Battles Won, but War Not Over, to Protect Whales

Photos courtesy Andrew Christie

It seems like the ink is barely dry on this summer's victory to protect whales. But activists are already mobilizing for the next battle.

In June, the Santa Lucia Chapter celebrated after the International Whaling Commission (IWC) declined to lift a moratorium on commercial whaling. However, the IWC's resolution included a "one-year cooling off period," which means the tug-of-war on commercial whaling -- a back and forth that started after a 1986 moratorium -- might resume in the not-too-distant future.

"The nations that continue to exploit the loopholes in the moratorium and kill whales [Japan, Norway, and Iceland] have been loud and aggressive in their efforts to bring back full-scale whaling. It's safe to assume they're going to try again," said Andrew Christie, Santa Lucia Chapter Director.

 

 

Several Sierra Club chapters had a major hand in the 16 rallies that took place on May 23 along 15 California coastal counties. More than 1,000 people showed up. At Morro Bay alone, more than 400 people signed the petition to preserve the moratorium. The overall coordinating group was the Western Alliance for Nature/WAN Conservancy.

Why the strong turn out? One reason was the U.S. government's lackadaisical approach to the IWC negotiations.

Water Sentinels Help Pass Tough New Phosphorus Regs

On July 30, New York Governor David Paterson signed into law tough new phosphorus standards that will dramatically reduce the allowable amount of phosphates in lawn fertilizer and dish detergents throughout the state.

The bill, introduced in the state legislature by Assemblyman Bob Sweeney and Senator Antoine Thompson, was championed and abetted by the Sierra Club's Long Island Water Sentinels. That's Water Sentinels volunteer leader Linda Freilich, above left doing water-quality testing, and below with Sweeney.

With the bill's passage, New York joins 16 other states that are clamping down on phosphorus pollution. Water-quality data gathered by Sentinels volunteers buttressed Sweeny's case as he shepherded the bill through the legislature.

"Bob Sweeney is a great friend of the Sierra Club," says Freilich, who also serves as Coastal Waterways chair of the Sierra Club's Long Island Group. "We encouraged him to follow our data in authoring and promoting the phosphorus bill." Below, Water Sentinels volunteer Lou Siegel with a water sample.

Thirty-five to 50 percent of phosphorus pollution in New York comes from fertilizer and detergents, and much of it enters through storm drains and sewage treatment plants. "Treating phosphorus in treatment plants is very expensive, so you really want to stop it at the source," Freilich says. "If you reduce it at the source, you'll reduce it where it enters the waterways."

Below, Bill Stegemann and Joe Aurelio doing water-quality testing.

Club Member Gardens Guerrilla Style

 Jim Richardson of Aurora, Colorado is a Sierra Club member with the Rocky Mountain Chapter. He is also a real life guerrilla gardener. I had a chance to talk with him about this furtive hobby. For tips on how to become a guerrilla  gardener, click here.

So where did your roots in gardening come from?

I grew up in a rural environment in Iowa. Now I live in a patio home that I outgrew in a few years. I volunteer at some community farms in our area. I started planting stuff in my neighbors’ yards. I’d say, “Hey, you want a tree?” and I’d plant it for them. They probably got tired of seeing me, so I started to sneak down to a nearby greenbelt, wetland area near my house. That’s where I do my guerrilla gardening.

For those who might not be familiar with the topic, describe guerrilla gardening.

There are a lot of underutilized city owned areas in our metro environments that could use plants, trees, and bushes that will enhance wildlife and fight climate change with carbon sequestration. If you look around, there are brown lots everywhere that could benefit from native species. You don’t want to introduce something that’s not native. There’s enough of that going on already. You want to try to eradicate an invasive weed and replace it with a native grass or something like that.

It can be as small as sunflowers. You don’t have to spend a lot of money on it or anything. Just plant it somewhere, monitor it, and water it as needed. After a while it establishes itself and you can go plant something else. I probably have several hundred plants in my area that I maintain.

The “guerrilla” tag implies trouble.

I’ve had two run-ins with the local government. I started out with evergreen trees in a floodplain area. The city didn’t like them so they took them out. I’ve had to meet city officials a couple of times over the past five years. They’d say that I need to quit planting because if I keep doing it then someone else will get the idea of doing it. And I’m thinking, “Okay, what’s the problem with that?” So I just ignored that and tried to be sneaky about it.

Then the city flood supervisor and I came to an uneasy agreement: I can plant things in an area that's about 100 yards long by about 30 yards wide along a road.