To the editor:
Threats to our global environment, as well as threats to our local environment, appear almost daily in the national and local press. We have seen reported recently in our local Daily News environmental threats, such as perennial pepperweed and milfoil, as well as local community efforts to control these invasive species. Again in our Daily News, we have been made aware of the Town of Newbury's efforts, in conjunction with state and federal agencies, to eradicate other invasive species such as invasive phragmites, a real threat to our Great Marsh. Last week, the efforts of Essex Country's prisoners were highlighted in the continued attempts at eradication of pepperweed, eliciting praise for the civic-minded use of these laborers.
Unfortunately, we may have been remiss in affording the opportunity to offer praise for the civic labors of Newburyport youth in similar efforts, many of which provided the foundation for the others, over the past six to seven years. The Gulf of Maine Institute (GOMI) has been educating youth to be effective stewards and managers of their environment, a valuable lesson. The local Newburyport team has been extremely active in the fight against pepperweed in our local environment, participating in an ongoing project to map all of the locally infested areas and marking them for eradication programs. They have participated annually in team-directed pepperweed pulls to effectively eliminate this invasive species with manual labor in lieu of potentially toxic pesticides.
With the guidance of Liz Duff of the Massachusetts Audubon Society, Peter Phippen of 8 Towns and the Great Marsh, and Sarah Janson of the Parker River Refuge, the students helped to develop the Perennial Pepperweed Control Handbook that has become a primer for other communities to organize their own efforts.
In addition, students have conducted ongoing water quality studies along the Merrimack River into our Plum Island Marsh, explored the effect of mercury contamination on the waterfowl species there, conducted experiments on potential pharmaceutical contamination of our drinking water and have effectively participated in local regional conferences addressing these problems collectively with other communities and their officials.
So if our local press determines it appropriate to highlight the efforts of local municipalities, state and local agencies, some with large sums of money, and now the use of prisoners in civic-oriented contributions to local communities, perhaps they will also see fit to highlight the endeavors of our Newburyport students to the same end of preservation of our local, environment from these various threats. Failure to do so may, in fact, become a real threat to the future development of the current, past and hopefully future students to continue to become civic-minded citizen stewards willing to give back to their communities, a valuable result for us all.
Praise to all of them for a job well done.
Ralph P. Orlando
Newburyport
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