Bicycle and Pedestrian Task Force Working for Health and Safety

by John Bliss, Chair of BPTF

 

Most of us are becoming more aware of the threat from global warming and how much our reliance on the automobile contributes to it.  At the same time, we have been learning that obesity is on the rise, in part because children and adults are walking less and driving more. Newton has a Bicycle and Pedestrian Task Force (BPTF) working to address these problems, by making walking and bicycling safer and more convenient for everyone in the city.

Recently, a national bicycling magazine gave Boston a low grade for bicycle accommodations, while commending Cambridge for its leadership in this area.  Although Newton is not known as being particularly bicycle-friendly, the city has been addressing pedestrian concerns, by publicizing the right of way of pedestrians in unprotected crosswalks and installing “count-down” pedestrian signal lights.

Newton’s population of 80,000 clusters around 13 distinctive village centers, each having a range of stores and services.  Improved conditions for bicycling and walking could enable many more residents to satisfy their shopping, commuting and recreational needs without having to use their cars.  Trips to school on foot or by bicycle would be more enjoyable and healthier for children and reduce the congestion and safety hazards now associated with the common practice of being driven to school.

BPTF has been cooperating with other Boston-area organizations to improve bicycle and pedestrian facilities in the entire metropolitan region, while working with our own city officials to mark heavily-traveled roadways with striped shoulders for cyclists, and encouraging private companies to make it easier for customers and staff to access their locations by bicycle and on foot. 

The Task Force has updated the city’s Greenman-Pedersen, Inc. Bicycle Accommodations Report (2000) and has submitted it to the Department of Public Works to help guide future road projects.  This plan helps the City set priorities for bicycle accommodations required by state law for any road project paid for by state and federal funds.  The accommodations include the four-foot wide striped shoulders on Centre Street between Mill Street and Newton Corner as well as “Share the Road” signs and painted “hybrid lane” symbols designed for congested areas that have been proposed for Walnut Street near the Newton Highlands village center. 

BPTF has worked with Boston College and Newton-Wellesley Hospital to improve bicycle and pedestrian access for students and employees, and has helped the city’s Planning Department set priorities for locating new bicycle racks (to be provided at no cost by the state) in conjunction with road projects.

Newton is one of many communities in the “inner core” area of the Boston region, and BPTF works with the MassBike Metro Boston chapter on issues of common interest.  Most recently, this group helped to prepare a report to the state Dept. of Conservation and Recreation on the deteriorated conditions of the Charles River paths that are used by hundreds of people every day.

In the coming year, BPTF will continue to monitor active road project planning, work with City officials on providing bicycle and pedestrian accommodations to the new Newton North High School, promote the adoption of safe routes to school programs, and work with city officials to improve pedestrian facilities in under-served areas and improve access to all sidewalks in the winter.

The Task Force has public meetings at 7:30 p.m. on the fourth Tuesday of each month in the cafeteria of Newton City Hall. The October meeting is on the 24th. Come and share your concerns and ideas about bicycling and walking in Newton or contact me to be added to the email list.  More information: johnsbliss@verizon.net or (617) 244-6495.

Phthalates: Should You Be Concerned?

By Yi Li, Environmental Health Columnist

 

 

 

If you own anything that’s plastic and flexible, chances are likely that you own something containing phthalates.  Phthalates, also known as phthalate esters, were first introduced in the 1920s and are a group of compounds added to plastics to convert them from a hard to a flexible plastic.  When added to a hard plastic substance, phthalates react with the polyvinyl molecules, disrupting the rigidity of their interactions and allowing them to slide over one another more easily.  Different types of phthalates are found in products as diverse as flooring material, PVC pipes, perfumes, pesticides, children’s toys, nail polish, adhesives, cars, medical devices and caulk.  Debates in the health literature about the potential harms of phthalates are ongoing, but worth examining.  In this article, I will present some basic information on current knowledge about phthalates’effects on human health and argue that the U.S. should regulate the manufacture of phthalates.

In the body, phthalates are fat soluble, so when ingested, will tend to accumulate in areas of the body with a high fat concentration.  A National Health and Nutrition Examination survey conducted in 2003 found that most of the U.S. population had some measurable exposure to various phthalates.  In high doses, several phthalates have been shown to stimulate hormonal activity in rodent models.  One particular phthalate, DEHP, has been recognized as a testicular toxicant and an androgen disruptor, leading to malformation of male genitalia and death of testicular germ cells.  At even low exposures, another type of phthalate, DBP, has been shown to act as an endocrine disruptor and damage the reproductive system in male rats.  Some phthalates are also thought to be estrogen imitators, potentially causing infant boys to display an increase in female sexual characteristics.  In 2005, a study conducted at the University of Missouri-Columbia showed that infant boys born to mothers with high phthalates urine concentrations displayed a significant shortening of the anogenital distance (AGD), a smaller penis size, and were more likely to have non-descended testes.  The National Toxicology Program, however, has criticized this study for its use of a small sample population from a homogenous area.  Further studies are currently underway to provide more conclusive data.

