Scientific integrity and facts

Dear Alan:

It is often said that everyone is entitled to their own opinion but not their own set of facts. That is not the case in government where there is a rich history of political appointees ordering up their own facts by manipulating the documentary record and deep-sixing discordant facts.

This right was reinforced by the Roberts Supreme Court which ruled in 2006 – Justice Samuel Alito’s first swing vote – that government employees have no (as in zero) First Amendment free speech rights when acting within their scope of duty because, the court reasoned, the government owns their speech. 

As a result, during the Bush presidency technical reports on everything from climate change to drilling in the Arctic refuge were rewritten to support the Bush/Cheney agenda. This was done because there was no rule against it.  That is beginning to change.

Like a volcanic island rising from the seabed, a new body of science law is fitfully evolving.  PEER has played a pioneering role in helping adopt and apply new scientific integrity rulesprohibiting political manipulation of technical works and declaring transparency in scientific matters for all federal employees, contractors and grantees.  These new rules vary from agency to agency, are uneven, incomplete and poorly enforced – but it is a start.

PEER is now preparing a campaign to strengthen and broaden these rules to ensure that every federal science program shields researchers from political interference and prevents alteration or suppression of their work products.  One arm of this effort is our new web law center to help embattled scientists. It serves as a hub to our new nationalAlliance for the Legal Protection of Science. 

The stakes could not be higher.

From global climate change to nanotechnology, the economic and political implications of environmental research have never been greater.  For that reason, so too are the pressures to quash off-message findings and those who create them. 

By conferring legal status on scientific work-products and those who create them we can reform the way decisions in public service are made. By arming scientists and technical specialists with the ability to indelibly embed inconvenient facts in the record, we force political appointees to confront what they would prefer buried. 

PEER is founded on the notion that the key agents of reform are those within who intimately know whether change is real or merely rhetorical.  Please help us do this work.

Sincerely,

Jeff Ruch

Executive DirectorP.S. Watch the NBC Nightly News report on the dangers of synthetic turf and tire crumb featuring University of Washington goalie coach Amy Griffin, who came to PEER to ask for our help in elevating the profile of this story and inducing agencies to begin doing meaningful risk assessments of a product they formerly claimed was safe.
P.P.S.  Meanwhile, in Malibu, the schools have finally promised to remove any toxic PCB contamination above federal limits – the catch is that they refuse to look for it.
P.P.P.S. Across the country at Florida’s Canaveral National Seashore, the Park Service once again shows that it stirs to action only when exposed as corrupt.
The two-year-old investigative report PEER unearthed quotes the park superintendent blaming all Canaveral’s problems, including her $800/month work cell phone bills, on a “small group of White Caucasians” who have the misfortune to work under her.

A look back at a Raven nest and more

This is a fresh newspaper column I finished today.

A week or so passed before I ventured far enough down-slope to see the spot where a family was started.

The flat rock, protected from weather by a rock/earth overhang, had been used not too many years previous by a nesting pair of Common Ravens. A collection of sturdy, weathered sticks – likely pulled from snags and live trees – marked the nesting site. I photographed it at least a dozen times, but those pix were taken with slide film and I just can’t fathom the notion of loading tray after tray of slides onto my aged projector to find the Raven nest pix. (The slides are priceless as slide film and slide projectors aren’t freely available anymore.)

Ravens, known by the scientific name Corvus corax, haven’t nested now for at least two decades on that ledge that’s part of the Council Cup promontory overlooking the Susquehanna River valley. But Peregrine Falcons returned as nesters a few years into the new century, a sign that a bit of avian wildness had returned to the river valley.

Ravens, though, remain a favorite of mine because even to hear one croak as it flies over, oftentimes too distant to see with naked eyes, is a positive sign of Wild Nature.

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s allaboutbirds.org Web site says this about the calls of ravens: “Common Ravens make many different kinds of calls varying from a low, gurgling croak to harsh grating sounds and shrill alarm calls. Scientists have placed their vocalizations into as many as 33 different categories based on sound and context.

