BlueDotLiving issue 1-2021 by Kristofer Rabasca

M A R T H A’S VI N EYA RD / S P R I N G 2 0 2 1

M A R T H A’S VI N EYARD / SPRING 2021

S I M P L E / S M A RT / S U STA I N A B L E / STOR I E S I S S U E N O. 1 S I M P L E / S M A RT / S U STA I N A B L E / STOR I E S

THE MAZARS BUILT A SOUTH MOUNTAIN HOME And saved a sandplain

LAURA ROOSEVELT'S FRUGAL MOM

An early conservationist

THE KEEP THIS! HANDBOOK

All you need to compost, recycle, and volunteer on MV

CRUISING WITH CURRIER

In Hasoni Pratts' very fast Tesla

NITROGEN

What's so bad about it, anyway?

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BDL • OUR TEAM

Creative Director

Tara Kenny: “I collect old, broken pieces of beach fencing and make mini town names signs.”

Publishers

Peter and Barbara Oberfest publisher@mvtimes.com) "I compulsively turn out lights when leaving a room. Miraculously, they're back on next time I walk past." –an Oberfest

Editors

Leslie Garrett:

(see Leslie’s Bluedot hack on the Contributors’ page)

Jamie Kageleiry: (editor@bluedotliving.com) “My mother taught me to save the wrappers from butter to butter cake pans with. I also love ‘Last Object’ items — no more buying thousands of Q-Tips a year (and throwing them out.)”

Contributing Editor

Mollie Doyle

(see Mollie’s Bluedot hacks on the contributors’ page)

Art Director

Kristófer Rabasca

Design/Production

Dave Plath: “We ‘recycle’ all our dinner prep veggies to our rabbits — corn husks, carrot tops, etc.” Nicole Jackson: “I’ve made it a habit to hang my reusable bags by the door; when I leave for the day I grab them on my way out, that way I always have them.”

Climate Intern Kyra Steck

(see her Bluedot hacks on contributors’ page)

Digital/Social Media

Kelsey Perrett: “I've started using bar Castile soap for everything: showers, handwashing, even doing the dishes (with a reusable brush). It usually comes wrapped in a single sheet of recyclable paper, so it cuts down on the number of plastic bottles.”

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OUR TEAM • BDL

Proofreader Barbara Dudley Davis Bluedot logo and wordmark are registered trademarks of Bluedot, LLC, a Delaware corporation. Copyright ©2021. All rights reserved. Bluedot Living: At Home on Earth is printed on recycled material, using soy-based ink in the U.S.A."

Ad Sales

Alessandra Hagerty, Jenna Lambert: (adsales@mvtimes.com) “I’m mindful about using eco-friendly cleaning and beauty products, and reusable containers.”

Bluedot, LLC, Founders Bluedot Living magazine is published quarterly (three times in 2021) by The Martha’s Vineyard Times, publishers of The Martha’s Vineyard Times weekly newspaper, Martha’s Vineyard Arts & Ideas Magazine, Edible Vineyard Magazine, The Local, The Minute daily newsletter, Vineyard Visitor, & the websites MVTimes.com, VineyardVisitor.com, & MVArtsandIdeas.com. You can see the digital version of this magazine at bluedotliving.com. Bluedot Living is available at newsstands, select retail locations, inns, hotels, and bookstores, free of charge. Find Bluedot Living on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @bluedotliving. • Subscribe: Please inquire at mvtsubscriptions@mvtimes.com.

Victoria Riskin: “The Vitamix home composter sits on a counter and churns food scraps into lovely compost to mix into potting soil. Am I in love? Yes! Also: bamboo paper towels by ECOZOI I throw into the washing machine, which last and last. Haven't thrown away paper towels in months. Just sayin’”

Walter and Nora McGraw: “Wash your clothes in cold water. Use Dropps or another eco-friendly detergent. Line-dry, or try wool dryer balls. Scrape dishes, don't rinse; fill dishwasher before running. Turn off heat dry function. Use eco-friendly, bio-based detergent without color and fragrance.”

M A R T H A’ S V I N E YA R D / S P R I N G 2 0 2 1

FOUNDER / EDITORS' LETTER

DEAR READER, July 2019. 10:30 am. A beautiful weekday morning. It was vacation, and everyone felt entitled to sleep in. I had started a pancake breakfast when our niece Nora came in to help. Her kids — Wiley, 10, and Simone, 14 — would need something hearty for another perfect Vineyard day of hiking, kayaking, and swimming, before a barbecue dinner. “Can you recycle paper towels?” I asked Nora, soggy paper towel in hand. Recycling can’t be this hard, I thought. “No,” she said. “And by the way, you can only recycle No. 1 and No. 2 plastic, at least where we live. I’ve been meaning to tell you.” Nora and Walt had been raising the kids on five wooded acres on Bainbridge Island, across the water from Seattle, with a yard full of chickens, goats, and a horse. They had been living a sustainable life for years, and she’d know if anyone would. For some time, faced with incontrovertible evidence of climate change — in California with its wildfires, the flooding around the country, the Vineyard with its hurricanes and rising sea levels — I’d been determined to live more responsibly. Do my part. Sort trash, reduce plastic, start a vegetable garden, eliminate beef from my diet, drive an electric car. The challenges felt daunting.

I missed the reassuring spirit of Erma Bombeck, the humorist who was so practical and wise: Don’t try to be perfect. Have a sense of humor. “When humor goes,” she said, “there goes civilization.” But Erma was gone, and here I was in my kitchen, defeated by a soggy paper towel. Who was I to think I could make a difference? Then, almost miraculously, I found inspiration from the Martha’s Vineyard middle school kids who successfully campaigned to ban single-use plastic in West Tisbury and Chilmark (see “Local Heroes,” page 64). I watched the video of them at the West Tisbury town meeting, their earnest faces, their intelligent and carefully researched remarks, persuading the adults in the room to vote yes. Unanimously. I cried. If they can make a difference, so can I. I’ve taken dozens of small steps in the days since — I opted for sustainable clothing, makeup, and non-toxic cleaning supplies. I’m avoiding plastic (not easy), beef, and packaged foods; have acquired a countertop electric composter, and am buying less and feeling more confident by the day. Nora tells me she’s proud of me.

With the flip of a switch – the Vineyard Transit Authority (VTA) powered up 8 new solar canopies at the ceremonial ribbon cutting on May 14, 2021 – this marks the next step in its conversion from diesel-powered vehicles to an all-electric fleet. The solar energy generated onsite will be stored in batteries and used to charge the buses. This event culminates a four-year long investment of time and expertise to create and install the technology to support the 12 electric buses operating on-island since 2018.

FOUNDER / EDITORS' LETTER

I’ve learned so much about what’s going on on the Island and elsewhere that I created Bluedot Living: At Home on Earth to feature and support the many people on Martha’s Vineyard working on climate issues. We will host Bluedot Roundtables — public events with the sharpest minds and innovators to help us solve these problems together. (Stay tuned!) My partners in this venture are Peter and Barbara Oberfest, who own The Martha’s Vineyard Times, and Jamie Kageleiry, The Times’ associate publisher. This is our first quarterly issue — well, three this year, four next year. Onward! P.S. No, you really can’t recycle normal paper towels. You can compost them, or use reusable paper towels — yes, they exist — or even better, try Swedish sponges. One lesson we’ve learned already: Whatever the Swedes do, they usually do it perfectly.

From the Editors: You might be wondering why people publishing a magazine dedicated to sustainability decided to produce a print edition. We talked a lot about whether we should. In the end, as lovers of print, we opted to hew to sustainable principles and make it as green a process as we could. What you hold in your hands was printed on recycled paper (helping ensure a market for recycled materials) and with soy ink, which is not only benign but makes the paper more easily recycled. We’re also hoping this issue is so useful that you hang on to it and don’t need to recycle it. We’d like to thank the advertisers who supported this inaugural issue. A big thanks also to South Mountain Co. for funding for our incredible intern Kyra Steck. We would love for you, our readers, to be part of the conversation. Write us a letter, share your favorite sustainability tips (see ours on the masthead and contributors’ pages), who you think should be our next Local Hero, and about any other stories or resources you’d like others to know about. In our next issue (out July 23), we’ll feature Farley Pedler’s passive solar house, introduce the M.V. Atlas of Life, and entice you to join a brigade of citizen scientists. Leslie Garrett will consider carbon, Mollie Doyle will tackle her closet, and Geoff Currier will cruise with Laurie David. Until then, happy trails.

– Victoria Riskin, founder, Bluedot, LLC

– Leslie Garrett, Jamie Kageleiry, editors

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TOC

26 Features 21 Nitrogen:

What’s so bad about it, anyway?

By Leslie Garrett COVER PHOTO BY BOB GOTHARD FOR SOUTH MOUNTAIN.

The Mazar family at their Edgartown home, from left: Luke the dog, Bella the dog, Brian and Anne (rear), Jason Mazar-Kelly, and Casey (front).

CONTENTS Upfront 10 Local: Ollie Becker Makes Some Films 11 Good News from All Over + The Grist Report 13 Field Notes: Liz Durkee’s “Save the Planet” List 14 In a Word: Anthropause 14 Favorite Things: Green tech

Nitrogen is an abundant element, crucial to life. So why all the hate? In the wrong places, in the wrong amounts, nitrogen wreaks havoc on the places we love. Now, finally, we’re fighting back.

26 A South Mountain Home on a Sandplain

By John Abrams

The Mazars bought land on the Edgartown Great Pond that was slated to become a golf course. They built a family home, restored acres to one of the world’s rarest ecosystems, and are adding a zero-energy guesthouse.

34 Building from Scratch

By Mollie Doyle

Laura Silber revives the demolition — making furniture and entire homes from salvaged wood and hardware. All while helping to create affordable housing for the rest of us.

15 Favorite Things: Podcasts

49 Natural Neighbors

16 Local: Lauren Morgan Makes a Better Raincoat

By Sam Moore

Tom Chase has a wild idea for your backyard. And it requires less work than what you’re probably already doing.

TOC

42 55 34 Departments

Essays

8 Contributors 9 What. On. Earth.

A lot of planetary numbers that might make your mind spin.

17 The Pleasure Theory

42 Good Food Cathy Walthers Grew Microgreens

Nancy Aronie believes joy is an element essential to the health of the planet. Can a marriage (or the planet) accommodate that?