Despite all this literature on the harmful effects of phthalates, research indicating the contrary – that there are no harmful effects of phthalates on human health – also exists.  A study conducted by the Children’

s National Medical Center showed no conclusive adverse physical or chemical effects in adolescent children who were exposed to phthalates as neonates.  Additionally, a study conducted in September of this year showed that high levels of DEHP phthalate caused no adverse effect on the development of sex organs in male marmosets.

Given that there is some uncertainty about the dangers of phthalates, what should we as consumers do to protect ourselves from possible adverse effects?  The European Union has already banned the use of six phthalates in the production of children’

s toys as a precautionary measure against potential harms.  The regulation of phthalates is an excellent illustration of the Precautionary Principle at work.  That is, even in the absence of definitive data concerning the harms of phthalates, those who create public policy have an obligation to take precautionary measures and ensure public safety by enacting policies that mandate safer alternatives– unless and until phthalates are proven to be safe.

Manufacturers and lobbyists may insist that a switch from phthalates to other substances will be expensive, but these costs are often exaggerated. Even if the costs are substantial, they would diminish over time after the switchover. From a public health perspective, the public has a right to insist on safer alternatives, even if the risks of phthalates and the costs involved in restricting or banning them are controversial.  The FDA does not mandate manufacturers to investigate the risks of their products before marketing; thus, the burden of investigations falls upon scientists and public health officials –

a process that may take years to complete.  A responsible approach in the meantime would be to restrict the use of phthalates until more conclusive data is available.

For additional information on phthalate safety, see the U.S. EPA website, the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition website of the FDA, the Official Journal of the European Union (with a recently published commission recommendation on risk reduction measures), and the website of the CDC.  The Phthalate Information Center (www.phthalate.org) of the American Chemistry Council provides the perspective of phthalate manufacturers.

Yi Li is a first-year student at Harvard Medical School.

The environmental benefits of vegetarianism

By Gabe Bronk and Arthur Su/ Special To The Tab

 

 

Vegetarianism is not only a response to the inhumane practices of factory farms; it is also a way to conserve natural resources, improve the environment and benefit human health.

The meat industry is very wasteful of natural resources. An inherent problem with eating meat is that an animal must be fed roughly ten pounds of plants to produce one pound of meat. Therefore, much more food is consumed to support the animals than would be needed if more people were vegetarians. Seventy percent of the grain grown in the US is used to feed livestock. Because of the growth of so much animal feed, half the water consumed in the U.S. is used by the meat industry, and our groundwater is being withdrawn 25% faster than it is being replenished. In the High Plains states from South Dakota to New Mexico, it is projected that the aquifer will be depleted in 60 years. Erosion and nutrient depletion caused by animal feed production and overgrazing by livestock are destroying vast areas of arable land.

 

We are currently in an oil crisis, and the meat industry is exacerbating it. Eight times as much fossil fuel energy is used in the production of animal protein as is used in plant protein production due to the fuel required to manufacture fertilizers and pesticides for animal feed, to operate farming machinery, for transportation and for irrigation. Four hundred gallons of fossil fuels are used to produce food for the average meat-eating American each year.

A meat eater requires two to four times more farmland than a vegetarian. To make room for enough farmland, the meat industry constantly destroys vital ecosystems, thus taking away the habitats of myriad species and reducing biodiversity. The vast Amazon rainforest is rapidly being destroyed to make way for ranching and growing animal feed and will be gone by the end of this century if the current rate of destruction continues. Do you want to let this happen?

The damage to the environment does not stop at animal feed production. The plants are fed to the livestock, which, after digesting the food, produce 1.37 billion tons of manure in the U.S. annually. The manure often spills out of open-air storage pits and into waterways, accelerating the growth of algae. When the algae die, their decomposition depletes the water of oxygen. This causes the deaths of millions of fish. Manure also releases ammonia into the air, which can contaminate rain, killing forests. Fumes from factory farms cause people in the area to experience respiratory problems and other ailments. Nitrates leak from manure into community drinking water, causing serious human health problems.

The meat industry contributes significantly to global warming. Methane, a greenhouse gas, is released by bacteria in the rumens of cattle and in the manure of many farm animals. Furthermore, forests and grasslands that would absorb high amounts of carbon dioxide are cleared to make way for farmland. To make matters worse, the enormous fires used to burn down these forests release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

The fishing industry also contributes to environmental degradation. Many species are being fished faster than they can reproduce. 15 of the 17 major ocean fisheries are exhausted or overexploited, so many marine food webs are depleted, and ocean ecosystems are seriously damaged. Myriads of other animals are accidentally caught and killed in the nets, such as nearly 300,000 whales, dolphins and porpoises killed each year. Pulling bottom trawls across the seafloor devastates habitats including coral reefs.

