EcoWatch is excited to host its second annual Green Gala and bring visionary environmental leader and advocate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to Cleveland.

Please join us at Executive Caterers, 6111 Landerhaven Dr., Mayfield Heights, Ohio 44124, Apirl 9 from 7 p.m. to Midnight. Tickets are $100 ($75 tax-deductible) per person, or reserve a table of 10 for $1,000 ($750 tax-deductible).

The evening includes appetizers, dinner, a drink ticket, "green" silent auction, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s inspiring presentation and more! For more details see ecowatch.org

I am of the opinion that my "benevolent dictatorship" of FOWL (as Kathleen so sweetly puts it), while allowing a certain quick-footedness and strong direction, has stymied the group and held it back in many ways. For this and other reasons I am stepping aside from the leadership of Friends of Wetlands. I know that so many of our members and participants have a lot to offer, and hope some of them will take the opportunity to make FOWL their own, so to speak.
I hope not to lose all contact with FOWL activities; I especially love the educational aspects of wetlands natural history and would be delighted to provide what resources I have in this area in whatever way my circumstances allow.
I have posted a couple emails on this development to many of the FOWL members and participants who are on my contact list, and they have discussed among themselves a time and place for a gathering of people to discuss the future of FOWL. That meeting will take place at Ray and Alice's place in Amherst on Saturday, January 9  at 1:00 o'clock. Go to events.fowl.org for details. With these particulars established, I am posting this notice in this newsletter (the last I believe I shall edit) in order to invite all members and interested parties to this gathering. If you are interested in attending you should notify Ray Stewart at ray@fowl.org.

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Ray Stewart attended WOW (the Wonder of Wetlands) training last spring, and is available to talk at area schools to students about wetlands and give teacher training on how to teach their students about wetlands. You can contact Ray at ray@fowl.org.

John Katko has worked up power point presentations (originally for OEC workshops) on vernal pools and their amphibians that I would be happy to present to middle and high school students in the area whenever I am available. Last year I presented one of these to a number of biology and ecology classes at Midview High School where they were very well received. Contact John at john@fowl.org.

It would be good to have a $50 honorarium (it would at least help cover expenses) for presentations but, knowing all too well the financial straits of schools, this is negotiable.

The well rising without sound,
the spring on a hillside,
the plowshare brimming through deep ground
everywhere in the field—

The sharp swallows in their swerve
flaring and hesitating
hunting for the final curve
coming closer and closer—

The swallow heart from wingbeat to wingbeat
counseling decisions, decision:
thunderous examples. I place my feet
with care in such a world.

This poem was chosen by a reviewer on NPR's April 14 "Morning Edition" news program (90.3, 89.7 FM) as the one which, if all people read it, would be most likely to save the planet.

For most of the 16 years that FOWL has had a booth at the Lorain County Fair, the normal level of new and renewing members was around 70. During the last few years this number fell to below 30. If we rate the initial rate of sign-ups as "excellent" and the nadir for membership as "poor," I would rate this year's 55 new and renewing members as "good."
FOWL garnered $576 at the fair this year. This included generous and deeply appreciated donations from Sandy Pecora and Jack Coates. Since $290 of this amount covers membership expenses and the cost of the booth was $300, plus other miscellaneous expenses, we didn't break even (as always); but the Fair is not approached as a fund-raiser but rather as a means to extend membership and articulate with the community.

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Millions of pounds of lead used in hunting, fishing and shooting sports wind up in the environment each year and can threaten or kill wildlife, according to a new scientific report.
      Lead is a metal with no known beneficial role in biological systems, and its use in gasoline, paint, pesticides, and solder in food cans has nearly been eliminated. Although lead shot was banned for waterfowl hunting in 1991, its use in ammunition for upland hunting, shooting sports, and in fishing tackle remains common.
      While noting that more information is needed on some aspects of the impact of lead on wildlife, the authors said that numerous studies already documented adverse effects to wildlife, especially water birds and scavenging species, like hawks and eagles. Lead exposure from ingested lead shot, bullets, and fishing sinkers also has been reported in reptiles, and studies near shooting ranges have shown evidence of lead poisoning in small mammals.

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"Waterdogs" (larvae of tiger salamanders) are used as live bait for freshwater fishing. With tiger salamander larvae, anglers hope to catch largemouth bass, channel catfish and other freshwater fishes. They may be in for more than they bargained for: salamanders in bait shops in Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico are infected with ranaviruses, and those in Arizona, with a chytrid fungus called Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd).
"These diseases have spread with the global trade in amphibians,'" says James Collins, assistant director for biological sciences at the National Science Foundation (NSF). Collins is currently on leave from Arizona State University. "The commercial amphibian bait trade may be a source of 'pathogen pollution.'" Pathogens are disease-causing agents such as some viruses and bacteria.
Along with biologist Angela Picco of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Sacramento, Calif., Collins screened tiger salamanders in the western U.S. bait trade for both ranaviruses and Bd, and conducted surveys of anglers to determine how often tiger salamanders are used as bait, and how frequently the salamanders are let go in fishing waters.