48 Room for Change Mollie Doyle Casts

33 My Mother the Pinchpenny

A Fast Ride in Hasoni Pratts’ Tesla

Laura Roosevelt’s mom taught her early on that environmentalism can look a lot like frugality.

on a Sunny Windowsill

a Critical Eye on Her Bathroom Products

55 Cruising with Currier

59 The Keep This Handbook

Useful Composting/Recycling/Volunteering Info

64 Local Heroes: We Nominate the Plastic Free MV Kids

M A R T H A’ S V I N E YA R D / S P R I N G 2 0 2 1

BDL • CONTRIBUTORS

CONTRIBUTORS on a Great Pond,” page 26) is the founder and CEO of South Mountain Company and author of Companies We Keep: Employee Ownership and the Business of Community and Place. He blogs at southmountain.com/blog. “Some of my Patagonia shirts go back almost to the company’s ’70s roots. I exchange them at Worn Wear for refurbished ones that I like better than their new ones.”

Nancy Slonin Aronie (“The

Pleasure Theory,” page 17) is the author of Writing from the Heart: Tapping the Power of Your Inner Voice, a commentator for National Public Radio, and the founder of the Chilmark Writing Workshop. “I printed 500 T shirts that say ‘Ask me about thorium’ [a proposed alternative energy source], and give them out on a regular basis. But more on that another time.”

Randi Baird (photos, “Microgreens,” page 42) has spent the past three decades using her photographs to communicate, educate, and enact social change. “Compost your yard and food waste into great soil. It adds life and organic matter to compacted soil, and feeds vegetable and fruit trees. I use leaves, grass clippings, food waste, and manure from my chickens, and layer it like a lasagna.”

Claire Callagy (photos, “Nitrogen,” page 21) is an Island-based photographer and the philanthropic program manager for the Fink Family Foundation, which works closely with Island Grown Initiative on reducing food waste on the Vineyard.

Geoff Currier (“Cruising with Currier,”

Times. He writes frequently for Edible Vineyard and MV Arts and Ideas magazines. “Grow a beard. You keep all those razor blades out of the landfills. And look rakishly handsome. It's a win-win.” “Cruising with Currier” will appear in each issue of Bluedot Living.

Mollie Doyle (“Local: Lauren Morgan,” page 16;

“Building from Scratch,” page 34; “Room for Change,” page 48) is a writer, yoga teacher, and lead laundress of her Chilmark household. “When I discovered Dropps laundry detergent pods, which are earth-friendly (no plastic at all!) and effective, it was a game-changer.”

Jeremy Driesen (photos, “Local: Lauren Morgan,” page 16; “Building from Scratch,” page 34; and “Cruising with Currier,” page 55) is a photographer based in Oak Bluffs. He has shot events for Vogue, Vanity Fair, the New York Times, and many others. “I became unreasonably happy when I figured out I could use water to fuse that last sliver of soap with the new bar and thus avoid any waste.” Liz Durkee (“Field Notes,” page 13) is the first climate change planner for the Martha’s Vineyard Commission, the Island’s regional planning agency. During her 26 years as Oak Bluffs’ conservation agent, she immersed herself in climate change education, and combined it with her environmental protection experience to help prepare for the impacts of a warming planet. “I protect wildlife habitat and conserve water with a small, nonirrigated lawn.” Leslie Garrett (editor, and “What’s So Bad About

Nitrogen,” page 21) has written for the Washington Post and The Atlantic, among others. She writes frequently on environmental and social justice issues, and is the author of The Virtuous Consumer: Your Essential Shopping Guide for a Better, Kinder, Healthier World (and one our kids will thank us for!). Her Bluedot hack? “My clothesline! Is there anything lovelier than slipping between crisp, line-dried sheets that smell of fresh air and sunshine at day’s end?"

Bob Gothard (photos, “A House on a Great Pond,” page 26) has been photographing celebrities and beautiful homes since the 1960s, as well as album covers for artists, including Carly Simon.

page 55) is associate editor of The MV

Continued on page 54

PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE CONTRIBUTORS

John Abrams (“A House

UPFRONT

What. On. Earth.

Our Pale Blue Dot

Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives … on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. –Carl Sagan, 1994 Distance of Voyager 1 from Earth when it captured the iconic “pale blue dot” photo on Feb. 14, 1990 .................. 3.7 billion miles Size of Earth in the photo ........................................................................................................................................................................................... 0.12 pixel Views on YouTube of Carl Sagan’s “Pale Blue Dot” video since being uploaded in September 2015 ...................... 1,108,412 Estimated number of planets supporting intelligent life in the galaxy .......................................................................................... 36 Surface temperature of Mars ..................................................................................................................................................................................... -81°F Amount of breathable air on Mars ........................................................................................................................................................................ none Amount of the world’s oceans that are in fully/highly protected zones ...................................................................................... 2.7 percent Number of countries/territories that have protected at least 10 percent of their marine areas .................................. 52 Percentage of protected U.S. marine area ....................................................................................................................................................... 26 Number of marine mammals estimated to die each year from ingesting microplastics .................................................. 100,000 Percentage of microplastics in the ocean estimated to originate from our clothes ............................................................ 35 Year in which the E.U. plans to require microplastic filters on all new washing machines ............................................... 2025 Number of passengers served by Martha’s Vineyard Airport in 2019 ........................................................................................... 50,351 Number of passengers served by Martha’s Vineyard Airport in 2020 .......................................................................................... 15,657 Percentage of world’s sandplains grasslands that are on the Vineyard and Nantucket .................................................... 90 Number of bird species of conservation interest in Massachusetts that are highly dependent on sandplain grasslands ecosystem ..................................................................................................................................................................... 7 Percentage of Martha’s Vineyard’s transportation energy use made up of diesel ferry fuel ........................................... 11 Anticipated percentage of Washington State ferries, the largest ferry system in U.S., that will be plug-in hybrid by 2040 ....................................................................................................................................................................... 90 Percentage of global greenhouse gas emissions from shipping ...................................................................................................... 3 Percent reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions if sails were used .................................................................................. 30 Percentage of MV Times “Minute” readers polled who own or are planning to purchase an electric or hybrid vehicle ....................................................................................................................................................................................... 38.8 Percentage of “Minute” readers who have or are considering solar power for their homes .......................................... 63.3 Percentage of “Minute” readers who have adopted sustainable practices (cutting down on plastic) in the past two years .......................................................................................................................................... 77.1

Sources: 1 the Atlantic; 2 Planetary Society; 3 YouTube; 4 CBC; 5-6 The Atlantic; 7 BBC; 8 Seastreak; 9 New Yorker; 10 National Observer; 11-13 Nature; 14-16 Marine Protected Atlas; 17 UNESCO; 18 Nature; 19 European Parliament; 20 International Council on Clean Transportation; 21-22 MV Times; 23-24 Massachusetts Division of Fisheries & Wildlife; 25-26 MV Times; 27-28 Engineering and Technology; 29 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; 30-31 Washington Post; 32-34 MV Times daily “Minute” newsletter M A R T H A’ S V I N E YA R D / S P R I N G 2 0 2 1

UPFRONT • OLLIE BECKER

Local

rowing up on Tisbury Great Pond in the early ’90s, Ollie Becker spent his summer days on the water. He would sail and row around the pond, sticking his head over the edge of the boat to watch the bottom pass by. Stones, mud, sand, grasses, crabs, and shellfish — all gliding by beneath him. In 2018, Ollie returned to the Island from Los Angeles to help launch a production company with the Martha’s Vineyard Film Festival (MVFF). He’d go for walks along the shores of ponds with Thomas Bena, the founder of MVFF, and noticed that the bottom of the pond he had spent years curiously observing had changed. A thick blanket of brown algae clouded the ever-changing texture of sand, mud, and stone he had grown up with, and aquatic life was suffering. Becker and Bena pondered these changes, and decided it was time to take action. “If the pond could change this much in my lifetime, what would it look like for my daughter and the next generation if we don’t act now?” Becker said to us. Last summer’s cyanobacteria counts only underscored Becker’s concern that the health of the ponds were in jeopardy, and that he should make a film to describe the issues to Islanders. However, he soon realized the issues facing the ponds were too multifaceted and dynamic for a single film. After speaking with more Islanders, Becker shifted to working on a series that could explore the various factors for degradation and track preservation efforts. In September 2020, Becker launched his documentary series on the Island’s great ponds. The ongoing project seeks to celebrate the rare ecology of the Vineyard’s ponds while examining their recent decline and documenting various restoration efforts. The first film of the series is currently

in production, and has Ollie Becker will use contributions from conhis fellowship to cerned citizens, riparian continue making a documentary series owners, the Martha’s about Island ponds. Vineyard Community Foundation, and the Mass Cultural Council. The Vineyard Conservation Society (VCS) partnered with Becker to co-produce the film in October. Acting as scientific advisors, the VCS helped Becker network with the larger Island conservation community to understand the underlying issues of the ponds. The VCS’s role was a combination of strategy and storytelling, said Jeremy Houser, an ecologist with the VCS. Organization staff With the help of the Martha’s Vineworked as interview subjects in the film, yard Vision Fellowship award, Becker helped narrow the project’s themes and aims to give Vineyarders an appreciation central message, and aided with advofor the rich human history of the ponds, cacy strategy. The Great Pond Foundaas well as actionable steps to reduce nitrotion has also supported the project as gen in the Island’s pond ecosystems, such subject-matter experts. as reducing their fertilizer use or updating In April of this year, the Martha’s their septic systems. His greatest hope, Vineyard Vision Fellowship awarded however, is to bring attention, money, and Becker a two-year grant to continue his resources to organizations such as VCS, work on the documentary series. The the Great Pond Foundation, and the Martha’s Vineyard Vision Fellowship is a M.V. Shellfish Group, which are dedicatnonprofit organization that awards finan- ed to restoring the health of our ponds. cial support for emerging Island leaders “What Ollie is doing is really special, and changemakers. Becker was one of because anybody who has spent time on a 16 recipients this year for his project, a great pond really understands it’s magic,” call-to-action series he hopes will inspire Emily Reddington, the executive director tangible changes on the Island. of the Great Pond Foundation, told “The fellowship means everything to Bluedot Living. “It’s a unique ecosystem. the project,” said Becker. “We now have It’s rare, it’s precious, and through visual the ability to just really hit the gas on storytelling, Ollie is capturing that magic this project, and move forward without and sharing it with a broader audience.” any hesitation.” — Kyra Steck

PHOTO COURTESY MARTHA'S VINEYARD VISION FELLOWSHIP

OLLIE BECKER’S GREAT POND FILM SERIES

UPFRONT • GOOD NEWS

good news F R O M A L L OV E R

PHOTO BY MAE DEARY

Writing the Story of Our Climate Future For wayyyy too many years, journalism focused on debating climate change, despite widespread scientific consensus on its impact. More recently, many mainstream journalists shifted to the reality of climate change, but delivered as doomsday scenarios. It seems, however, that a new journalistic dawn has arrived. Climate reporting is, at long last, focused on solutions. According to Columbia Journalism Review, “The new climate solutions journalism takes climate change’s reality and importance as given, and goes forward from there, in what feels like a healthy human decision to endure, even on a grievously injured planet. ‘There was a lot of reporting about how bad it was,’ says Gimlet co-founder Alex Blumberg, who cohosts How to Save a Planet (available on Spotify) with Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson. Such reporting, he adds, was necessary. ‘But my question was, What should we do about it? Should we just throw up our hands and die?’ “But focusing on climate solutions is not just an editorial decision or psychological best practice. It’s a response to real political, technical, and business solutions, which

quixotically ripened during the Trump administration and gave climate journalists fresh stories to tell.”