You can help save the environment and keep yourself healthy at the same time; according to the American Dietetic Association and Dietitians of Canada, vegan and vegetarian diets are appropriate for all stages of life as long as the vegetarian gets all necessary nutrition, which is easy to do. Visit www.veganhealth.org for nutrition information.

A well-planned vegetarian or vegan diet offers many health benefits. Vegetarians have lower blood cholesterol levels, lower rates hypertension and lower rates of death from ischemic heart disease due to the lower levels of saturated fat found in animal products and the higher levels of antioxidants found in fruits and vegetables. Fruits, vegetables, nuts, legumes and whole grains, all staples of a vegetarian diet, provide better nutrition and help prevent many diseases.

Spurred by this knowledge as well as by the meat industry’s brutality towards animals, we became vegetarian/vegan and have examined and promoted vegetarianism as a project for our biology class at Newton North High School.

Consider the possibilities. There are many delicious and varied foods that do not contain animal products. We’re not just talking lettuce and bananas; think grilled veggie burger or bean burrito. If becoming vegetarian seems like a difficult task, try reducing your consumption of meat gradually; cut out meat one day a week at first. Soon you will have a healthier diet and be saving natural resources and the environment. If you do become vegetarian, email us at vegetarianism@comcast.net to let us know that this article had the desired effect.

More information at http://www.sierraclub.com/factoryfarms www.veganoutreach.org/whyvegan and Pamela Rice, 101 Reasons Why I’m a Vegetarian. Lantern Books, 2005.

Gabe Bronk and Arthur Su will be seniors at Newton North High School this fall. Members of the award-winning school science team, they are passionate about environmental protection.

This article is archived at www.greendecade.org/tabarchive.asp.

It’s Wednesday, do you know where your vegetables are?

By Lois Levin

 

Each year 76,000,000 Americans suffer food poisoning; 300,000 require hospitalization and 5,000 people die. These numbers imply much human suffering. The US food supply is highly vulnerable to contamination, even here in Metropolitan Boston.Michael Pollen, in a recent op-ed piece in the NY Times, cuts to the quick: “Today 80 percent of America’s beef is slaughtered by four companies, 75 percent of the precut salads are processed by two and 30 percent of the milk by just one company.” He adds: “Keeping local food economies healthy — and at the moment they are thriving — is a matter not of sentiment but of critical importance to the national security and the public health, as well as to reducing our dependence on foreign sources of energy.”

Consider public health. Most of us felt a twinge of fear when we learned about the recent contamination of packaged spinach, and rightly so. Although we may never know the exact source of that deadly outbreak, the underlying problem is no mystery. E coli bacteria thrive in the guts and manure of feedlot cattle. Manure often finds its way onto agricultural fields and agricultural workers’ hands. This problem has escalated because of the increasing centralization and scale of US agriculture. Because the growing, packaging and distribution of agricultural produce has become highly centralized and mechanized over the years, what used to be a local problem of food-borne illness that could be contained and traced is now poised- at any moment- to generate a national disaster.

There are technological fixes for this, such as increasing radiation treatment of our food supply to eliminate bacterial agents.  There are also political fixes, such as government enforcement of strict separation of animal feedlots and produce fields. These solutions, however, exact a big price. Not so much in dollars; the large corporations involved in agribusiness are marvels of efficiency and can absorb the financial cost. The greatest price is borne by the public, because enacting these measures reinforcesthe trend of limiting consumer access to fresh, ripe and varied produce.Consider national security. In 2004 The US Health and Human Services chief, Tommy Thompson, publicly expressed amazement that “terrorists have not attacked our food supply, because it is so easy to do.”Consider energy and pollution. In Massachusetts, most of the domestic produce we eat travels on average 1500 miles (and often 3000 miles) from field to market. It is transported by vehicles that run on fossil fuels.  Consider biodiversity. Look at all those uniform bags and bunches of produce in the supermarkets. We have already lost so much of the variety that promotes disease resistance. Monocultures are not natural ecosystems; they require lots of pesticides and fertilizers.Consider local farmers.  Not only does the large-scale, highly centralized production of our food supply seriously compromise human health and biodiversity, while increasing our vulnerability to terrorism, it is also putting more and more small farmers out of business. They cannot afford- and they do not need- the costly equipment and procedures mandated by governments to ensure the safety of food grown by large, centralized producers.We consumers right here in Metropolitan Boston have choices about what we eat. Exercising those choices thoughtfully takes time and care. We can make the effort to support local farmers, to learn how and where our food is grown and about the benefits of organic food (www.nofa.org). If we don’t do this, and wejust “keep on truckin’”, we’ll be playing Russian roulette ‘til the cows come in.

