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I investigated into why there would still be trash in Three Mile Creek after the big Toulminville and Three Mile Creek cleanup. Vice President Councilman Fred Richardson Jr, boasted about all the people the City had working the event. When I ask Mr. Richardson how many City workers were out in a boat removing trash from Three Mile Creek, like City people do when they don't want to tell the truth, they decide to go silent. The councilman's silence pretty much told me the answer. The factual evidence came from a Fox 10 News report as shown above. Look at just how many people it takes to remove garbage from a City of Mobile Park shoreline because the City Parks won't keep their park clean. How many were out on the water in a boat removing trash from Three Mile Creek? ZERO. NADA. ZILCH. Zero is the Typical effort of the CIty of Mobile puts into removing trash from trash impaired waterways. That is why the creeks in Mobile like Three Mile Creek are never clean. Where does much of the trash in Mobile's polluted waterways come from? I went for a bike ride today after having been on an enjoyable vacation Florida. The bike ride brought me back to the realities in Mobile. UGLY! Butt Ugly! Same ol Same ol... Click on any image below to bring up a photo gallery view to see larger size images with commentary. Seeing all that trash seen on the bike ride put me in a sour mood. Then I pass by this guy using a loud speaker to broadcast his preaching across the grocery store parking lot. Hehhehheh. Some of you probably know where I'm going with this. So I went over and politely ask the guy what church he was with. "Don't need a church if you have Jesus." Then he stuck the bible in the air and started babbling Jesus crap to me. That did it. "Hey mister. You really believe in that book?" Guy obvious does. "Can you tell me the ten laws or commandments that are at the foundation of the Bible?" More babble. "Can you name the Ten Commandments?" He says no but he can flip to the page and read them from the Bible. The goober does not know the Ten Commandments yet he is going to hold up a bible in my face and preach about Jesus? Who creates evil? The Lord. The Bible says so in Isaiah 45:7 Then the Lord puts the evil in grocery store parking lots to spew babble in order to get your money in his golden plastic garbage can sitting on a golden plastic pedestal while he tells you basic biblical morals don't matter. Jeesh!
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Tom Herder with the Mobile Bay National Estuary Program (MBNEP) has been involved in a Salt Marsh Restoration program at Helen Wood park for several years using grant money. It seems the Phragmities at Helen Wood Park was a nuisance to the Mobile Police Department because it obscured views of the park. The powers that be with the City of Mobile, Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, and MBNEP apparently got together and found a way to make the Police happy using NOAA grant money. You can read more about the Helen Wood Restoration project if you are interested at this link.
https://www.estuaries.org/pdf/2012posters/Herder_RAE_2012_poster.pdf The Phragmites at Helen Wood Park keeps growing back because even burning it won't destroy the hardy roots. MBNEP was out today AGAIN trying to eradicate Phragmites australis, also known as Common Reed from Helen Wood Park. Helen Wood Park is a relatively new park located just north of Dog River on the shoreline of Mobile Bay. The Center for Aquatic and Invasive Plants with the University of Florida says Phragmities is "Native" to Florida but notes the taxonomy of Phragmities australis is being actively investigated. http://plants.ifas.ufl.edu/node/323 The National Park Service has a guide to distinguish the differences between the "Native" versus "Exotic Forms" of Phragmities australis (Common Reed). If you're inclined to see some of the differences: http://www.nps.gov/plants/alien/fact/pdf/phau1-powerpoint.pdf Don't forget that while the nature of plant adaptability and DNA change naturally and slowly over time, man is actively manipulating plant genetics all the time now to produce hybrids which have been known to interbreed with natural plants. Man's own genetic tinkering (hybridization) of plants is suspected as being the stimulus for the evolution of the invasiveness traits in some subspecies of plants. Hybridization affects more than plants. Consider the hybridization between different species of honeybees that gave rise to the famous African Bees. Man's genetic tinkering can only provide more opportunity to accelerate the natural hybridization processes to give rise to more subspecies which may or may not have negative consequences to man and the environment. http://www.pnas.org/content/97/13/7043.full One example of genetic tinkering is with Giant Reed, aka "Arundo donax" which is similar looking to Phragmities but larger in size. Scientists learned that Arundo donax, which can grow 3 inches a day in summer, is one of the most productive of all energy biomass crops and it can grow where corn will not grow. Roasted Arundo donax can be stockpiled and used like coal to provide electricity. Arundo donax also yields 3 times as much ethanol per acre as corn. Using Giant Reed instead of corn for ethanol production won't drive up corn related food prices. http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/07/03/4146618/epa-approves-arundo-reed-for-use.html#.UnNHjxCQMmg Of course, companies wishing to capitalize on what might be a large scale fuel business seek to genetically modify the giant grass species so they can patent a faster growing and more robust hybridized species and control the distribution and profit from the modified species. Here is one example of a company with its own variety of Giant Reed: http://www.galiltec.com/biomass.html Arundo donax is already deemed a very invasive species and if hybrids interbreed with the native species, who knows what will happen. Giant Reed can be found along Mobile Bay and it is getting denser every year. Who knows - maybe Giant Reed will replace Common Reed in the Mobile Tensaw River Delta in the future. http://nykography.weebly.com/uploads/1/1/0/4/11041387/3674898_orig.jpg The terms that biologists have coined - native plant and non-native plant - are ridiculous. Far as I'm concerned, every plant on Earth is native to Earth. It doesn't matter whether an area on Earth is a salt marsh or an inland forest, plant species reaching toward the sun do whatever they can to propagate and grow. Some plants dominate the areas where they grow. Some do not. Who is not to say there are long term cycles that the