Logan Mauney is a co-chair of the UNC-Chapel Hill Environmental Affairs Committee, which is a part of the executive branch of UNC-CH Student Government. The EAC works with the university administration and various student groups to foster communication and collaboration and work on projects relating to issues like sustainability, recycling and financial transparency.
Last year you helped put together SBP Will Leimenstoll's platform; how has that and the specific goals and initiatives outlined in it informed your plans for the Environmental Affairs Committee (EAC) this year?
Mauney: Well of course we want to address the line items in the platform--those things you can just check off the box--and also we want to channel the spirit of the platform. The environment was integral to Will's platform, coming from his background. But also, we don't want it to limit us to certain topics.
We just got our committee last week, and one of the biggest things we're trying to push is that we want this to be their committee, and though we've got a long list of things that are already in the works--you know, things leftover from last year, things that we as co-chairs stumbled into in the first month of school--we want to hear their ideas, and try to work on those throughout the year too.
Can you tell me about how you plan to work with other environmental groups on campus? Eco-Harmony was a program started by the Cooper Administration to bring all those different groups together; what are you planning to do with that initiative this year?
Mauney: The whole idea there was just bringing together the leadership of student groups just for us to have a time to meet. I'm hoping bi-weekly, maybe once a month--I think it was a little more infrequently last year--but just to have a quick time so we can have that familiarity amongst ourselves.
Last year I got to go to some of the first meetings; I thought it was a great idea, because one of the things we've kind of identified this year is that we have the Office of Waste Reduction and the Sustainability Office, which are the administrative--the long term--you can think of them as the rock of environmental affairs on campus, but on the student side, things are pretty fragmented.
We as student groups aren't very aware of each other or what's going on. And I don't think there's ever been a time of stepping on toes or doing the same thing, but I think that in terms of accomplishing more, and making more of an impact, we can get a lot more done if we're really aware of each other, especially recognizing that we're coming from a lot of different angles.
I think in Will's platform it says something about 'supporting and collaborating with other student groups on campus,' and it's just that central idea that we want to be a hub for communication and collaboration, but the other half of it is that we want to streamline and initiate projects on campus.
That could definitely help students more easily find groups to volunteer with that really match their interests, too. Another issue on the platform is the lack of transparency regarding UNC's $2.2 billion endowment fund. What have you and the committee done about that so far?
Mauney: I think the date is October 29--we have to confirm that with the administrators--but it's the Endowment 101 Forum. We had some talks last year with the administrators about having this open place where they could talk about the endowment and what its uses are.
Being able to give a spiel on their side, to say, "[this is] the purpose of the endowment; this is how it's allocated; this is how it's managed,"--but then to have that opportunity for students to hopefully have some prepared questions, that we could get from those student organizations. Like Students for a Democratic Society had a big voice last year--we talked to them--Sierra Student Coalition, the Student Power Assembly--you know, working with them to have good questions and really get a student voice up there, and then hopefully have a spontaneous Q&A too. We want to make sure that students can get the full information in how the endowment impacts the environment, and also just creating the environment--in a different sense--on campus, of having that openness.
So basically trying to work with the administration and just bring everyone involved together to cooperate and get on the same page?
Mauney: I think that's exactly what we're trying to do. We've been talking to the executive board of officers under Will about something like an Endowment Transparency Committee that has student representation...That could be maybe a realistic step towards that divestment.
What are some other projects you're planning to work on this year?
Mauney: So we're going to be working with the dining halls, the Greek system and housing. In housing, dorm composting is something...the sustainability living-learning community sort of had the pilot program I think, but this year it's going strong, and actually...in Cobb they've got composting. But again we're hoping to set the model, see what sort of success we can have, and then make it an option that all students can have on campus.
In Lenoir they're going to be launching compost right outside Freshens. That was something that we brought up last year just as an idea, something that I was really excited about, and this year we're going to have the pilot at least. We're going to be supplying volunteers for that to monitor the compost and hopefully educate people too.
Could you tell me some about the Game Day Challenge and what else you might be working on with the Athletics Department?
Mauney: It's another thing that's coming up--on October 6 I think it's going to be this year--so it's one of our big focuses right now. Hopefully it's going to be a day where we can try some pilot projects. It could be a zero waste game, where we have a lot of volunteers that go through and sort everything into recycling and compost, and then that little bit of trash that would be left over; something like that that we can try one time, and see what the feasibility is of institutionalizing these practices. It could be composting in the Blue Zone or the chancellor's box. If we could convince the right people that this is something that, one, is really little effort on their part, and two, a big impact, or something that could be a positive PR move, and also just something they should do.