Keeping the fish in the Charles

By Anna Eleria and Rebecca Scibek/ Special To The Tab

 

Not long ago, fishing in the Charles River reaped little reward due to potential health risks and few fish. Today it has become safer, more popular, and more enjoyable with many fishermen casting their lines off the docks, bridges and banks of the Charles. Restored fishing in the Charles can be attributed to efforts by organizations such as ours to improve water quality and fish passage at dams in the lower river reaches.

CRWA, MA Division of Marine Fisheries and the US Fish and Wildlife Service are currently involved in a multi-year collaborative effort to restore the American shad population in the Charles and to create a local sport fishery. The Charles River American shad restoration program, which will span the next three to six years, involves stocking juvenile shad fry in the Lakes District area of the Charles in Newton and Waltham each year from late June to mid-July.

The first step of the American Shad restoration program is to obtain brood stock – adult shad – from the Merrimack River, where the shad population has rebounded in recent years. The brood stock will be transported and spawned at FWS hatchery where the larvae of the adults will be raised for seven to ten days, and then marked prior to their release so their return to the Charles River can be tracked. CRWA’s work will involve sampling juvenile fish to estimate fish survival and establish recruitment indices, and assessing the river’s chemistry to determine if river habitat conditions are suitable for the young fish.

This year, the project’s first, more than 1.8 million shad fry were released in Waltham during the weeks of July 9 and July 16, following successful spawning at the hatcheries. The fry will spend several months in the Charles growing, feeding, and slowly swimming downstream before reaching the mouth of the river, entering Boston Harbor, and moving out into the Atlantic Ocean where they will spend most of their adult lives. CRWA is monitoring water quality twice a week, through September, downstream from the release site in the Waltham, Newton and Watertown areas, to help determine habitat conditions. Following water quality monitoring starting in late September and continuing through the fall, DMF and CRWA will sample the juvenile shad. This process will be repeated for the next few years, with shad fry being released each summer. Beginning in 2009, three to four years after their release, the shad will begin to return to the river to spawn, and they will be identified and tracked by the project coordinators.

One of the largest members of the herring family, American Shad can reach up to 30 inches in length with an average weight of 7-8 pounds. The shad is one of five species of anadromous fish found in the river – fish that are born in freshwater, spend the majority of their lives in the ocean, and return to their native freshwater to spawn in the late spring.

Dating back to the early 1600s, the Charles River supported an abundant population of American shad. Despite historical abundance, the shad population in the Charles was nearly wiped out because of the construction of dams and culverts and the degradation of the river’s water quality and flow. Today, only small numbers of adult shad are observed in the river each year despite the fact that the Charles River should support a viable shad population of 30,000 adults based on an estimate by DMF, which takes into consideration historical records of fish in the Basin and the community appropriate for a natural river in southern New England.

Successful repopulation of American shad may involve addressing obstacles to their viability in the Charles including predation by birds, unsuitable flow, poor downriver passage, availability of forage species, such as zooplankton, and habitat alterations. If the shad restoration program succeeds, beginning in 2009 adult shad will come back to the Charles and start a new generation of life.

Anna Eleria is the CRWA Project Manager, and Rebecca Scibek is the CRWA Office & Publications Manager.

This article is archived at www.greendecade.org/environmentpage

When the robin stops bobbin’ along

By Lois A Levin/ Special To The Tab

 

Many of the diseases that threaten human populations today originated in wildlife, and each disease has a unique transmission pathway. The diseases include HIV/AIDS, avian influenza (including the strain currently threatening to cause a human pandemic), SARS, Nipah virus, Lyme Disease and West Nile virus.

According to biologist Peter Daszak, director of the Consortium for Conservation Medicine in NY, West Nile virus is the major vector borne disease in the US. Since arriving here in 1999, most likely on an airplane, it has infected about a million people, caused 22,000 people to fall ill and resulted in at least 826 deaths. In 2006, between 2,000 and 10,000 new cases are expected in the US.

The greatest concentration of cases has been in the East, but the disease has also shown up in Colorado and California. Our area is at risk of West Nile virus again this summer. Computer models developed to predict the risks of human infection indicate that cases of West Nile will peak from late July to mid-August, and then decline toward the end of August.

When the virus first arrived in North America in 1999, thousands of crows contracted it. Recently, it has been discovered that large numbers of robins are now dying of this disease.

