Transcription of Happy Lawns, Healthy Waters #243
Speaker 1: You are listening to Love Maine Radio, hosted by Dr. Lisa Belisle and recorded at the studios of Maine Magazine in Portland. Dr. Lisa Belisle is a writer and physician, who practices Family Medicine and acupuncture in Brunswick, Maine. Show summaries are available at LoveMaineRadio.com. Here are some highlights from this week’s program.
Amy: Too much fertilizer can impact the base in our legs. Too much pesticides are going to impact our beneficial insects.
Ivy: The public has become much more aware that even though we live in a state where we think we’re in this totally clean environment, that these are real threats and they want to do something about it.
Lisa: This is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you’re listening to Love Maine Radio. Show number 243. Happy Lawns, Healthy Waters, airing for the first time on Sunday, May 15th, 2016. In Maine, we are highly aware that what we do with our little corner of the planet has a direct impact on a greater world around us. Today, we explore the topic of healthy lawns and the relationship with local waters and the ecosystem at large. Our guests include Amy Witt and Frank Wertheim of the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, and Mary Cerullo and Ivy Frignoca of Friends of Casco Bay. Thank you for joining us.
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Lisa: Today, we’re going to speak about the growing and green things. It’s actually one of my topics that I … One of my favorite topics, I should say, although I always tell people I do not have a particularly green thumb. I like the idea that … I’m going to talk with two individuals, who do hopefully have all 10 of their fingers quite green. One of them is Amy Witt, who is the Home Horticulturist at the University of Maine Cooperative Extension in Cumberland County, and also Frank Wertheim, who is an Associate Extension Professor of Agriculture and Horticulture with the University of Maine Cooperative Extension based in York County. Thanks for coming in today.
Amy: Thanks for having us.
Frank: Thank you. Yes.
Lisa: One of the things is that I like about the conversation we’re going to have is that most of us have access to some bit of greenery in our lives. Maybe we live in an apartment, maybe we live in a condo, but most of us have access to a spot of lawn. Having a healthy lawn, which is one of things we’re going to discuss, is a topic that really everybody should be aware of. Tell me, Frank, what is it about having a safe and healthy lawn that has appealed to you, having worked with the Cooperative Extension for the last, almost 30 years?
Frank: Yeah. As I look back on the number of years I’ve been in Maine and seen the increase in proliferation of lawn care companies that are focused on several steps of pesticide and fertilizer management, many of which, sometimes are pined where the pesticides there are not. Not only that, through advertising, even if you don’t hire a lawn care company, a lot of people are convinced they need to be on these five-step programs, et cetera. As you go around, you see some of these beautiful lush lawns, you realize what the inputs are to create that and how it just becomes a bit of a vicious cycle, because once you get along and adjusted to that, it always has to be on that.
There are ways to have a really nice lawn without all those inputs. That’s what really what we see our work and is getting the mission out. Without excessive irrigation and excessive fertilizer and pesticide inputs, you can still have a nice lawn. Lawns are a funny thing. It’s part of the American culture. Some people just has to look a certain way and then others don’t mind if there’s dandelions and clovers in it. People are all over the place. They feel very strongly about what they believe in with their lawns.
Lisa: Amy, what is your intersection with having a safe and healthy lawn?
Amy: I agree with what Frank said. Also, a healthy lawn starts with healthy soil. I think people need to really look at too what’s going on with their soil. People use lawns to play on, to have their pets on, to walk on. It’s important that you have a healthy lawn, because it’s going to impact you and perhaps your health if you are using a lot of pesticides and fertilizers. Too much fertilizer can impact the base in our legs. Too much pesticides are going to impact our beneficial insects. You really need to think about what are you doing to get that healthy lawn. Can you perhaps live a lawn that is not necessarily a monoculture, but has a lot of interesting colors to it and some other plant materials such as your clover and your violets?
Lisa: When you say ‘monoculture,’ you mean a uniformly appearing, every blade of grass the same.
Amy: Uniformly appearing, exactly. It’s just grass. There are purposes for grass and for a lawn. As Frank said too, there are ways to get one without a lot of extra inputs.
Lisa: Well, Frank you talked about inputs.
Frank: Right.
Lisa: Define inputs for us.
Frank: Fertilizers and some of these five-step programs are fertilizing four or five times a year, and then with other products like Weed & Feed in them depending on the time of year in which step of the particular program that you’re in. Lawns do need fertility. A lot of people’s skep is really knowing what the healthy conditions are for a turf to exist in. A lot of times when I get a call at the Cooperative Extension office saying, “I’ve got this weed in my lawn. How do I kill it?” I take a deep breath and I try to get them to think about the grass from the lawn’s perspective.