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      The Ohio EPA reports that during the time elapsed between the planned 2006 adoption of more protective wetlands regulations and the end of August 2009, more than 477 acres of wetlands and 106 miles of streams have been destroyed by development. That's a windfall for developers, who have been hard at work stalling the adoption of these new rules. Their main excuse this time (they always have several) is the "severe economic depression we're in," according to Ohio's Home [sic! You build houses, Vince - not homes] builders Association VP Vincent Squillace.
They are also whining that the proposed Ohio rules (with simply outrageous provisions such as requesting mitigation locations to be closer to the destroyed wetland area) are stricter than the federal ones - but that's not a difficult standard to improve on.
One of the proposed rule changes would introduce performance standards for the mitigation projects that developers may be required to perform to replace the functions and values of destroyed natural wetlands. These standards are an attempt to make these mitigation projects more than abject failures - which is what has been happening up to now (a 2006 study by Ohio EPA disclosed that half or more  of mitigation wetlands were of substandard quality).

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LYONS, Ohio - A cleanup of a manure spill got under way in a ditch known as Little Bear Creek a few miles south of here. Brett Kolb, the director of the Fulton County Emergency Management Agency, said the liquid manure came from a Chesterfield Dairy LLC lagoon.
Crews with suction equipment worked to remove spill near the intersection of County Roads 10 and S, building a dike just west of Road 10 to keep it from spreading farther.
Mr. Kolb, Ohio EPA and ODNR representatives were at the scene. Sheriff's office, which had been alerted by a rural resident who had noticed a black sludge flowing from the Big Bear Creek to Little Bear Creek on Thursday evening, notified the Ohio EPA and went to the scene. Inability to locate the source of the spill in the night delayed cleanup efforts until the next day.
Mr. Kolb said the pollution extended through four miles of the normally foot-deep ditch. He said it posed a hazard to fish and other wildlife, but not to drinking water. Karel Van de Kolk, the dairy's owner, could not be reached for comment when the reporter tried to contact her the evening before the article was published.

      In 2007, Lake County Indiana prosecutors charged Robert Wainwright of Chesterton, along with Joseph Farnik of Willowbrook IL and Jacqueline Olive or Oak Grove KY, with dumping slag and brick waste (separated from steel mill metals by Sterling Material Services on Clark Road) into several acres of wetlands connected with Clark and Pine Nature Preserves. Sterling lacked permits to process industrial waste.
Last July, after tips from people who had spotted Wainwright on a list of 21 environmental crimes fugitives, US Marshals and ATF and EPA agents nabbed him in Mexico, whence he is being extradited to face the environmental crimes charges.
This was not Wainwright's first problems with the law.  He was convicted 14 years ago of felony molestation of a 17-year-old girl over a period of several years. Then in August, 2007 he had been indicted for illegally (being a convicted felon) keeping about two dozen firearms and 2,840 rounds of amo at his home.

---Adapted from a July 18 article by Post-Tribune staff writer Gitte Laasby, with thanks to Bill Sullivan for the reference. 21 names seem a bit scanty for a complete list of all environmental crimes fugitives in the country, doesn't it?

The olive family (Oleaceae) is represented in Ohio by a number of ornamental plants (forsythia, lilac, and privet), autumn and Russian olive, both of which are exotic and destructively invasive small trees, and two native genera - Fringe Tree (at the edge of its range in southern Ohio only), and the ashes - genus Fraxinus.
      Ohio currently sports five species of ash: White Ash (Fraxinus americana), Red and Green Ash (F. pennsylvanica, which see below), Blue Ash (F. quadrangulata), Pumpkin Ash (F. profunda), and Black Ash (F. nigra). These trees, especially the Red and White Ash, constitute and extremely important component of Ohio's forests - and they will probably be virtually wiped out with 20 years. Enjoy them while you can.
      Ash trees have opposite leaves and branching. Since they grow fast, the youngest branches of these trees tend to be long and slender. Once familiarized, this configuration makes ash trees pretty easy to identify in the winter.
       Ash wood is fairly heavy, but very hard and elastic. It bends very well with steam treatment, and has a wide range of uses (mostly White and Black Ash), including baseball bats, tool handles, canoe paddles, furniture, and curved elements of chairs and boats.

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Emerald ash borer (EAB), Agrilus planipennis, is an exotic Asian beetle that was discovered in southeastern Michigan near Detroit in the summer of 2002 and in Ohio in 2003. It has spread to Windsor, Ontario and to Indiana (2004), Illinois, Maryland (2006), Pennsylvania, West Virginia (2007), Wisconsin, Missouri, Virginia (2008), Minnesota, and New York (2009). The adult beetles nibble on ash foliage but cause little damage. The larvae (the immature stage) feed on the inner bark of ash trees, disrupting the tree's ability to transport water and nutrients by cutting sideways through the galleries (the markings made by the movement of the larvae as they make their way along under the bark as they feed).

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University of Missouri scientist Ray Semlitsch studies creatures most people don't ever see. These creatures are active only at night and thrive in the shallow, cool, wet surroundings of headwater streams, an oft-overlooked biological environment.
A collaborative study, with MU graduate student Bill Peterman, recently published in the journal Freshwater Biology, revealed the biomass (total mass of an organism in an area) of the black-bellied salamander far exceeds any previous estimates, and the contribution of the species and its habitat may be critical in the food chain.

While the ecological role of the salamander is not fully understood, radio-telemetry and mark-recapture tracking methods used in the study indicate the salamanders are a critical component in the productivity of headwater streams, possibly ensuring the survival of other species of fauna.