This is no reason to be afraid of robins. Humans cannot contract the disease from birds, only from being bitten by a Culex pipiens mosquito. Not only are robins far more appealing to these mosquitoes than humans, it turns out that mosquitoes prefer robins to all other birds, including crows and house sparrows. The robins hopping around on our lawns are members of the “host” species, and they are protecting us from the virus, temporarily. However, when the robins start to migrate south later in the summer, the mosquitoes will continue to look for blood meals, and the risk to humans will increase significantly – seven-fold.

This is just one reason why biodiversity, which is reduced whenever wildlife habitat is lost or fragmented, is so fundamental to the maintenance of human health, and why we need to limit human encroachment on wildlife habitats. Wildlife serves as a “reservoir” for many pathogens against which humans have little or no immunity. Of course, a pathogen such as West Nile virus is a threat to wildlife, too, and entire ecosystems are affected by a die-off of significant numbers of animals. When host species become threatened or extinct or the number of potential host species is reduced, humans are deprived of the buffers against many viruses borne by vectors such as mosquitoes.

As researchers learn more about the reasons that West Nile virus is partial to robins, they will be better able to predict outbreaks and make recommendations to prevent the disease from spreading to other regions. The public needs to support this research. Understanding the links between environmental factors and human health has never been more important than it is today.

Lois A Levin, PhD is the Environment Page Editor for the Newton TAB..

This article is archived at www.greendecade.org/tabarchive.asp.

The step beyond recycling

By Eleanor Saunders//Special To The Tab

 

Three things are true about garbage today. First, the amount our cities and towns handle has more than tripled over the last fifty years, as product wastes increase dramatically and recycling recaptures only about 30 percent of what we throw away. Second, the manufacturers who feed this waste stream – packaging companies, the electronics and computer industry, textile and carpet producers to name a few – benefit from passing the financial responsibility for their discarded products onto our municipalities. Third, garbage collection and even recycling have become big business, dominated by national and multinational corporations that operate in the global marketplace and thrive on this very waste stream. Thus, rapidly increasing bills for garbage burden taxpayers, while manufacturers and waste management companies profit from the current way of doing business.

In addition, we are running out of sites for landfills. Few communities want to contend with landfill nuisance factors – odor, pests, and commercial traffic from dump trucks. Even fewer want to accept the risks associated with the hazardous leachates created when buried garbage breaks down. Despite new technologies and precautions, landfill leakages frequently occur, and the toxic metals, carcinogens, and endocrine disrupters in decomposing waste escape their safety nets. Incinerating garbage brings with it similar problems – heavy truck traffic to incinerator sites plus toxic residues concentrated in the ashy remains. And both these methods of disposal contribute to climate change by producing significant amounts of greenhouse gas, including one third of our methane emissions, a gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

Daunting as all of this sounds, you may be surprised to hear that there already is a tested approach which can significantly reduce these problems. However, it is an approach that requires us, the taxpayers, to exert a substantial amount of political will against the industries that profit from and lobby for the status quo. The approach is called Extended Producer Responsibility. It recognizes that we who are downstream of production cannot do much but try to cope with the amount and types of product waste that come our way. However, upstream, at factories, a great deal can be done through innovations in product design and manufacturing. EPR and its close policy relative Product Stewardship shift at least some responsibility for waste from municipalities to manufacturers and thereby promote a reduction of environmental impacts at all stages of a product’s life-cycle.

Producers are free to design their own product take-back schemes and to select whatever means of recycling and reducing hazardous materials make most financial sense to them – so long as they meet agreed upon performance standards and timetables. The experience of European Union countries, Canada, and Australia since the1990s demonstrates how effective attacking waste problems from this end can be. And a whole array of solutions ranging from strict government regulations to voluntary agreements are there to be assessed for effectiveness and implementation in the U.S.

Here is one small example of what could happen if EPR policies were in place. Nationally, about 3 – 4 billion pounds of nylon carpeting are discarded each year, costing around $100 million dollars in hauling and disposal fees. As currently manufactured, much of this carpeting cannot be recycled and also contains hazardous dyes and materials. However, a commercially viable, environmentally sound carpet material already exists. Called nylon 6, it can be manufactured in eco-efficient ways, such that at the end of its useful life, old carpeting can be broken down and re-manufactured into high quality nylon 6 material, over and over again. Waste is effectively eliminated. Today, a few U.S. and Canadian companies produce nylon 6 carpeting made without hazardous chemical dyes and with special backing and adhesives, designed to facilitate the re-manufacturing process. Nylon 6 even has the potential for applications beyond carpeting. Its properties would allow it to be used in the automobile industry and in the manufacturing of plastic housings for electronic equipment, two more product categories which severely burden our municipal waste streams. The nylon 6 story is a perfect illustration of what ecologically sound redesign can produce, if there were enough carrots and sticks to motivate more corporations to invest in it.