Creator has put in place that allow some species to dominate for a period of time before another takes over? Humans are not cognizant of the marvels of the forces of life the Creator has put in place. For whatever reason, there is supposedly a distinct subspecies of Phragmities that grows more aggressively than the others. The aggressive Phragmities grows tall and chokes out smaller less robust "native" wetland plants leading to the monopolization of the wetland by the Phragmities. Who knows - there could be extenuating circumstances causing the aggressive growth. Might heavy rain that seems to send raw sewage into Mobile's local creeks and rivers be feeding Phragmities exactly what it needs to grow more aggressively? On the positive side, dense stands of Phragmities are known to be a healthy habitat for many birds. If you've ever been in the lower Mobile-Tensaw Delta and seen hundreds of thousands of migratory birds land in the dense stands of Phragmities you would know that is true. Phragmities is useful in filtering harmful chemicals out of the ground water (phytoremediation) and also useful in the treatment of waste water (greywater). Phragmities is used for thatching in other countries. Phragmities is used to make flutes, used for food, used to make baskets, and used to produce paper. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phragmites The dense and robust rhizome (root) growth of the Phragmities grass holds the shoreline together preventing erosion during fierce storms like hurricanes. The dense clusters of shoreline Phragmities can absorb a lot of wave energy be it from boat wakes or from storms. http://ascelibrary.org/doi/abs/10.1061/40549%28276%2967 There are reports out that say 1 in 6 people in America don't know where their next meal is coming from. Meantime, MBNEP is out killing Phragmities even though some say parts Phragmities can be prepared for food consumption. Who would have thunk people could be fed from plants in the Grass Family. What do Rice, Wheat, Corn, Barley, Rye, Oats and Sugar Cane all have in common? They are members of the Grass Family of plants. And here we are in the year 2013, wasting potential food while Americans starve. http://feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america/hunger-facts/child-hunger-facts.aspx In summary, I bring up this controversial subject of Phragmities because an environmental group, Mobile Bay National Estuary Program is spending time and money trying to kill all the "Non-Native" Phragmites at Helen Wood Park under the guise of "restoration." Meanwhile, TVs, plastic, styrofoam, glass, and other trash floating in local creeks are ignored and left to rot, including the litter nestled in with the Phragmities reeds at Helen Wood Park. MBNEP which is administered and funded by the EPA under provisions of the Clean water Act would rather fund killing a healthy stand of grass instead of funding removal of the garbage from Mobile's trash impaired creeks and wetlands. No priority for Clean Water? The Mobile Bay National Estuary Program's current initiatives don't even include removing the garbage from the well documented trash impaired Dog River. Considering all the media coverage of the Dog River storm water litter, you would think MBNEP would have some initiative or some priority to fund removal of the pollution. http://www.mobilebaynep.com/what_we_do/current_initiatives/ No wonder why Mobile's waterways and wetlands, like Three Mile Creek, are still UGLY with trash. Local environmental groups like MBNEP have their priorities out of kilter. While I think highly of Tom and Roberta as individuals, I question the priorities they and others set for Mobile Bay National Estuary Program. In my opinion, the toxic garbage should be removed from Mobile's trash impaired waterways before time and money is wasted killing healthy wetland grasses one at a time with a syringe of poison. MBNEP was funded by the EPA under provisions of the Clean Water Act, so Clean Water should be MBNEP's highest priority. Above Photos: Keep Mobile Beautiful coordinated a Trash Cleanup along Dauphin Island Parkway this morning. Volunteers successfully cleaned 6 miles of Dauphin Island Parkway on both sides of the road. I rode along the sidewalk south from the interstate looking for trash and all the trash was gone. I've never seen this roadway so clean. Volunteers did an outstanding job. If the trash isn't there, I can't take photos of it. Below Photos: Unfortunately, that is only 6 out of over 500 miles of roads that was cleaned. The majority of cigarette butts were not picked up and will be flushed into your waterways. You may not smoke but you're drinking those 60 cancer producing chemicals they put in cigarettes. Thank a smoker litterer today for your cancer or the cancer of a loved one. Click on any image above to see a larger views with commentary.
Many authorities will tell you that Mobile is littered because of poor education. We send kids to school for 12 years and they graduate not knowing right from wrong. If Mobile is full of litter because people are ignorant, then it is the fault of the education system in schools, in the homes and in the churches where morals are taught. Education? What a lame excuse. People litter because there is no painful punishment for the crime if caught. Above Photo: Helen Wood Park, a local fishing spot, is typically lined with litter. Trouble is this park is at the edge of Mobile Bay so the illegal public litter ends up polluting Mobile Bay.
The bungling Federal Government and Police Tactical Units who despite having the most sophisticated tracking tools in the world and thousands of police officers involved in the hunt, failed to find the Boston Marathon bomber suspect who was on foot and leaving a trail of blood. A Watertown resident had to point out the location of the suspect who was a block away. That reminds me of the incompetence of the City of Mobile and Mobile Police who despite having video technology tools at their disposal, can't figure out who is trashing the City of Mobile parks to put an end to the criminal littering activity. Of course, it is not the police who should be taking care of the litter issues, it is after all, City of Mobile municipal code that makes litter illegal. Oh, that's right, it is the City of Mobile is in charge of the writing tickets to deter littering, not the police. The Big Picture? The City of Mobile Litter Unit is dysfunctional. Below Photo: McNally Park, a local fishing spot, is typically lined with litter. Trouble is this park is at the edge of Mobile Bay so the illegal public litter ends up polluting Mobile Bay. |
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