In other words, I could recommend it in a nervous side that we’d kill this weed whatever it was, but that’s going to create a vacuum and nature abhors a vacuum. With that vacuum created, what the weeds are telling you is that conditions aren’t right there for turf. Weeds will just come right back in. If do a university soil test and know where your pH is your nutrient level is, a lot of times, just by getting the pH right, a lot of those grasses that are there, they’re not growing well, but the weeds can grow fine in acidic pHs. They will start to come back just from agricultural line, which is organic, naturally mined product.
Lisa: The lawn historically has been a sign of wealth.
Frank: Yeah.
Lisa: We started with people … They needed to have food, so they grew gardens on their plots of ground. They weren’t putting out lush greens, so that their kids could play soccer. My kids played soccer on my lawn, so I’m not downgrading that in any way. We have come overtime to believe that it is unnecessary sign of success in some ways. Maybe it’s a sign, whose time is starting to feed.
Frank: Yeah. I would agree with that. I think that there is a shift in the culture and along with the local foods movement. I think the people that are on board with local foods movement, and what goes in to their food are also concerned about their yards. We’re seeing in our programming a lot of interest in organic methods and low input methods and other means. There is a societal shift happening, but lawns are still a status symbol in uncertain houses and depending on the individual and how tuned in they are or not. Some people just don’t really think about it. They just want green lawn and don’t think about what the consequences of some those inputs may be.
Amy: Yes. Some people too are looking at, “I want to be able to grow my own food and what space do I have. I have this big lawn and I don’t need all of that lawn space.” That would be a good space to put in a garden, to put it into production. More and more people are thinking too about pollinators and how they impact growing food, a lot of other things. More and more people are getting into gardening. We’ve seen a quite a surge in that in the last few years and producing their own food, and preserving their food. Also too, trying to preserve the pollinators, like the monarchs. People are noticing. There are these many monarchs as there’ve been in the past. There are these many other pollinators. What can I do? Lawn isn’t necessarily going to support that. You need other plant material.
Frank: One of things pointed out, this time of year because we’re in the spring now, and pretty soon, things are going to greening up. One of the very first flowers that bees feed on are dandelions.
Amy: Yes.
Frank: Dandelion flowers. The bees are in a very critical phase at that time of the year. They’re basically on the verge of starvation, because they’d made it through the hive and their storage supplies all winter. They go out and they forge. If you allow some dandelions to go in your lawn and some clovers, especially the dandelions, because they’re the first species to flower, you’re actually really helping the pollinators by maybe taking a fresh look at dandelions is not the enemy.
Lisa: We could also create ground cover out of things other than straightforward green grass. I know that there are many people who are listening who have children, and their children maybe want to play soccer out front door, out back. There’s a reason to have a place for kids to play, but we want it to be safe. We can plant other things that will cover the ground just as well.
Amy: Correct. There are all kinds of ground covers. Actually clover used to be part of people’s lawns back in the ‘50s when Suburbia was getting started on Long Island in New York. There was clover seed incorporated into the lawn seed. You’ve got-
Frank: Clover also fixes nitrogen, so it-
Amy: Clover fixes nitrogen and also provides pollen-
Frank: Induces your fertilizer demand if you have clovers in your lawn.
Amy: I also think and I get a lot of calls from people who have a lot of moss. They want to get rid of it. A lot of times, the mosses in a shady area, grass doesn’t really grow very well in a shady area without a lot of inputs. Moss, there are so many different kinds of mosses. It is pretty sturdy stuff. It’s beautiful. I try to encourage people to, “Why don’t you keep it or reconsider?” There are all kinds of herbs like thyme and some other herbs that are used like in between stepping stones and that kind of thing that people put down. There are all kinds of options.
Frank: If I can give a shameless plug, Amy and I are both involved in a state-wide collaboration called, “YardScaping.” It was born out of the bayscaper program that started here at Casco Bay. Gary Fish, currently with the Maine Board of Pesticide Control is our YardScaping godfather, who heads up this program with as many of us involved. On their website, YardScaping.org, there’s a grass link, and in that, there’s a seed source link that look at all low input seeds and lawn de fleur and herbal lawns, and all kinds of alternatives. There’s a Allen, Sterling & Lothrop, which is a wonderful Maine seed company, also puts out a seed called, that he named in collaboration with us, “The YardScaping mixture.”
What’s wonderful about that is if you don’t want the lawn de fleur, and you don’t want clovers, but you want lawn that can stay green and not need as many inputs, these new species that been bred in the YardScaping makes just one of them. The Kentucky bluegrasses that are in them, for example, have a lot less demand for nitrogen, one of the big reasons for all that fertilizer is because Kentucky bluegrass is a hungry plant. By breeding new Kentucky blues that don’t require as much nitrogen, and then with that, the fescues that are in there in the perennial ryegrasses, have this beneficial relationship with the microbe, it’s called, “Endophytes.” We’ll get into endophytes.