We've also collected some contacts with the Office of Waste Reduction to do a lot of research on our peer institutions and hopefully compile a report of best practices, and maybe a wish list for things that we could add here at UNC that there's already a model for at other universities.
And hopefully they'll be watching us too. Do you have any kind of more long-term goals or general themes for the committee to work on?
Mauney: One of our big pushes this year is visibility and outreach; we really just want to raise awareness and be like an educating tool. One of our big goals is to change the culture a little bit.
So it's things like tweeting short articles that could be interesting, or little things that students can do on campus, or little reminders. It's things like working with the administration to institutionalize maybe a little greener curriculum--that was one of the projects last year. You know in the top corners of the Daily Tar Heel there's a little tiny bit of empty space, but if there was just a little something, "remember to recycle," or something like that on every page--little things like that. Or maybe in the administration, [these issues], in a more tangible sense, could be part of the chancellor's platform, or part of the message of UNC.
I mean, we're the flagship university of the UNC system, and with this much influence and this many students, we can really set a good example--I think we have more of a responsibility to be a role model.
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Saturday, October 13, 2012
North Carolina Trees Sacrificed for Billboard Visibility (Campus BluePrint Blog October 2012)
North Carolina advertisers are being allowed to cut more trees on
state property than ever before, say critics of a North Carolina law
that went into effect early this year.
The law expands the area around billboards that can be cleaned of vegetation, and allows advertisers to ignore local ordinances, which has sparked a heated debate about the relative value of trees and billboards to the state.
Now the N.C. Department of Transportation, after using temporary rules since March, has proposed a set of permanent rules to guide them in their selective vegetation removal policy in compliance with the law.
Ryke Longest, director of the Duke Environmental Law and Policy Clinic, said in an interview that the biggest problem is no one has really examined how much state property is being given away in enacting these rules.
“That’s the public’s property,” Longest said, “and we’re giving it away.”
When a company clears vegetation around a billboard, they must compensate the state by replanting trees elsewhere, taking down two other billboards, or by simply buying the trees from the state, Jamille Robbins, public involvement officer at the N.C. Department of Transportation, said in an email interview.
The price per tree is 75 dollars per caliper inch, said Longest, who speaks on behalf of non-profit environmental organization Scenic NC. “There’s no way that comes close to the replacement value of the tree; there’s a discount,” he said.
Longest said that the billboard companies do the measurements themselves, so there’s an opportunity for them to pretend certain trees don’t exist.
At one site, Longest said, “They cut 53 trees, but they told the state that one of them was existing, and so they paid $1,700 for the one.” The other 52 would’ve cost $34,000 to cut, he said.
“Buy one existing tree, get 52 free,” Longest said. “That’s just a ridiculous subsidy.”
Alyson Tamer, roadside environmental engineer for the N.C. Department of Transportation, said that advertisers only have to pay “for trees that were existing at the time the billboard was put up.”
Tamer said that advertisers don’t get a chance to lie about tree numbers. “The companies definitely measure, and they say whether there’s existing trees or not, but our technicians go out there and verify everything,” she said in an interview.
Tony Adams, executive director of the N.C. Outdoor Advertising Association, defended the law and the new proposed policies, saying that billboards are more important than trees for North Carolina.
There were very few trees on the public right-of-way before the 1970s, he said. “I will contend to you that many places in North Carolina were prettier back then,” he said at a public hearing in Asheville.
Billboards play an important role in leading visitors to cultural landmarks, Adams said, and people should be concerned about visibility instead of trees.
Adams said that trees are also worse for the environment than billboards because they give off methane and deplete groundwater. “But isn’t it interesting that when there were less trees in the public right-of-way 30 or 40 years ago, global warming was less of a problem than it is today?”
Adams cited studies done by the Max Planck Institute in West Germany to support his statements. “So if you’re willing to look at it objectively, you can see where trees have positive influences on the environment, but there are negative influences also,” he said.
Trees by the side of the road can be dangerous to motorists, and advertisers are doing North Carolina a service by paying for their removal, Adams said. “That could be somebody’s grandfather, and when those people get killed, they should not have to give their lives because a tree was too close to the road.”
The N.C. Department of Transportation’s new policies do include some improvements, Longest said. The policy now recognizes the importance of state and federal environmental laws, which the law alone didn’t, but it still doesn’t respect local ordinances, he said.
The new policies also allow a 30-day period for individual municipalities to review vegetation removal proposals and make comments before the N.C. Department of Transportation looks at it, Longest said, “but the state is not obligated to deny it based on that.
“That’s the piece of it that I think is really missing,” Longest said. “It’s not like when you cross that line from private property onto state right-of-way that local ordinances don’t apply—they do in every other circumstance.”
