Flora and Fauna Fridays

The life of our estuary and watershed.

Plumb Beach. — Klaus Schoenwiese

Plumb Beach. — Klaus Schoenwiese

Photos by Klaus Schoenwiese. 

Represent HarborLAB in the great NYC horseshoe crab watch! The Horseshoe Crab Monitoring Network of NY (http://www.nyhorseshoecrab.org/) is doing vital work to protect this ancient species. We are happy to assist and hope you volunteer as grassroots volunteers in NYC Audubon’s annual survey.

Learn more about these marvelous creature here:

https://naturecalendar.wordpress.com/2008/05/17/uncensored-wildeyed-horseshoe-crabs-mating/

You must register via the email given below. This page doesn’t suffice as registration.

Details:

A pivotal activity in protecting horseshoe crabs is the annual mating season survey. HarborLAB encourages our fellow volunteers, especially members of the Environmental Monitoring Crew, to go for this training, participate in a survey or (or more) and share your knowledge with other volunteers at our World Oceans Day event:

https://www.facebook.com/events/990036027763643/

The official count at Plumb Beach will be the night before and after our event.

Training is in April:

Thursday, April 13 – 6-7pm
Thursday, April 20 – 6-7pm

NYC Audubon, 71 W. 23rd St., Suite 1523

Anyone who would like to attend one should RSVP to volunteer@nycaudubon.org. At the orientation, you’ll learn about the survey protocols and can register for one or more of the 12 survey dates.

Water Wonk Wednesdays

Weekly water news, tips, and innovations.

by Erik Baard

Happy World Water Day!

The UN World Water Day theme for 2017 is “Why Wastewater?” New York City consumes a billion gallons of water a day from reservoirs up north and then dumps 27 billion gallons of raw sewage into our local waterways because our wastewater system gets overwhelmed when rainfall adds to household discharges. This assault on our estuaries is a problem of water wealth, which might be solved by technologies developed by cities that suffer scarcity.

As I wrote for The Street, Singapore is directly reusing its wastewater (“toilet to tap”) by filtering and sterilizing. Orange County, California takes an indirect approach, pumping treated water below ground to mix with naturally occurring water tables for later uptake. Many other municipalities are similarly thrifty with H2O, and others are studying how reuse might work for them. Global climate change driven by carbon emissions from livestock, industry, transportation, and power generation could disrupt water supplies to many major population centers.

One of the biggest proponents of wastewater reuse is Bill Gates, whose foundation backs the Omniprocessor, a facility that turns sewage into water, energy, and ash.

A less dramatic, but valuable, approach is to reuse cleaned wastewater for agriculture and other non-potable applications. At HarborLAB’s GreenLaunch we’ll be capturing rainwater, mixing it with shower water (where only strictly vetted soaps that we provide will be used) and feeding that to our native habitat and orchard areas via underground irrigation hoses. Our toilet will be a waterless or low-water composter.

Perhaps NYC will one day build Omniprocessors or the technology will lend itself to small-scale, distributed use. After all, just because today we have a wealth of water doesn’t mean we should waste it.

Instruction for Inclusion had another great monthly program on Saturday. HarborLAB’s certified instructors and other volunteers dug a path out from our launch through snow plow piles on a day marked by freeing rain to teach basic paddling skills to a environmental educator Amelia Zaino and other friendly Bronxites. Shout out to Debby Kawalick for bringing people together!

Many thanks to sponsors TF Cornerstone and the LIC YMCA. Much gratitude to volunteers Tito Alvarado and Phillip Borbon for swooping in to help with the big dig on short notice, and Scott Wolpow for heading down early to catch such unforeseen challenges.

Instructors Dee Dee Maucher and Steven Chu, and soon-to-be instructor Scott Wolpow, were pleased with breakthroughs in their teaching techniques, which starts with a poolside orientation and culminates in side-by-side “learn as you go” couching. They’re excited to teach larger youth classes at Gantry Plaza State Park in the summer! The next pool session is April 15.

Our goal with Instruction for Inclusion is to build “confidence through competence” so that people who’ve historically been underrepresented in harbor life and STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) fields — especially communities of color — can participate in HarborLAB’s educational paddling tours. These outings are more challenging but more rewarding and FUN, landing on remote beaches and normally forbidden islands to photograph, remove plastics, seed native plants, and otherwise learn about environmental science through service.

Photos by Debby and Steven, and videos by Steven.

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Flora and Fauna Fridays

The life of our estuary and watershed.

by Erik Baard

People who play in the dirt are happier. We certainly see that at HarborLAB’s GreenLaunch where we’re growing a native habitat area, a small orchard, and fruiting vines. The greenery, fascinating and beautiful wildlife, satisfaction of helping things grow, and great company all make for a sense of connection and more fully realized life. Every participant in nature and our work crews contributes, right down to the microbes. That’s especially true of Mycobacterium vaccae, a bacterium in compost and healthy soil that stimulates the production of mood-lifting neurotransmitters.

A
United Nation’s International Day of Happiness is March 20 and April is Mental Health Awareness Month. Maybe spend some time in the dirt at HarborLAB’s GreenLaunch this April to get to know this bright yellow bug of joy.   🙂

To garden with us, please email volunteer@harborlab.org with the subject “GreenLaunch gardening.” To have us conduct seedball workshops or other greening programs with your school, community center, youth group, or other service, please email edu@harborlab.org.