One of the advantages for that is it gives it natural insect toleration to the surface feeding insects. It won’t get at your white grubs, but the things like sod grub worms, they’re surface feeding, it will give you natural repellant, and it gives you extra drought tolerance. By using these mixtures, you can build in some actual insect fighting and reduce your fertilizer needs right off the top. It’s really pretty easy, even if you got an old lawn, you can over seed to reintroduce some of these species. YardScaping website has a lot of really good information on it.
Amy: Right. It includes tips about making sure you water deeply, but less frequently, so that you want to really encourage the roots for the lawn. You want to mow high, three inches. If you’re going to fertilize besides doing a soil test, you want to wait until the end of the summer, so late summer, early fall, whereas now, this time of year, we get a lot of calls and people are ready to fertilizer now. The soil really isn’t warm enough. They’re usually pretty wet. It’s just not a good time. The best time is later in the season. Also, a good time to reseed or put in a new lawn is also later in the season, when the soils are warmer, and you can have a more consistent rainfall. Those are also things that the YardScaping program reinforces to people.
Lisa: Isn’t there also some conversation in the fall about not necessarily raking up every single leaf that falls on the ground, and whatever leaves you do rake up, put them into a compost pile or compost system. These seemed like other important considerations.
Amy: They are. Besides maybe not raking the leaves, but having a molting blade on your lawnmower and shredding the leaves and keeping them in place, and they’re then putting that organic matter back into the soil, the same with you lawn clippings. If you’re out mowing instead of bagging it, again a molting blade on your mower and just molting it, and keeping it in place to add back the organic matter. If you are going to rake the leaves, if that’s something that you really love to do, you can rake them and then, yes, incorporate them into your compost pile, a little bit at a time. You want to keep the ratio of carbon:nitrogen to 30:1. It’s better to shred them, because they’ll decompose faster.
Frank: I also like to work some of the leaves into my vegetable garden in the fall, because it’s a great way to stimulate the microbes and the worms and the soil to improve the soil. You’ll get that fertility benefit the following year.
Lisa: Amy you work in Cumberland County, and Frank you work in York County. What’s going on in York County from a Cooperative Extension service availability?
Frank: Amy and I work in a lot of the same program areas. Even though York County and Amy’s Cumberland County, the lines are blurred, we both do state-wide and beyond programming as well. We don’t have tiered gardens initiated the way Amy does. Actually, Wells Estuarine Research Reserve, we had a collaboration with them for many years. We have a demonstration garden of landscaping with native Maine plants. We also have a vegetable garden there called, “The All Seasons Garden,” that we’re also growing for Maine Harvest for Hunger. Also, we’re doing a three sisters project that one of our lawns here has spearheaded with corn, squash and beans.
Then they’re using the ornamental part for the Laudholm Farm’s annual Punkinfiddle Festival as decoration. The garden has become a place also for teaching public workshops and for learning. The native garden is a self-guided tour thing. We’ve done a really nice job in the last year of labeling with common names and scientific names of the native plants that you have there. One of the other really positive things about that is native plants, because they evolved here generally speaking, have a less of a pest profile, so it less likely to be attacked and then need all these other inputs to keep them from being eaten by whatever. Some of them are quite beautiful. Some people are starting to take a new look at landscaping with native plants. I’m certainly not a purest about it. I have some beautiful non-native plants. It can also help us to avoid accidentally introducing invasive species.
Lisa: You’ve mentioned the Maine Harvest for Hunger. What about the Maine Hunger Dialogue?
Frank: Yeah, the Maine Hunger Dialogue, Amy and I are both on the committee for that, and 2014 was the first annual Maine Hunger Dialogue. We’ve had two now. This came about through an organization that we’ve been to nationals and international summits called, “The Universities Fighting World Hunger.” We got interested in that from our Maine Harvest for Hunger work. Through that, we started hearing about these State Hunger Dialogues. At that time, there’d only been two in the nation; one in Kansas and one in North Carolina.
When we went to the summit that year, they had a workshop on how to do a hunger dialogue. Amy and I sat in and they’re all looking at us and said, “Oh yeah, in Maine, you got to do one.” We said, “Okay. We don’t know what we’re doing, but okay.” We gave ourselves 18 months. What it is, is we reach out to all colleges in the universities within the state. Here in Maine, it was the community colleges, the entire UMaine system, and then the private [inaudible 00:23:03], Bowdoin, Kaplan, every university in Maine and invited staff and students to come together for a day and a half to learn about hunger, to learn about programs that are going on in the state.