The Rules and Review Commission of the the North Carolina Office of Administrative Hearings will meet on Oct. 18 to determine whether or not the proposed policies conform to state law.
http://campusblueprint.com/2012/10/13/north-carolina-trees-sacrificed-for-billboard-visibility/
The law expands the area around billboards that can be cleaned of vegetation, and allows advertisers to ignore local ordinances, which has sparked a heated debate about the relative value of trees and billboards to the state.
Now the N.C. Department of Transportation, after using temporary rules since March, has proposed a set of permanent rules to guide them in their selective vegetation removal policy in compliance with the law.
Ryke Longest, director of the Duke Environmental Law and Policy Clinic, said in an interview that the biggest problem is no one has really examined how much state property is being given away in enacting these rules.
“That’s the public’s property,” Longest said, “and we’re giving it away.”
When a company clears vegetation around a billboard, they must compensate the state by replanting trees elsewhere, taking down two other billboards, or by simply buying the trees from the state, Jamille Robbins, public involvement officer at the N.C. Department of Transportation, said in an email interview.
The price per tree is 75 dollars per caliper inch, said Longest, who speaks on behalf of non-profit environmental organization Scenic NC. “There’s no way that comes close to the replacement value of the tree; there’s a discount,” he said.
Longest said that the billboard companies do the measurements themselves, so there’s an opportunity for them to pretend certain trees don’t exist.
At one site, Longest said, “They cut 53 trees, but they told the state that one of them was existing, and so they paid $1,700 for the one.” The other 52 would’ve cost $34,000 to cut, he said.
“Buy one existing tree, get 52 free,” Longest said. “That’s just a ridiculous subsidy.”
Alyson Tamer, roadside environmental engineer for the N.C. Department of Transportation, said that advertisers only have to pay “for trees that were existing at the time the billboard was put up.”
Tamer said that advertisers don’t get a chance to lie about tree numbers. “The companies definitely measure, and they say whether there’s existing trees or not, but our technicians go out there and verify everything,” she said in an interview.
Tony Adams, executive director of the N.C. Outdoor Advertising Association, defended the law and the new proposed policies, saying that billboards are more important than trees for North Carolina.
There were very few trees on the public right-of-way before the 1970s, he said. “I will contend to you that many places in North Carolina were prettier back then,” he said at a public hearing in Asheville.
Billboards play an important role in leading visitors to cultural landmarks, Adams said, and people should be concerned about visibility instead of trees.
Adams said that trees are also worse for the environment than billboards because they give off methane and deplete groundwater. “But isn’t it interesting that when there were less trees in the public right-of-way 30 or 40 years ago, global warming was less of a problem than it is today?”
Adams cited studies done by the Max Planck Institute in West Germany to support his statements. “So if you’re willing to look at it objectively, you can see where trees have positive influences on the environment, but there are negative influences also,” he said.
Trees by the side of the road can be dangerous to motorists, and advertisers are doing North Carolina a service by paying for their removal, Adams said. “That could be somebody’s grandfather, and when those people get killed, they should not have to give their lives because a tree was too close to the road.”
The N.C. Department of Transportation’s new policies do include some improvements, Longest said. The policy now recognizes the importance of state and federal environmental laws, which the law alone didn’t, but it still doesn’t respect local ordinances, he said.
The new policies also allow a 30-day period for individual municipalities to review vegetation removal proposals and make comments before the N.C. Department of Transportation looks at it, Longest said, “but the state is not obligated to deny it based on that.
“That’s the piece of it that I think is really missing,” Longest said. “It’s not like when you cross that line from private property onto state right-of-way that local ordinances don’t apply—they do in every other circumstance.”
The Rules and Review Commission of the the North Carolina Office of Administrative Hearings will meet on Oct. 18 to determine whether or not the proposed policies conform to state law.
http://campusblueprint.com/2012/10/13/north-carolina-trees-sacrificed-for-billboard-visibility/
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Hunting Threatens Last Wild Population of Red Wolves in the World (Campus BluePrint Blog October 2012) (Mother Nature Network NC Correspondent Blog)
Steadily rising coyote populations have been causing enough trouble
in North Carolina as it is, but now even management efforts are having
unintended consequences.
The N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission adopted a temporary rule on August 1 which allows night hunting of coyotes with a light. Daytime hunting without a specific season or limit has been permitted for years, but some say that night hunting puts the red wolves of North Carolina in danger.
“They look very close to coyotes,” said Tara Zuardo, legal associate for the Animal Welfare Institute, one of several organizations that jointly filed a lawsuit in September against the commission, as well as a request to end the night hunting.
Eastern North Carolina has the only wild population of red wolves left in the world, and there’s only about 90 to 110 of them, Zuardo said in an interview. She said that there are already about seven red wolves mistakenly killed every year.
