If I am in my neighborhood but not within sight of my apartment building, and I hear a fire truck wailing, I am sure that I have left the kettle or a pot on the stove and those trucks are now rushing to extinguish the fire I have caused. With that in mind, consider how I felt when I heard about the beaver that was dragged from the East River just before the cutting of its thread of life. Not only did I believe that that beaver was the José from the Bronx River, but as the person that is somewhat responsible for keeping an eye on the health of the river, I felt that I had killed him. “The police pulled him from the East River,” Warren from the Friends of the (Bronx) Zoo (FOZ) said, “but then he died.” What I heard coming from his lips was, “You did not sufficiently administer the Bronx River Stewards; your negligence allowed him to die.” If the beaver leaves or dies on my watch without my being able to show why, then I have failed the river, the Bronx, and the world.
When a body is found, it must be identified. I have never met José (Josefa?) So I could not physically identify the body, but I have seen signs. It seemed rational to me to want to know for sure, so I threw out the suggestion that the beavers incisors should be measured for width and I could compare that width to the evidence I could find along the river, and possibly eliminate José from the list of possible victims. My inquiries, however, went unanswered. I can only imagine that the people and institutions that received my e mails believed that I was just a crackpot, but the exit of the animal whose arrival last year was touted as proof of the river’s revival, should also be seen as raising questions about sustained improvement. Recent finds and anomalies raise just that issue as they do the importance of regular monitoring.
On Monday, May 5, 2008, as I met with the FOZ for their weekly water quality monitoring. I decided to wander upstream. I checked first some of the signs that I had seen early last winter, and found no changes. I’ve come to believe that José is a juvenile, an adolescent, like my son. There is nothing scientific in this just that like my son, José prefers a buffet to a sit down meal. He snacks, sometimes heavily, and then moves on. At the known snack stops, I didn’t notice anything new. Then I saw a few new, white chew areas. And then a few more. Finally I found an area that still had some bits of fresh chips clinging to the tree, chips that would have been washed away in the previous night’s rain. Walking down to the bank of the river, I was also able to find tracks in the mud. There were various small prints, and some that looked like goose tracks. I learned that those “goose tracks” were most likely the back, flipper-like feet of the beaver. The combination of evidence seems to point towards life, not death.
I feel better knowing that I have not had to bear witness to such a tragedy at this stage in my stewardship. José lives. I am still sad for the beaver that did pass away, and feel that it is very important to discover the reason for its mortality. I pledge, before all, to do my duty, to the river and the Bronx, to keep as close an eye on the river as possible, to better serve the amazing stewards that volunteer their time to gather data about the river, and work towards a better river for all.
May 8, 2008
Knowledge is like a virus in that once you learn one thing, it is hard to stop it from stretching into learning another. The simple act of reading or listening can cause a word or an idea to hang in your mind until another comes across and makes the connection permanent. It is as though we are all our own zone of proximal development. On April 23rd I was lucky enough to work with the Friends of the Bronx Zoo to, ostensibly train or re train 7 people in water quality monitoring. The zoo has a history of monitoring several FOZ were interested in getting back into the flow. As I spoke about pH and buffers, I had a fairly clear idea that I knew what I was talking about. As I added water to the pH 4 buffer, I wanted to show how to dilute it and raise the pH. Instead, it actually went down before hovering back around pH 4. “You have just proved that it is a buffer,” Dione, one of the FOZ said. “That is why it is a buffer, and not just a solution with a pH of 4. It is making sure that the pH stays stable.” I thanked my student and then moved on. Dione, as it turns out, has a PhD in chemistry and should have been the one speaking to the group. But, that little thing she pointed out to me sent me off to look for more information.
One of the parameters that the Bronx River Stewards measure is pH. Most people know something about pH and its relationship to acids and bases, but just what does that mean, and why is it important to our river? What does the pH level tell us?
The term pH is derived from the French puissance d’hydrogene, meaning “strength of hydrogen”, referring to the hydrogen ion that affects acidity. The pH scale runs from 0-14 with values less than 7 being acidic and values greater than 7 being basic. At 7, there is equilibrium between the two. The scale is logarithmic, with each level having a difference of a power of ten from the other. So pH 5 is ten times more acidic than pH 6.
pH values of natural water vary, but below 5 or above 9 are detrimental to organisms, and normal values range from 6.5 to 8.5. Most aquatic life, however, has adapted to specific pH and sustained change can cause damage to a population.