Then also it’s for them to assess what’s happening on their campuses and share that. We were able to get funding to sponsor these, what we called these, “Mini-grants.” During the day and a half, we encouraged the group student meet in their campuses and start outlining potential projects and then have an application deadline for these mini-grants about a month after the Hunger Dialogue. In 2014, we attracted 85 participants, students and staff, from 16 campuses in Maine, which we thought, we were really excited about.
This year, we hit our capacity at 150 in 19 campuses and one high school. We funded 14 mini-grants following this year’s Hunger Dialogue. I was at an opening yesterday for York County Community College, use their funding to support a food pantry on campus. One of the things I learned and I’ve been astounded about is that the level of food in security on college campuses, especially the community schools and community colleges.
Lisa: Well, it sounds like we have to have another show just about hunger dialogue project.
Amy: Yes.
Lisa: How can people find out about the work that each of you does with the university of Maine, Cooperative Extension?
Amy: Let’s say through our websites. There’s the UMaine website under Cooperative Extension, and then also Cumberland County Extension and York County Extension also have their own websites, and Facebook pages. We put a lot out on social media.
Frank: If you Google the Maine Hunger Dialogue or Google Maine Harvest for Hunger, you’ll hit on your websites. We’ll also put in a plug for Maine Harvest for Hunger as we’re into spring. What we do is we recruit community gardeners, home gardeners, anybody that’s willing to grow a little extra. Then we help to link them with their local food pantry. We also do a lot in networking with the farmers. Some of our master garden volunteers get organized into greening teams and go out and work on those farms. I would encourage people that are listening to check that out and now that it’s early in the season, maybe this is something you could get involved in this year.
Lisa: How can they read the piece that you wrote about YardScaping and more about the YardScaping program?
Frank: I think you’re referring to a fact sheet I wrote on, I’m not even sure we can get the title right, “Maintaining a low input, healthy lawn,” that you can get through the Publications page on our website, and along with some videos. There’s a lot of YouTube videos too that other people have done and a lot of other resources. If you get into the Publications page and go to the Home Garden link, you’ll see all kinds of information sheets that are, as Amy said, that a lot of them are free downloads.
Amy: The Maine YardScaping site also has wonderful information-
Frank: Yeah, YardScaping.org.
Lisa: We could keep talking for a long time. There’s a wealth of knowledge that you both have. I think this is just going to start paying people’s interest. I encourage people who are listening, whether you’re interested in the Maine Harvest for Hunger or the Maine Hunger Dialogue or the University of Maine, Cooperative Extension, or YardScaping. You can go any direction with any of these things, but there’s a lot going on. I really give you so much credit for the work that you’re doing, and I appreciate you taking the time to come in and talk with us today.
We’ve been speaking with Amy Witt, who is the Home Horticulturist at the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, and also Frank Wertheim, who is an Associate Extension Professor of Agriculture and Horticulture with the University of Maine Cooperative Extension. Amy based in Cumberland County and Frank based in York County. Thanks so much for coming in.
Amy: Thank you for having us.
Frank: Thank you very much.
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Lisa: Today, it’s my great pleasure to have with us in the studio one individual that I’ve spoken with before, who I thought very highly of, so I was very happy to bring her back, and another individual who I am just meeting. The first individual is Mary Cerullo, who is an award-winning author of 21 non-fiction children’s books on the ocean, as well as a handbook for teachers on using children’s literature in the science classroom. Her latest book is Shark Expedition. Mary is the Associate Director of Friends of Casco Bay and has over 40 years’ experience as a science translator. As such, she has interpreted marine issues for the general public and for marine user groups to the New England aquarium, the Maine New Hampshire Sea Grant College Program, the Great Bay National Estuarine Reserve in New Hampshire, and the Gulf of Maine Research Institute. Thanks for coming back in Mary.
Mary: Thanks for having me back.
Lisa: Ivy Frignoca is the Casco Baykeeper. Before her role with Friends of Casco Bay, Ivy worked with the Conservation Law Foundation on issues facing Maine’s marine waters. She served as the Ocean’s Clean Water and Cleaner Advocate throughout New England. Her professional experience also includes teaching Marine Biology and Ecology, interpreting natural history, designing policies to protect and promote Vermont State parks and forest, and advocating for stronger environmental protections for Lake Champlain. Thanks for coming in for the first time Ivy.
Ivy: Thanks for having me.
Lisa: You and I of course knew each other, because many moons ago, I knew you when you were a student at the University of Maine School of Law.
Ivy: Yes.
Lisa: Yes. We were looking at the picture of my son who is 22, and he was a baby when you graduated. That’s two decades ago. You and I know each other from that long ago.
