Guest written by Gwyn Davies
When it started, the young activist club at Piney Branch Elementary was not very big. But their mission was huge; to replace the styrofoam (or polystyrene) trays in the lunch room. It may seem a small goal, yes, but for these determined students, it will be one of the biggest hurdles they will jump. #6 plastic is obviously bad for the earth, but why? Because it is a neurotoxin, suspected human carcinogen, and made from fossil fuels,that's why. That is one very good reason not to have them exposed to children, or anyone, for that matter. According to the Y.A.C. website, these trays cost the school thousands a year. The club has calculated that if 6 cases of these trays are used a week, the County spends $3,497 to supply Piney Branch with trays, and it doesn't end there folks! The County spends another $1,522 to pay for plastic utensils. That, my friends is a waste of money. But, fear not! There are alternative products! Washable ware and compostable products such as paper trays or corn-based cutlery are two of the more environmentally conscious products that really any school can use. The Y.A.C. would like to run a pilot project with washable wear. They have raised enough money to conduct the project for a year. It will cost the County nothing, and all of the following support them: Maryland State Senator Jamie Raskin
Delegate Heather Mizeur
Delegate Sheila Hixson
Delegate Tom Hucker
County Council member Roger Berliner
County Council member Marc Elrich
County Council member Valerie Ervin
County Council member George Leventhal
County Council member Nancy Navarro
former County Council member Duchy Trachtenberg
Takoma Park Mayor Bruce Williams
look at all the styrofoam! This is a typical day's trash at PBES.
One would think that the project would commence already. One would be wrong.
My friend Anna dressing up as styrofoam. VERY scary.
On the 4th of July, 2010, the club handed out decorated styrofoam trays with messages such as "no styro." The aim of this was to wave them at the board of education, and hopefully, when the board of ed. saw how many people had these, they would loosen their grip on their undesirable decision, and lean towards the favorable. I happen to know for a fact that at the parade, none of the board of ed. would take the trays. The board is leaning no closer to yes, but their grip may have softened on no. Keep up the great work, Y.A.C.! For more information, please go to: http://sites.google.com/site/youngactivistclub/
Please go to http://takomapark.patch.com for a column I wrote today on an effort to rename Takoma Urban Park, at the corner of Westmoreland and Carroll avenues, for the late Dr. Gilbert Kombe. I'm for the renaming.
Dr. Gilbert Kombe
I am also posting here some comments I made on a blog post by "Gilbert," the pseudonym used by Takoma Voice cartoonist Bill Brown (Takoma Park's founder was B.F. Gilbert--get it?). I am grateful to "Gilbert" for covering the city council, but I think sometimes he needs to be a bit more skeptical about what is said at the dais.
Here's my comment, currently awaiting moderation.
Gilbert--
Thanks for the coverage of the discussion of the TFEA report. As the person who wrote the report's air quality chapter, there are a few things I'd like to point out.
1) The leaf blower ban proposal actually advanced slightly. The city council agreed by consensus that Takoma Park should phase out the use of blowers in our parks and rights of way. I have confirmed this with City Manager Barbara Matthews. I hope the council seriously considers a seasonal ban, especially when they take into account the heat wave we had this summer.
2) The city manager was, unfortunately, incorrect when she said that state law prohibits idling only when the car is unoccupied. In fact, state law prohibits drivers from ever leaving their cars running and unattended. The five-minute rule has nothing to do with occupancy. Text is below for both laws.
(a) Duty of driver upon leaving unattended vehicle.- Except as provided in subsection (c) of this section, a person driving or otherwise in charge of a motor vehicle may not leave it unattended until the engine is stopped, the ignition locked, the key removed, and the brake effectively set.
The transportation code also says "A motor vehicle engine may not be allowed to operate for more than 5 consecutive minutes when the vehicle is not in motion." There are some exceptions, of course (when you're stuck in traffic, for example, you can keep your engine on as long as you want).