Our Answer Is Blowing in the Wind

The news is coming fast and furious. Oil and gas stocks in free fall (bit.ly/fossil-stocks). Entire countries divesting from fossil fuels (bit.ly/fossilfree). And this, from the New Yorker: “If you want real hope, the best place to look may be a little-noted report from the London-based think tank Carbon Tracker Initiative. Titled The Sky’s the Limit, it begins by declaring that ‘solar and wind potential is far higher than that of fossil fuels, and can meet global energy demand many times over.’” But while that’s not news to those who’ve been paying attention, it’s accompanied by the rapidly growing

affordability of solar and wind. What used to be prohibitively expensive is now, often, cheaper than fossil fuels. The New Yorker puts it this way: “That’s what has shifted — and so quickly and so dramatically that most of the world’s politicians are now living on a different planet than the one we actually inhabit” (bit.ly/ solarYay).

It might not feel like much, but cutting out just a single ingredient — beef — can have an outsize impact on making a person’s cooking more environmentally friendly” (bit. ly/Epicurious-beef-free). This was not, Epicurious insisted, a vendetta against cattle ranchers or even those who eat cows, but a pragmatic response to a global crisis. Not long after, one of the world’s Where’s the Beef? most famous restaurants, When Epicurious recently Eleven Madison Park in announced that it would no New York City, announced longer be producing recipes that that it, too, was taking meat included beef, they reasoned off its customers’ plates that “almost 15 percent of (bit.ly/meatless-plates). greenhouse gas emissions There has been, of course, globally come from livestock the usual Sturm und Drang (and everything involved in that emerge each time some raising it); 61 percent of those folks feel that their hamburgers emissions can be traced back are threatened. But the to beef. Cows are 20 times less increased momentum and efficient to raise than beans, normalization of meat-free and roughly three times less eating is good for our planet, efficient than poultry and pork. no matter how you slice it.

M A R T H A’ S V I N E YA R D / S P R I N G 2 0 2 1

UPFRONT • GRIST REPORT

The GristReport TM

Lucky for Bluedot Living, Grist is generously sharing some of its content with us. Grist.org is a digital newsroom reporting on climate change and mitigation efforts. They’ve been informing us with great reporting and beautiful graphics for going on 20 years now, and we’re happy to partner up with them.

We love their newsletters; Bluedot climate intern Kyra Steck especially liked these recent stories. The secret ingredient in Paris’ green public housing: How cannabis can be part of an affordable housing future — not just one for ecoconscious elites. Winter in Paris is notoriously clammy, and this winter was no exception. But Gregory Ferembach didn’t need to turn on his heat much. One reason? The walls in his public housing building are lined with one of nature’s best insulation materials: hemp. “We’re never cold in winter,” Ferembach said in French. “The kids walk around barefoot all the time, or even in their underwear.” Ferembach says it helps that their apartment is on a middle floor, and their building is sandwiched between two others. But the coziness also owes to the unique material in their walls: “hempcrete,” a concrete-like blend made by mixing hemp hurd — the woody core of the cannabis plant — with water and lime. Despite the name, the material isn’t a direct substitute for concrete. But as an insulating material within walls, it holds the potential to transform the homes where we reside in ways that are healthier for people and the planet alike. 12

COURTESY GRIST.ORG

Cozy with Cannabis

Read more here: bit.ly/grist-hemp.

Catch a Wave?

The U.S. is finally looking to unlock the potential of wave energy: After decades of false starts, the federal approval of a new testing site off the coast of Oregon could give wave energy a much-needed jolt. At first glance, waves have the makings of an ideal renewable energy source. They’re predictable,

constant, and tremendously powerful. Their energy potential is astonishing — researchers estimate that waves off the coasts of the U.S. could generate as much as 2.64 trillion kilowatthours annually, or the equivalent of 64 percent of the country’s total electricity generation in 2019. But capturing the immense power radiating across our oceans’ surfaces is no easy feat — wave energy technology is challenging to

engineer, startup costs are high, and testing in open ocean waters is a regulatory nightmare. That’s why wave energy’s trajectory has been a stop-and-go affair plagued by false starts for decades. But things may finally be starting to shift for the industry: The federal government recently approved the first full-scale, utility-grid-connected wave energy test site in the U.S. Read the rest here: bit.ly/Grist-waves.

UPFRONT • FIELD NOTES

FIELDNotes

To: Bluedot Living From: L iz Durkee, climate planner at the Martha’s Vineyard Commission Subject: How to decrease your greenhouse gas emissions (in no particular order). Make informed decisions and act on them need a new car, P Wbuyhenan you electric vehicle hen your heating system P Wneeds replacement, install

ivest from fossil fuels P DVisit the Island Climate Action P Network website to learn more

solar or air-source heat pumps

all Cape Light Compact and P Cschedule an energy audit; follow

up on the recommendations (800-797-6699) Plant trees (unless you live near a forest where wildfire is a hazard); trees absorb carbon, provide shade, help control soil erosion, act as windscreens, lower your heating and cooling costs, add value to your home, and some even produce food

P P P P P

about reducing your carbon footprint and helping the Island adapt to climate impacts (islandclimateaction.org) B uy less plastic; plastic is made from fossil fuels B uy local products; they don’t require fossil fuel for transport C ut down on eating meat; processing and transport use fossil fuel Vote for candidates committed to renewable energy Use your car less — walk, bike, use public transportation

Take fewer baths and shorter P showers — it takes energy to heat water

energy-efficient appliances P BR uyeduce amount of air travel; P planes useyourincredible amounts

of fossil fuel Buy products with little packaging M aintain your car Compost your leaves and food waste Divest from fossil fuels Replace regular light bulbs with LED bulbs Recycle Purchase fewer disposable products Don’t buy fast fashion — buy quality clothing that will last, and secondhand clothing (recycle) Join Vineyard Power Buy less stuff !

P P P P P P P P P P

M A R T H A’ S V I N E YA R D / S P R I N G 2 0 2 1

UPFRONT • IN A WORD

in a word O Anthropause: [ an-thruh-pawz ]

n the heels of Oxford Languages “Word of the Year” for 2019 — “climate emergency” — comes a COVID-inspired collection of words for 2020, including “anthropause.” Anthro = human. Pause = interrupt action. Anthropause was coined by researchers seeking to describe the lull in global human activity, which, in some cases, allowed wildlife to move into spaces typically dominated by people or move

about unimpeded or unaffected by us. For the briefest of moments, a hush fell over Earth. Scientists called it “a once-in-a-lifetime experience.” One put it this way: “All of a sudden … silence.” Reports emerged from around the world: Sightings of rare, wild, big cats in Chile, deer on urban streets in Italy, loggerhead turtles on Florida beaches laying more eggs. We noticed it too, didn’t we? The anthropause. When the human world went still and the nonhuman sector of the natural world could, for a moment,

right itself. Here on the Island, didn’t we see more birds in the trees? More deer in the streets? More Vineyard Haven turkeys in Oak Bluffs? This rarest of periods is already being studied by scientists, keen to understand the impact. What will this anthropause teach us not only about wildlife but about ourselves, about our place in the world, about our ability to pause our activity in deference to the rest of the earth’s creatures? And what will we do with the answers>? –Leslie Garrett Source: sciencemag.org

FAVORITE THINGS: SURFING TO SUSTAINABILITY Digital tools can help us navigate our way to more sustainable habits. Find your way on an ecoconscious route with Google Maps, or download green apps: Small changes in our day-to-day life can have a collective impact on climate mitigation. Here are a few of Bluedot’s favorite tech tips, tricks, and opportunities. Green apps TrailsMV Created by the Sheriff’s Meadow Organization, TrailsMV includes updated maps of trails, maps of conservation properties, descriptions of the areas, and GPS to show you where you are on your hike (sheriffsmeadow.org/trailsmvapp). Create an account, and you can also post photos of your M.V.

adventure to the app, as well as like and comment on others’ posts. The All-Island Trails Committee has a dedicated page on The MV Times site (mvtimes.com/island-trails), so you can see all Island trails in one place. Ecosia Ecosia is a free search engine, similar to Google, Bing, or Yahoo, that uses your searches to plant trees across the globe. Here’s how it works: Ecosia takes the profit generated from the ad revenue of each search to plant trees in biodiversity hotspots at risk from deforestation. Since its launch in 2009, Ecosia has helped plant over 123 million trees at more than 9,000 planting sites around the world.

With over 15 million current users, Ecosia helps plant one tree every 1.3 seconds. Ecosia also keeps track of each user’s searches to show how many trees you’ve planted. Go to ecosia.org and click “Search with Ecosia.” You’ll find instructions for downloading Ecosia depending on your current web browser. A mobile app for your smartphone means you can search on the go. –Kyra Steck Google Maps go green (thanks, Grist, for clueing us into this) “One of the world’s biggest tech companies is taking on transportation emissions, one Google Maps user at a time. The navigation program, which has more

FAVORITE THINGS

FAVORITE THINGS: CLIMATE PODCASTS Climate change podcasts went mainstream in 2020. Here are two favorites from Grist. –Brianna Baker, grist.org If you’re into stories “How to Save a Planet”: Each episode of “How to Save a Planet” guides listeners through a complex problem, from wildfires to environmental racism, and highlights the experts, activists, and even YouTubers spearheading the solutions. Hosts Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Alex Blumberg sprinkle witty banter throughout each show as they share guests’ stories instead of simply throwing questions at them. The resulting narratives are as compelling as they are informative. Johnson, a marine biologist and selfdescribed policy nerd, offers her climate expertise,

while veteran producer-reporter Blumberg brings his storytelling know-how. The cherry on top: Johnson and Blumberg provide calls to action at the end of each episode, and resources that’ll help you do your part. If you’re a climate philosopher “A Matter of Degrees”: With hosts as fabulous as policy expert Leah Stokes and writer Katharine Wilkinson, how could we not shout out “A Matter of Degrees”? This show tackles the big questions around climate change, with an emphasis on identifying solutions. Are you pondering whether individual action really matters in comparison with structural change? Or wondering if the climate movement is at a breakthrough moment — or a breaking point? This show offers plenty of interviews, and prioritizes the voices of women and BIPOC figures. But it’s at its best when the hosts (who are friends IRL) shoot the breeze about wrestling with eco-guilt or the experiences that inspired their own climate awakenings.

