New York prehistory

This month's National Geographic has an article featuring the Mannahatta Project, a recreation of Manhattan's natural environment. The project started by geolocating the still-extant sites on the British map of the island, prepared during the Revolutionary War, and built from there back to 1609, when Henry Hudson became the first European to see the place.



The website is built around the Google map of Manhattan, but with an extra layer representing a visual image of the landscape as it likely appeared in 1609, plus popup descriptions of the local ecosystem. You should definitely try it out.

I've posted a quickie-demo here.

The project was also featured in the New Yorker a couple years ago.

Mill dams in the Midwest

Here's an interesting story from EARTH magazine:

Rewriting rivers: What it means for river restoration

Merritts began to look at the streams near Lancaster, Pa., in 2002, because she wanted her students to focus on geology close to the college. Surprisingly, the fine silts and clays she found in the layering along the streambanks did not look like material deposited by running water; the sediments were too thick and too laminated, plus they were underlain by a black, organic layer rich with seeds, pollen, roots and woody debris. The organics in turn rested on a gravelly bed. When Merritts showed them to her colleague, Robert Walter, he thought they looked more like pond sediments. The pair also wondered how the three-meter-wide, ankle-deep streams the students studied could deposit banks of sand and silt six meters deep.

Walter, who had grown up in the area, suggested that the sediments accumulated behind a dam. Despite finding stream after stream with similar sediments, Merritts says that she was initially skeptical that human-made dams could have such a widespread impact. To better understand what happened, she and Walter consulted historic maps, early census studies, county records and diaries. They also examined aerial photos and light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data (which removes ground cover to more easily reveal topography) and walked riverbanks in more than 20 watersheds, such as the Brandywine River, Seneca Creek and Watts Branch. All the data pointed to the same culprit: dams.

Those freakin' dams were everywhere, a fact that is easily overlooked today because most of them have been removed. But they so altered the riparian environment that engineers trying to restore rivers today may be trying to recreate the wrong kind of river.

Sharkey leaves the Shire, continued

EPA, with White House nudge, eases rule on lead emissions

Looking to bolster the fight against childhood lead poisoning, the Environmental Protection Agency last month approved a tough new rule aimed at clearing the nation's air of the toxic metal.

But at the last minute, federal documents show, the Bush administration quietly weakened a key provision, exempting dozens of polluters from scrutiny.

*snip*

To help meet the new limit, the EPA had planned to require lead monitors next to any factory emitting at least half a ton of lead a year. But after the White House intervened, the agency raised the threshold to a ton of lead or more....
As a result, dozens of factories won't be checked regularly.

Sharkey leaves the Shire

'I did not,' said Frodo. 'But I might have guessed. A little mischief in a mean way: Gandalf warned me that you were still capable of it.'

'Quite capable,' said Saruman, 'and more than a little. . . . It would have been a sharper lesson, if only you had given me a little more time and more Men. Still I have already done much that you will find it hard to mend or undo in your lives.'

That story keeps coming to mind as I watch the outgoing Administration create last-minute environmental rules that exclude science and put all power in the hands of ideological hacks and try to ensure that those hacks can't be removed by the incoming Administration.

A Westerner should know better

Colorado to McCain: Hands Off Our Water

In an interview Friday with the Pueblo Chieftan, McCain committed what could amount political suicide in the state by saying that the 1922 water compact negotiated between seven western states should be renegotiated to give Arizona, Nevada, and California (the Lower Basin states) more water.

The Denver Post writes:

Memo to: John McCain.

Subject: Forget about winning our nine electoral votes next November. We don't vote for water rustlers in this state; we tar and feather them!

...

Here's some free advice, wrinkly guy: When campaigning in Colorado, you might survive advocating atheism, taking our guns away or outlawing apple pie. But never, ever, mess with our water.

The Endangered Species Act on life support

Bush to relax protected species rules
Plan takes scientists out of decision making on species status

The stated fear is that we need to cripple the ESA so that it can't be invoked to force the government to protect species (most notably, the polar bear) from the effects of climate change. The more general idea is that projects would move a lot faster if you removed those methodical scientists and just let the politicos make the decisions. Which is exactly why it's such a bad move.

The Interior Department said such consultations are no longer necessary because federal agencies have developed expertise to review their own construction and development projects, according to the 30-page draft.

Apparently, closing down libraries and dispersing the collections so they can't be reconstituted develops the type of expertise the Bush Administration admires.

Good times for conservation easements

Real estate slump is a boon to conservation deals

Via Ralph Maughan’s Wildlife News

Self-powered streetlight

"Ann Arbor Tries Out Solar, Wind Street Light"

E-waste recycling event

Recycle your unneeded electronic hardware on May 10.