More Colonial Park Improvement

Root Pike WIN Grant to St. Catherine’s High School and SEGG made it happen.
Photographs by Melissa and Jay Warner

Report by Jay Warner

Saturday, May 28, SEGG members met at Colonial Park for more work for the Root Pike WIN Grant. Helped by St. Catherine’s High School Environmental Club members Katie Muratore and Andy Adrianson, and SEGG members John Berge, Lila Berge and Melissa Warner planted native woodland flowers in the space behind the bench at the High Street entrance to the root River Pathway.

Last year we persuaded the City Parks department to remove the plantings they had put in there, and let us put in some locally native shrubs and plants.

Later Jay Warner and Jeff Sytsma arrived and helped pull Dame’s Rocket from the woods directly behind the bench and plantings. We got at least nine large trash bags of invaders, just as the first ones began to flower. If we pull Dame’s Rocket once a week for the rest of this summer, we should keep those invaders under control into following years.

CAPTION: PHOTO 3: The ‘before’ and ‘after,’ conditions of this small patch of woods after the removal of Dame’s Rocket and other invasives.

CAPTION: PHOTO 4: Melissa Warner, left, and Jeff Sytsma stand over their “kill” which the city later removed.


Calendar:

August 4: Conservation Committee Meeting at Berge’s House, 1529 Crabapple Drive, Racine, at 7:00 p.m. Contact John at (262) 633-8455 with questions, items for the agenda, directions or any other additional information.

August 11: Southeast Gateway Executive Committee Meeting at Olympia Brown Unitarian Universalist Church — downstairs, 625 College Ave., Racine, at 7:00 p.m.

August 21: Sunday Hike: Join the Sunday hikers as they explore the Pike Lake Segment of the Ice age Trail. Go north on Hwy. 41, exit at Hwy 60. Follow the signs to Pike Lake State Park, which is off Hwy. 60 on Kettle Moraine Drive. We’ll meet in the main parking lot at 10:00 a.m. We’ll learn about the forces that created this fascinating landscape. Pack a lunch. We’ll eat on the trail. For more information/carpooling call Nancy at (262) 639-5639.

September 1: Southeast Sierran Deadline. Send articles, etc., electronically by using the information on the back page, or send by mail to: Gary Zumach, 2548 Pinehurst Ave., Racine, WI 53403.

September 1: Conservation Committee Meeting at Berge’s House, 1529 Crabapple Drive, Racine, at 7:00 p.m. Contact John at (262) 633-8455 with questions, items for the agenda, directions or any other additional information.

September 8: Southeast Gateway Executive Committee Meeting at the Olympia Brown Church annex at 419 Sixth St., Racine, at 7:00.

September 8–11: Sierra Club Summit in San Francisco. John Berge will be the SEGG delegate.

September 15: Developmental Impacts on Groundwater. Our speaker will be Lee Trotta, Professional Geologist and Account Executive with the Wisconsin Ground Water Association. This regular 7:00 p.m. monthly meeting will be at the Kenosha Public Museum, on the lakefront in Kenosha. We will meet for dinner prior to our meeting at 5:30 p.m. at the Villa D’ Carlo Restaurant, 5140 6th Ave., Kenosha.

September 18: Sunday Hike: Explore another segment of the Ice Age Trail. We will hike the Milwaukee River Segment of the trail beginning at Mauthe Lake and learn more about the glacial landforms. Meet at the Mauthe Lake State Recreational Area at 10:00 am. Take Hwy 41, exit at Hwy. 28. From Kewaskum, take Hwy S. north. At Hwy. GGG head north and turn on Mauthe Lake Road. Pack a lunch. We’ll eat on the trail. For more information/carpooling call Nancy at (262) 639-5639

September 24: Highway 38 Cleanup. Note: this is a change of date due to a major scheduling conflict. Report at Bob and Betty Gericke’s house, 3927 North Lane, Franksville at 9:00 a.m. to pick up assignments and equipment. Potluck lunch after the cleanup. Call Bob or Betty at (262) 886-9057 for directions or additional information.

October 1: Party on the Pavement in downtown Racine. We will have a table in front of the Sustainable Racine office to distribute literature and do fund raising (selling calendars, cranberries, photos, etc.) Times are yet to be determined. Call Melissa at (262) 639-0918. For information about submitting a photo for sale, see page four.

October 7–9: Autumn Assembly hosted by the Great Waters Group will be held at the Urban Ecology Center in Milwaukee. Plan to spend att least a day at this annual event. Our group will be hosting this event in 2006.

October 22: Make a Difference Day. Our projects will include removing alien, invasive species in Colonial Park and at the Pringle Nature Center. Times to be announced.