“The most commonly heard is the classic gurgling croak, rising in pitch and seeming to come from the back of the throat. It’s much deeper and more musical than a crow’s simple, scratchy caw. Ravens make this call often. It’s audible for more than a mile, and ravens often give it in response to other ravens they hear in the distance. Among their other calls, ravens make short, repeated, shrill calls when chasing predators or trespassers, and deep, rasping calls when their nests are disturbed.

“Dominant females sometimes make a rapid series of 12 or so loud knocking sounds that lasts about a second. Common Ravens can mimic other birds, and when raised in captivity can even be taught words.”

You can listen to the classic cr-r-ruck call and other sounds ravens make at www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Common_Raven/sounds

In Pennsylvania, ravens like forested mountainous areas. Many times, though, while observing and tallying birds for the Southern Bradford County Christmas Bird Count, ravens voiced their thoughts, their rasping notes carrying for long distances across the otherwise quiet early-winter landscape. But the species sometimes shows up in spots closer to humans. On overnight visits to a friend’s home at Boalsburg, Centre County, it was commonplace to both see and hear ravens nearby.

How do tell a raven apart from the more common American Crow? The principle field mark is size: Ravens are much larger. Allaboutbirds.org offers these clues: “Not just large but massive, with a thick neck, shaggy throat feathers, and a Bowie knife of a beak. In flight, ravens have long, wedge-shaped tails. They're more slender than crows, with longer, narrower wings, and longer, thinner ‘fingers’ at the wingtips.

“Common Ravens are entirely black, right down to the legs, eyes, and beak. Common Ravens aren’t as social as crows; you tend to see them alone or in pairs except at food sources like landfills. Ravens are confident, inquisitive birds that strut around or occasionally bound forward with light, two-footed hops. In flight they are buoyant and graceful, interspersing soaring, gliding, and slow flaps.”

A raven that was rehabilitated from an injury is now among the educators at The Wild Center, the natural history museum of the Adirondacks, Tupper Lake, N.Y.

Nieces and I watched studiously as a museum docent – raven perched on his gloved hand – told museum visitors the bird’s life history. For me, it sparked memories of “Ravens in Winter” author Bernd Heinrich’s visit to Penn State Hazleton for an early 90s’ public lecture.

Fighting blight, the Vermont way

Note: This column of mine was published in the Hazleton, Pa., daily five years ago, but its message remains meaningful.

The state of Vermont recently celebrated a major anniversary, and it had nothing to do with the construction of a professional sports arena, subdivision, airport or other land-consuming project.
Vermont, in 1968, said “no” to the placement – anywhere in the Green Mountain State – of new billboards, those oftentimes mammoth placards atop steel posts that scream to passing motorists, urging them to buy this product or that service.
Although several states have followed Vermont’s lead, the Green Mountain State was the first to outlaw billboards and enact a set of stringent rules regulating all kinds of other signage. The 1968 law prohibits privately owned, off-premise signs and restricts the size, height, and distance from roads of said signs. Signs also aren’t allowed to have moving parts or flashing lights. All signs are forbidden on the legal right-of-way. Communities may adopt laws more stringent than the state’s.
Proponents of Vermont’s billboard law point with pride to the state’s scenic, uncluttered roadsides as a key attraction for visitors, especially the thousands-upon-thousands of “leaf-peepers” who visit Vermont to view the bright foliage of autumn. (These same roadsides benefit from the anti-litter campaign launched when the state began requiring sellers of many canned and bottled beverages to pay a 5-cent deposit per container to customers returning them.)
"Whereas, billboards and other forms of outdoor advertising are becoming a matter of increasing concern to many residents . . .”
So began the joint resolution of the Vermont State Assembly in 1967, when it created the Committee to Study Outdoor Advertising, which included future U.S. Sen. Jim Jeffords.  It held public hearings, conducted research and reviewed the relevant law on outdoor advertising.
The committee's report, in part, stated: "Our scenic resources . . . have contributed much to our economic development by attracting tourists, . . . residents, and new industries and cultural facilities. . . .[T]he scattering of outdoor advertising throughout the state is detrimental to the preservation of these resources, and consequently to the economic base of the state."
So, in the following year, Vermont prohibited new billboards and provided an amortization period of five years to remove existing billboards.  By 1974, Vermont had felled its last billboard.
In 1997, the state commissioned an independent study of outdoor advertising to review the success of the billboard ban and to assess other forms of advertising.  Public opinion polls and studies echoed the 1967 report.  The study stated that traveler information solutions must maintain Vermont's quality environment, continue to prohibit billboards, and prevent sign clutter.
Businesses still receive the state government’s help through the posting of small chest-high signs devoid of accouterments which simply identify its name and travel distance.