Ivy: Thanks for sharing that information with the public.
Lisa: Yes. You were just a baby when you went through. Obviously, you’re still quite young. I’m actually really glad to have the both of you in, because I think Friends of Casco Bay is doing such great work.
Mary: Thank you.
Lisa: We know that Mary, you came in and you spoke with us before about what was happening. Ivy, you hadn’t yet joined, but you were on the horizon. I’m really happy that you came in and decided that you could spend a few minutes with us.
Ivy: I’m delighted to be here. Thanks for inviting me.
Lisa: You went from the Conservation Law Foundation to this role as the Casco Bay keeper. What was the draw for you?
Ivy: Well, the draw was, in my prior job, I worked all over New England on a variety of issues. My passion is the ocean and water quality issues. The particular draw is this is a once in a lifetime position. It’s a vocation to be a water keeper, not just a job. It was a huge draw to work for Friends of Casco Bay. It’s an incredible team of educators and scientist and to be in-house working with them, so that anything that I was advocating for was informed by our science, or we could look at issues and then develop our science protocols. I get to work with people like Mary to reach out to the public and educate people about the issues that we’re working on. Everything was a draw basically about the position.
Lisa: I certainly understand why you’d want to work with Mary, because I think she’s quite wonderful as well. I’m interested in the work specifically, because we’re now at spring time. We’re heading into a season where people are starting to think about perhaps their landscape. I’m interested in what you’re doing with lawns and safe lawns.
Mary: We have a program, I’m almost embarrassed to say, for 18 years now called, “BayScaping,” trying to get people to reduce dependents on fertilizers and pesticides. As Ivy said, the research we’re doing has backed up the fact that nitrogen from fertilizers and other sources, when it washes into the bay, it creates real problems, because, like on land, it fertilizers the green stuff in the ocean. Some of which comes out on to the bays and coves as this green slime of algae. When that algae dies, it not only uses up the oxygen as it decomposes, it also puts in carbon dioxide into the water, which is actually making our mudflats, our shallow water areas more acidic, which is hard on the shellfish.
We’ve also tested for pesticides as they enter the bay and found it all around Casco Bay going into the water. Our position has been, “Let’s to keep it out of the water,” trying to give people alternative ways of taking care of basically their lawns, because things wash off the lawns more than off your gardens or under the duff, under trees. That has been an ongoing program. We give workshops and materials and things like that. After 18 years, the use of lawn chemicals really has decreased very little.
Now, communities are taking it into their own hands. There’s all citizen groups that are advocating for ordinances, places like Harpswell, which just passed it its town meeting, and ordinance restricting the use or banning the use of neonicotinoids, the bee-killing chemicals, banning spring near the shore, and the use of fertilizer and pesticides in the shoreland zone. South Portland just had a first reading for its ordinance which is going to be a sweeping ban on the use of pesticides. Then they’re going to get to fertilizers after that, but they’re going to ban it. I’m pretty sure it’ll pass.
First after a year of education, they’ll ban it on public properties including their municipal golf course except for their tiered areas, because they really haven’t come up with the way of dealing with keeping those greens weed-free and perfect for potting yet, but they’re going to work on it. The year after that, they’re going to ban it on private property. Then a year after that, make sure that all these things are working. They’ve tried to include all sorts of ways of dealing with issues as they arise, so that people will adapt. Well, first, be educated, adapt, and then they’ll adapt the ordinances that goes. It’s really going to be an interesting ordinance. I think a lot of other communities are already looking at for themselves.
Lisa: Ivy, you spent time in Vermont as well and you’ve done work with Lake Champlain. What do you see as the, I guess, similarities and differences between the two states?
Ivy: Are you asking me with respect to the water quality issues that I’ve worked on?
Lisa: Yeah. Water quality and environmental issues.
Ivy: I’m going to focus on my work with Lake Champlain and with Casco Bay. One of the big similarities is that Lake Champlain is now an impaired water body. It’s listed with the federal government as a water body that’s not meeting water quality standards. That’s because of all the nutrients that have been loaded into it. In fresh water, it’s phosphorous. That’s the fertilizer. In salt water like in Casco Bay, it’s nitrogen. There’s a parallel in the issues that we’re dealing with in terms of how do we reduce the sources of these fertilizers that are getting into the water bodies, and impairing them for the uses that they’re naturally intended for, and the uses that people make of them.
The difference is that in a freshwater body, where you’re not dealing with tides, you’re not dealing with influxes of waters with different types of salinity, you can measure what’s going on and craft solutions in more straightforward manner. I’m not saying that it’s easy solutions. It’s not an easy solution in Vermont, because a lot of the fertilizers are coming from farms and they’re trying to figure out affordable ways for farmers to deal with reducing the runoff that’s contributing to Lake Champlain’s demise.
