Brecksville dam bad for river, good for canal

This damn has been slowing currents and allowing a historical lock to be used at a visitor center. EPA says that this damn however has been keeping the health of the river from returning to the pre-industrialization era. This damn allows fro stagnate pools that keep polluted sediment from being pushed down the river, and keeps fish from moving up river to spawn. Damns recently removed from other areas have had remarkable increase in life throughout the areas. This has become a large debate about river health, or a Historical Lock.
Article can be found here http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2009/01/brecksville_dam_bad_for_river.html

$20 Million Settlement Reached in Gallia County Plant Dispute

In our country’s short history, we have seen many small towns turn into “ghost towns”.  This still happens today, and in 2002 the village of Cheshire was bought by American Electric Power(AEP) for $20 million.  This village is located in my home county of Gallia, Ohio.  The 221 residents of Cheshire hired a team of lawyers from Washington D.C. to make a deal, ending years of complaints of pollution.  Cheshire is located in close proximity to the Gen. James M. Gavin Plant or aka Gavin Plant.   In 2000, the EPA stated that the Gavin Plant had clearly violated the Clean Air Act. Years of pollution continuously irritated this community with soot, acid haze, milky droplets, and other irritants.  The $20 million easily covered the $6 million value of the 86 homes in Cheshire.  I remember these events as they happened when I was in high school.   Relocation was hard for many of the families that had lived in Cheshire for generations. The area also has mixed emotions concerning AEP, due to the large amounts of jobs provided to the community.  There are approximately 5 AEP plants in a 1 hour driving range from Gallia County. To view the entire article please click here.

Meadowlands and the Wilderness Readings

The Meadowlands
Through out this book you think back to the beginning of when it talks about how beautiful the place is and really question how you could ever call it a nice place. It is a dump made up of many different things that you could hardly call beautiful. Starting with all the garbage that is there, just huge amounts and that is just the start. What about all the rotting corpses that have yet to be found there. Since it most of the landfills were ran by mob bosses it was an easy dump spot for bodies. That might be the most interesting part of the Meadowlands. After reading the beginning you would not realize all that has happened in the area. With all the waste and trash there I would never think of the Meadowlands as a nice place no matter how it looks.

The Trouble with Wilderness
This easy really brings a new side of what wilderness is. I still think of wilderness as a remote area with little to no civilization. This essay brings up the point that many of these wildernesses are actually habited by Indians. I feel like Indians are apart of wilderness though since they still live a very primitive life, living off the land. This essay talks about the wilderness as a place to get away from it all. Some people would say that they are most worried about the way that the average American looks at the environment.

Week 3 Readings

The Meadowlands:

            I’m not really sure what to think about this book.  I don’t know if it is for the Meadowlands or against it or if it is just sort of documenting the history of it.  Either way it seems like an amazing place with a ton of history.  I don’t know if I would ever want to visit them but they are pretty interesting.  It just seems pretty amazing that this guy would want to explore this place.  I mean it’s literally a dump.  There are gently rolling hills that if you dug underneath them you would find nothing but trash.  Even though there is so much trash there is also a lot of history.  Some interesting things about the history is that that there have been a ton of pro soccer players to come out of Kearny that is located in the Meadowlands.  It’s incredible that such a place could produce such great talent.  Another interesting fact about the Meadowlands is that if you dig long enough you are likely to find dead bodies because it had served as an execution site for mob bosses and may even be the final resting place of Jimmy Hoffa, but if your lucky enough then you just might find some pirate gold that had been stashed there.  After reading this book I don’t know if I can describe what the Meadowlands is actually like.  It seems like no one would ever want to visit there let alone live there and yet they have towns and shops and hotels.  It’s a place that houses more trash then imaginable yet some of that trash is part of history like Penn Station that was torn down and thrown away in the Meadowlands.

 

The Trouble with Wilderness:

            This essay reminded me of the first day of class when we would say the first thing we thought of when we thought of wilderness.  Overtime the definition of wilderness has changed from one that is scary and unknown to one that is pleasant and a place that anyone would want to visit.  It was also interesting that when the first national parks were being set up around the US as pure unadulterated wilderness it came at the expense of the Indians.  We like to think that the wilderness in America was completely uninhabited when in fact there were already people living there off the land.  This essay also made it seem that wilderness as we think of it no longer exists.  We tend to think of wilderness as untouched by man.  Something that just grows wild, but in order to do this we have to put our hands into it to shape it.  Then after that we go in and we enjoy it, but this to defeats the purpose of a true wilderness.

 

7 Things You Should Know About:

            This article points out new tools that can help with interacting with students as well as applications that can put you in touch with people around the world.  Most of these technologies I have never heard of before, but a year ago my teacher did actually record all of her lectures on her ipod and made them available for students to download into their itunes and listen to at their leisure.  One of the technologies that really caught my attention was the one about using the Wii to help teach kids in the class.  I have played the Wii before and it is pretty awesome and really fun.  I think that by incorporating it into the classroom teachers will be able to get the kids attention easier and to keep it longer.    

