Short News Stories No. 4

Big Cleanup
Thousands of volunteers took part in Coastal Cleanup Day in the San Francisco Bay area, collecting about 220,000 pounds of stuff in an early tally. Among the items picked from the shore: shopping carts, hubcaps, metal chairs and shingles. In Hayward, the haul included about 50 tires, fire extinguishers, buoys, shoes and thousands of balls of all kinds - tennis balls, basketballs and volley balls. At Candlestick Point Recreation Area, it was "microtrash" - bits of glass, plastic, metal and paper strewn about the shoreline.
San Francsco Chronicle, Sept. 20, 2009.

Urban Meadow in Georgetown
Above the Potomac River in the Georgetown section of Washington, D.C. sits a rooftop garden on a utility substation. In plain view of a nearby condo on Water Street N.W., the meadow is a magnet for birds, including Mallard ducks, doves, sparrows and goldfinches. Its grasses change colors during the seasons. It is the project of the condo developer Anthony Lanier who wanted dwellers to have a pleasant view toward the Potomac. The green roof was designed by Washington landscape architects Oehme, van Sweden & Associates.
The Washington Post Magazine, Sept. 20, 2009.

Working Waterfront Preservation
A lobster family has placed a permanent easement on a pier in Tremont, Maine, the first under the state's Working Waterfront Access Program, designed to protect commercial fishing properties. The program is funded through the Land for Maine's Future, where property owners sell development rights to the state to preclude other uses such as residential development. This particular action occurred on Davis Wharf on Goose Cove, Mount Desert Island. A ceremony to mark the occasion was attended by over 150 lobstermen/women. The state program has $5 million in voter-approved bond money with which to acquir working waterfront facilities. According to the Island Institute, only 20 miles of commercial waterfront remain along Maine's coast. Center co-directors Ann Breen and Dick Rigby wrote a monograph in 1985 entitled: Caution: Working Waterfront: The Impact of Change on Marine Enterprises, which discussed commercial pressures threatening small marine businesses.
The Working Waterfront/Inter-Island News, Island Institute, September 2009.

The Battle for Southport
Plans by the North Carolina State Ports Authority to build an enormous container terminal on the Lower Cape Fear River in Southport have stirred fierce opposition. The ports authority has acquired 600 acres of waterfront land, for $30 million, and says its facility will create 16,500 jobs. To the 2,500 residents of the area forming No Port Southport, the project will permanently damage the area's ecosystem. The group, joined by the North Carolina Coastal Federation, says the river is inadequate to handle the vessels likely to be used, requiring dredgin, and the road system would have to be expanded through uninhabited areas. The area has 28 marinas and 2,500 slips that would be adversely affected, the opposition notes.
SailMagazine, September 2009.