor revisions, and then report on their response to the ideas.

If any of you know of any great resources relating to this subject, please let me know!

Final Reflection on Ecology and the Urban Environment

To wrap up our last day of class for this session, we talked a bit about some of the “big questions” we’re taking away from this experience. I thought my classmate, however, raised a very profound point: if we’ve learned anything this week, it’s that there’s a great deal of uncertainty in this field. SO TRUE. Her follow up question, however, was how do we present a unified front if we can’t all agree? “What are the tenets of this field?”

Well, I can’t say that I know. She’s right. Who can provide a definition of sustainability that’s achievable AND that everyone can agree with? In an integrated human-ecosystem framework, humans and ecosystems are intertwined…but, for decision-makers, a lot of choices need to be made which often prioritize one over the other – how do we deal with that? I mean, we can’t even decide if invasive plants are really invasive! There isn’t a common enemy, there isn’t a mantra or a motto.

But I guess I don’t see that as a major problem. This is science! If I learned nothing else from a decade of intensive science education, it’s that science can’t prove anything…it can only disprove. That often means that we have a lot more theories than certainties. As scientists, we can only share the best evidence we have to offer and ask people to keep it in mind while making decisions. And scientists aren’t alone! I think about the other fields that kind of function the same way (e.g., religion, economics, politics, medicine, education…OK, pretty much everything) and get some solace that NO ONE HAS ANY ABSOLUTE TRUTHS. We all kind of run on faith, best guesses, and individual interpretation. The challenge is to remind people (a.k.a. the public) that it’s unrealistic for us to have all the answers; we’re learning along with them! The best we can do is NOT to preach, but to share information and teach people how to process it. Does that count as a tenet?

Day Seven: The Boston Harbor Islands and Citizen Science

WHO KNEW that there is a National Park a hop, skip and a jump from Boston? The Boston Harbor Islands were a mere 30-minute boat ride from the coast, and are a really neat example of science in your own backyard.

For me, the most noteworthy part of this day was the VERY apparent importance of volunteers. On a beautiful Saturday, we met more than a dozen individuals who donated their time to the preservation of these wonderful open spaces. Volunteers (including some youth!), with VERY limited staffing assistance from park rangers, not only do some hard labor (e.g., pulling invasive plants like pepper weed) on the islands, but they also spearhead a fair bit of citizen science. The island we visited participates in two major scientific studies.

One, called MIMIC (Marine Invader Monitoring and Information Collaborative), focuses on tracking the spread of invasives (like certain crabs, seaweed, mollusks, etc.) along the Atlantic coast in an effort to contain the invasives where they are currently located, and to know VERY quickly if an invasive species has moved to a new area so that they might stand a chance at getting rid of it. However, because inventorying is such a time-intensive task, they REALLY depend on volunteer support not just on this island but everywhere along the coast to collect data. I think this is a great model, but I do worry at the quality of the information being collected. They don’t really have an environmental education program to accompany the implementation of these studies, so (at least based on my morning participating in the study) it really seems like a lot of the volunteers are out of their depth. They are basically handed flash cards and dropped into the task to sink or swim. (I promise I will stop with the unintentional, bad puns).

I don’t expect every volunteer to become a marine ecologist, but some basic instruction like “This is how you pick up a crab,” or “This is where these types of creatures tend to live,” or “This is how you should methodically sample the area,” might have been worthwhile. I know that other citizen science programs (like dragonfly or frog monitoring in Chicago) require that you attend a training session before your data is counted; I wonder how a similar requirement might affect MIMIC’s participation rates. I also recognize that there was a HUGE crowd for the park ranger’s to monitor on the day of our visit, so I’d like to give them the benefit of the doubt and say that this was not how things are normally run. I would be interested to see how MIMIC is run at other sites, however, before I make a final judgment on the program’s efficacy.

The other citizen science activity going on looked at phenology on the island. I didn’t get to see that program in action, but I’m excited that I’m hearing about SO much of that research these days.