than 150 million users, will soon recommend the route with the lowest carbon footprint as the default option in situations where that route has roughly the same estimated arrival time as the fastest route, according to Dane Glasgow, vice president of product at Google Maps. And when the most eco-friendly route is a bit longer than other options, the program will still list it alongside the fastest route, along with the emissions associated with both, so that users can make informed decisions. “Transportation is the single biggest source of carbon emissions in the U.S., so even marginal changes in driver behavior could mean large emissions reductions at scale. Google’s revamp of its maps comes on the heels of the company’s 2020 announcement that it had eliminated its ‘entire carbon legacy’ — and its pledge to power its operations with carbon-free electricity by 2030.” –Adam Mahoney, grist.org

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UPFRONT • LAUREN MORGAN

Local LAUREN MORGAN, VINEYARD HAVEN

Lauren Morgan's Vineyard Haven store (below), created a nontoxic American-grown and -made rain jacket.

at the flea market when I found out about all the toxic DWR PFCs [durable water-resistant perfluorochemicals] that they were putting on the materials to make them waterproof. I’ll just say this: It’s really quite a rabbit hole when you start reading up on perfluorochemicals. But the articles and facts I found about what these chemicals do, and the fact that we are putting chemically coated fabrics on our skin, really bothered me. So I wanted to see if I could find a way to make a jacket that was nontoxic, American-grown and -made, flattering, and effectively waterproof. Once I got into trying to source organic cotton and American materials, I began to see how challenging it was. So many phone calls. So many emails.

Weeks of tugging on one thread only to find that it was not a good fit, or I wasn’t big enough to be able to buy from them” (many organic fabric companies have minimum buys in the tons). But this only inspired her to prove that this — making a thoughtfully sourced, toxic-free rain jacket — could be done. Lauren, who attended the University of Cincinnati for fashion design, found her way to the Island in 2009 when her husband Nate landed a job with architect Mark Hutker. He now works for builder Tom Tate. Given that the Vineyard is not a total hotbed for fashion houses, Lauren used her design background to work as an interior designer, and continues to design interiors with her fellow University of Cincinnati graduate Madaline Ganton, using the Lauren Morgan store as a base and source of inspiration. The two share an excitement about everything from Danish modern furniture to educating customers about the value of products that consider aesthetics and the planet. Even though their doors only recently opened, they have projects lined up, and more store inventory arriving. And then there is Lauren’s second baby, which, at presstime, was due any day. We at Bluedot say, “Yay” to all of this. And, “Welcome!” — Mollie Doyle

PHOTOS JEREMY DRIESEN

n the door of Lauren Morgan’s new shop on Main Street in Vineyard Haven, a sign reads, “Americanmade, nontoxic and organic goods for your safe haven.” Inside you will find yourself in a warm, lightfilled space filled with homewares, jewelry, and clothes made by local artists and artisans who have their eye on making beautiful and sustainable creations. The edit includes local artisans, including Hawkhouse Jewelry, Lindsay Medeiros hats, Marshall Farm woodworks, Merry Farm Pottery, Flat Point Farm soap, and Walker Roman art, along with washable wool rugs and pieces from Younger Furniture that will make you want to embrace wabi-sabi. And buying local means less carbon emissions from transport! But the most exciting find is Lauren’s amazing wax jacket — a more eco-conscious sister of the Barbour. Designed and sourced by Lauren (you can track the jacket’s journey from farm to closet on her site, laurenmorgan.com), and American-made, this single piece took nearly a year to come to fruition. “It was initially an experiment,” she says. “I had been making these rain jackets and selling them

ESSAY • THE PLEASURE THEORY

ARTWORK BY ANDIE DINKIN

The Pleasure Theory ESSAY BY NANCY ARONIE

The writer believes joy is an essential element in the health of the planet. Her husband relies on hard science. Can a marriage (or the planet) find a middle ground?

just got the most gorgeous wedding invitation I’ve ever seen. The calligraphy on the envelope is handdone. I know because I spilled some water on it, and it smudged. The announcement itself is on heavy stock, and has a black-and-white hand-drawn sketch of the chateau in France where the wedding will be held. I Googled and saw the hotel choices where we would stay, and I’m salivating. It’s not just the classiness of the event that makes me want to go. It’s that I love the kid who’s getting married. I have known him since he was a boy, and I have always loved him. I love his parents. I love his sisters, and I love his intended. Plus, I’ve never been to France. Of course I’ve never been to France. I’m married to the Energy Czar (my husband, Joel). He has told me time and again how much carbon dioxide planes emit. It’s one of his many rants. But what can I do? I can only savor the moment. It’s 55°, and a perfect spring sunny Sunday morning in Chilmark. The Energy Czar and I are sitting by the fire expressing our gratitude for being healthy and just, ya know, life.

Me: We are so lucky! Joel: We are. (Moment of reverie followed by …) Joel (cont’d): But ya know, you burn a lot of wood. Me: I know, and I know it’s hard for you, being the conscience of this household and the world. Joel: The thing is, wood smoke is air pollution. It produces mercury, carbon monoxide, greenhouse gases, volatile organic compounds, and nitrogen oxides. To say nothing of fine particulates, soot, and carbon dioxide. Probably hundreds more chemicals I don’t even know about. Me: OK, OK, I hear you. But I have a theory. It’s not based in science, but someday science will catch up and have an equation for this. Joel: I know. It’s your Pleasure Theory. The same one you use for sitting in the sun at high noon. So much pleasure protects you from melanoma. I’m not sure about that one. Me: Well, yeah, it’s the same theory, but I think I can put it in better terms. You agree that everything is energy, right? Joel: I guess. Mass can be converted into energy, and energy can be converted into mass. You look at E=mc squared, and there it is. Me: Uh-oh, you’re doing that thing again. I don’t look at E=mc squared and think, There it is. I don’t look at E=mc squared at all. But let’s get back to my theory. The pleasure we are … well, we were getting, until you gave me the woodburning lecture, from this cozy, warm, beautiful fire gives us

Continued on page 63

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DEAR DOT

dot DEAR

Illustrations Elissa Turnbull Dear Dot: Plastic (too much), laundry strips, composting coffee, and more. Dot tackles your thorniest questions from a perch on her porch.

Dear Dot,

I’ve been reading about the volume of microplastics in our oceans and waterways, and am concerned about what can be done to reduce my own. I’m new to the Vineyard, and am building a house, which includes a new septic system. Do microplastics affect septic systems? Is there anything I can do to stem the tide of microplastics in the ocean? – Wash-Ashore, Vineyard Haven

Dear Wash-Ashore,

As a newcomer, errr, wash-ashore myself, I welcome you to the vocabulary of the Vineyard. Another newcomer to our vernacular is microplastics, which are exactly as they sound: microscopic pieces of plastic. Which sounds benign, yes? Don’t be fooled. Microplastics get into our bodies of water when larger

plastics break down, and according to UNESCO, proceed to kill roughly a million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals annually. And don’t for a second think that we humans are spared this scourge. World Wildlife Fund tells us that we ingest the equivalent of a credit card in plastic each week. We can, of course, blame plastic bags, plastic toys, plastic containers. But, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, an estimated 35 percent of all primary microplastics in the oceans originate from our plastic clothes. Those comfy yoga pants, made from synthetic fibers, that became your pandemic staple might make it easier for you to breathe, but are, sorry to say it, choking our oceans and those who make it their home. I can practically hear you saying,

Continued on page 19

DEAR DOT

Continued from page 18

“What? How can my yoga pants be murdering seabirds?” Let me explain. Each time you wash clothes made of synthetic fibers, those fibers (which are, essentially, plastic) break down and get flushed out of your machine. If your wastewater goes to a treatment plant via a sewer, which is what happens for only 1,400 Island properties, according to the Martha’s Vineyard Commission (MVC), most of the microplastics will be captured. For the rest of us (90 percent, says the MVC) on cesspools, aging septic systems, or even the Title 5 systems mandatory for new construction, those microplastics “are definitely prone to clogging it,” says Lindsay Cass, an engineer who helped pioneer a microplastics filtration system while at Montreal’s McGill University. “And it won’t capture all the microplastics, so there will still be a pathway into the environment.” Don’t feel too smug, sewer users: According to Cass, with so many microplastics being released, even a high success rate of removal still leads to high contamination rates. While the European Union, led by France, plans to require filters on washing machines by 2025, there’s not yet such an initiative in North America. But who needs a government order to save our sea creatures (and us!)? The good news is you can install a filter yourself. Thanks to a pilot project on Lake Huron’s Georgian Bay, the first in North America to tackle microplastics from washing machines by installing filters, we know that these retrofit filters work. Researchers installed filters on washing machines belonging to roughly 10 percent of the population hooked up to sewers. They hypothesized that if the filters worked, they’d expect to see a 10 percent reduction in microplastics showing up at the wastewater treatment plant. And that’s exactly what happened. These filters are available for individual purchase — they cost roughly $150 — and fit on the outside of your machine. Look for the Lint Luv-R or Wexco Filtrol. More good news: Not only will these filter out microplastics, but also lint

and other debris, extending the life and efficiency of your washing machine, and also, if you have one, your septic system. Finally, the folks at Georgian Bay Forever suggest other steps to reduce microplastics from your washing habits: · Wash less frequently · Use cold water. Early studies indicate cold water keeps fibers intact longer · Use a front-load washer, which tends to be easier on clothing – Love, Dot

Dear Dot,

Someone told me that used coffee grounds are really good for my backyard compost. Is that true? Where can I get some? – Tea Drinker, Tisbury

Dear Tea Drinker,

I am the proud owner of no less than four composters: three outdoors that I use in warmer weather for food scraps and yard waste, and an indoor vermicomposter (the Latin vermis = worm) that exists in my basement year-round devouring my food scraps, tea bags, and coffee grounds with an efficiency that would make the Swedish blush. Composting delights me, as does your question. It feels like magic — you dump in your banana peels, your carrot peelings, your soggy, blackened lettuce that was part of your I-really-mean-it-this-time plan to eat more salads, and, yes please, your used coffee grounds — and it becomes nutrient-rich fertilizer for your plants. Adding coffee grounds to your compost is particularly good on the Vineyard, because our soil is acidic, says Roxanne Kapitan, a 30-year composting veteran and manager of Oak Leaf Landscape in West Tisbury. “Good for growing blueberries,” she says. “Not so good for vegetables.” She explains that adding coffee grounds creates a pH of 6.5 to 6.8. “Almost all vegetable plants

need that exact pH level.” Of course, I say, pretending to know what pH is. Coffee grounds, which are considered “green” in compost parlance despite their actual color, neutralize or alkilize soil, and also accelerate decomposition. If your compost pile has just carbon (considered “brown,” and including twigs, leaves, even coffee filters, compostable coffee cups, or the newspaper you read with your coffee), it won’t heat up effectively. These are some magic beans: If your soil is sandy, coffee grinds will help it hold water. If your soil is more claylike, they will break it down so it doesn’t hold so much water. You might be able to convince your neighbors to save their coffee grounds for you. Mocha Mott’s takes its grounds to IGI, but also gives them out to composting customers, but please bring your own containers, and call or check in first so they can show you the ropes the first time. Espresso Love in Edgartown also offers up used grounds, but supply is first come, first served. And, again, check in first. One more thing, Tea Drinker. As long as the tea bag itself is not made of synthetic materials, it can be composted. A blogger who goes by The Wild Minimalist has a comprehensive list (bit. ly/GoodTeaBags) of which popular US teas come in compostable tea bags. Or play it safe and open the bags, adding just the tea leaves to your compost. – Love, Dot Continued on page 20

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DEAR DOT

Have you had a HOME ENERGY ASSESSMENT ?

