Bioregional Group Member Named Finalist for Prestigious Environmental Award

Domingo Medina, longtime Bioregional Group member and composter par excellence, has been selected as a finalist for the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection’s “Green Circle” Award.

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The Awards ceremony will take place on May 23 in Hartford. Read more.

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Fred Cervin Book Now Available For Online Purchase

“Earth Loyalty and Bioregional Practice: The Collected Writings of Fred Cervin” is now available for purchase online at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Proceeds from book sales go to support the work of the Bioregional Group.

Earth Loyalty and Bioregional Practice

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Citizen Science Project Update!

Bioregional Group members Lynne Bonnett and Domingo Medina have been working this summer on a citizen science project with community partners including: Yale Peabody Museum’s Afterschool Evolutions Program, the Mercury Research Lab at John Jay College in New York City, and the New Haven Environmental Justice Network

[Yale Peabody Museum’s Afterschool Evolutions program.]

Here is an update from Lynne:

Our moss samples to measure airborne mercury went up on July 1 and came down July 21. Now they are undergoing analysis at the lab in New York City.
Why are we doing this?
1) To determine if there is a geospatial distribution of airborne mercury around the largest point source in New Haven: Greater New Haven Water Pollution Control Authority’s sewage sludge incinerator just next to East Shore Park. Samples were taken at different distances from the incinerator along transects. We expect to observe a distance effect of mercury levels associated with the source of emission.
 
2) To test if this type of study can be done in urban settings such as New Haven. Given the different potential sources of mercury emissions in an urban environment, we want to see if our instrument with our methodology is sensitive enough to capture airborne mercury and if it can discern a clear spatial pattern of mercury deposition.
 
Our citizen scientists have been hard at work: constructing poles from PVC pipe, washing sphagnum moss, weighing and putting the moss in hairnets, tying them to poles, digging the hole and putting the pole in the ground!.
New Haven Parks department kindly let us put a pole by the softball fields at East Shore Park for more public outreach. The interns made a sign – “Why are these poles here?”
Next up, trip to NYC for a tour of John Jay College and a visit to the mercury lab where the samples are being analyzed.
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Project Limulus — More Citizen Science In Our Bioregion!

Begun in the 1990s, Project Limulus is a partnership by researchers at Sacred Heart University, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and citizen scientists, to monitor the population ecology of the eastern horseshoe crab, Limulus Polyphemus, a remarkable species of Marine Arthropod that has been around for 400 million years.

In the late spring, Limulus Polyphemus visits various locations along the Connecticut shoreline to mate. When volunteers find a crab specimen, they carry out scientific measurements and then give the crab a tag to help monitor population and habitat changes over time. Bioregional Group member Aaron Goode has been a volunteer tagger for the last two years. These photos were taken at a tagging expedition last night (June 2, 2015) at Calf Pasture Beach in Norwalk.

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We’ll be talking more about (and hopefully seeing specimens of!) this amazing species on our CT Trails Day walk this Sunday at Sandy Point. Join us!

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West River Watershed Management Plan — Your Help Needed!

The West River Watershed Coalition is developing a watershed management plan for the West River that will outline long-term strategies for improving water quality, restoring habitat, and enhancing recreational access. The second public input-gathering session will be held on May 27 at the Barnard Nature Center.
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Bioregional Group to Help Lead Citizen Science Project

A few months ago Bioregional Group members Lynne Bonnett and Domingo Medina were invited by the Yale Peabody Museum’s EVOLUTIONS Program — an afterschool program for high school students from New Haven and West Haven — to talk about ways to understand and connect with our bioregion.

The relationship between EVOLUTIONS and the Bioregional Group has grown into a summer research project to measure mercury levels in New Haven’s airshed to get a better understanding of what mercury air emissions are like in an urban environment.  Lynne and Domingo are excited to work with the students along with the Mercury Research Lab at John Jay College and the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History.  It will be a unique opportunity for the students to learn about research projects on an applied environmental justice issue in New Haven and participate in all aspects of the monitoring and data collection process.

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New England Resilience and Transition Network

Recently we attended a gathering of the New England Resilience and Transition Network (or NERTNET) in Keene, New Hampshire. The Bioregional Group was a founding member of NERTNET several years ago because we believe that local resilience-building and regional cooperation go hand in hand.

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[Recent NERTNET gathering in Keene, NH.]

Would you or your organization be interested in joining the Network and contributing to its work of fostering regional resilience? Fill out this brief survey.

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Fred Cervin (1940-2013)

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We mourn the loss and celebrate the life of Bioregional Group co-founder Fred Cervin, who died last week at the age of 72.
Read obituary.

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Holy Shiitake! Bioregional Mushroom-Growing Project Featured in New Haven Register

Bioregional Group members Domingo Medina and Bobcat Carruthers have been working on a shiitake mushroom-growing project! Read all about it in the New Haven Register

[Photo: New Haven Register.]

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Connecticut NOFA’s 30th Annual Winter Conference!

Don’t forget to register for CT NOFA’s 30th Annual Winter Conference, which is taking place this weekend at Manchester Community College.

 

 

Members of Transition Greater New Haven will be among the presenters.

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