There actually wasn't much of a hearing. The Commission voted and began to move on to the next item on their agenda without hearing any public testimony. It was only after members of the audience asked to speak that the Commission decided to permit them to do so.

"Nobody from the audience spoke in favor of this outrage and, I believe, eight spoke out against," said Bob LaTrémouille of Friends of the White Geese.

That didn't matter, since the vote had already been taken.

Saturday, September 9— Today's Boston Globe has a small article on p. B4, "Charles swim canceled." The Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) has canceled the first annual Charles River Swim set for today because of the algae bloom.

From the article:

• "Last month levels of the toxic algae, called microcystis, exploded to levels never before seen in the Charles. Although the concentration dissipated to just below what the World Health Organization considers an acceptable level, DCR officials said yesterday the counts have inched upward. They refused to issue a permit for the race."

We've heard nothing about the relation of this unprecedented algae bloom to the installation of six acres of fertilizer-and herbicide-treated sod this past spring at the new "Teddy Ebersol's Red Sox Fields at Lederman Park" and the application of "Tartan" (a fungicide stable in water and toxic to fresh water fish and invertebrates) to the same six acres of sod just before the algae bloomed. These Little League fields are immediately adjacent to the site of the bloom.

I've seen nothing in the newspapers about any public health officials' investigation of the cause of the algae bloom. The original report in the Globe said fertilizer runoff causes such things.

We are sure to hear no reports of this sort from the DCR, the proud agency responsible for installing the sod for Little League fields so close to the Charles.

Little League is not, after all, a "water-dependent activity."

The DCR's much-vaunted Master Plan for the Charles wants to eliminate all "non-water-dependent" activities like skating rinks, swimming pools, and veterans' organizations from the river.

However, the DCR seems to have made quite an exception for the "Teddy Ebersol's Red Sox Fields at Lederman Park." We should hear from the DCR why this new, "non-water-dependent" facility was allowed so close to the river.

Its grass will continue to need repeated applications of fertilizer and herbicides to maintain "the quality of turf our players deserve," as the DCR's representative told the Boston Conservation Commission this summer. The counts will probably inch upward with runoff from the fields after every rain as long as the warm weather lasts.

The DCR may have denied the permit for the Charles River Swim, but they certainly didn't deny the permit for the "Teddy Ebersol's Red Sox Little League Fields at Lederman Park."

Algae bloom as first noticed in mid-August

Wednesday August 16— Lederman Park is on the Boston side of the river by MGH and the Longfellow Bridge, i.e., just upriver from the Museum of Science. The "Teddy Ebersol's Red Sox Fields" are regulation Little League fields constructed in a DCR "public-private partnership."

For more information on the fields and the DCR's private partners see

http://www.bluemassgroup.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=2483.

So there are now 6 acres of new turf, installed by the DCR, on the banks of the Charles.

We know that one precipitating cause of algae bloom is fertilizer runoff. Given the extraordinary rains earlier in the summer, there was probably runoff from the "Teddy Ebersol's Red Sox Fields at Lederman Park" despite the newly installed drainage and irrigation systems there. Whether the six acres of sod had been treated with fertilizer before installation, or after, are questions the Department of Environmental Protection and appropriate public health authorities need to ask.

I don't know of other large tracts of riverbank that would have been treated with fertilizer.

The DCR does say all that rain led to a fungus infection now killing the newly installed turf at the "Teeddy Ebersol's Red Sox Fields at Lederman Park." Consequently they asked and got permission from the Boston Conservation Commission to apply "Tartan," a fungicide, on August 3.

So a further question is whether the DCR may have applied "Tartan" between August 3 and the bloom. "Tartan" is toxic to fish and aquatic invertebrates, and 98 percent stable in water. The manufacturer's data sheet says, "Do not apply directly to water, to areas where surface water is present . . . . Drift and runoff from treated areas may be hazardous to fish/aquatic organisms in adjacent sites. . . . Do not apply when weather conditions favor runoff or drift." (Bayer Environmental Science, Material Safety Data Sheet—Tartan Fungicide, Revision Date: 02/09/2006).

Killing off fish and aquatic organisms with runoff or drift from "Tartan" into the Charles at "Teddy Ebersol's Red Sox Fields at Lederman Park" might contribute to algae bloom.

More of the same in store for the Cambridge side

Interestingly, the "Teddy Ebersol's Red Sox Fields at Lederman Park" seem to be the prototype for the ball fields the DCR and Cambridge plan for Magazine Beach.

Like the fields slated to be destroyed at Magazine Beach, the fields where "Teddy Ebersol's Red Sox Fields at Lederman Park" now are were also in the Massachusetts Wetlands Protection Act's category of "bordering land subject to flooding." The Boston project replaced six acres of waterfront grass with gravel, topsoil, an irrigation system, and sod, plus regulation Little League fields, including extensive chain-link fences and many klieg lights on 60-foot high poles.

This is essentially the plan for Magazine Beach's seven acres: dig up wet dirt and grass, replace with gravel, dry dirt, sod, and an irrigation system, and add chain-link fences. All that's missing from the plans are the klieg lights—for now.

The DCR says Magazine Beach would ordinarily be rich habitat for wildlife, but it's already been so developed by humans that it no longer is. As a casual visit shows, there's plenty of wildlife—Canada geese, gulls, ducks, hawks—at Magazine Beach all year round. It is the pending Cambridge-DCR plans for the place that will themselves destroy its ongoing value as habitat, however.

The DCR began to destroy Lederman Park as habitat several years ago when it sought to "upgrade" the ball fields there. The DCR specifically cited geese and goose droppings at Lederman Park as a problem in 2004 when it asked for, and got, US Fish and Wildlife's permission to poison Canada goose eggs and otherwise expel the animals from the lower basin.

Similarly the DCR and Cambridge have worked since 2004 to expel the Charles River White Geese from their primary source of food, the "bordering land subject to flooding," at Magazine Beach prior to the pending "upgrade" of the ball fields there.

One last observation. Last year the Charles River Watershed Association declared the lower Charles—between Lederman Park and the Museum of Science—to be swimmable. The water was clean and a perfect temperature. This year, after construction of "Teddy Ebersol's Red Sox Fields at Lederman Park," we have poisonous algae in the very same place.

Would the appropriate authorities please give us an honest investigation of the possible link between chemicals applied to land within 100 feet of the river and the algae bloom?

On Sunday, July 23, around fifteen people gathered by a small pond near Magazine Beach and dedicated it to the memory of Bumpy, the chief of the gaggle of Charles River white geese who have lived there for around 25 years. Here Marilyn Zoeller Wellons performs the ceremony of dedication by casting water over the pond. [photo: Bill Cunningham]