The Wrack

The following was published in the Biddeford-Saco?Journal Tribune Sunday edition, 10/4/2015.

Just about every two weeks, for the past three years, Ive gassed up my car. On the printed receipt from the pump, I write down the mileage from the trip odometer before I reset it. Every few months, I take all the receipts out of the Altoids tin I keep them in and enter them into a spreadsheet  gallons, price per gallon, location of fill-up, miles driven  and use it to calculate my average miles per gallon, and where the reliably cheapest gas is. Embarrassingly, Ive even graphed the ebbs and flows of my refueling fun.

What can I say? I like math; I like numbers.

The wrack is an "ecological treasure trove" as well as a thorny beach management issue. At the reserve's Laudholm Beach, take the time to look at the wrack community and appreciate its unique contribution to a complex environment.

2-3" of rain today. Flood warnings. Coastal flood warnings. A super moon high tide. "Multiple hazards in effect," declared the National Weather Service.

Really, quite a nice afternoon for a walk.

I've always loved our old bowl-and-chain gutters on the Coastal Ecology Center.

Removing a small dam from Goff Mill Brook in Arundel reconnects seven miles of stream habitat to the estuary, benefiting brook trout, other migratory and freshwater fish, and the watersheds ecology.

The following was published in the Biddeford-Saco?Journal Tribune Sunday edition, 9/20/2015, and Making It At Home newspaper.

To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. To a man at a coastal research center during Maine Coast Week, all the worlds a coast.

Katrina Papanastassiou brought good news for her lunchtime talk about this summer's piping plover and least tern nesting season in Maine.

With almost 4,000 attendees over two days, the crafts festival set new attendance and gross receipts records in its 28th year. Proceeds from the event will continue to support and develop science, education, conservation, and preservation.

If you're reading this article, you probably own a computer, tablet, or smartphone. It is also likely that you have at least one unused or broken device languishing in a closet somewhere. What exactly is the responsible thing to DO with these things?

We at the Reserve have struggled with this dilemma for quite a while. Old technology was piling up in the farmhouse woodshed like cordwood. Although we didn't know what to do with it, we knew we didnt want it ending up in the landfill.

The Reserve's annual late summer effort to save monarch eggs, caterpillars, and chrysalises from the mowers that cut our fields happened last week. The mowing is essential in preventing the fields from growing into forests over time, and also as a management strategy for invasive species.

Thanks so much to the eleven volunteers who spent several hours in the warm sunshine combing the ubiquitous milkweed plants for signs of monarchs! We saved 38 caterpillars of all sizes, removing them from the fields that will be mowed within the coming weeks to fields that will not be mowed this year. The smallest of the caterpillars measured less than one inch in length, whereas the largest were several inches long. A handful of monarch butterflies were spotted fluttering over the fields during the rescue mission, providing hope that some of the rescued caterpillars will also reach adulthood.

Mantoloking, New Jersey, October 30, 2012.

The following was published in the Biddeford-Saco?Journal Tribune Sunday edition, 8/30/2015. (Continued from Remembering Katrina, Part I.)

Ten years ago this week, Category 3 Hurricane Katrina left nearly 2,000 people dead, hundreds of communities uprooted, and more than $100 billion in damage along the Gulf Coast. Adding in Superstorm Sandys devastation in October 2012, just two events swallowed the equivalent of: five months of Medicare spending, or two years of the federal education budget, or four years worth of the Federal Highway Trust Fund, our national gasoline tax-funded infrastructure bank that is now running on empty. So much money, washed out to sea.