Michigan: Asking for $3billion in Funding

The article I found is about how the State of Michigan is expecting to receive funds from the federal government in order to support new plans for a $3 billion annual cleanup blueprint.   The areas of cleanup include: contaminated sediments, beach and water health, and improved water a sewage systems.  The article seems to focus on the ‘beauty’ value of the project’s plans in order to attract new businesses.  

For a Picture of Detroit’s Waterfront, Click Here

     One would figure that the huge project would be focused on bettering the environment for the sake of our future water supply seeing as the great lakes are home to over 350 species of fish, border 10,000 miles of shoreline, and provide drinking water to 40 million people.  However, since the first colonialists showed up the waterways have been used in the transportation needs of many local businesses.  Starting as fur trading the trades have gone through iron, steel, oil, grain, and of course automobiles. 

    I see how the article views the project as good for potential businesses to move in but I think the real factors here are the positive affects the project will have for 40million people and countless species of wildlife.

For more  information on the Great Lakes, Click Here

Restaurant Supply Firm Goes Biodiesel

In Somersworth, New Hampshire there is a food supply company named Favorite Foods who supplies food and paper to restaurants. After their clients asked for more environmentally friendly products, they began to fuel their company trucks and automobiles with biodiesel instead of regular diesel. Since their trucks use eight hundred gallons of diesel per week and this added up to 41,000 gallons a year this should have a very positive effect on the environment. In doing this there would be a decrease in the gas emissions that their trucks produce by sixty percent. This change would benefit their company as well as the environment since most of their clients are fifty miles away from their home warehouse. In addition to the change in fuel, the company is also planning to offer more sustainable paper products, organic foods as well as recycling their packaging materials and printing their company newspaper on recycled paper.

Michigan Buckeyes?

An environmentalist group by the name of “Save the Buckeye” claims that global warming is forcing Ohio’s state tree out of Ohio and into Michigan territory.  What makes this even more interesting is that Ohio States football team is the Buckeye’s and now that tree could be moving up into their archrival’s territory.  The group has been holding rallies at football tailgate events in hopes to raise everyone’s awareness about global warming and to try and stop it.  So far they don’t have any proof that the Buckeye tree is being pushed up North, but they say that eventually it could happen.  Either way they are trying to raise awareness about global warming and they are doing a pretty good job at it especially by scaring Ohio State football fans.  Click here for full article

Curbside Recycling Pilot Program in Cleveland

I live in Cleveland, and one thing that I noticed is that we don’t have curbside recycling. Curbside recycling makes recycling easier, as people can leave their recyclables in front of their house for pick up, rather than looking up drop off locations, getting into their car, and driving to the specified location. Upon researching the recycling program in Cleveland I discovered that there is a new Curbside Recycling Pilot Program where approximately 15,000 Cleveland residents are given two large, plastic garbage bins: one for recyclables, and one for non-recyclables.

Residents participating in this Piolt Program are given a service guide which informs them what exactly to put in their recycling bins, and in what order. “Metal containers, beverage cans, aluminum trays or foil, glasses and plastics with a #1-7 recycling symbol on the bottom. Place recyclables in a see-through plastic bag and place the bag in your blue cart. Bundle or put in a paper or clear plastic bag all newspapers and magazines. Paper bundles should be placed on top of all other recyclables in the cart. Cut up cardboard items or flatten.”

I am unsure of as to exactly when this program started (I can’t seem to find a start date) but it is supposedly a six month test before expanding the curbside recycling program to the entire city (which will take a six year period of time.) The specific area of Cleveland where I live is not one of areas selected to participate in this Pilot Program. I am hoping that my area gets curbside recycling soon, however in the mean time we use drop off locations.

If you are interested in finding out more about the Cleveland Pilot Program you can call their Hot-line: 216-664-3717.

Konarka Solar Film Cells

This article from popular mechanics, talks about the US based company called Konarka, which has recently made huge strides in the development of cheap solar film cells.  This solar film is extremely versatile, as it is slightly transparent, extremely thin and extremely cheap to produce.  This means that it can be used in a wider range of places, compared to current solar cell technologies, and the user can receive more return on investment, much quicker than they can with current solar cell technologies.  While the technology is still developing, these solar film strips are currently in circulation and are entirely functional.  They are predicted to hit the market somewhere around 2010.  However, it can currently still be arranged for people to obtain samples of this material for custom installations.

About Me: John Romano

My name is John Romano, and I’m a junior double majoring in Environmental Studies and Geography.  I play football and hockey here at OWU and wear the #14 for both teams.  I was born in Los Angeles California and lived there for six years until I moved to San Antonio, Texas, a few months after the Northridge earthquake in 1994.  I attended a prep school called Saint Mary’s Hall in San Antonio for 8 years, until I moved to Hightstown, New Jersey in 2002.  There I attended a prep school called The Peddie School, where I played football, hockey and lacrosse and made the 2005 US inline hockey junior national team shortly afterwards.  I graduated from Peddie and came to OWU in 2006 and thats where I am today.