Continued from page 19

Dear Dot,

Ads for laundry strips have been showing up in my Facebook feed, touting their eco-friendliness. Do they work? Also … what are laundry strips? –The Laundress, Oak Bluffs

My dear Laundress,

Schedule an assessment to improve the efficiency and comfort of your home. It’s no-cost Get expert advice Access incentives for upgrades Improved efficiency helps both year-round and summer homes.

Learn more and sign up: 1-800-797-6699 CapeLightCompact.org

The data gods with their dark magic algorithms have determined that you are an eco-warrior, apparently. And also, it would seem, a resident washer-in-chief. Ads for these strips populate my Facebook feed too, all but crowding out my hazily remembered high school chums’ saccharine odes to the sisterhood. I was intent on ignoring both the ads and the odes, but a friend insisted that I try the laundry strips, going so far as to mail me some from TruEarth, a British Columbia–based company that ships to the U.S. To answer your first question, laundry strips are tiny, highly concentrated strips of detergent that replace your liquid or powder laundry detergent. Their eco bona fides aren’t simply that they contain less harmful ingredients than typical detergents, but that they have eliminated plastic packaging. There are a few brands, including Kind Laundry strips, which was recently awarded Best Eco-Friendly Laundry Detergent by Better Homes and Gardens, for whatever that’s worth. The two brands I tried, TruEarth and

Nature Clean, both package unwrapped strips in a simple cardboard envelope. What’s more, laundry strips are light as a feather, which makes transport a breeze, and vastly reduces the use of fossil fuels to ship compared with liquid or powder detergent. I can also report that yes, they work, which I know because, as mother to three kids who seem to change their clothes a half-dozen times a day, I do a lot of laundry. However, a caveat: Don’t expect planetfriendly laundry detergents, including strips, to produce the same blinding white clean that some (ahem, Tide) conventional detergents do. That Woah! White! is thanks to what’s called “optical brighteners” in the biz, which don’t actually make clothes cleaner — they just cast a blueish tinge rather than a yellowish one, making clothes appear cleaner. Line-drying your whites in a sunny spot can brighten them up. My advice: Give strips a try, and share those ads on your social feeds to spread the message far and wide! Better still, ask your grocery store manager to stock them. The only companies I can find are Canadian, but they all ship to the U.S. –Love, Dot

Got a question for Dot? Email us at DearDot@ bluedotliving.com

WHAT'S FEATURE SO BAD • BUILT ABOUT FROM • NITROGEN SCRATCH

nitrogen? W H AT ’ S S O B A D A B O U T

The most abundant element on Earth does a whole lot of good. Except when there’s too much of it and it’s in the wrong place. So how do we solve a problem like nitrogen? Story by Leslie Garrett Photos by Claire Callagy

N Nitrogen 14.007

here was a time when this Canadian was forced by her high school chemistry teacher to memorize the entire periodic table of elements. Nitrogen was easy. It came early, at No. 7. It was the most abundant element on Earth, our teacher told us, crucial to life, found in soils and plants, in our water, in our air. And, some classmate snickered and said under his breath, in our pee. At that point in the early 1980s, there was no U.N. International Nitrogen Management System to tackle the problem of global nitrogen pollution. That

wouldn’t happen until December 2016. While a very few scientists began sounding the alarm about the impact of nitrogen on coastal water systems in the early 20th century, and the chorus grew in size and volume in the ’80s and ’90s, according to a scientific paper pub lished in 2006, most scientists were debating whether phosphorus or carbon was the larger culprit. In the meantime, the world continued to blithely douse farmland with fertilizers made largely of nitrogen, and flush our urine, with its 10 percent nitrogen, into ponds and rivers and lakes and oceans. Continued on page 22

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NITROGEN • WHAT'S SO BAD ABOUT

oday, however, scientific consensus is that “nitrogen represents the largest pollution problem in the nation’s coastal waters, and one of the greatest threats to the ecological functioning of these ecosystems,” according to the journal Limnology and Oceanography. In the past half-century, we have increased the amount of nitrogen in the environment more than we have any other element. “Nitrogen in the right quantities, in the right proportions with other nutrients, is absolutely essential to life,” says Emma Green-Beach, a shellfish biologist and the executive director of the Martha’s Vineyard Shellfish Group. The problem, she says, isn’t nitrogen, it’s excess nitrogen.

Why is something so beneficial on land so harmful in the water? Nitrogen, which makes your lawn verdant and your plants lush, similarly makes plants grow in the water. What makes this a problem, says Anne Giblin, senior scientist at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, is that many of the water-based plants that grow in the water are single-celled organisms, such as blue-green algae (cyanobacteria). These

plants grow quickly, which can create algal blooms that turn the water green and scummy. They also die quickly, which creates a second problem. When that algae dies and falls to the bottom of the pond or lake, it begins to decompose. Decomposition requires a lot of oxygen, but water, unlike air, contains very little. Consequently, says Giblin, it’s easy to use all that oxygen up: “So now you’ve taken all the oxygen out of the water, which, of course, is detrimental to the fish and all the other organisms living in the water.” Nitrogen also tends to favor fastergrowing plants such as sea lettuce (Ulva) and sea moss (Gracilaria) in the water, explains Giblin, which can shade the more beneficial plants, such as eelgrass. Consequently, you wind up replacing plants that create healthy habitat and a food source with plants that are less supportive of healthy marine life. What’s more, she says, nitrogen moves through a number of transformations, from ammonium to nitrate to nitrous oxide, which is a greenhouse gas. And finally, explains Emma Green-Beach, “around here, the acidic conditions that we’re experiencing — coastal acidification — are largely the result of excess nitrogen.” Among

the concerns with acidification, she explains, is the impact it has on shellfish. “When the mud is acidic, the baby shellfish, which settle at the bottom of the ponds, literally dissolve,” she says, unable to assimilate calcium. It isn’t hard to actually see the impact of nitrogen pollution on the Vineyard, and there are plenty of laments about the state of various ponds that show signs of it. The Martha’s Vineyard Commission reports that “about 64 percent of the Vineyard’s land area is made up of watersheds that drain into nitrogen-sensitive coastal ponds, either through runoff or groundwater flow.” The commission points to three paths nitrogen takes: rain from polluted air; fertilizer from lawns, gardens and farms; and “by far the greatest source of manageable nitrogen pollution,” urine from wastewater. The Title 5 septic systems that serve about 90 percent of Vineyard homes were designed to tackle pathogens in wastewater, and, says Anne Giblin, “they do that very well.” But nitrogen, she says, goes through the system because it gets converted by bacteria into, first, ammonia, and then nitrate, which is a very mobile compound in the soil: “It doesn’t stick to clays. It just travels through with the water.”

W H AT A R E W E D O I N G A B O U T I T ? Experts agree that there isn’t a silver bullet solution, but rather a panoply of them to address the problem of nitrogen pollution. Anna Edey’s DIY wood-chip system on the Vineyard

Vineyard Haven resident Anna Edey spent much of the 1960s with her young children in and around Sengekontacket Pond, enjoying “clean, sparkling” water teeming with “lots of life.” She returned with her grandchildren in the 1990s to discover a very changed place. “It was filthy,” she says. “It smelled horrible, there were masses of rotting algae on the beaches where we wanted to put 22

our towels down, with swarms of flies.” She knew nitrogen from septic systems were a key part of the problem so she set to work creating an alternative to the required Title 5 systems. “Title 5 was designed to protect against pathogens and they do that very well,” says Marine Biological Laboratory’s Anne Giblin. “They weren’t designed for nitrogen removal. So that’s the problem.” Anna Edey agrees. “What I discovered,” Edey says, “is that when

I filter the wastewater through wood chips, more than 95 percent of the nitrogen is soaked up. It never gets down to the groundwater. It’s a very simple system.” It got complicated when it came time to secure permitting from the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). Homeowners and town boards of health and the DEP will likely be assessing the science over the coming years about woodchip

WHAT'S SO BAD ABOUT • NITROGEN

filters, which, most experts agree, are an effective way of mitigating nitrogen. Edey has since moved from her farm in West Tisbury to Vineyard Haven, and now has exactly the Title 5 system she so reviles though she has every intention of installing a woodchip system there.