To counter these changes, natural water acts as a buffer. A buffer resists change, like the pillows that my wife and I pile up to keep my 8 month old away from of the stereo. She pushes against them, put they bounce back, and Bethania cannot change my radio station (NPR builds vocabulary). The Bronx River Stewards use buffers of set values, 4, 7 or 10, to make sure that the pH meter is working correctly. The pH values of these solutions can only be changed by adding a buffer of a differing value. Natural water should react in the same way; using the natural hydrology to create a buffer against change. The problems occur when either a stronger acid (acid rain, pH 5.6) or a stronger base (concrete washout water>12) enters the system and causes a rapid change to the pH level.
But a pH change can be a secondary effect as well. For example, photosynthesis uses up dissolved carbon dioxide (pH 6.3) effectively raising the pH level. On days when photosynthesis is most likely, such as sunny days during the growing season, the pH level of the river may rise. But what appears to be a natural effect may have very human causes. Fertilizers and human waste, both generally acidic compounds which enter the Bronx River on a regular basis through stormwater runoff (CSOs) and illegal sewage connections (Yonkers), increase plant growth and even the algae blooms recently noted on the river. So the introduction of an acid causes a basic reaction. Organic respiration at night produces CO2 thereby lowering pH levels and dissolved oxygen levels, as does the massive decomposition that follows mortality.
The level of pH in the Bronx needs to be monitored closely, not just for the answer the value itself gives us, but for the chain of possible causes of that value that need to be looked into.
Thanks, Dione.
references: http://waterontheweb.org/under/streamecology/09%5Fph%2Ddraft.html, http://www.seed.slb.com/en/scictr/journal/environment/river/is54nyc.htm, http://www.geocities.com/capecanaveral/hall/9111/DOC.HTML
DG
April 30, 2008
Why do we bother teaching science to students? Do we really believe that we are teaching the next Charles Drew? Do we see in the faces of the youth around us some audacity of imagination that just might happen to advance an end to diabetes? The truth is that it is actually true. When you work with somebody who is learning something new in the world of science, some odd duende appears and you believe that this person may just make an advance in the world that will benefit us all. But that is not why science is important; It is important beyond the science itself because of the dialog that you see between the mind and the world that surrounds us. Last Friday I was lucky enough to speak with some of the interlocutors that have been involved in that dialogue at the Banana Kelly Science Fair.
Nic and Carly at Banana Kelly High School have built their ninth grade science curriculum around the Bronx River and water quality monitoring. They have also given students a window onto their world and some of the students have taken that view very seriously. As I walked between the two rooms where the Science Fair was set up, I was amazed at the amount of information that the students had sorted through and had to make sense of in the form of a presentation. There were discussions about salinity, turbidity, global warming and comparisons of the levels of pollution in the Bronx River, the Hudson River, and the Newtown Creek. Just like with adults, the depth of the discussion varied greatly across the classes, but you could feel that the dominant opinion was that the subject merited discussion.
In the interest of full disclosure, Nic and Carly put me in the difficult position of grading the projects that I viewed, a job that they face everyday. I was given a rubric and had to see where on that scale the students stood. This is necessary because the students, all of us actually, need to know that people are looking critically at everything that we say and do. The unfortunate thing is that I wrote all notes on those rubrics instead of in my notebook, besides the fact that I was a little harsh in my grading.
At any rate, many students showed that they had looked deeply into the data and asked, “Why does the salinity level change?” or “What is the relationship between the amount of precipitation and turbidity?” Then they tried to make sense of these numbers, a task they call mental mastication. The data, mostly just numbers and dates, was obviously much more to these young people; they had collected the data, seen the parts of the world they were talking about, and knew that they were talking about their world. The dialogue that they engaged in was intimate which made the information relevant.
Beyond the actual information, the off-the-cuff remarks of many of the students made me really think about what education is really about and how hard it is to judge the understanding of a student. “Maybe,” Said one, “The Bronx River is cleaner because people have been trying to clean it up. Maybe that’s what the Newtown Creek needs.” To be able to see beyond the first view, beyond the numbers and actually bring in a historical perspective is profound and extremely heartening. It is beyond science and into life itself.