Here, our scientist, we’re grappling with, “Okay. Where is this nitrogen coming from? What happens when you have more freshwater carrying more into the bay? What happens with then level of salinity changes? How is it impacted with rising sea level and rising temperature of the salt water?” It’s just so very complicated, the science and what we’re trying to do that one of the best solutions that we can come up with, which is simple, is to reduce the nitrogen going into the bay in the first place. We know it’s bad and trying to measure how bad it is or where it’s having the worst impact is just a much more complicated scientific equation.
Lisa: Now obviously, you focus on Casco Bay, because you are Friends of Casco Bay. We do have a large number of fresh water sources throughout the state. We have Sebago Lake, just in Southern Maine for example. We have lakes, we have rivers. There is actually an impact and I’m sure that there must be connection between what’s going on in land and what’s going on out here when you get to the end of the river, say, as it empties out into the bay. What are you doing about that?
Ivy: I’ll answer and then if Mary has anything to add, I like to make sure he has an opportunity to answer too. There’s two things that we do as an organization. First off, we look at what’s going on in the entire watershed. Your question was really a stoop, because we are talking about, “What are all these different inputs and what’s going on?” Because we are a limited staff, sometimes, we address those watershed wide issues by being part of partnerships or coalitions with other organizations, who have focuses in different parts of the watershed, so that we can work together, not duplicate work efforts, and make sure that together as teams, we’re doing the best job to clean the water for everyone in the watershed.
We do the same thing up and down the coast, because as you can imagine, Casco Bay is just part of the Coast of Maine. So many of these issues affect all of coastal Maine. We have partnerships with other organizations up and down and the coast. One of the most exciting right now is a partnership that we put together with a couple other nonprofits called, “The Maine Ocean and Coastal Acidification Partnership,” where we’re working with researches up and down the coast to fully understand coastal acidification and what we can do to protect our shellfish populations. Mary, do you want to add anything to that?
Mary: I was just saying, talking about partnerships, we have a really large, well-trained core of water quality monitors who are volunteers. To your point where they have found the highest concentration of nitrogen coming into the bay is at those river miles. That tells that the sources are coming from land. It’s not only professional associates that we work with but the citizen scientist are a big part of our program as well, which is I think is really unique and pretty exciting that people, who aren’t scientist can actually contribute data that is used by the state, by other researches, actually submitted to congress as part of our Clean Water Act requirements. Yeah, it’s a great coalition.
Lisa: I have some significant worries about what pesticides do to human health, so I think it was probably 10 years ago, I wrote an append for a local paper about pesticide use on playing fields. It was interesting, because a few people would connect in and say, “Oh, I’ve been thinking about that,” but not many. Mostly, it was just a vast silence. It’s good that, I guess, nobody was fighting with me, but on the other hand, it feels like now, people are really willing to engage. Now, there’s not that vast silence. Now, people are finally saying, “Okay. Yeah, maybe we should be careful about pesticide application, because our children are going to playing on these fields.” Or, “We’re going on a golf course. We’re going to be on these golf courses ourselves.” What do you think has shifted? I don’t know, maybe … Have you seen the same thing in your organization?
Mary: I’ve seen it in these BayScaping program. Scarborough is one of the first communities to control the use of pesticides, only organic pesticides on playing fields. The new ordinance that’s being proposed for South Portland specifically includes athletic fields. There was a big discussion about that, because coaches will say, “Well, you can have a hole in the ground. Somebody’s going to fall and trip over weeds or into the hole and break their ankles.” There is the side of how to make it safe for players. I think more people realize now that rolling around on pesticide is not probably not a good idea. There is an awareness, but it’s coming from a ground swell of community members that I think is really exciting. I think in the next couple of years, we’re going to see some really big changes in regulation of pesticides, especially for athletic fields and playgrounds.
Ivy: I think what’s interesting about listening to your question and Mary’s response is that when you were first raising this concern, people were just beginning to really think about this issue, who knows why in that particular time. Over a very short period of time, there has been more scientific data collected, even including our own data out in the bay, just taking a snapshot of where pesticides are entering the bay.
That rapidly, the public has become much more aware that even though we live in a state where we think we’re in this totally clean environment that these are real threats, and they want to do something about it. I think that’s what’s so terrific about working for an organization like Friends of Casco Bay. We can identify the issues who are located on the region. We can collect the data so that whatever action is taken, it’s taken based on good, factual information and can really have an impact. It’s pretty exciting to see these efforts going on in the communities that are around Casco Bay.