I/A technology to address issues with Title 5 septic systems Just as Anna Edey was inspired to look at ways to restore the health of the pond she loved, it was the degeneration of another beloved body of water that alerted Melinda Loberg to the problem of nitrogen pollution. Her family owned a “shack” on Lake Tashmoo — “it’s another world,” she says — and she spent her summers playing in and around the water. “There were scallops, there were blue crabs, there were starfish. Mussels growing on the rocks, flounder, bass. It was a child’s playground.” In the mid ’90s, Loberg returned and was aghast at the change in the lake she loved. She became involved in various groups to address nitrogen pollution. “I felt I had a stake in preserving the quality of our ponds for other generations,” she says. She found inspiration in the successful cleanup of Vineyard Haven’s harbor, which was a result of the town replacing all downtown septic systems with sewers. When she retired to the Vineyard in 1999, she was elected selectman, and began looking at alternatives to sewering, which, though it worked at keeping pollutants out of bodies of water, was prohibitively expensive. She met John Smith at a conference. Smith was planning on retiring to his

place in Edgartown when he became aware of the impact nitrogen was having on the ponds. He teamed up with the town of Tisbury in a pilot project to install NitROE wastewater treatment systems to existing Title 5 septics in the Lagoon Pond and Lake Tashmoo watershed, a process that promised to effectively remove nitrogen to levels as low as those achieved by a wastewater treatment plant.

though, that these systems, which can add $15,000 to the cost of a Title 5 system, make enough of a difference. But NitROE tanks aren’t the only option. Anna Edey’s wood-chip system makes an appearance here in the form of what’s referred to as a “layer cake” approach. The leach area is layered with sand and wood chips. As Edey knows, wood chips are a highly effective component of denitrification. A pilot

"Nitrogen in the right quantities, in the right proportions with other nutrients, is absolutely essential to life." The problem, she says, isn’t nitrogen, it’s excess nitrogen. –Emma Green-Beach

“Over the course of a year and a half, [this system] was refined to the point where we could achieve much lower nitrogen output than had been achieved by any other technology,” says Loberg. The next stage was to expand the testing group to 50 systems, “typically a three-year process,” she says. Once that’s achieved, and assuming that results continue to show at least a 50 percent reduction in nitrogen from the typical 19 ppm (parts per million) of a standard septic, the NitROE system will be able to proceed with less government oversight since, as Smith explained in an interview with The MV Times (bit.ly/SmithNitROE), it will be a proven technology. Not all Islanders concerned about nitrogen pollution are convinced,

Monitoring Menemsha: Water samples are tested for nutrients, including nitrogen. MVC says, so far, so good. Menemsha Pond’s water quality is deemed high.

program on the Cape resulted in a 72 percent nitrogen removal average, with some systems removing more than 90 percent. A huge benefit of the layer cake system is that it’s not proprietary, making it relatively simple. Cost has been pegged at approximately $1,500. Doug Cooper, an environmental consultant and registered sanitarian, is something of a skeptic toward septic mitigation efforts. “With anything in the natural world, there’s a whole host of factors in the formula as to how nitrogen gets to coastal abatements and what its impact might be. Some people think if you put every septic system into a town sewer line, it’ll clean up the ponds. And there are some who are a little more agnostic, who say we can put everybody with septic systems

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expensive and therefore not standard in most cities and towns, removes nitrogen. “Lo and behold,” says GreenBeach, “20 years later, Edgartown Great Pond is doing quite well.”

Martha’s Vineyard Shellfish Group

Top: O.B. shellfish constable Chuck Fisher checks quahog broodstock. The M.V. Shellfish Group returns them to ponds to boost existing aquaculture. Right: Shellfish aquaculture not only helps the local economy, it’s an efficient system for removing excess nitrogen.

on an advanced treatment system and it may not change the aquatic chemistry in some of these coastal abatements. And that’s the dilemma.” Emma Green-Beach, however, says it’s widely accepted that septic systems are the primary culprit, and that starting there makes sense and

is likely to produce positive results. “There have been groundwater studies that show this,” she says, pointing also to the successful cleanup of Edgartown Great Pond, thanks to the tertiary wastewater treatment that Edgartown upgraded to in the mid-’90s. Tertiary treatment, which is

Along with the group’s eelgrass project, the M.V. Shellfish Group has been active since 2011 collecting shells — oysters, clams, mussels — from Island restaurants and returning them to the Tisbury and Edgartown Great Ponds, a project sponsored by the Martha’s Vineyard Vision Fellowship. Given that acidification is one of the consequences of nitrogen in the ponds, the shells, which are made of calcium carbonate, “act like Tums,” says Emma Green-Beach. Green-Beach and many of the efforts of the M.V. Shellfish Group have been supported by the Martha’s Vineyard Vision Fellowship: “[The shells] raise the pH, they release calcium back into the water, which the shellfish need, and then the shells themselves act as substrate for the oysters to settle onto.” What’s more, she says, the project keeps the shells out of the trash and gets them back into the Great Pond ecosystem. The group also grows “tens of millions of baby shellfish,” says Green-Beach, which are returned to the ponds. These shellfish eat the phytoplankton, which have absorbed some of the nitrogen in the ponds, and that then becomes the shellfish tissue. “When we harvest and eat those shellfish, we’re taking nitrogen out of the ponds.” The shellfish themselves are nitrogen fighters in a number of ways, explains Green-Beach. They improve water quality by filtering it, absorbing tiny critters as food and using nitrogen and phosphorus in their shells and tissue. The cleaner water allows sunlight to better penetrate the water column, boosting growth of submerged aquatic vegetation — which in turn provides habitat and sequesters nutrients. They

WHAT'S SO BAD ABOUT • NITROGEN eat phytoplankton, which have absorbed nitrogen; and when shellfish poop, their waste is buried in the sediment, where bacteria turns it into dinitrogen gas, which is benign in the atmosphere. And finally, Green-Beach points to the group’s phragmite harvesting project. Phragmite is an invasive species that spreads easily and crowds out native species. It’s also effective at taking up and storing nitrogen. With a grant from the EPA, the group has been harvesting the phragmite, essentially sequestering nitrogen.

Permeable reactive barrier near Lagoon Pond A denitrification strategy still in its infancy, the permeable reactive barrier (PRB) recently installed on private land near the Martha’s Vineyard Museum involved drilling 30 feet into the ground

Inlet opening It’s pretty straightforward: The ponds rise thanks to increased groundwater and rainfall, both of which also increase nutrients (i.e., nitrogen) in the ponds. The water temperature rises, there’s more chlorophyll, more algae. The solution is just as straightforward: Dredge a path from the ocean to bring more water in and flush the ponds. “You want a good flush for five to seven days,” says Sheri Caseau, water resource planner with the M.V. Commission. The flushes, which occur around three or four times each year, are organized to ensure that the various species reliant upon the pond habitat aren’t disturbed or negatively impacted. Late

Given that acidification is one of the consequences of nitrogen in the ponds, the shells, made of calcium carbonate, "act like Tums." –Emma Green-Beach

to install pipes that inject wells nearby with a mixture of vegetable oil emulsion and water. The emulsion sticks to soil, and works by reducing the amount of oxygen, which then tricks the bacteria into feeding on its second favorite thing, nitrogen — which is then released into the atmosphere as a gas. PRBs are a bit of a gamble, but when they do work, they generally work very well, says Emma GreenBeach. The problem, she says, is that they’re not always sited properly: “I know that the M.V. Commission took a really long time to do the very fine-scale micro-siting for that … so I’m definitely optimistic.”

Hatchery Heroes: The M.V. Shellfish Hatchery Team (from left, Emma Green-Beach, Alley McConnell, Chris Edwards) move juvenile shellfish to the waters of the member towns. Shellfish then grow for one season, protected from predators, before being bottom planted on public beds.

August tends to be the most crucial time to address excess nitrogen.

Fertilizer regulations Yes, fertilizer is a significant contributor to nitrogen in waterways around the world, but thanks to Island-wide lawn fertilizer regulations, impact has largely been mitigated on the Vineyard. The regulations dictate when, how much, and where fertilizer can be applied.

Urine diversion on the Cape and in Vermont For those on the Cape who’ve been wrestling with the issue of nitrogen Continued on page 62

A HOUSE ON A GREAT POND • FEATURE

South Mountain built a home for Brian and Anne Mazar and in the process, helped restore a sandplain ecosystem on the Edgartown Great Pond. The triple-glazed windows (photo, right) feature a custom muntin pattern inspired by the surrounding trees. 26

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A HOUSE ON

A GREAT POND

Protection, Restoration, and a Family’s Passion for the Land Story by John Abrams Photos by Bob Gothard, courtesy South Mountain Co.

emember the Vineyard Golf Wars of the late 1990s? Three major golf courses were proposed nearly at once — two in Edgartown, one in Oak Bluffs. The community had strong feelings about the impact of more golf courses. The New York Times quoted Jim Athearn, Morning Glory Farm owner and, at the time, a member of the Martha’s Vineyard Commission (MVC): “A golf course is the epitome of suburban leisure and affluence.” He described golf as a cultural steamroller crushing “the character and identity that we are trying to preserve.” Ultimately, only one of the three — Vineyard Golf — was built. Corey Kupersmith’s O.B. plan went down in flames at the MVC. The third course — Meeting House Golf Club — was proposed for a large property on the shore of Edgartown

Great Pond, and its fate provides an uplifting story. In the pitched battle between developers and conservation interests, the Meeting House proponents structured their case as a question: “What would be a better fate for the Island and the unique, fragile property — an environmentally benign [so they said] golf course, or a collection of large, seasonal homes?” Biologist Tom Chase, then of The Nature Conservancy (TNC) turned this argument on its head when he wrote a letter to the Vineyard Gazette suggesting a third way: TNC would buy the property, put it into conservation, and find a conservation buyer to recoup the funds, thus dispensing with the two-options-only argument. At the time, Wayne Klockner had just returned from Indonesia to take over as the head of the Massachusetts office of TNC.

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When he arrived, the Vineyard’s chapter of TNC was thriving under Tom Chase’s leadership but there was little activity in the rest of the state. Wayne needed money. He made a list of all the people who had donated more than $100 to TNC Massachusetts in the previous few years, and began to cold-call them. That’s how he met Brian and Anne Mazar, who lived in the small Massachusetts town of Mendon. They were receptive to a visit; when they met, they told him they had been renting vacation houses on the Vineyard each summer, and would consider being conservation buyers when they were closer to retirement. Wayne had no idea that they might have the interest or capacity to purchase a valuable 100acre property on Edgartown Great Pond. But when he and Tom showed them the property and Tom laid out his vision for connected habitats (see related story, page 50) and sandplains restoration, they got excited, especially when they realized that they had serendipitously been on the same property a decade before when they stayed at a nearby B&B. Ultimately they purchased the property, with two six-acre building envelopes designated, and the remaining acres covered by a conservation easement held by TNC. They created an endowment for the long-term restoration of the rare sandplain ecosystem. Meeting House Golf would never be built.

The failure of the first two proposals caused Vineyard Golf to agree to strong conditions in return for MVC and Edgartown Conservation Commission approval, including all-organic management (at the time it was called “the greenest golf course in the country” in the national media) and a contribution of four lots to the town for affordable housing. One of those four lots will return as a part of this story.

SANDPLAINS RESTORATION According to the Sandplain Grassland Network, a regional research and management partnership, “Sandplain grasslands of the Northeastern U.S. are iconic hotspots for biodiversity, and important conservation priorities because of their relative rarity, limited geographical range, and the diversity of uncommon plant and animal species they support.” Sandplains are a globally imperiled ecosystem; since 1850, most sandplains have disappeared. Neglect and fire suppression have allowed the dominant forest species to take over. The Vineyard and Nantucket are among the few remaining strongholds, with approximately 90 percent of the world’s sandplains grasslands. The Mazar property was covered by overgrown sandplains grasslands. In 2003 Tom Chase of TNC initiated a sandplains restoration

Sandplains are a globally imperiled ecosystem. The Mazars cleared trees from the property to recover the underlying grasslands, then carefully selected tree trunks for posts in the new home's kitchen (right).