Some of my other ponderings prompted by the day included:

• Interpretation. I was thrilled at the mention of the field of interpretation. I’m a Certified Interpretive Trainer through the National Association for Interpretation, and I’m ALWAYS glad to hear of others tying conservation to interpretation. They really do go hand in hand! Some of the most intelligent scientists I know can’t explain themselves to laymen to save their lives; they spend so much time in academia that they lose touch with public understanding. So, interpretation focuses on synthesizing take-home messages and thinking about your audience as you craft a presentation, exhibit, etc. I might go so far as to say that any scientist with access to the public should be required to take a course in interpretation (because scientific findings are not especially useful unless people can understand them), but I DEFINITELY think that tour guides and educators should be well-versed in these concepts, and it seems like NPS and the Boston Harbor Islands have that covered.

• Dow Chemical and the weird relationship between chemicals and conservation. So, we watched a park ranger apply small amounts of an herbicide on the base of the most MASSIVE buckthorn TREES (yes, trees) I have ever seen. Someone asked where the chemical came from, and it’s DOW CHEMICAL. So, having spent a lot of time in Michigan, I have a bit of a personal issue with Dow. They’re basically perpetuating a Love Canal-esque level of water pollution in Midland, MI, and I flat out refuse to support their company with my dollars. That said, what do you do if the only way to control an invasive is to use one of their products?! I hate it when my values can’t seem to keep themselves straight; “black and white” is nice every once in awhile, you know?

Key questions:

• How are data from citizen science (like MIMIC or other programs) used? How much credibility can they have?

Day Six: Water Reclamation, OK?

Something you should know about me: as a Great Lakes gal, I get really geeked out about water. The opportunity to spend 4 hours at the Deer Island water reclamation plant with an EXTREMELY knowledgeable tour guide? Yeah, I've been dreaming about this for a long time. And today was the day! I took about 15 pages of notes, but I won't bore you with every minute engineering detail and piece of historical context. However, here's what stuck with me the most:

• The Boston area produces an average of 350 million gallons of sewerage per day, and can produce up to 1.3 billion gallons on days with heavy rainfall. Like Chicago, they have combined sewers (meaning that stormwater and sewage go into the same sewer), but Boston is nearing completion of sewer separation projects that will prevent combined sewer overflows (which only happen at 5 or 6 sites now, and very rarely).
  
  
• This new facility has made great strides towards greater energy efficiency and sustainability by using energy produced from methane gas (from the 3 million gallon, egg-shaped digesters - SO COOL!), wind turbines (which produce 25+ MW of electricity, which is roughly the equivalent of 850 homes), and solar installations. In Chicago, some basic calculations have shown that for every gallon of water used (starting from when it's removed from Lake Michigan and ending with the effluent dumping in the Chicago River), 1.65 pounds of CO2e are released into the atmosphere. I wonder how Boston compares given their efficient technology.
  
  
• Upgrades in the treatment methods (and in methods nation-wide) were spurred on by the Clean Water Act in 1970. This created a unified set of standards for water quality, preventing industry from flocking to the communities with the lowest standards. When we inquired about whether or not there is any current motivation to improve treatment standards, we were told in no uncertain terms that the Metropolitan Water Reclamation Authority (MWRA), as the entity in charge of operations at this treatment facility, is NOT an advocacy group, but is only responsible for following the law. If they went above and beyond (which often costs more money), the tax payers would certainly object. So, unless the EPA forces them to remove more than 50% of the toxic bacteria from the effluent (the "clean" water dumped 9 miles off-shore), it won't be happening any time soon.
  
  
• This VERY new facility is ALREADY running at capacity. This SHOCKS me. Every climate change report I've ever seen has suggested that an important adaptation strategy is to prepare for more sudden, large storms. Even assuming that they do successfully split out all of their sewers, what about population growth? It seems very short-sighted to me that they only built for what they would need to handle in the near future. When I asked if the current facility could be expanded, the response was less than encouraging. So, was the Deer Island facility a $3.5 billion stop-gap measure? EEK!
  

Quotable quotes:

Regarding reuse of effluent (instead of dumping it into the ocean):
"We could, but why would we?"

Key questions:

• How does Chicago's water reclamation process (e.g., energy use, effluent disinfection) compare to Boston's?
• Even though Chicago is diverting water from Lake Michigan, Boston is also diverting water from their drinking source (everything gets dumped in the ocean where it is no longer freshwater). Are there any estimates on the recharge rates and/or when that supply might run out? Is that a concern that no one mentioned?
• Which other countries reuse their effluent, and how?
  