Refresh, Recharge and Renew
by Nancy Hennessy

Bright and early one Saturday in June, five of us piled into a van and drove to Custer, WI to spend the day at the Midwest Renewable Energy Fair. It was a first time for me, but I had heard that it was a great experience and I was looking forward to it. I wasn’t disappointed.

It was a beautiful sunny day and the fair site was buzzing with activity. I started the day by visiting the exhibits. There was an amazing array of products, services and information to help you live more lightly on the earth — almost 200 exhibitors. To name a few: wind and solar systems to power your home and heat your water, building systems that use cordwood, compressed earth blocks, straw bales and insulated concrete forms, eco friendly bamboo and cork flooring, classy recycled glass and aluminum tiles, bio-based foam spray for insulation, green building designers, remodelers and builders, environmentally friendly landscape products, beautiful glassware made from ordinary bottles and everything you need to make your diesel engine run on recycled cooking oil.

The featured speaker for the day was David Bornstein, author of How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas. His book tells of a massive transformation going on around the world: the growth of the nonprofit sector, where millions of ordinary people solve problems when governments and bureaucracies have failed. He told inspiring stories about some of these people in third world countries and how their persistence sparked social change.

After a lunch break that included a drink in a disposable corn-based plastic looking cup, it was time to try a workshop. There was a wide range of subjects, including fun stuff for kids. I sat in on one called Living with Renewables in the City. The presenter described how he had gradually transformed his urban apartment in a Chicago duplex with renewable energy systems until it was off the grid! Much of what he used he learned about or found at the Renewable Energy Fair.

We came home tired but refreshed. In spite of the unenlightened attitude that exists in our own country regarding energy policy, it is good to know that change is happening and that the possibilities are endless.


Call for Candidates

The Southeast Gateway Group (SEGG) nominating committee is seeking candidates to run in the fall election for positions on the SEGG Executive Committee. Each position has a tenure of two years. The SEGG Executive Committee meets once a month (except for July) on the second Thursday of each month. Any SEGG Sierra Club member from Kenosha, Racine, or Walworth counties is encouraged to consider running for one of the three available positions. Candidates are asked to submit a brief biographical statement detailing why they want to run and what they can bring to the club.

Please submit your name and biographical statement by August 26, 2005 to any member of the Nominating Committee: Bev Iverson: biverson @ execpc . com, Dennis Flath: dflath @ wi. rr . com, Barb Meyocks: dflath @ wi . rr . com . (No s p a c e s in e-mail addresses)

School Bus Emissions Harmful to Children
by Nancy Duersten

Wisconsin is not on the list of states that have moved to curb toxic diesel emissions from school buses. We could be exposing thousands of our children to unacceptable levels of known carcinogens — 40 of them including arsenic,1,3 butadiene, benzene and formaldehyde. Concern is growing across the U.S. as parents become aware of this potentially dangerous situation at their local schools. The states of Minnesota, California, Connecticut, New York, Maine, Alabama, Texas, New Jersey, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Vermont have taken action to minimize children’s exposure to diesel emissions since February 2002.

Adding to this problem is the fact that children breathe 50% more air per pound of body weight than do adults and therefore toxins have more potential to injure young and still developing lung tissue. There is no known safe level of exposure to diesel exhaust. If buses are allowed to idle for extended periods of time while children board and exit buses, increased levels of toxins fill the air. If buses park end to end and engines are left idling while windows remain open, diesel exhaust is brought into the buses. Fortunately there are some relatively easy solutions to this emission problem which could be adopted with a little effort.

The simplest solution is to post no-idling signs near bus loading zones and making sure that none of them are near school air intake vents which would bring toxic air into the school itself. Other solutions involve encouraging bus companies to retrofit their vehicles to use cleaner fuels such as biodiesel, ultra low sulfur diesel or compressed natural gas.

The Sierra Club has been in the forefront of this effort. Let’s move it along in Wisconsin.

To find more info on this subject go to google.com then “toxic emissions schoolbus”

Nancy Duersten of Racine can be e-mailed at: ndust @ milwpc.com .


SEGG to Sell Photos at Party on the Pavement

The Southeast Gateway Group will be selling photos taken by members at the Party on the Pavement, October 1.

To submit a photo:
- A clean 35mm slide or negative, carefully packaged, may be submitted. No prints, please.
- A digital photo is also acceptable. Do not send anything but a copy of the original camera file. No highly compressed .jpg’s will be accepted. Copies of the original camera file should be burned to a CD. If the file is in RAW format, please convert to Photoshop® or .TIF.
- To allow time to prepare and print images, send them before September 1. Include caption information for each photo. Participation is limited to the first 15 images received. Send carefully packed slides, negatives or CD’s to: Gary Zumach, 2548 Pinehurst Ave., Racine WI 53403. All original materials will be returned. Questions? E-mail gzumach@wi.net.