When EPR initiatives were initially explored here in the 1990s, industry effectively blocked their passage. Yet, ironically, many of corporations opposing EPR in the U.S. have managed to comply with these regulations in Europe, Australia, and Canada. Even European governments with conservative political agendas have embraced EPR, because it reduces taxes by lowering waste disposal costs, while adhering to the principles of the marketplace as the source of solutions for society’s problems. Government may set standards and timetables, but private industry is free to determine the most cost effective ways to meet them. Furthermore, there’s no reason that U.S. government couldn’t subsidize efforts toward environmentally sound redesign, just as it traditionally has subsidized companies for the environmentally damaging exploitation of virgin resources like oil, gas and timber.

But what about the impact on consumer prices of redesigning and retooling to meet EPR regulations? Won’t buyers end up paying? It’s true that individual items may cost a little more as a result. But now we all end up paying, whether we buy a product or not, because of the escalating cost of municipal waste disposal. An EPR legislative initiative for electronic waste is currently under development in New York City, and one has been passed in Maine. If EPR makes sense to you, perhaps it’s time to let government officials know that you want Massachusetts to be another state in the forefront of EPR legislation.

Eleanor Saunders, PhD, is a clinical psychologist, who practiced in Newton for many years. She now lives in The Berkshires and is a student at the Center for Environmental Research and Conservation at Columbia University.

This article is archived at www.greendecade.org/tabarchive.asp.

The Inevitable Avian Flu

By Alissa Becker//Special To The Tab

 

When meteorologists broadcast that a noreaster is tearing towards New England, Star Markets become clogged with frenzied shoppers stocking up on peanut butter and Duct Tape. But when scientists warn that the waves of a bird flu epidemic are expected to crash on the shores of California this summer, the forecast is met with disbelief and apathy. This lack of fear is understandable. Often we spend years awaiting catastrophic events that never come to pass; Y2K, for example. However, bird flu is no empty threat.

There are many environmental factors increasing the likelihood that the avian influenza virus will spread to humans. Deforestation shrinks habitat for the animals which are the “reservoirs” for these viruses and increases opportunities for those animals to come into contact with human communities. As the numbers of domestically farmed birds increases, avian viruses that have infected farmed birds have significantly more opportunities to infect humans. The likelihood of a virus crossing over to humans is also increased by the very crowded conditions in which people and domestic fowl are found in developing countries, such as the Philippines, Indonesia, and China. Some local customs, such as consuming the blood of domesticated birds, cockfighting, and the widespread sale of pet birds, further increase the potential for the virus to move into the human population. The uncontrollable migration of wild birds from areas affected by the virus provides yet another avenue for the virus to spread around the world. Taken alone, none of these factors are cause for alarm, but together they bring us closer to a pandemic.

When a bird flu pandemic develops, within a year a third of the world’s population would contract the virus. Up to 90 million Americans would fall ill, with nine million Americans requiring hospitalization in critical care units for respiratory distress. Between 200,000 and two million Americans would be expected to die. Laurie Garrett of the Council on Foreign Relations has stated that the only thing that could exact “a larger human death toll would be a thermonuclear war.”

In some respects, the avian influenza virus and the HIV virus that causes AIDS are similar; both originated in non-human hosts. HIV began as a virus affecting species of monkeys before it mutated and became capable of infecting humans. Similarly, the avian influenza virus is normally limited to infecting birds, but on rare occasions it changes slightly so that it is able to infect humans. As both these viruses originated in animals, the human immune system lacks any exposure- and thus immunity- to them, so they can lead to human epidemics, with high mortality rates. (Other familiar, deadly diseases that originated in animals include Lyme disease, West Nile, dengue, and ebola.)

The avian influenza virus and the HIV virus are not alike in all respects. The most important distinction is that, while AIDS is an epidemic that will likely continue indefinitely, the avian flu is a pandemic that is expected to last only eighteen months. In this short period of time, however, avian flu will kill more people in its first twenty-five weeks than AIDS has killed in its first 25 years.

Most scientists agree that a pandemic is inevitable. The only thing that has kept the bird flu from spreading human-to-human is a protein on the virus’ surface, which acts much like a key to open up cells for invasion. Currently the virus has a “protein key” which only unlocks birds’ cells and a handful of unlucky humans’ cells. To infect millions of humans and cause an epidemic, the virus needs only to change this one protein so that it fits into the “locks” of human cells. The virus could randomly mutate until it happens upon the right key, or it could acquire a protein key from the influenza virus that is already adapted to humans. With the high frequency of human-domestic fowl contact in Southeast Asia, the avian influenza virus is provided with many gene-altering encounters with the human influenza viruses.