I was glad to have been invited by Banana Kelly to this event, but I must admit that I felt a bit like W.H. Auden: “When I find myself in the company of scientists, I feel like a shabby curate who has strayed by mistake into a room full of dukes.” That goes for the students and their teachers as well. And for these dukes, our natural world is their court.
DG
April 21, 2008
In tranquility, it amazes me to reflect upon the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings certain topics bring forth. Fecal coliforms being today’s origin of those feelings
I met with our Pilot Bacteria Monitors today up at Muskrat Cove as they gathered more samples near the offending outfall above Nereid Avenue. Professor JD and KS wanted to share some preliminary findings with me and let me know about the near future studies. It was a beautiful day to walk along the river and discuss fecal coliform.
The good news is the Prof. JD has decided to run a monitoring program that will cover several sites on the river and use 4 full time student monitors. The bacteria monitoring will be their focus rather than an aside, and special attention will be given to making comparisons between not only sites on the river, but dry days and wet days. This will allow for comparisons between the constant bacteria content of the river and that which is affected by the various CSOs. Hopefully this baseline data, besides helping us build a long term bacteria monitoring program, will serve to show the possible benefits of the storm water retrofits planned by Westchester and the City.
The bad news is why JD thinks this is worth dedicating time and other resources towards. Basically it comes down to numbers, and in this case the preliminary numbers are high.
According to the EPA, safe water for contact should be below a mean of 200 fecal coliform colony forming units (CFUs)per 100mL, and never rise above 400 CFUs/100ml. This number, I have learned, is still somewhat a subject for debate due to the lack of a clear definition of “swimming.” But it is their number at this time. The monitors have come up with a mean level of 184CFUs/100ml at the 174th St./Starlight Park site, which approaches the limit. But at the Muskrat Cove site, the mean so far is an astounding 1650 CFUs/100 ml! More than 8 times the legal safe water contact limit. Muskrat Cove beach will not be opening soon. These are preliminary data, still being collected and analyzed, and are meant to inform our immediate contact with the river, but the numbers are a bit frightening, from my perspective. The actual findings will be reported by our pilot team very soon.
The samples at Muskrat Cove were taken right near the, as Yonkers calls it, the McLean Avenue Outfall, meaning that the samples would get the full dosage of the illegal connections that flow into the Hillview Reservoir overflow. The level found down river, to my untrained eye, seem to show that some dilution is occurring and until further study, we can assume that the problem is not being made worse inside the border of the Bronx. Small comfort; but comfort none the less.
All officials have been notified of the Mclean Avenue outfall and the illegal hook ups that run through it: EPA, DEC, Westchester Health Department, City of Yonkers, NYS Attorney General. But I wanted to know where it might be coming from so I drove up and into the neighborhood that sits between the reservoir and the river, to get a feel for what exactly illegal connections come from. I found some large buildings, but mostly it was well kept, nice sized single family homes. Some even had American flags hanging out in front. I wondered; Do any of them know that they may very well be flushing directly into the Bronx River?
DG
April 16, 2008
If you ever wished that you were young again, assuming you are not young, then stop. In the past week I have met a ton of young people from whom I have drawn two important conclusions: 1) There are plenty of young people out there. 2) They are doing such incredible work that they don’t need us to be mucking up the works.
On Tuesday, April 1st, I attended the Teens For Planet Earth Symposium at The Bronx Zoo. There, groups from as close by as Van Cortland Park, and as far away as Washington state came together to share some of the projects that they have been working on in their communities. The projects were as varied as the students backgrounds. The projects included invasive removal in Van Cortland Park, raising bees in Bergen County New Jersey, and raising awareness of the importance of snags, nurse logs and amphibians in Washington State. All of the groups had command of their information, and the Washington State group had even run a teacher training for their local teachers. It was very impressive, to say the least.
Then on Friday, April 4th, VOICE held a mobile workshop for the Planet youth conference. Young people from Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice, Rocking the Boat, and The Point gave a tour to several other groups of young people from all over the country, including New Orleans and Richmond California. The YMPJ Youth Organizers presented their CSO campaign, gave a tour of the backyard rain barrel and rain garden system, and green roof on the church roof next door. Rocking the Boat youth met the group at CPP with rowboats and led a boat tour of Bronx River shuttled them down to Hunts Point Riverside Park and their program site. Finally, youth from The Point’s ACTION program took the group along the future Bronx River Greenway to their community center where their afterschool programs were in action and they heard about ACTION’s work. I didn’t get to stay for the later events, but I was very impressed with the energy of the participants as they discussed Environmental Justice in their world.