Some Googling turned up choice statements like this one attributed to former Colorado Gov. Richard Lamm: "Billboards contribute a minuscule amount to our economic well-being, but they impose a high cost.  They detract from Colorado's attractiveness to tourists and from the pleasant surroundings for our residents."

At the municipal level, more than 700 communities nationwide prohibit the construction of new billboards.  Why? Because billboard control improves community character and quality of life – both of which directly impact local economies. In fact, despite billboard industry claims to the contrary, communities and states that enact tough billboard controls have actually enjoyed strong economic growth (the current recission aside).

While some signs are necessary to provide directions to travelers, most billboards merely contribute to visual clutter – also known as “blight.”  For example, on one section of road in Hampton, Va. (and I have driven this very stretch), there were so many signs that a driver going 45 miles per hour would need to read 1,363 words per minutes just to understand all the information.  That is five times the normal reading speed of a stationary person.

The billboard industry often claims that controlling outdoor advertising will, over time, create economic ghost towns.  In fact, the undeniable aesthetic improvements to a community that come from controlling billboards actually helps its economy, notes Scenic America, a non-profit organization founded, in part, on the strength of Lady Bird Johnson’s campaign to beautify America’s roadsides.

Billboards are both a symptom and cause of urban blight. And the presence of fewer signs actually signals a community’s economic health.

Mull this tidbit from Scenic America: Communities can thrive without billboards, because most billboards have no connection to the local economy.  They advertise either national brands or out-of-state products and services . . . Billboard industry naysayers claim that businesses such as gas stations and eating and drinking establishments would be financially hurt by reducing or eliminating their outdoor ads.  On the contrary, in cities and towns such as Williamsburg, Va., Raleigh, N.C., and Houston the period following implementation of stricter billboard controls and/or bans on new billboard construction was marked by steady growth of sales in those industries.

Consider what happened in Raleigh: Sales for eating and drinking establishments rose from $243 million in 1989, before billboard control, to $307 million in 1992, after controls were introduced, a rise of about 20 percent.

Billboard control is especially key for communities that depend on tourism.  According to the Travel Industry Association of America, travelers spent $541 billion nationwide in 1999.  The President's Commission on Americans Outdoors reported that “natural beauty” was the most important criteria for adults choosing a site for outdoor recreation.  “The more a community does to enhance its unique natural, scenic, historic, and architectural assets, the more tourists it attracts.”

Back to the scenic vistas of Vermont: When the Green Mountain State took down its last billboard in 1975, the state’s tourism revenues increased by more than 50 percent in the following three years. The president of the Vermont Chamber of Commerce noted at the time: "Although there was some initial sensitivity that removing billboards might hurt tourism, it has had the opposite effect.  Tourism is up for all businesses large and small."

Many prime tourist nations prohibit new billboard construction even as their tourism revenues keep rising. The long list includes Martha's Vineyard, Mass.; Kitty Hawk and Nags Head, N.C.; South Padre Island, Texas; Santa Fe, N.M.; Aspen and Boulder, Colorado; and Portland, Oregon.

Vermont is hardly alone at banning billboards statewide. The others include Hawaii and Maine and each continues drawing people from around the world to view their scenic wonders.

Remember these lessons from elsewhere the next time you’re motoring along a well-traveled Pennsylvania highway.

Truth in the naming of new streets

We’ve all seen the signposts telling us that we’re about to turn onto such and such street. In sprawl U.S. of A., the streets are often named after the trees that were felled/cleared to make way for ribbons of sphalt, McMansions and turf farms (and lookie younder at the three-car garage).

Well, instead of such monikers as “Maple  Street,” “Pine Circle,” “Hemlock Avenue” and “Oak Hill Drive,” lets convince the sprawl developers to name their streets in keeping with what really happened.