Although the bird flu virus is currently rarely transmissible from birds to humans, once in possession of the proper protein, it will easily spread from human to human. Unlike HIV, which can only be spread through exchange of certain bodily fluids, the bird flu virus can be spread with a mere sneeze, cough, or handshake. Because symptoms take several days to develop, it is impossible for airports to screen for bird flu. People who don’t know they are infected could board airplanes and spread the virus around the world in mere hours. When the virus becomes transmissible from human to human, there will be little to impede its spread.

A bird flu pandemic is inevitable, too, because avian influenza pandemics have occurred many times. In the past three hundred years, there have been ten reported avian influenza pandemics, about one every thirty years. The most lethal one occurred less than hundred years ago, in 1918. Although often overshadowed by World War I, this pandemic killed half a million Americans, more than the number of American fatalities in World War I, World War II, Korea, and Vietnam combined. The last bird flu pandemic occurred under 40 years ago in 1968, so the next one is slightly overdue.

The human population will always be plagued by diseases and pandemics will continue to kill millions. The seeds have been sown for another deadly avian influenza pandemic; right now, millions of avian influenza viruses are feverishly mutating and re-sequencing their genes in search of the perfect protein and waiting for this virus are myriads of unchecked entrances into the human population. We do not know exactly when this deadly virus will emerge, but we must prepare for its inevitable arrival.

For more information on avian flu visit www.fluwikie.com or read The Great Influenza by John M. Barry.

Alissa Becker is an AP Biology student in her third year at NNHS.

This article is archived at www.greendecade.org/tabarchive.asp

A deadly poison in your yard?

By Gilbert Woolley/Special To The Tab

 

If you’ve been reading these pages recently, you’ve heard a lot about toxins; mercury in dental amalgam, tires loaded with heavy metals and toxins in pesticides and herbicides. These are all genuine toxins, but they don’t have an immediate effect. There is one toxic present in many yards in Newton that does have immediate and also long-term effects. That toxic is arsenic, the spouse poisoner’s favorite. If you have a deck, or anything made from wood in your yard that was built before 2004, it is almost certain to have been built with “Pressure Treated Lumber” which, until 2004 meant wood treated with CCA: Copper Chromated Arsenic. We are not talking about parts per million. A typical deck contains several ounces of arsenic, enough to kill the neighborhood. Even a playhouse contains enough arsenic to kill the family. The Pressure Treated Lumber now in the stores should be free from toxics.

When adding a deck to our house some 15 years ago on a hot summer’s day, I developed a nasty rash on my face. I discovered that this was caused by the arsenic in the dust from sawing and sanding the CCA-treated wood sticking to my sweaty face. At that time I had no idea what Pressure Treated meant and the lumber store gave no warnings. Irritation of the skin is one immediate effect of arsenic, and inhaling dust can cause burning of the throat and lungs.

After rain, the CCA still bleeds out of our deck and is identifiable by a pale green deposit on the surface. The green is from the copper, but more arsenic than copper bleeds out. This arsenic can be absorbed through the skin and by children by sucking contaminated fingers. Children must be trained to wash their hands before eating after possible contact with CCA-treated wood. Animals kept in cages made from CCA-treated wood have become very sick. The most important warning is never to burn CCA-treated wood, indoors or outdoors. Some of the arsenic is released as a vapor, and the effects of inhaling arsenic over a period are very serious. The vapor also deposits a film of arsenic on the ground and on vegetation. The remainder of the arsenic is concentrated in the ash, and a teaspoon of ash is a fatal dose for an adult. Exposure to arsenic over time is suspected as causing cancer, particularly in young children.

The harmful effects of CCA are so undisputed that the Bush administration, usually skeptical about environmental and health hazards, signed on to an agreement between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the lumber industry to stop shipment of CCA-treated lumber to retailers after Dec. 31, 2003. This agreement prevents additional CCA wood from entering the market place, but does nothing to address the millions of cubic feet of lumber already in the environment.

The US EPA recommends that CCA-treated wood which can be contacted by people should be coated every year with an oil-based varnish, such as polyurethane. Any time you see a green deposit on the surface of the varnish, it’s time to repaint. Wear waterproof gloves whenever you may be in contact with CCA.

As decks and other pressure-treated lumber structures reach end of life, they will pass into the waste stream. There is no perfect solution to how to prevent the arsenic from passing into the atmosphere, groundwater and drinking water, but the worst possible scenario is that municipalities like Newton, that rely on incineration to dispose of wood, will ship the CCA-treated wood to an incinerator. People living downwind of the incinerator will be subject to large doses of arsenic and the ash will be highly toxic.

Until there is a practical method of extracting CCA from the wood, a properly lined landfill is the least harmful method of disposal, but the landfill should not be upgrade from a drinking water well and the adjacent groundwater must be monitored. Arsenic is said to become attached to soil particles so that any release to the environment should be slow.