On Monday, April 7th, it was the YOUTH CAN Conference at the American Museum of Natural History. This time it was students from all over the world running the show, running workshops and panel discussions about worldwide environmental issues. There were elementary kids talking about watershed function and high school kids comparing water quality of rivers in New York and Bangladesh. It was amazing how much energy and excitement was out there.
So, George Bernard Shaw did not quite have it right; Youth is not wasted on the young. There are some incredible young people out there doing incredible things.
April 8, 2008
30 high school seniors and juniors from around the country are spending a semester here in NY with Cityterm to learn about New York City. You know these students and their teachers are not only super intelligent but also know what’s hep because part of their focus is the Bronx River. To that end, these intrepid interlocutors met with Drew and myself for a short walking discussion, starting at River Park, 180th Street, strolling through the newly named West Farms Rapids, and ending in Drew Gardens, just South of Tremont Ave.
Our Environmental Issue Walk
The issues discussed varied from early Bronx History to Fish Ladders to Santeria. The guiding concept of the walk was to consider the fact that no issue exists in and of itself. There are a variety of connections that need to be made in order to understand a perceived problem before any attempt can be made to ameliorate it. Lets try to get an idea of this by using the examples given above.
We started out our talk be looking back into Bronx River History and human involvement. Previous generations made the decision that a dam was what was called for at River Park and other areas, at first for mill use, and then for the attractive look and the soothing sounds of the cascade. Now we look at it in consideration of the alewife, an indigenous anadromous fish, and see it as a barrier to normal estuarine ecology. Removal of the dam might actually disrupt life on both sides due to scour and turbidity, so a fish ladder is brought up for consideration. The construction of a ramp on one side of the dam may become what is called an “attractive nuisance,” meaning more people may want to get out there and see what it is, possibly making for a dangerous situation.
Of course, what you want is for people to get out and enjoy the river, but how is it best for them to do that? As we walked down stream, we came upon a pumpkin and a jar of honey set carefully down by the side of the river. To some it was trash, but as it was most likely an offering to Oshun, trash may very well be in the eye of the beholder, or the believer in this case.
The group finished its walk in Drew Gardens where they were treated to a great composting demonstration and given a history of community gardens, and Drew Gardens specifically, by Jennifer P. Jennifer was extremely generous with her time and answered question on topics ranging from why they don’t use horse manure in the garden to why the CSO across the river spills human manure into the river when it rains.
We hope to see this group again sometime in the near future.
DG
April 4, 2008
On Saturday, March 29th 2008, The Bronx River Alliance in conjunction with GLOBE held what I considered tot be a rather successful Water Quality Monitoring training. The Alliance worked out the logistics of invitations and materials, Rocking the Boat provided the space at Hunts Point Riverside Park and some much appreciated labor, and Peter Schmidt from Queens College, ran the show for GLOBE.
All told, 18 participants, ranging from a couple of new volunteers that have never done water quality testing, to several pros that could tell you the quantity of DO in a water sample with one hand tied behind their backs, took part in the training, but something new was learned by all. Organizations represented were Rocking the Boat ( which included VOICE members?), Green Apple Corps, Action at the Point, The Bronx Zoo, and Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice. Peter walked us through not only the reasons that we test water, but also the procedures necessary to making sure your data has some meaning to you and the larger scientific community. To demonstrate this, all of the participants were given thermometers and asked to go outside to “take the temperature.” As they came in, Peter collected the data on the board. The temps ranged from 40 degrees Fahrenheit to “Medium rare,” even though the Weather Underground claims it was about 48 degrees Fahrenheit at the time. The point was well made that you need to use the right tool and have a standard by which to compare your data.
For standards, we used the following for temperature and Dissolved Oxygen. A simple ice bath at sea level should give you a reading of 0 degrees Celsius. Make sure that you keep the thermometer in the water for three minutes and stir it. Water being the only substance that freezes from the top down, missing that stir will give you about a 4 degree difference. For DO, we made a saturated (100%) solution by simply filling a small bottle half way, capping it and the shaking it like mad for about five minutes. This mimics waterfalls were the O2 mixes with the H2O. When you run your titration, it should come out to about 100% saturated if all is working correctly.