FEATURE • A HOUSE ON A GREAT POND

project to recover the underlying grasslands. In the past, they were maintained by periodic burning from lightning, and from indigenous Americans — Wampanoag, here on Martha’s Vineyard — setting fire to them. According to Tom, “Fire is the means by which the sandplains had remained open for thousands of years. It returns most nutrients to the soil ... and opens the soil, allowing grasses from the seed bank to emerge — sometimes after many decades of waiting — and allows the seedlings to grow unshaded, as so many species require. In the sandplains, fire is life.” For the past 18 years, the Mazar project has used a variety of restoration and management methods — clearing the forest, conducting prescribed burns, controlling invasive plants, removing aggressive woody shrubs, planting native plants — to bring back this rare ecology and increase biodiversity. Mike Whittemore has been coming to the Vineyard for

fishing trips since he was a child. Over time he began to take note of the brilliant landscapes and variety of flora and fauna; his Vineyard visits stoked the flames of his passion for the natural world. Three years ago he moved here to become TNC’s stewardship manager for Cape Cod and the Islands. He helps manage more than 1,500 acres of property, including the Mazar sandplains restoration. “It’s an incredibly rare and diverse ecosystem that you can’t find in many other places besides the Cape and Islands,” Whittemore said in a recent MV Times article. “We are lucky to have the opportunity to support the grasslands and protect those landscapes from development and degradation.” With grasslands shrinking across the range, TNC and its partners’ efforts are not just locally essential. “These are global efforts that are necessary for the survival of this particular

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House moving is tough work. At one point when we were moving the Mazar house, our job foreman, Pete D’Angelo, stopped by my office to talk about the dangers and difficulties of the job. We talked awhile, and then he left for the job site, where the house, which was already mounted on two trailers that had been moved out into a field, was to be split in half and rolled to its new location several miles away. Late that morning I got a call from him: “You remember what I was saying about the dangers?” “Uh-oh,” I said quickly. “What happened?” “Everyone’s safe. But not the house. When we separated the two halves and moved the first half out, the second part toppled right off the trailer and crashed on its side.” After he’d reiterated that all were OK, I asked, “So what are you doing now?” “I’m trying to decide whether it’s salvageable — whether to bother moving the intact half, whether to set a match to the whole damn thing, or what.” I drove out to the site. The scene was surreal. Because the move required power, telephone, and cable television lines to be disconnected and lowered, the site was jammed with utility trucks, linemen, police escorts, and workers. They

were standing around in small groups staring at this strange, two-story half-a-house lying on its side. Pete and Mike, the mover, had already figured out a scheme to right the house, repair the damage, and move it. There was little talk about what had actually happened, and no talk about who was to blame. Everyone began to put things in order for the move, like cowboys pulling the herd back together in the quiet moments after the end of a stampede. The utility guys headed for their trucks, the cops moved out to the road and switched on their flashing lights, the tractor started up, and the other half began to roll. Not long after I left, Pete told me, one of the local newspapers showed up. When pressed by the reporter to make a tragedy out of a mishap, as reporters sometimes do, Pete quipped, “The closest thing to a real tragedy this morning was that while we were otherwise engaged, the neighbor’s dog stole our supply of fresh-baked Humphreys’ doughnuts.” It so happens that at the time we were doing a video about the Island Affordable Housing Fund. The videographer was on the site filming the move. We have footage of the entire event; it’s dramatic, to say the least.

ecosystem. There are many species that exist in the sandplain grasslands that don’t exist anywhere else in the world.” TNC will continue to manage, in perpetuity, the restoration and expansion of sandplains grasslands on the property. To date, they have created a mosaic of all-native habitats on more than 30 acres of the property. “Overall,” Mike wrote in an email, “this property effectively showcases the striking drama and beauty of the Vineyard’s sandplain grasslands. The project is a unique collaboration between a major conservation organization and a homeowner who share a deep appreciation for the Vineyard landscape and the plant and animal species that give it its character.”

interested in working with them to do a sensitive development of one of the two building envelopes. Initial conversations indicated that the chemistry was just right, and that Brian and Anne would be extraordinary clients. Their interests (visual modesty, species protection, rich craft, and net-zero energy) were uniquely aligned with ours. They had strong aesthetic and environmental aspirations for their home and landscape. The invasive species that TNC has systematically removed weren’t the only intruders. There was a large, ungainly house close to the water, which dominated the view from the pond. Early on it was determined that we would remove that house. Meanwhile, in concert with the Island Affordable Housing Fund (IAHF), we had developed a program to relocate and make affordable housing from houses slated to be torn down. Rising land values were causing many perfectly good houses to be razed

REPURPOSING A HOUSE Late in 2000, Brian and Anne contacted me (as the CEO and co-owner of South Mountain Company) to see if we would be

PHOTOS COURTESY SOUTH MOUNTAIN CO.

HOUSE MOVI NG A I N ’ T E ASY

FEATURE • A HOUSE ON A GREAT POND

and replaced. We offered the owners a unique opportunity: They contribute their house to the nonprofit IAHF, which assigns a fair market value to the contribution, and they contribute, in cash, the amount of their tax savings due to the contribution. The funds would be used to relocate and rehab the houses, and the owners would save the cost of demolition. Everyone comes out ahead except the IRS, but the process is entirely legal. Various owners agreed, and we ultimately relocated eight houses. The town committed the properties secured from Vineyard Golf, and four of the houses were moved to those lots on Metcalf Way. On the Mazar property, we saw the opportunity to move the existing house and replace it with a new house more appropriate to the site and the Mazars’ needs. The house was loaded onto two side-by-side tractor trailers, which simultaneously drove it out into the field, where the house was cut in half. After an unfortunate diversion (see sidebar), the two trailers rolled to Metcalf Way, where the two halves were placed on a foundation and reassembled. Later, when the town distributed the four houses by lottery, the winner of this one, who was, at the time, the custodian for the Edgartown School, broke down in tears of joy when his name was called.

A HOME FOR THE FAMILY My colleague Derrill Bazzy and I worked with landscape designer Sanford Evans of Indigo Farms, and Anne and Brian, to design and locate a low-slung home that would be barely visible from the shore. The vision was to sensitively weld the new home to a spectacular existing landscape with minimal disturbance. Indigo salvaged the native plants from the homesite before excavation; they made a temporary nursery during construction, and replanted them after the house was completed. The result conveys deep affection for and connection with the surroundings. The house was set back from the shore significantly further than the previous house, and nestled into the savannah-like terrain. The forms embodied in the house and

The vision was to sensitively weld the new home to a spectacular existing landscape with minimal disturbance. Indigo salvaged the native plants from the homesite before excavation; they made a temporary nursery during construction, and replanted them after the house was completed. the plantings reflect the larger environment — ancient outwash flows and wind-sheared outlines of tree canopies. The low, L-shaped form reduces the building’s presence from the pond, while providing a diversity of views from within. Anne and Brian were the inspiration; we were their guides. The house exudes craft and comfort. A rich palette of reclaimed woods, driftwood, and gnarly trees recovered from the site defines the aesthetic. Before 14 acres of oak trees were cleared for the sandplains restoration, we cruised them and identified a dozen or so of just the right size and shape, with branches at the right places to serve as braces, and they became exposed framing elements in the dining area. There is a feeling of timelessness — the house does not feel like it belongs in any particular era. Behind the entry coat rack, a trap door reveals a magical, cypress-paneled hideaway known as “the Secret Place,” designed and built for their youngest child, who at the time was 6. The process was equally magical. The only thing I can remember disagreeing about was a sod roof; Derrill and I advocated, Brian and Anne resisted. They didn’t see the value, and we couldn’t articulate it in a convincing way. In hindsight I think they were right. The reclaimed cypress clapboard The Mazars 20 siding and trim, which have weathyears ago, on the ered to a silvery gray that blends steps of the existing into the landscape, contribute to the structure on the unobtrusiveness of the house. Due to land they bought. the natural decay resistance of oldgrowth cypress, it will last indefinitely without finish. A driftwood arch crowns the entry porch like the sun-bleached jawbone of a whale. Ninety-five percent of the interior and exterior visible wood is salvage of some sort. Floors are old-growth heart pine recovered from river bottoms, where they sank in log drives a century ago. Interior trim and cabinetry are cypress that took a similar mud-bound hiatus, now dressed up with a light oil finish. Doors are fabricated from super-stable oldgrowth redwood salvaged from retired beer vats. Nonwood materials, too, were carefully chosen for function, beauty, and environmental good sense. The slate-look

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roof shingles are reincarnated from junked car bumpers. The triple-glazed windows feature a custom muntin pattern inspired by the surrounding trees. Ceramic bathroom tiles make use of recycled windshield glass. The furnishings selected by the Mazars and SMCo interior designer (now COO) Deirdre Bohan quietly complement the architectural detail. The house, the nearby garage and guesthouse, the boardwalk that connects the two, and the surrounding native landscape were completed in 2003. The completed project is an expression of resource conservation without functional or aesthetic compromise. Brian and Anne have continuously added locally grown native plant species to attract pollinators like butterflies and hummingbirds. A native perennial garden has been developing for years, using Island-grown species like joepye weed, swamp milkweed, butterfly weed, cardinal flower, swamp hibiscus, low- and high-bush blueberries, and chokeberry. Some of the perennials came from TNC’s Hoft farm, and from the Polly Hill Arboretum’s MV Wildtype native seed program.

Always ahead of their time, the Mazars challenged us to push beyond net-zero energy to address the embodied carbon of the building assemblies … Ultimately, carbon-positive buildings sequester more carbon dioxide than they emit. Locking carbon into the built environment is a critical strategy, and an immense opportunity to move beyond buildings that do less harm to buildings that have a net positive impact.