Day Five: Boston Indicators Project and Water Treatment

Boston Indicators Project:

This morning, we heard a presentation by Jessica Martin of the Boston Indicators Project. The basic gist is that, for nearly a decade, this group has been collecting data from a wide variety of sources (e.g., the Census Bureau, State Board of Education, tax returns) and creating a massive database that looks at "community indicators." They are tracking this data to focus on how community success can be facilitated in different areas and to facilitate networking between agencies (by looking at broad, sweeping trends that involve multiple aspects of communities). The indicators align with those of the National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership and the Community Indicators Consortium. (Note: Through those organizations, I was excited to learn that Chicago has a similar program called the Metro Chicago Information Center.)
How did I not even know that this was a field of study?! It makes PERFECT sense, and is exceptionally cool. Their list of indicators includes:

• civic vitality
• cultural life and the arts
• economy
• education
• environment and energy
• health
• housing
• public safety
• technology
• transportation

You may then cross-reference the data in those areas with these filters:

• Boston neighborhoods
• children and youth
• race and ethnicity
• sustainability
• fiscal health
• competitiveness

So, depending on your area of interest, you could cross-reference, for example, public safety with Boston neighborhoods to find out about the relative safety of a specific area. You could also cross-reference environment and energy with fiscal health. This is a very useful tool not only for identifying key issue areas, but also potential partnerships and important data for grants.

This is not an especially easy feat given that many data sets don't match up well; there's a lot of background research that often needs to take place. For example, if you're looking at several data sets involving teen pregnancy and those data sets define "teen pregnancy" differently (e.g., teens are 15-19 in one data set and 13-18 in another), how do you combine the data? This project is really providing a great service by creating vetted data sets, assembled by experts, for people who do NOT specialize in data processing. It's also setting standards for how units/metrics/standards/guidelines for others when they are COLLECTING data so that people can communicate in a more common language.

I asked Jessica flat out how she would like to see us using this data...and she didn't really have a great answer. I mean, I can certainly appreciate the context that the data can provide; it really helps you define your audience and target your programs appropriately. That said, there is not really any cool environmental data being collected. She DID suggest that, if we felt the environmental indicators needed to be beefed up, that we might attend a convening to influence the data that is collected.

Quotable quotes:

"How can you measure quality of life beyond GDP?"

"The Chinese word for crisis shares a character with the word for opportunity."

Key questions:

• What should I do with this information?
  

Fresh Pond Reservation

In the afternoon, we went to the Fresh Pond Reservation. Fresh Pond is the reservoir that holds water before it is treated and provided to the Cambridge area. We were given a tour of the water treatment facility (which is much like Chicago's treatment...alum scum and all), even including the lab where the treated water is tested. The most interesting factoid I heard was that the water treatment facility uses 1/3 of the energy needed by the City of Cambridge. THAT IS INSANE. That number just seems SO extreme to me. Plus, Cambridge only uses 14 million gallons of water per day. Does that mean that Chicago's water treatment, with its 1 BILLION gallons per day, uses 71 times more ENERGY? The energy equivalent of 23 Cambridge's? Or does treatment become more efficient as volume increases? Or did I hear that fact wrong? In any case, I had never considered quite how energy intensive water treatment is. We throw around the fact that "for every 5 minutes you run the tap, that is the equivalent of burning a 60-watt equivalent CFL for 14 hours," but even that doesn't make you realize just how much energy our water uses demands.

I also found our conversations with Dave the Watershed Protection Supervisor quite fascinating. Essentially, his job is to focus on the health and protection of the water BEFORE it is treated. Major threats evidently include pesticides, fertilizer, and oil. I get the impression that he spends a lot of time off-site inspecting things outside of the the reservoir, but he does spend a certain percentage of his time on site, focusing on the management of a park that shouldn't be a park in his opinion. Yes, it is a beautiful open space in the city with shaded walking trails and a massive parking lot, but first and foremost it's Cambridge's fresh water supply, and I can imagine the challenges of that strange co-management scenario. I don't think it's all that uncommon, though. Again, Chicago's water comes from Lake Michigan; I think recreation is the FIRST thing people jump to when it comes to that body of water.

Anyway, I never realized that one could be a Watershed Protection Supervisor; it certainly seems like a super hero-esque job and a lot of responsibility!

Key questions:

• Is Chicago's water treatment more energy efficient than Cambridge's?
  
• Do people who visit the Fresh Pond Reservation realize that their drinking water waits in that pond to be treated? Would additional signage encourage people to use that area more respectfully?