At present, most jurisdictions in the U.S., including Massachusetts, do not classify CCA-treated lumber as hazardous and it can be disposed of in unlined landfills. Unless corrected, this is going to result in serious health problems in the future. The long-term problem is that millions of pounds of arsenic have been used to treat wood and if not controlled much of this will eventually be released into the environment. (The amount of arsenic used is known because there are records of arsenic imports and almost all is used in CCA-treated wood.)

NOTE. A major reason why action to limit use of CCA-treated wood was so long delayed and why so little attention is paid to the health hazards is that many doctors do not recognize the symptoms of low-level exposure to arsenic.

Gilbert Woolley is a retired engineer. He has been a very active member of the Sierra Club since 1971, and he served on the Sierra Club National Toxics Committee for six years.

This article is archived at www.greendecade.org/tabarchive.asp.

Dogwood anthracnose: deadly disease

By Bruce Wenning/Special To The Tab

 

Flowering dogwood, Cornus florida, is a native understory tree in the eastern United States. This tree has been popular for use in home landscapes for over fifty years. Part of its popularity is that it is a slow to moderate grower and can reach a height of thirty feet and a crown width of about twenty five feet at maturity.

Flowering dogwoods are highly prized for their white or pink leaf- like bracts, which are often mistaken for the actual flowers. The flowers are much smaller and less showy than the surrounding four bracts. The bracts and flowers are emerging just about now in the landscape. At the Mass Audubon sanctuary where I work there are close to fifty scattered through out the property, and you certainly get a sense that spring is here to stay when you see these trees in bloom.

The 50 that I see every day were once part of a population of 250 that ranged in age from thirty to seventy years old. Unfortunately, by the late 1980’s the majority of this larger population had died or was weakened so severely by this new fungal pathogen that they were cut down, forever changing the landscape. The pathogen is dogwood anthracnose, Discula destructiva,. It was first discovered in the New York City area in 1979. By the late 1980’s it had spread to Massachusetts and to other east coast states south of New York City. Dogwood anthracnose continues to spread throughout the natural range of this native tree.

According to U Mass plant pathologist Dan Gillman, there is controversy about the origin of this disease. Some researchers think it is an invasive, exotic pathogen introduced on nursery stock, perhaps from Asia. Others think it could be a weak pathogen that mutated and became more virulent as environmental conditions favored and enhanced it. In either case, it is a disease to be reckoned with. It will continue to spread in our woodlands and forests and threaten the existence of this prized native tree.

Most anthracnose fungi attack only leaves and rarely kill their hosts. However dogwood anthracnose attacks both leaf and woody tissue. It is more destructive than the anthracnose diseases of maple, oak, sycamore, and birches, to name a few. Most of the time dogwood anthracnose kills the host slowly. It causes leaf spots, leaf and shoot blight (wilting) and twig, stem, and trunk cankers. Cankers give older trees a bumpy and contorted look, and they will eventually kill the tree. When infected flowering dogwood is subjected to environmental stresses and drought, tree death occurs even faster. Trees that have lost several branches or are in a weakened condition try to fight off the disease by developing prolific sprouting of small, clustered branches called water sprouts, which are highly susceptible to infection, which produces the cankers.

Fungal spore development causing this disease is favored by cloudy, cool, humid, and wet weather that occurs mostly in spring and early summer. Leaf spotting, and twig and stem infection usually start in the shady lower branches where the microclimate is cooler and more humid, which is beneficial for spore development. Sun and wind cause leaves and stems to dry out faster in the upper portions of the tree, thereby disabling the fungus and minimizing infection.

The disease can be managed by following these suggestions.

·      Get a soil test to determine the proper amount of organic tree fertilizer needed to maintain tree health.

·      Mulch the root zone with two to three inches of bark mulch to keep roots cool and to conserve moisture to drought, especially young trees, which are most susceptible to drought.

·      Provide at least one inch of water once a week during dry spells or drought.

·      Water only the root zone, not the leaves; excess moisture can spread the fungus.

·      The best times to prune dogwood to minimize disease infection and spread is during dry weather. Timing is key; a dry spell of 48 hours-one week is best. The tree will be able to seal off the wound within 24 hours. The other time is in late winter, because when temperatures are below forty degrees (F) the fungus advances more slowly.

·      Consult a Massachusetts Certified Arborist to confirm if you need fungicidal sprays. Fungicides will not cure dogwood, only protect it until the fungus mutates to a more virulent form. If you use fungicides, skip applications during dry weather when anthracnose spores are less infective.

For more information about dogwood anthracnose and soil testing see: www.UMassGreenInfo.org.

Bruce Wenning is the grounds manager for the Mass Audubon Society Habitat sanctuary in Belmont and serves on the Board of the Ecological Landscaping Association. www.ecolandscaping.org.

This article is archived at www.greendecade.org/tabarchive.asp.