“Out of the total population, that’s 7 to 9 percent annually,” Zuardo said. “That’s before the night hunting.”
“If we have those issues in the daytime, we’re definitely going to have them in the nighttime,” said Kim Wheeler, executive director of the Red Wolf Coalition, another organization involved in the case. Many hunters don’t even know that North Carolina has wolves, so they just assume they’re coyotes, Wheeler said in an interview.
Red wolves were officially declared extinct in the wild in 1980, but the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service tried to reintroduce them to several areas in the late 1980s. “This is really the only reintroduction program that worked,” Zuardo said. “It’s a pretty sensitive population.”
Wheeler said that shooting even a few wolves can be disastrous. “We have less than a dozen [mated] pairs of animals,” she said. Not only that, but shooting coyotes can also hurt the wolves, she said.
Because of interbreeding concerns, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service already sterilizes coyotes within red wolf territories.
A press release issued by the Southern Environmental Law Center, the Chapel Hill organization that officially filed the complaint against the commission, said that shooting these coyotes “will undo effective coyote population control efforts and further jeopardize the native red wolf population.”
Forrest Orr, enforcement officer for the commission, said that hunting is necessary for dealing with rising populations of coyotes.
“Coyotes have no natural predators; they’re pretty much the top of the food chain,” said Orr in an interview. “Hunting and trapping are really the only management tools that we have.”
Mallory Martin, chief deputy director of the commission, said in an email interview that coyotes prey on livestock on farms and domestic pets in urban areas, and they’ve been reported to damage crops like watermelons as well.
“These are environmental and economic realities for landowners, farmers, ranchers and others who are directly affected by expanding coyote populations,” Martin said.
Martin said that night hunting is an important tool for landowners to have for managing coyotes and their effects on their private land. “Adoption of this rule recognizes the importance of providing private landowners a reasonable and full range of options to respond to the expansion of a non-native predatory species on the landscape,” he said.
Orr said that as the coyote population explodes, “they move into the more urban areas, and that’s where you start getting more of the problems,” as coyotes lose their fear of people when you can’t hunt them.
The Southern Environmental Law Center’s press release said that the commission also violated state laws when they adopted the night hunting rule.
“Temporary rules are supposed to be more like emergency rules,” Zuardo said. “They can be passed when there’s a serious or unforeseen threat to public health or safety or welfare.
“But in terms of night hunting, that’s not really covered under a temporary rule,” Zuardo said. “It just doesn’t qualify.”
Zuardo said that the legal issue is not the most important issue. “It’s not just that they went ahead with these rules, it’s that they didn’t take into account the danger to such a sensitive and endangered species,” she said. “You could wipe out the population in a night basically.”
http://campusblueprint.com/2012/10/05/hunting-threatens-last-wild-population-of-red-wolves-in-the-world/
http://www.mnn.com/local-reports/north-carolina/local-blog/red-wolves-endangered-animals-still-at-risk
The N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission adopted a temporary rule on August 1 which allows night hunting of coyotes with a light. Daytime hunting without a specific season or limit has been permitted for years, but some say that night hunting puts the red wolves of North Carolina in danger.
“They look very close to coyotes,” said Tara Zuardo, legal associate for the Animal Welfare Institute, one of several organizations that jointly filed a lawsuit in September against the commission, as well as a request to end the night hunting.
Eastern North Carolina has the only wild population of red wolves left in the world, and there’s only about 90 to 110 of them, Zuardo said in an interview. She said that there are already about seven red wolves mistakenly killed every year.
“Out of the total population, that’s 7 to 9 percent annually,” Zuardo said. “That’s before the night hunting.”
“If we have those issues in the daytime, we’re definitely going to have them in the nighttime,” said Kim Wheeler, executive director of the Red Wolf Coalition, another organization involved in the case. Many hunters don’t even know that North Carolina has wolves, so they just assume they’re coyotes, Wheeler said in an interview.
Red wolves were officially declared extinct in the wild in 1980, but the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service tried to reintroduce them to several areas in the late 1980s. “This is really the only reintroduction program that worked,” Zuardo said. “It’s a pretty sensitive population.”
Wheeler said that shooting even a few wolves can be disastrous. “We have less than a dozen [mated] pairs of animals,” she said. Not only that, but shooting coyotes can also hurt the wolves, she said.
Because of interbreeding concerns, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service already sterilizes coyotes within red wolf territories.
A press release issued by the Southern Environmental Law Center, the Chapel Hill organization that officially filed the complaint against the commission, said that shooting these coyotes “will undo effective coyote population control efforts and further jeopardize the native red wolf population.”
Forrest Orr, enforcement officer for the commission, said that hunting is necessary for dealing with rising populations of coyotes.