Horicon Marsh & Forward Energy’s Wind Farm

The following comments were part of the presentation to the Wisconsin Public Service Commission by James J. Steffens regarding the proposed wind farm near the Horicon Marsh. Jim is the Conservation Committee Chair for the John Muir Chapter:

The John Muir Chapter, representing the Sierra Club in the State of Wisconsin, wishes to be on record regarding Forward Energy’s proposed wind energy project in Fond du Lac and Dodge Counties.

The Sierra Club strongly supports the development of renewable energy resources in Wisconsin. We would like to see the state government create an overall strategic energy plan for the state, to create resources and incentives for renewable energy and energy conservation, as part of a program to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. In that context we favor the general intent of Forward Energy to create wind energy facilities in Wisconsin.

In the case of the proposed wind farm in Fond du Lac and Dodge Counties, however, we have serious reservations about the project, based on the intended location on the escarpment above Horicon Marsh. If our concerns can be addressed by an alternative site of the project, we would endorse the project enthusiastically.

Horicon Marsh is a freshwater wetland of international significance, as indicated by its being referenced in the Ramsar Treaty. Its size makes it unique as a freshwater cattail marsh. It is an important feeding ground for migratory avian species, and it is also important to our state as a breeding area for birds. Because of its importance to birds nesting here as well as to others migrating across the state, it must be managed carefully as a natural resource.

Coincidentally, the proposed wind farm is near the Neda mine site, which is one of the largest bat hibernacula in the country. Where the impacts of other wind energy sites have been on migrating bats or on relatively small summer populations, the Neda mine site involves a resident population of unknown size, but one certainly measuring in the hundreds of thousands of animals. Because bats are largely invisible to us, we do not appreciate the quantity of insects they consume. For a population the size of that utilizing the Neda mine, one may confidently estimate the insects consumed to be measured in hundreds of tons per annum, affecting both human health and agricultural productivity in the area.

Our concerns for the proposed site of the Forward wind project have two aspects, mortality and deterrence. On the issue of avian and bat mortality, we do not believe that the effects of the proposed site have been adequately assessed. No previous wind farm has been situated so close to either a major wetland or a bat colony. The fact that the Horicon Marsh is important both to migrating and breeding populations of birds means that previous data on avian mortality at wind farms are not relevant. We argue that the proposed placement of the Forward Energy wind farm will cause fatalities at a level far higher than previous wind farms, a level that cannot be predicted by existing data.

We are particularly concerned about those bird species such as vultures and cranes, which breed in the marsh and move to higher ground to feed. In this case, the immediate higher ground is the ridge where the wind farm is proposed to be located.

One of the birds of interest is the whooping crane, a species brought back from the brink of extinction only by remarkable and heroic human effort. There are reliable reports of this crane having been sighted in the Horicon Marsh. As the whooping crane population increases, it is logical to expect that this marsh will be a nesting area for the crane. Thus, there are concerns for at least one endangered species relating to the location of the wind farm.

Bat mortality of existing wind farms has been at the level of thousands of animals. Again, however, the existing data are not relevant, since no wind farm has been situated so close to a major bat hibernaculum. Bats reproduce slowly, having on average one offspring per pair per year. Thus over time the proposed wind farm could have a major detrimental effect on the bat population at the Neda mine.

In addition to issues of avian and bat mortality, it is important to consider the possible effects of the Forward wind farm as a deterrent to birds using the marsh as either a migratory feeding site or a breeding ground. These deterrent effects are not easily measured. They result not in bird carcasses that can be quantified, but in reduced populations in the area, or even hundreds or thousands of miles away. But our lack of ability to quantify the effects of deterrence does not make the issue any less important.

We believe that the issues raised above can be adequately addressed by changing the location of the proposed wind farm. We oppose the plan in its current form, but we would endorse it enthusiastically if the site were moved four, or preferably five, miles away from the marsh.

We also request that avian and bat population studies be done prior to initiation of construction, both the study of population densities as a function of distance from the marsh, as well as a function of time of year, so that migrating avian populations are accounted for. It is important to begin these studies a full and complete year before the project begins, in order to determine whether the project does result in avoidance by birds and bats of the area. We request that, as the project progresses, avian and bat mortality be quantified. It is important to determine whether or not mortality is a linear function of the number of turbines constructed. Finally we request that these studies be carried out by competent individuals chosen by and reporting to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Thank you.