The two new protocols introduced were the use of transparency tubes and hydrometers. These are GLOBE protocols that allow us to input this data onto the GLOBE database. The transparency tube is easier and faster than the turbidity test that we had been doing as Bronx River Stewards. The hydrometer is used to find specific gravity of water which is then converted into salinity when cross referenced with temperature.
Soon all Bronx River Stewards will have access to the Alliance’s GLOBE site where data can be entered and accessed by all. Peter walked everybody through that process at the close of our day, as well as demonstrating the amazing resource that the GLOBE web site ( see our links) is for scientists, teachers and students.
I’d like to thank everybody that participated and everybody that had a hand in making the training come off as well as it did. We started early, ran late ( thanks for washing dishes, Rosa and Kathryn!) a covered miles of material. Thanks Peter for making the trip and we hope to have you back soon( Bring the owls and the snakes) for more training and hopefully a canoe trip.
DG
March 30, 2008
I met with two teachers from The Dalton School, Laura and Tracy, and a future Paleontologist, Henry, to begin planning for some future restoration and monitoring. They are partnered with a New Orleans school that is involved in restoration of their wetlands. As we toured the Bronx River Forest, they offered some great ideas on how to put long term a riparian restoration monitoring program in place that is accessable to the younger crowd, in this case, 3rd graders. The preliminary idea would be that a class works with the crew to do some planting, but then also monitors the work of previous classes. In this way, the students get to feel the satisfaction of the planting, get a view into the future of their plantings by monitoring the work of others, and participate in a scientific research that improves our environment. Thank you Laura, Tracy and Henry for your interest and your input. Hope to see you all soon.
DG
March 18, 2008
Not exactly three things that you normally mention in one sentence. Unfortunately, that is what we saw today in a span of about 30 minutes on the river today.
As a part of the pilot bacteria monitoring study, KS and I went up to Muskrat Cove to take some samples. As KS took her samples at the pipe that leads into the river on the right bank just above Nereid avenue, I noticed that the flow from the pipe was stronger than normal and strangely foamy. I sat strangely because the foam dissipated rather quickly and the bubbles burst almost violently. I crawled out on a tree to photograph the foam more closely. Just as I turned off the camera, a muskrat came swimming right at me from up river before diving and disappearing. Despite the suffix part of their name, they are cute, otter like animals.
I didn’t have time to smile about my encounter however, because when I looked down into the flow from the pipe, I realized that suddenly a good bit of the foam was not breaking up. There was a simple, terrible explanation: It was toilet paper. It became obvious that the flow coming from the pipe which it is believed comes from McClean Ave. in Yonkers, was discharging raw sewage into the Bronx River. KS took several samples so we should have an answer beyond the visual in about a week. I have no doubt.
This pipe, an overflow for reservoir water, I believe coming from the Hillview Reservoir, is expected to have some flow even in dry weather. The illegal connections were a part of a mult-million dollar lawsuit a couple of years ago by the city of NY . Yonkers has since eliminated 50 or 60 illegal connections to this pipe, but apparently some remain. Some time ago, the city of Yonkers contracted Malcom Pirnie, inc, for consultation in the matter in an effort to complete the remediation. Just what work they have done is yet to be seen. Judging by what was flowing from that pipe, remediation still needs to be done. Video and pictures soon to follow.
Act II Scene I At 174th St., we were not greeted by homeless people or geese. Instead we found 3 NYPD frogmen preparing for a dive in the Bronx River. They were “ Looking for stuff,” as a part of an “ongoing investigation.” Sorry, but I didn’t ask anymore questions. The ideas popped just into my head.
March 17, 2008
While out on an unrelated trip, we bumped into a class from Banana Kelly at Burke Bridge getting into their first water quality monitoring of the Spring. The students were hard at work, searching their memories for the protocols that they hadn’t followed in several months. Their teachers were not handing over any easy answers, opting instead to get the students to use their own knowledge and reason to aid in recall. Nice to see them out there doing the hard work that helps with the Bronx River Restoration.
DG
March 12, 2008
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