So, here are my choices for street names for the next sprawl debacle coming soon to a municipality near you: Clearcut Avenue, Logjam Street, Bulldozed Acres Circle, Wildlife Gone Avenue, Carbon Footprint Beltway, Turf Farm Alley, Chainsaw Boulevard, 3-lane Court, Congestion Highway, Engine Idling Motorway, and Backhoe Drive.

Suggestions welcome

Forest fragmentation in Vermont

I wrote this column earlier this year. Afterwards, nothing changed. The bulldozers keep on churning.

The wildlife-unfriendly issue of “forest fragmentation” just went before the Vermont Senate in Montpelier in the form of legislation to stop it in the Green Mountain State.

Too bad, though, for the state’s natural heritage that in the end corporate powers won and the legislation was tabled.

But, the very fact that proposed legislation focused on the issue is remarkable. The Vermont Senate may have set a “Ripley’s Believe It Or Not” record as the first state legislative body anywhere in the U.S. to address the issue.

“A proposal to limit forest fragmentation was thwarted by developers who oppose using the state’s land and development laws as a tool to keep woodlands intact, according to the lead sponsor of the bill that was gutted on the Senate floor Wednesday,” the Web-based news magazine VTDigger reported March 19.

“There’s nothing ‘complicated’ about stopping forest fragmentation,” one Vermonter commented. “This is just another episode of legislators kow-towing to the corporate interests that make campaign contributions.”

State Sen. Peter Gailbraith wrote, “The Audubon Society points out that Vermont has the most diversity of bird species of any state in the continental U.S., and the reason is our large inter-connected forests. The (Gov. Peter Shumlin) administration has itself identified fragmentation as the number one threat to biological diversity in our forests, and yet neither the administration nor the legislature is willing to do anything to prevent it. This is a tragedy.”

Galbraith also noted that the legislature’s nod to “study” the issue is only cover. “A study is the legislature’s way of killing a proposal while pretending to the voters that it is concerned about the issue.”

The bill would have required development already undergoing the Act 250 review process to maintain forest integrity, VTdigger reported. “If development must alter forests, the developer could purchase a conservation offset at another site to balance the impact.”

Act 250, a state Website explains, is “Vermont’s development and control law, established in 1970. The law provides a public, quasi-judicial process for reviewing and managing the environmental, social and fiscal consequences of major subdivisions and development in Vermont through the issuance of land use permits.”

Converting large, continuous forests into smaller woodlots (islands) has many negative impacts, especially on bird species whose reproductive success plummets in fragmented landscapes.
The Cornell Lab of Ornithology: “Forest fragmentation occurs when large, continuous forests are divided into smaller blocks, either by roads, clearing for agriculture, urbanization, or other human development. Ornithologists suspect that fragmentation harms many woodland birds by increasing their susceptibility to predation and nest parasitism.
“Predators such as jays, crows, raccoons, and cats, as well as the parasitic Brown-headed Cowbird, typically are not abundant in extensive forests. But when a forest is fragmented, predators and cowbirds gain more access to the woodland. The importance of large areas of continuous forest for maintaining forest-interior bird species has been demonstrated in the eastern United States during the past 15 years.”
The chopping (literally) of forests into smaller blocks is a top cause behind population declines of many native North American birds. They include the state bird of Vermont, the Hermit Thrush.
“Forest fragmentation remains an important conservation issue for many species of wildlife, including the Hermit Thrush, which prefers large tracts of forests,” wrote ornithologist Douglas P. Kibbe in “The Second Atlas of Breeding Birds of Vermont.”
The rate at which fragmentation is occurring is substantial greater in Pennsylvania. I know there are some folks in Harrisburg who understand the threat to the commonwealth’s natural heritage. But I’d bet that none sit in the legislature or statehouse.

Yellow-billed Cuckoo's SW population declared threatened

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced the ruling yesterday, and it's none too soon, in my estimation. Read the agency's decision here.

Climate change helping invasive plants spread

My own field observations, recorded in field notebooks for three decades, bear this out. Read about the invasive species onslaught and how our changing climate is helping them spread. This purple loosestrife photo was taken right down the street from my home.