From the TFEA report: "A recent paper estimates that idling makes up 1.6 percent of all CO2 emissions nationwide--a small percentage but a big impact: 93 million metric tons (MMT) of CO2 and 10.6 billion gallons of gasoline per year. In fact, reducing idling by one minute would eliminate 8 MMt of CO2 a year." (that's 8 million metric tons)
3) You write, "An officer would have to observe [the idling] happening for a certain number of minutes - not the most efficient use of a police officer's time."
You need to look at the TFEA report again. It recommends "zero tolerance," given that idling for more than 10 seconds is a waste of gasoline. Pressed for a time limit, the report suggested that the limit be 1 minute, but officers currently have discretion to approach anyone and ask them what they're up to. Just such a tactic could be used with people sitting on Carroll in parking spaces, texting or talking on the phone while their engines are running. A simple, "would you turn your engine off, please" is all that's needed. If asked why, the officer could say, "It's against the law to run your engine for no reason."
4) You wrote of electric leaf blowers: "If the device is electric, somewhere a power station is spewing emissions to give it juice. It may be better than directly powering it with gas, and it may be out-of-sight out-of-mind, but it still pollutes."
That's not necessarily true. The city gets a lot of its electricity from wind power, no? So instead of a power plant, it's a wind turbine that is supplying the juice. If we installed solar panels at the new PW facility, it would be solar power. Not to mention the fact that an electric blower takes a lot less energy to run and does not pollute locally. Besides, one can always use a rake or a broom and avoid the trade-off altogether.
5) You wrote: "The gas-powered leaf blower ban is back where it left off. Months ago the council had hearings on the subject, watering the proposal down and complicating it up."
The council has never held hearings on the subject. I have suggested (and suggest again here) that they actually propose regulations and then hold a hearing or series of hearings. Instead, they have held worksessions. The first was in January 2009, the second some months later. At the first, Seth Grimes and I participated. At the second, the council simply discussed again what it had already discussed.
There has been no "public" opposition to the proposal. The only citizen opposition we've heard about has been from anonymous residents, as quoted by their representatives. Mayor Williams, for example, said at the Oct. 11 meeting that a couple of people had told him they would "storm" city hall if the council enacted a ban. It would be nice if these storm troopers had to explain their positions at a public hearing, but so far, that hasn't happened.
(I need to give a shout-out here to Bruce Williams for his helpful comments about lawn care equipment. The mayor said he had bought a Neuton (battery-powered lawnmower) and an electric leaf blower. He will use a gas one for big jobs only.)
They also have never "watered the proposal down," since they never formally considered the subject. A seasonal ban would not be as strict as a 365-day-a-year ban, of course, but a seasonal ban is certainly acceptable to me. Josh Wright is quite right when he says that during the summer, all the blowers are doing is blowing dust around, a remarkably unhealthy practice considering the polluted air we already experience. (In addition, Wright was speaking of blowers, not mowers, when he spoke of a seasonal ban.) ["Gilbert" had mistakenly written that Wright suggested a seasonal ban on mowers.]
6) Lastly, both the leaf blower ban proposal and the anti-idling proposal are "pro-active." Are they innovative? Well, yes, if one considers "innovative" to mean "forward-looking." But a good idea does not have to be "innovative" to make sense.
Just a quick note (ah, but that's impossible for me) before I endeavor to revive Endangered Species & Wetlands Report, the newsletter I've published for 15 years this month. In fact, the actual 15th anniversary is coming up -- it might coincide with my son's 6th birthday -- October 9. That was when I launched ESWR, the most tongue-twisted acronym one could ever hope to come up with. It's been my cash cow (yeah, right), but hopefully also a journal of some value to people in the ESA, wetlands and takings (not so much) law communities. But lately (that's a loose use of that word) it hasn't lived up to expectations. If you're environmentally inclined, please check out the new site and offer constructive criticism. Thank you.
On to TP, the unfortunate acronym for Takoma Park. Trees are in the news again. Actually, when aren't they? This time the debate is over the costs and benefits of solar energy compared with the those attendant to the tree canopy.
