The Bronx River Lives!

Alewife are back for a second year in a row.

(K)Notweed Acres

When I first moved into my apartment in Brooklyn 3 years ago, I was excited at the prospect of having a vegetable garden in the backyard. Unfortunately, the space was incredibly overgrown with weeds and strewn with trash, to boot. The first order of business, then, was to prep the landscape for some raised beds. Turned out that this task was easier said than done; I didn't know it then, but the predominant weed was Japanese knotweed and it would not die without a serious fight.

My experience with knotweed is that it's nearly invincible. I've tried to pull the plants. I've tried to dig and pull the roots. I've tried to quarantine the raised beds with weed-block fabric. I've tried herbicide. So far, nothing has worked over the long term. In the end, I've found that the best way to combat this terror is to be out in the garden pulling weeds at least twice a week. The pieces that I pull go directly into the trash; any stray leftovers can and will sprout on their own.

Anyway, given the headache I've endured for some homegrown produce, you can imagine my desire to experiment with these little saviors...

Everglades and DIY rain gardens

The NY Times published a depressing expose yesterday of Florida's recent efforts to buy back the Everglades from U.S. Sugar. In a nutshell, the State is paying inflated prices for land that may not be appropriate for restoration, at the expense of previously-started projects that would have had real restoration impact. Not exactly ideal if you're an environmentalist or have a stake in seeing the River of Grass returned to former glory but certainly ideal if you've got an interest in U.S. Sugar, especially since the purchase may save the company from what was near-certain peril only a couple of years ago.

On a more positive note, use Sightline Daily's DIY rain garden piece to reduce stormwater in your area!

How to help Haiti in the long-term

An interesting, brief piece on improving Haiti's environment in the long-term.

Our mother the mountain

There's an excellent article exploring the impacts of mountaintop mining by Duke's Emily Bernhardt and ex-Dean Schlesinger in the new Science... and it calls EPA to task for allowing this work to go on despite mounds (no pun intended) of evidence linking the practice to egregious ecological damage.

Check out Andrew C. Revkin's blog post about it too, if only for the comments.

Mustang Truckee

The New York Times did a colorful story yesterday on the restoration of Nevada's Truckee River and its relationship with the evolution of the Mustang Ranch.

I did a bit of poking around online and found a Nature Conservancy site related to the project, photos and videos taken by consultants to TNC (looks like a cool place to work!), and a list of designated use impairments to the Truckee.

Should definitely be interesting to see what happens and whether this restoration reduces turbidity, temperature, nutrients and, thereby, obviates the need for Total Maximum Daily Loads... and how long these changes take.