NPR : In New England, Concern Grows for Sugar Maple

NPR : In New England, Concern Grows for Sugar Maple

In central New Hampshire, a pair of sugar maple trees frames the doorway to a historic house. The trees were likely planted by the family that originally built the house around 1790.

“They’re wonderful gnarled trees,” says lumberman Jamey French, whose parents live here in central New Hampshire. “They’re in the latter stages of their life, all cabled now.”

The French family is enormously beholden to the sugar maple for the butcher blocks, bowling lanes and squash and basketball courts its wood has been prized for. It is wood that has been harvested and sold by four generations of this hardwood lumber family.

At heart a steward of the forest, French has been watching many tree species for signs of decline, particularly the sugar maple. It’s a touchy species living in a landscape of tangible, environmental change.

“I’ve seen multiple species of birds wintering over that were not common in my childhood: mocking birds and cardinals and titmice,” French says. “Look along the sides of roads, and between the salt, acid rain, potential heat and drought cycles, you see trees stressed and dying. Boy, this is happening right in front of our eyes.”

This is really scary. The thought of New England losing it’s beautiful maples because we killed them if just awful. We’ve been in a terrible drought in Virginia this year , in fact all through the mid-Atlantic and south. It really makes me wonder if anything can really help at this point. Is it too late already?

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Tags: New-England, foliage, maple, environment, autumn, warming

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How dry I am!

Withered D.C. Region Cries for Water, Cool Water – washingtonpost.com

The grass is brown and crunchy. The leaves are falling off the trees is a steady stream of brown. We haven’t had decent rain since April.

Although I know about the drought, this article surprised me:

But with summer rainstorms evaporating after a few drops from the sky, the talk in many corners of the area has centered on a single subject: water.

That’s especially true on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, where more than 100 residents have watched their wells dry up — in part because the state’s largest prison has used almost 10 times its allotted amount of the area’s supply, officials said.

Residents on the lower shore, around Somerset County, say the Eastern Correctional Institution is using too much water from the Manokin aquifer. The prison, which houses 3,350 inmates, is allowed to pump about 25,000 gallons per day. But in recent weeks, Somerset County Administrator Daniel Powell said, water use has risen to more
than 200,000 gallons daily.

State prisons spokesman Mark Vernarelli was quick to defend the prisoners, writing in an e-mail, “Our inmates are not taking hour-long showers or flushing water down the drain to waste.” He said officials are auditing water use and will develop a plan to reduce use even as Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) announced that Maryland will investigate the well failures.

How can a prison use 10 times it’s allotted supply?

technorati tags:drought, water, prison, Washington-DC

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