Actually (there's that word again), the costs of trees are never discussed. It's always all those benefits, especially the miraculous way they cool the air. Did you know that it's not as hot in the shade? The example I love is the one Catherine Tunis keeps trotting out -- the $2,000 of taxpayers' money she and the Greenhouse Gas Action Plan people spent back in 1999 proving that ambient temperatures in a treed backyard are lower than those you'd find in the parking lot of a Langley Park shopping center. Personally, I can't think of two more climatically different locations. But they proved it! Chances are, if you step out of your car to grab a pollo entero from Señor Chicken at 12:30 pm on a Wednesday when it's 97 degrees out, you'll be hotter than if you were sipping a cool drink in the backyard of your ----- Avenue home. Eu-friggin-reka. But on to NEWS, not HERSTORY
"It's not right, it's not fair, I'm still a mess and you still don't care." Fountains of Wayne, Little Red Light
The latest re-iteration of this "research" took place at the city council's Sept. 27 meeting, where a good hour and a half was spent on the tree ordinance and hearing various complaints about its implementation (or lack of implementation). I'll offer a few documents and background here, but please also go to http://takomapark.patch.com, where my debut column is on this very subject -- the meeting and discussion. Thanks to Ryan McDermott for allowing me to disgorge my thoughts -- oooh, gross -- on the Patch site.
The following item was updated Monday, Oct. 25
Appointments to the Takoma Junction Task Force were made Sept. 27 and tonight (it's going to happen, according to the agenda). A bit more above-board than the sleight-of-hand involved in the selection of members of the Task Force on Environmental Action, which I was co-chair of (and that title and a sawbuck won't get me a coffee at Starbucks, I'm betting).
Twenty people were appointed Sept. 27 to the new body, which is charged with figuring out how to revitalize and redevelop that nightmare intersection.
The task force, which has been given a year (twice as long as the Task Force on Environmental Action got) to come up with a report, also is supposed to "create work plans with recommended near- and long-term actions for Council consideration that addresses [sic] the community’s interest in improving existing traffic patterns; resolving pedestrian safety concerns; increasing public use of public spaces; providing for the redevelopment of city-owned properties; enhancing the physical appearance and condition of properties; and increasing the economic viability of area businesses."
Sounds simple. Have at it, guys. They just have to figure out how to balance the needs of Junction businesses, pedestrians, cars, the co-op, the city-owned lot next to the co-op, and historic preservationists.
The environmental task force recommended something for the junction – a "roundabout" to ease the traffic problems. But that seems unlikely to occur, as it would necessitate removal of the "park" located across from the TPSS co-op, and its attendant mural, benches, etc.
Historically, it is an interesting structure, and that's important, because Historic Takoma Inc. (HTI) is well represented on the task force.
"Historic" members include Lorraine Pearsall, either HTI's vice president for preservation (HTI website) or president of HTI (city task force applicant list); Susan Robb, HTI board member, and James DiLuigi, HTI board member.
Also newly appointed to the task force is Howard Kohn, who lives near the Junction, is well-known as a political kingmaker and head of Takoma Park Neighborhood Youth Soccer (what Takoma soccer mom doesn't know 16 Jefferson Ave.?), and is married to HTI muckety-muck Diana Kohn -- not that we'd ever suggest Howard's objectivity would be influenced by something as pedestrian as marriage.
Other members:
Roz Grigsby, Executive Director of the Old Takoma Business Association; Roger Schlegel, who captured 40 percent of the vote in the mayor's race last year; Jeffrey Trunzo, a Sherman Avenue resident, Silver Spring-Carroll neighborhood association member, and regulatory analyst at the Food and Drug Administration; Lorig Charkoudian, chair of the TPSS Co-op; Ellen Zavian, SS Carroll Association's chair of Subcommittee on Junction Function; Hailu L. Aichehi, a real estate agent for Heymann Realty Inc. (at least, according to the Web); John Salmen, owner of Universal Design, at 6 Grant Avenue; Kay Daniels-Cohen, head of the SS-Carroll association; Steve Dubb, membership director for the co-op; Megan Gallagher, 7331 Carroll Avenue; Seth Grimes, ubiquitous local activist and former mayoral candidate; Andy Kelemen, who has been a member of the informal "Fireplace Group" that had been meeting to discuss the future of the Junction; Linette Lander, Katrina Oprisko, William Coulter, and Jennifer Sisane.