“Coyotes have no natural predators; they’re pretty much the top of the food chain,” said Orr in an interview. “Hunting and trapping are really the only management tools that we have.”
Mallory Martin, chief deputy director of the commission, said in an email interview that coyotes prey on livestock on farms and domestic pets in urban areas, and they’ve been reported to damage crops like watermelons as well.
“These are environmental and economic realities for landowners, farmers, ranchers and others who are directly affected by expanding coyote populations,” Martin said.
Martin said that night hunting is an important tool for landowners to have for managing coyotes and their effects on their private land. “Adoption of this rule recognizes the importance of providing private landowners a reasonable and full range of options to respond to the expansion of a non-native predatory species on the landscape,” he said.
Orr said that as the coyote population explodes, “they move into the more urban areas, and that’s where you start getting more of the problems,” as coyotes lose their fear of people when you can’t hunt them.
The Southern Environmental Law Center’s press release said that the commission also violated state laws when they adopted the night hunting rule.
“Temporary rules are supposed to be more like emergency rules,” Zuardo said. “They can be passed when there’s a serious or unforeseen threat to public health or safety or welfare.
“But in terms of night hunting, that’s not really covered under a temporary rule,” Zuardo said. “It just doesn’t qualify.”
Zuardo said that the legal issue is not the most important issue. “It’s not just that they went ahead with these rules, it’s that they didn’t take into account the danger to such a sensitive and endangered species,” she said. “You could wipe out the population in a night basically.”
http://campusblueprint.com/2012/10/05/hunting-threatens-last-wild-population-of-red-wolves-in-the-world/
http://www.mnn.com/local-reports/north-carolina/local-blog/red-wolves-endangered-animals-still-at-risk
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Invasive Weeds Threaten North Carolina's Inland Waters (Campus BluePrint Blog Sept 2012)
The 40-mile-long Eno River runs through Orange and Durham counties
providing drinking water, recreational opportunities and biodiversity,
and it is in danger. A serious ecological and economic threat hides just
beneath the surface of the river, casting a shadow of doubt over its
future, and that of North Carolina’s many other inland waters as well.
The threat in question, however, is no more than a seemingly innocuous
weed named hydrilla.
Hydrilla is an invasive aquatic weed, regarded by the USDA as especially harmful to existing environments and their native species. It spreads in shallow water and forms dense mats of stems and leaves, crowding out other aquatic plants, constricting fish movement and depleting dissolved oxygen in the water, according to a scientific profile from North Carolina State University.
Not only does hydrilla endanger aquatic species, which the Eno River has many of, but it can create breeding areas for mosquitos and seriously affect swimming, fishing, and boating, Kurt Schlimme, director of conservation for the Eno River Association, said in an interview.
Water quality in the river is also a concern, as much water is withdrawn for residential, but also for industrial purposes. Eno River water is used extensively by the town of Hillsborough and rural areas of Orange and Alamance counties.
Dale Hamby, water treatment plant manager for Orange-Alamance Water System, Inc., said that the hydrilla has gotten visibly worse in the last three years. “It hasn’t caused me trouble yet, but I can see where it would,” he said in an interview.
Justin Nawrocki, graduate research assistant at NCSU, said that because of toxic cyanobacteria that can grow on hydrilla, the hydrilla can have devastating effects on bird populations as well. “It has decimated the bald eagle population on [Lake Strom Thurmond] in Georgia,” said Nawrocki in an email interview.
Nawrocki has been involved since 2009 with the Eno River project, which has been working to find ways to combat hydrilla effectively. He said they have been testing an herbicide called endothall to ensure that it would not do too much collateral environmental damage to the river if used to treat the infestation.
“It has a relatively short contact-time requirement to obtain control, which is extremely important in a system like the Eno,” said Nawrocki. “We feel we can safely treat the river with endothall.”
Endothall is a herbicide commonly used to control submersed aquatic vegetation, and, according to the assessment of the EPA, not a serious risk to public health, as long as it is applied more than 600 feet away from where water is being drawn.
Nawrocki said that there are other herbicides being looked at as well, and money is “a significant factor that needs to be considered when formulating a management program.
“State funds are lacking, and hydrilla management is expensive and will be needed for many years to come,” Nawrocki said.
He said the treatment would be even tougher because of how hydrilla grows and spreads. It easily colonizes new areas by leaving plant fragments hidden beneath the soil and releasing buds to be carried downstream.
The buds can remain dormant for up to a year before sprouting, and the fragments beneath the soil can last even longer.
Hydrilla was first discovered in the United States in Florida in 1960, and it was identified in North Carolina in Wake County’s Umstead Park in 1980.