Mary: To that point, it’s really interesting. There’s an organization that’s Washington DC based advocating for removal of pesticides all over the country. They’re having their national forum here, April 15th and 16th at Hannaford Hall at USM in Portland as a result of the ground, the advocacy that’s been happening here for the last couple of years, which we found really exciting that they’re going to bring in all these national experts, and have a discussion.
Our point is to include people like landscapers, arborist, others who work in the industry as part of the conversation. We have a real collaborative approach, which sometimes separates us out from other organizations, but we want to put everybody into the conversation. I think that whatever is created as a result, is a lot more responsible. I know a lot of communities are trying to do that as well.
Lisa: That’s an interesting example of something that I grapple with, because we spray pesticides, because we don’t want mosquitos, because mosquitos spread illnesses, used to be malaria and now, we’ve got Zika virus and we’ve got all kinds of fun things that are cropping up. We know that if you don’t have a way to deal with organisms that are causing disease, then you cause human health problems.
Now, you’re causing health problems by spraying these pesticides. I grapple with that. I grapple with the fact that we now know the people are flushing into the ocean the results of their prescription drugs that they are taking a lot of. We’ve got birth control pills floating around in the waters that will then eventually somebody will end up ingesting that, so you see what I mean? There’s an interesting balance like health.
Ivy: There are many interesting balances. I think when I listen to this dialogue, a couple things come to mind. First is at how important it is that we’re now aware of these things. If you don’t know that it’s getting to the ocean when you flush it down the toilet, if you think you’re doing the right thing by responsibly getting rid of extra medicine that you don’t want around the house, but you don’t know it’s causing another harm, then you can’t stop and make another choice about it.
I think the same thing with flees. I find the flees debate really hard, because if you’re wearing a product or clothing that’s made from recycled plastic, and that’s such a good thing, I don’t know about you, but I have flees that is older than my children. The fabric last and last and last. Well, that’s a good thing. I’m not going out and buying new products all the time. I can’t say, “Oh, suddenly my flees is bad. I would also have practically nothing to wear. I have my dress flees and my play flees.” What do we do about that? Do we look at supporting companies that can design filters for our washing machines? Do we look at supporting companies like Patagonia that are looking at playing with different lint fibers so that our flees won’t shed?
I think these are all just incredibly complicated questions. As we gather the science, it’s so important to have the conversations and make decisions that are not easy. These are not black and white decisions. Killing someone, that’s bad. That’s black or white. I guess even in war, you could say is never completely black and white. So many of these environmental decisions fall in gray areas between competing harms and competing goods. It’s pretty tricky.
Lisa: All I know as a doctor, I’m not one to willy-nilly prescribe medications and in part, I’m thinking about the long-term health of the patient that they really need an antibiotic, that they really need to use birth control pills or is there another option for them. I’m always trying to balance their short and long term health. I’m also thinking, the more people we load up with medications, the more medications get peed out into the water, the more medications gets flushed on the toilet. The stuff, it’s just this vicious cycle. It’s an interesting and weird place to be existing. You know enough to feel a little concern, but you don’t know quite enough to know where to go next. That’s what you’re working on.
Mary: Right.
Ivy: Yes.
Mary: We don’t want people get stuck at the guilt phase.
Lisa: No. Of course not.
Mary: It’s nice to have some solutions. What I like about our organization is we do merit the science and advocacy and the outreach. I think that’s a good three Bronx stool to have at our disposal where we’re trying to raise the issues, but we try to base them on science. We try to give people solutions as much as we can.
Lisa: Ivy, you’re only the second baykeeper, is that right?
Ivy: Technically, I’m the third. Joe Payne retired in December of 2014. The Executive Director for Friends of Casco Bay served as the interim bay keeper during the search term, and then I came on board as the third baykeeper.
Lisa: I would assume that the baykeeping rule is one that continues to evolve.
Ivy: Absolutely.
Lisa: What does it involve now? What are you going to be focusing on in the foreseeable future?
Ivy: I have two really big goals. This will, I’m sure, span over the entire time that I’m bay keeper. I hope to hold this position for quite a long time. The first is the city of Portland has struggled for years with excess storm water running into the bay and carrying with it raw sewage, when there’s overflows. That happens every month, or still almost every month, there are episodes where that still occurs. I feel very strongly that it’s one my missions to continue working with the city.
They’re under a court order to clean this up. They’ve been under that court order since 1991. It’s an inexpensive and difficult process. The problem in some ways is exacerbated by climate change, because we now have more significant storm events with more water. I’m sure that the listeners will remember. It was only last September that marginal way, another streets were completely flooded in Portland and very difficult to pass. That’s a really big task. The other one which I’ve alluded to is climate change. That takes into account all the whole gray area that we’ve talked about with just that climate changes everything.