At this point the distribution for the task force is:
Ward 3 (the location of the Junction): 10 members (Councilmember: Dan Robinson)
Ward 1: 4 (Councilmember: Josh Wright)
Ward 2: 3 (Councilmember: Colleen Clay)
Ward 4: 1 (Councilmember: Terry Seamens)
Ward 6: 2 (Councilmember: Fred Schultz)
Washington, D.C. - 1
Alas, the task force has no representatives of Ward 5 (Councilmember: Reuben Snipper).
Once again, Ward 3 dominates a task force, just as it did with the TFEA (the environmental task force).
in which a Takoma Park City Councilmember and I engage in a civil exchange of views on the relative merits of trees and solar panels in the realm of energy savings.
This happened on Facebook after the Gazette ran a story about two Takoma homeowners who wanted to install solar collectors on their roof. To do so, however, they needed to remove a tree that didn't look too healthy anyway.
Jeremy Arias reported on July 7:
"At the heart of the matter is a decades-old silver maple growing directly in front of the Earles' house at 231 Grant Ave. While Patrick Earle has argued, among other things, that the tree is rotting internally and will soon present a safety hazard anyway, City Arborist Todd Bolton remains rooted in his stance that the massive maple is far from dead. Because the tree in question is defined by the city's code as an urban forest tree—it measures more than 24 inches in circumference at a height of four feet from the ground—it falls under the ordinance's protection, according to the city's code.
"It's not dead, it's not hazardous; he's choosing to remove it to put in his solar panels, and if you want to do that, there's a cost associated," Bolton said of the Earles' tree. "That's not my decision, that's not stuff I just made up; that's in the ordinance."
"Since Bolton did not classify the tree as a hazard, the ordinance states that the Earles need to either replace the tree or pay the city the "fair market value" of 23 replacement trees. Because of the tree's size—roughly 50 inches in circumference—the ordinance's formula dictates that the Earles would need to plant 23 replacement trees to make up for it.
"It seems completely unreasonable," Patrick Earle said.
He added that, according to the city, fair market value for 23 trees would cost him about $4,000 at $175 a tree, much more than the $2,000 estimates he's received from contacting private landscapers."
Earle tells me about (and sends along) arborist Todd Bolton's decision to "rate the trunk of my tree as a 3 on a 5-point scale. However, the table in section 12.12.100 of the Tree Code implies that if the trunk is severely hollow that the rating should be a "1". When the tree was cut down we discovered that the trunk was very hollow. One of the major branches that was leaning over power lines and my neighbor's house was dangerously hollow."
12.12.100 (C) The basal area of the replacement trees, measured at caliper height, must be no less than a percentage of the total basal area of the tree to be removed, measured at 4 1/2' above the ground. The percentage is determined using the following health quality analysis rating scale.
CRITERION
VALUE
RATING
5 or 4
3 or 2
1
Trunk
Sound and solid
Sections of bark missing
Extensive bark loss and hollow
Growth/Rate per
More than 6 inch year twig elongation
2 to 6 inch twig elongation
Less than 2 inch twig elongation
Structure
Sound
1 major or several minor limbs dead
2 or more major limbs dead
Insects/Diseases
Normal pest presence
Moderate affliction or infestation
Severe affliction or infestation
Crown/Development
Full and balanced
Full but unbalanced
Unbalanced and lacking a full crown
Life Expectancy
Over 30 years
5 to 30 years
Less than 5 years
Total Rating
After the article came out, my fellow Task Force on Env'l Action colleague Sat Jiwan Ikle-Khalsa wrote a sensible letter to the Gazette advocating a recommendation contained in our report that would establish colar co-ops on city buildings.
In any case, here's my exchange with Clay. She delivers a pithy, loaded statement, tries to reword it, and then declines to defend it and bows out of the conversation. Politicians in Takoma Park need to get thicker skin. Leather's out, so maybe recycled plastic bags?