It usually spreads by attaching itself to boats, which carry it to new areas, and it was probably first introduced to American water systems by someone who used it as a decorative aquarium plant, Tom Davis, Orange County water resources coordinator, said in an interview.
Now hydrilla has spread around much of the country, and it is the target of enormous amounts of public spending. Hydrilla was discovered in the Finger Lakes of New York last year, and now public officials there estimate that it will cost $1 million a year for 5 to 8 years to deal with the intrusion.
In Florida, where hydrilla is so widespread that management efforts are usually directed only at containment, in lieu of eradication, public agencies spent nearly $12 million in the 2010-2011 fiscal year, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
“Currently it is a problem without a solution,” said Schlimme. “The best way for folks to help is to begin questioning decision-makers about what is being done about the issue.
“We are extremely lucky to be in a region with so many outdoor resources and so many great organizations dedicated to protecting these resources,” Schlimme said. “We need to be advocates for these places.”
http://campusblueprint.com/2012/09/29/invasive-weeds-threaten-north-carolinas-inland-waters/
Hydrilla is an invasive aquatic weed, regarded by the USDA as especially harmful to existing environments and their native species. It spreads in shallow water and forms dense mats of stems and leaves, crowding out other aquatic plants, constricting fish movement and depleting dissolved oxygen in the water, according to a scientific profile from North Carolina State University.
Not only does hydrilla endanger aquatic species, which the Eno River has many of, but it can create breeding areas for mosquitos and seriously affect swimming, fishing, and boating, Kurt Schlimme, director of conservation for the Eno River Association, said in an interview.
Water quality in the river is also a concern, as much water is withdrawn for residential, but also for industrial purposes. Eno River water is used extensively by the town of Hillsborough and rural areas of Orange and Alamance counties.
Dale Hamby, water treatment plant manager for Orange-Alamance Water System, Inc., said that the hydrilla has gotten visibly worse in the last three years. “It hasn’t caused me trouble yet, but I can see where it would,” he said in an interview.
Justin Nawrocki, graduate research assistant at NCSU, said that because of toxic cyanobacteria that can grow on hydrilla, the hydrilla can have devastating effects on bird populations as well. “It has decimated the bald eagle population on [Lake Strom Thurmond] in Georgia,” said Nawrocki in an email interview.
Nawrocki has been involved since 2009 with the Eno River project, which has been working to find ways to combat hydrilla effectively. He said they have been testing an herbicide called endothall to ensure that it would not do too much collateral environmental damage to the river if used to treat the infestation.
“It has a relatively short contact-time requirement to obtain control, which is extremely important in a system like the Eno,” said Nawrocki. “We feel we can safely treat the river with endothall.”
Endothall is a herbicide commonly used to control submersed aquatic vegetation, and, according to the assessment of the EPA, not a serious risk to public health, as long as it is applied more than 600 feet away from where water is being drawn.
Nawrocki said that there are other herbicides being looked at as well, and money is “a significant factor that needs to be considered when formulating a management program.
“State funds are lacking, and hydrilla management is expensive and will be needed for many years to come,” Nawrocki said.
He said the treatment would be even tougher because of how hydrilla grows and spreads. It easily colonizes new areas by leaving plant fragments hidden beneath the soil and releasing buds to be carried downstream.
The buds can remain dormant for up to a year before sprouting, and the fragments beneath the soil can last even longer.
Hydrilla was first discovered in the United States in Florida in 1960, and it was identified in North Carolina in Wake County’s Umstead Park in 1980.
It usually spreads by attaching itself to boats, which carry it to new areas, and it was probably first introduced to American water systems by someone who used it as a decorative aquarium plant, Tom Davis, Orange County water resources coordinator, said in an interview.
Now hydrilla has spread around much of the country, and it is the target of enormous amounts of public spending. Hydrilla was discovered in the Finger Lakes of New York last year, and now public officials there estimate that it will cost $1 million a year for 5 to 8 years to deal with the intrusion.
In Florida, where hydrilla is so widespread that management efforts are usually directed only at containment, in lieu of eradication, public agencies spent nearly $12 million in the 2010-2011 fiscal year, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
“Currently it is a problem without a solution,” said Schlimme. “The best way for folks to help is to begin questioning decision-makers about what is being done about the issue.
“We are extremely lucky to be in a region with so many outdoor resources and so many great organizations dedicated to protecting these resources,” Schlimme said. “We need to be advocates for these places.”
http://campusblueprint.com/2012/09/29/invasive-weeds-threaten-north-carolinas-inland-waters/
Saturday, September 22, 2012
Obey Creek Sparks Debate Between Developers and Environmentalists (Campus BluePrint Blog September 2012)
Obey Creek is a 120-acre property of largely undeveloped land in southern Chapel Hill, blanketed with a thick forest, neatly bisected by Wilson Creek, and marked with steep slopes and hills throughout the terrain. Obey Creek, however, is viewed by different people in very different ways; some see it as a vulnerable environmental preserve of sorts, while others see it as a wellspring of economic opportunity.