It’s rising temperature. It’s rising pH. It’s a change in composition of organisms in the bay. There are so many different impacts on the bay caused by climate change that trying to get a handle on what’s the new norm in the bay, how can we help the bay adapt, and how can we slow down some of the impacts of climate change. Those are the big issues, but the role has also changed. I don’t know if you want me talk about how the role has changed as well from when my predecessor held the position.
Lisa: Sure.
Ivy: I think when Joe Payne started, there was a really clear cut problem. A report had come out indicating that Casco Bay was very unhealthy and that pollution from sewage was the primary issue. Joe is a scientist and he was really focused on collecting the science and working on starting to alleviate that problem. The role developed from there. By the time I’m on board, a lot more of the job deals with policymaking and the regulatory process. The science is still critical. I’m still very much immersed in the science and work very closely with the scientist on our staff and scientist at other organizations. More of my time is spent in the legislature, or reviewing permits to make sure that the limits in the permits are sufficient to protect the bay, advocating for particular laws, and looking at things at that kind of end of the spectrum.
Lisa: Mary, how about you? You’ve been doing this for a little while now. How has your role continued to evolve?
Mary: I think when I first started, it was 19 years ago now, I was more focused on just doing our publications and supporting Joe. I used to say I was his office wife, because I would draft things for him, and write policy papers for him. Ivy is really an amazing writer herself, so she doesn’t need as much support. Also, as my interest areas grew, there was the fact that we have all these wonderful data. I have worked with educators in the past, so I put together some curricular activities that used our data. Now that we’re really focusing a lot on climate change, there’s a lot of local data that I’ve incorporated into activities that kids can do to think about how climate change is affecting us locally.
One of our mottos is, “Think local. Act local.” Also this BayScaping Program, even though almost everything we do is focused on the water, BayScaping focuses on lawns, which seems to be an oxymoron. Because of the impact of nitrogen, fertilizers and pesticides, we realize we had to get people involved and thinking about how they use their properties. Even if they lived far up the watershed, it still comes downs those rivers. I’ve been able to build up different kinds of programs. Having Ivy on board, it’s so cool. I love Joe and he very much supported Ivy’s hiring. Ivy brings an energy and a whole new perspective, so it’s almost like starting all over again. It’s very renewing. It’s been really great. Can it only be two months?
Ivy: I think at listening to Mary too, it reminds me that when Joe started, he was the sole employee and a team built over time behind him. A water keeper’s supposed to be the eyes, ears and voice of the bay. I am supposed to be the primary eyes, ears and voice of the bay, but I’m just one of a team that’s doing that at Friends of Casco Bay. Mary has particular subject areas that she is a recognized expert; BayScaping, pesticides are among those.
Mike Doane has become a phenomenal public speaker and he deals a lot with nutrients that are getting into the bay like nitrogen, and the impacts of lotion acidification, and reporting on the data that our volunteer scientist have collected. That’s a difference too. Joe was trying to do it all himself, because that’s what the job was at that time. I’m enmeshed in a very talented team, and we can tag team things. I think that creates a lot of excitement and motivation for all of us to do our jobs, because we’re doing it together. We’re thinking out loud. We’re working collaboratively.
Lisa: How can people find out about Friends of Casco Bay and the BayScaping Program, and all the other wonderful things that you’re doing?
Mary: They can go to our website with is CascoBay.org. they can stop by our office, which actually is on the campuses, Southern Maine Community College in South Portland. We also are having a number of events in the fall. We do this great film festival that we’ll be advertising for November 12th. We’re also putting together a plan called, “Nitrogen Napping,” which is going to be on July 10th, where we’re going to recruit 100 volunteers. A lot of them will need to be boaters to collect water for us that we’re going to send off and have analyzed for nitrogen. It’s a one-day citizen scientist event.
Ivy: I would also say, Facebook, we do probably more posts these days on Facebook. I’m trying to keep up with Twitter, but that’s not so much my thing. I think a great way, if anybody’s listening and wants to be involved is to join us on July 10th. We already have a lot of people who’ve expressed interest in being volunteers, but it should be a lot of fun. The science from that day will be used to help the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, set limits that can be used on how much nitrogen can be discharged in the bay. It’s an opportunity in one morning and a couple hours to do something that will have a real impact for the state.
Lisa: Well, I encourage people who are listening to find out more about the events you’re describing and also Friends of Casco Bay. We’ve been speaking with Mary Cerullo, who is the Associate Director of Friends of Casco Bay, and also with Ivy Frignoca who is the Casco Baykeeper. It’s a really a pleasure to have you in here today. I appreciate all the work that you do.
Mary: Thanks so much.
Ivy: Thank you very much.
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