Directly across the street from Southern Village and Southern Community Park, Obey Creek is the subject of an extensive development proposal submitted in July by Roger Perry of East West Partners Club Management. The concept plan, itself a revised version of the original plan submitted in 2010, provides for approximately 1.5 million square feet of developed space, including area for retail, commercial buildings, a residential zone and a 120-room hotel.
Betsy Smith, however, says she doesn’t think development is a good idea. An ecologist who lives in the area, Smith says that Obey Creek is an especially sensitive site. “It’s in a watershed [with] very steep slopes, [it’s] highly erodible, and any kind of development is going to contribute to the problem of water quality,” she said in an interview.
The developers have committed in their concept application to not developing directly along the creek and to keeping the water clean, but Smith says that water pollution is inevitable with development on this scale, and that it could be an especially big problem for Obey Creek, which was originally zoned only for low-density residential development.
“It seeps into Jordan Lake,” Smith said, “which, under the Clean Water Act, is already non-compliance.”
Smith says that, according to the law as it currently stands, Chapel Hill could be responsible for cleaning up the Jordan Lake Reservoir “if they don’t reduce the input into the lake by 2014.”
Smith said she was also concerned about the air pollution that could be caused by the huge influx of cars moving through the new area, which will house a retail area of 350,000 square feet—about the size of University Mall—including some kind of “big-box” national retailer.
Chapel Hill Town Council member Penny Rich said that the council and the town don’t have ultimate control over land use. “We can’t always pick and choose who is going to be building and who is going to be owning the land,” she said in an interview.
Rich said that Chapel Hill as a whole constantly fights against development, and if the town continues to refuse to develop, there will be financial consequences, and other counties will benefit. “We can’t just keep letting our tax dollars leave Orange County and expect to not raise taxes on people,” she said.
“We will wind up with a very, very expensive county to live in, and it will change our county,” Rich said. “We will lose our diversity, which we already seem to be doing.
“Now that doesn’t mean I think we should build big-box stores all over the place,” Rich said. “I am not for that at all.”
Rich said that the most important thing is to keep an open mind and listen to everyone.
Perry could not be reached for comment, but according to the concept plan submitted jointly to council by East West Partners Club Management and two other developers, sustainability and resource preservation are important priorities that will be deliberately kept in mind during the construction process.
Along with the concept plan proposal, another document was submitted as a statement of compliance with Chapel Hill’s 2020 Comprehensive Plan, which, as a plan that involved extensive public input, includes a substantial amount of environmental considerations.
Jeanne Brown, a local resident, says she is not opposed to development in Obey Creek in theory, but the current plan goes too far and ignores public opinion.
Brown is a member of Citizens for Responsible Growth, which is a politically active organization of local residents that speaks out against the proposed Obey Creek development. She says that Chapel Hill needs to work harder to be transparent and keep citizens informed when there is planning like this happening.
Brown said she first heard about the original 2010 concept plan long after the process had begun.
“A boy in our carpool got in the car one morning and he was really upset to know that there was going to be a hotel in his backyard,” Brown said in an interview. “I thought that seemed unlikely, but the more I read about it, the more I realized what was going on.”
Brown said she understands that development is unavoidable, but she wants some of the Obey Creek property to be left undeveloped. “The fact of the matter is it’s zoned for development, and right now it’s zoned for the entire property to be developed.
“In the best of worlds it would stay what it is,” Brown said.
The Chapel Hill Town Council will hold a hearing on the issue on Wednesday, Sept. 19 at 7 p.m. at the Town Hall on 405 Martin Luther King Blvd.
http://campusblueprint.com/2012/09/22/obey-creek-sparks-debate-between-developers-and-environmentalists/
Thursday, September 20, 2012
The Junior Experience, or: My Life as an Upperclassman (LCM Belltower September 2012)
Being a junior is a lot like being a sophomore, but with more credibility. I still don't know how to cook an egg to save my life, and my sense of direction can't get me any farther than the laundry room, let alone Carrboro, but for some reason people seem to think I know what I'm doing now.
But I guess my perspective is different now too. Even if I'm still generally clueless, I feel experienced, like a grizzled veteran of the martial struggle for higher education. The coolest part about that is I get to help out underclassmen and not feel like the blind leading the blind; I'm finally allowed to pretend I know what I'm talking about and excitedly share my knowledge with the new first-years--in exchange, of course, for the occasional free meal at Lenoir Dining Hall.
Junior year brings its own challenges though. My classes are getting harder, my papers are getting longer, and I've had to face the unfortunate truth that being in a ukulele ensemble is not relevant experience for a future career in Journalism. I've moved off campus this year as well, so that's necessarily opened up a veritable Pandora's box of domestic challenges.
However, despite having to clean my own bathroom and learn to cook for myself without burning the whole apartment complex down, I am still just as excited for the coming year as I was for the last two, if not more so. I have my housemates, Alex and my cousin Meredith, and I have all of LCM to support me and give me experiences to look back and reflect on for years to come. The novelty of simply being in college has not even begun to wear off, and I'm confident that UNC and LCM have many more experiences, lessons, and surprises in store for me.
studentorgs.unc.edu/lcm/index.php/helpful-documents/doc_download/25-belltower-2012-2013-september
But I guess my perspective is different now too. Even if I'm still generally clueless, I feel experienced, like a grizzled veteran of the martial struggle for higher education. The coolest part about that is I get to help out underclassmen and not feel like the blind leading the blind; I'm finally allowed to pretend I know what I'm talking about and excitedly share my knowledge with the new first-years--in exchange, of course, for the occasional free meal at Lenoir Dining Hall.
Junior year brings its own challenges though. My classes are getting harder, my papers are getting longer, and I've had to face the unfortunate truth that being in a ukulele ensemble is not relevant experience for a future career in Journalism. I've moved off campus this year as well, so that's necessarily opened up a veritable Pandora's box of domestic challenges.
However, despite having to clean my own bathroom and learn to cook for myself without burning the whole apartment complex down, I am still just as excited for the coming year as I was for the last two, if not more so. I have my housemates, Alex and my cousin Meredith, and I have all of LCM to support me and give me experiences to look back and reflect on for years to come. The novelty of simply being in college has not even begun to wear off, and I'm confident that UNC and LCM have many more experiences, lessons, and surprises in store for me.
studentorgs.unc.edu/lcm/index.php/helpful-documents/doc_download/25-belltower-2012-2013-september
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Reimagining Civics Education: Political Literacy and Civic Responsibility as the Fragile Core of Democratic Life (Campus BluePrint May Online 2012)
In light of
long-running trends and recent events, no logical debater would argue against
the fact that Americans in general could use a good dose of political knowledge
and civic responsibility; national voter turnout is just barely more than 50
percent for presidential elections, public misconceptions of government offices
and powers dictate campaigns and lead candidates to blatantly misrepresent political
principles and structures, and a horrifying number of Americans apparently know
more American Idol judges than they
do First Amendment rights.
The obvious
solution is a month-long remedial civics course for all Americans, to be
administered by the long-marginalized minority that is high school civics
teachers. Think of it as goal-oriented poetic justice.
That’s not
feasible, you say? That’d be an egregious waste of taxpayer money, you say? You
hated your high school civics teacher more than you hate bird poop or hospital food, you say?
Well, you’d
be right, although you can’t speak for everyone. We can’t put upwards of 200
million voting age citizens in classrooms for a month and make them memorize
constitutional amendments or teach them which powers the president actually
has, no matter how much we may want to.
What we can
do, however, is set up the next generation to be a little bit more prepared,
engaged and aware. Our civics programs as they currently operate are obviously
not working, and political literacy in high school has been declining,
according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress.
Fortunately
enough for us, the path to reform has already been marked. The answer, beyond a
simple re-prioritizing of civics within the educational system, is what is being
called “action civics,” or the more targeted idea of “digital citizenship”
suggested by the Education Commission of the States.
These new
governmental initiatives reevaluate the traditional civics education, moving
the focus away from basic knowledge of dates and names and emphasizing instead
an active participation and involvement in public issues from the beginning.
This full
engagement is further encouraged and made possible by the technological skills
of the new generation. With social media and internet access students can
immediately become a part of the public discourse on issues important to them.
Helping them to find these issues that they care about opens up their perspective
to the political community around them, and this initial awareness and interest
is all that is needed to set them on the path to civic engagement and
political literacy.
This shift
in teaching methods may require an inordinate amount of effort to pull off
uniformly and properly, but our civics education warrants and demands more than
just a quick fix.
I believe
that this method of getting students to act independently in the political
realm can have tremendous benefits for this generation and the future. Civic
engagement now means civic engagement later, and action civics is exactly what
we need to create a more socially and politically conscious wave of youth.
By giving
young people this type of education, we are giving them the tools and the
orientation necessary to be productive members of this political society and to
work for substantial positive change in the world. Maybe that’s what we need to
shake up the public’s systemic ignorance of the processes and principles of our
political structure and re-imagine what it means to function in democratic life.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/90283603/Spring-Issue-4-Last-Draft
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