Net-zero energy (producing as much or more energy onsite as is consumed) is a common term today. Twenty years ago, it was an unusual concept. It was also hard to Casey Mazar sits in the door to the "secret room" in the main house. Above, right, renderings for accomplish. Solar the zero-energy house she and her husband, Jason Mazar-Kelly, are building on the property. and wind were nowhere near where they are today. less expensive and more durable, South Mountain equipped But Anne and Brian were committed to making this a the house with a nine-kilowatt solar array. The Mazar family zero-energy home that produced more energy than it used. To members have now achieved their original zero-energy goal, and prepare for this, the all-electric house was super-insulated, and their love affair with this spectacular property continues. equipped with a ground source heat pump. NEXT-GENERATION EVOLUTION A wind turbine was planned for the breezy site; its output would exceed the energy loads of the house. It was summarily Fast-forward a decade, to 2021. The youngest of the three turned down by the planning board for aesthetic reasons. Several Mazar children, Casey, is now 26, and managing wholesale years later, the turbine location was moved to a place that would for Morning Glory Farms. Her husband, Jason Mazar-Kelly, have less visual impact; once again it failed to win approval. is a well-known yoga teacher on the Island; together they Anne and Brian were not dissuaded by the setbacks. Finally, have founded Wholesome MV, a community-based yoga and in 2011, when solar electric systems had become considerably Continued on page 54

RENDERING COURTESY SOUTH MOUNTAIN COMPANY

NET ZERO

ESSAY

pinchpenny M Y M O T H E R the

(and early

environmentalist)

ESSAY BY LAURA D. ROOSEVELT

PHOTO COURTESY LAURA D. ROOSEVELT

y mother Food in our house almost emerged never went into the trash. from the Another of my mother’s Depression, catchphrases was “use-uppa,” World War a sort of mantra having to do Two, and with odds and ends in the fridge rationing, as a young woman who that might go bad if left too believed that it was possible — long. If two spears of uneaten noble, even — for people to get by broccoli from last night’s dinner with a lot less than they thought reappeared in tonight’s salad, my they needed. My parents had mother would proudly proclaim, money, but my father could be a “Use-uppa!” My siblings and I bit of a tightwad. Faced with the use this term ourselves now, and restrictive “allowance” he gave her maybe our kids will one day, for managing household expenses, too. My mom candied citrus my mother economized, cut corners, rinds and gave them as gifts. and got creative. She learned to She stored vegetable peelings abhor waste of any kind, including and chicken bones in a plastic wasted effort: Believing that there bag in the freezer until it was was always something in the house time to use them to make a that needed to be carried from chicken stock. After that, they one room to another, she came up went into the compost, along with the catchphrase “Never go with coffee grounds, eggshells, Laura Roosevelt’s mother, right, recycled her anywhere empty-handed.” There and other organic kitchen own (second) wedding dress for her daughter's was always something — today’s waste. Grass clippings from wedding a year later. Laura, then 18, is on the left. mail, a couple of rolls of toilet paper lawnmowing, pulled weeds, — sitting at the top or the bottom raked leaves, and shredded of the staircase, waiting to be carried one way or the other by newspaper were also compost fodder, as was hair harvested whoever might next be going in the appropriate direction. from our hairbrushes and the cat brush. (“It’s full of Self-reliant and resourceful, she learned to do things herself nutrients!” my mother swore, and she was right: Hair contains rather than pay others to do them. She rewired broken lamps. traces of up to 14 different elements, including gold.) She repainted rooms. She kept chickens for eggs and meat, If a tree died on our property, it became wood for our and grew much of our produce in her own vegetable garden, fireplace. If something arrived in a wooden crate, the crate making sure to plant crops ample enough to allow for canning was broken down for kindling. Old newspapers were used for the winter. She learned to sew, and made much of our to start the fire, except for the Washington Post’s colorful clothing, griping about having to buy my school uniforms, Sunday comics section (the “funny papers”), which my mother which she considered overpriced. When she bought clothing repurposed as wrapping for Christmas and birthday presents. for herself, it was always on sale, and if someone admired one Sometime in the 1970s, my mother became an avid of her evening gowns, she’d take pride in announcing that environmentalist, which synched nicely with her frugal habits. she’d found it marked down three times at Loehmann’s. Continued on page 58 M A R T H A’ S V I N E YA R D / S P R I N G 2 0 2 1

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Laura Silber makes furniture for herself and clients from old wood and salvaged hardware. 34

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building F R O M S C R AT C H

LAURA SILBER REVIVES THE DEMOLITION

Most things in the home that she built have had a previous life elsewhere.

Story by Mollie Doyle Photos by Jeremy Driesen

n a snowy day in February, Demolition Revival’s Laura Silber is Zooming from her kitchen. She is surrounded by things she has made: the house itself, the bright green walls she has painted, the reclaimed fir floors with their hand-sanded seams, the stone fireplace built with the rocks friends were asked to bring as donations when they

came for dinner, the narrow, eight-foot-tall apricot hutch (her first piece of furniture), mirrors, catalpa cheese boards. Laura has had a busy few months. She is the new coalition coordinator for the Coalition to Create the Martha’s Vineyard Housing Bank (ccmvhb.org), which she says, “is an honor. And it’s in my wheelhouse. I like participating in the legislative process. I like understanding the mechanics of how things work.

With this, it’s pulling the veil back to see how our government functions, and gaining a deeper understanding of our society’s needs.” She laughs, “And balancing all this amid the personal dynamics of a community. It is fascinating to me.” Laura is not new to community leadership — she is one of the founding members of We Stand Together/Estamos Todos Juntos! and has been very active with the Martha’s Vineyard Island Parents

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Ralph Braun showed Laura how to work with wood. He was like her, she said, in that “he has a thrifty sensibility. He likes working with old stuff.”

Advisory Council on Special Education (mvipac.org) for six years. Of course, this work happens outside the hours when she is cooking for families, making furniture for others, and being a mom to her son Isaac, who is 16. As you already know, or maybe are learning, Laura goes by many names here: chef, woodworker, mother, advocate, artist, community organizer. And she has made a life here on the Island construct-

ing beautiful food, furniture, and new formulas for thinking about community. It’s an extraordinary collage of skills and cognitive abilities. When she thinks about where this came from, she says, “Some of it is just me. I have always been someone who evaluates the way things work and questions the way we do things. In my teens, I became aware of the climate crisis — science was talking about it in the '80s — and was bothered

by American consumerism. I saw plastic everywhere. I stopped using straws, and [started] carrying my own grocery bags. “But some of the critical thinking and my sense of thrift are definitely from my family. No one wasted anything — food, materials, clothes. My mom taught me to sew early on. And there is something in that experience of understanding how to construct a garment that informs so much of what I do today.” She laughs, “I still like to see clothes where the seams are highlighted — how they’ve brought the fabric together with a particular stitch. I also credit my mom for not buying me an Easy-Bake Oven, which, when I was 5, I was absolutely desperate to have. She refused, saying, ‘No child of mine will learn to cook with a lightbulb.’ If she had gotten me one, I honestly don’t know if I’d have pursued any kind of training to be a chef, or even be living here.” Laura grew up amid dairy farms in the small hamlet of Glenmont, N.Y., which is just south of Albany in the Hudson River Valley. Her father was a labor lawyer, and her mother a nurse. Her parents, both retired now, still live there. Her father also co-owned a model train shop, which she used to work at on the weekends for her allowance. And her grandfather George was always modifying things, from bikes to the house’s plumbing. He co-founded Rek-O-Kut with his brother, which in its heyday was the hi-fi record player. She remembers, “He was always ‘fixing’ something. My grandparents and aunts and cousins all had places near Lake Mahopac, N.Y. I come from a big family, and everyone would go there in the summer. A big part of that experience was the food. My family was full of good cooks, and we’d have these incredible meals. Huge meals.” Laura stretches her arms out to emphasize the size and number of people at the table, and laughs again. “The doors would open, and cousins, neighbors, friends, would all come in and sit down together. It was joyous.” As Laura tells it, food was her first love. When she graduated early from high school, she worked as a baker at a gourmet food store near her house: “I loved it. But I also valued higher education. So I

FEATURE • BUILT FROM SCRATCH

She found a vocabulary with crystal handles, highlighting old hardware, face-mounting antique hinges, steam valves, and antique grates. She found colors: “At first, I was drawn to a colonial palette, but then that evolved to a more ’30s and ’40s look.”

She says she likes to think of her pieces in terms of geography, how the eye will travel over the piece. M A R T H A’ S V I N E YA R D / S P R I N G 2 0 2 1

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Laura credits Andrea Rogers, who organizes the Artisans Festival, for her woodworking success.

chose to go to a four-year college.” At Northwestern, Laura studied French, comparative literature, and theater, and then moved with “25 friends to West Hollywood.” She wanted to give acting a shot, but was not interested in getting an entry-level job. As fate would have it, within three days of moving to L.A., LA Gourmet hired her as an executive chef. “It really was a right-place, right-time moment. A ridiculously good opportunity,” she remembers. “I had some experience with macrobiotic cooking, and could talk to clients and customers.” Within a year, some of her gang of 25 began to find real Hollywood success, but Laura had rediscovered the kitchen. She was offered a “huge food job,” but turned it down because she wasn’t ready. Instead, in 1991, she moved to Martha’s Vineyard to work for Michael Brisson at L’Etoile: “I wanted to work for someone who was not just a great chef, but is also a great pastry chef. Michael is equally talented at both. I learned so much from him.” Laura worked for Michael for three years, while throwing pots and keeping the books for Geoffrey Borr’s Chilmark Pottery in the winters: “It was such a great time. In the winter, we’d throw pots, play chess, have potluck dinners. I think I paid $150 a month, and was

FEATURE • BUILT FROM SCRATCH

making $400 a week. I could afford to try things. There was a great freedom in that. This community made it possible for me to not just buy land and build my own home and a business, but also to explore who I wanted to be. Those days are unfortunately over. The housing crisis here is so severe that it threatens every aspect of infrastructure on the Island — economic, public health, everything. We need a long term regional solution. And I believe the housing bank to be the key piece to that solution.”

Through Chilmark Pottery, Laura met her woodworking mentor, Ralph Braun. “He now lives in Thailand. He used to do this really high-end specialty carpentry work here. Such a talented woodworker. When I expressed interest in learning from him, at first, he’d just call me up and say, I need someone to hold the other end of a board for me, can you do it? And I’d say yes. Another time after that he called and said, Are you afraid of heights? I said no.” She laughs: “It turns out I am.”

“I also credit my mom for not buying me an Easy-Bake Oven, which, when I was 5, I was absolutely desperate to have. She refused, saying, ‘No child of mine will learn to cook with a lightbulb.’”

Bit by bit, Ralph began to show Laura how to work with wood. “He’s like me in that he has a thrifty sensibility. He likes working with old stuff. He spent his early career in Germany working on very old buildings and at least one medieval castle.” But after three years of working with Michael, Ralph, and Geoffrey, Laura decided she needed a change of scene. A friend from L’Etoile had opened a bakery in Sun Valley, Idaho. She explains, “So I went out to bake bread, ski, and think about what I was going to do with my life. It turns out all I needed to do was figure out what was next.” Next was a job cooking for a celebrity. “I loved it.” After three years, she got tired of living out of a suitcase. So at 29, Laura moved back to the Vineyard, where Ralph encouraged her to buy some land and build a house. “Ralph and I went to look at this kiteshaped property together. There was

Clients commission Laura to build counters, cabinets, kitchens. About half her work is in private commissions.

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BUILT FROM SCRATCH • FEATURE

A colorful kitchen island, created from recycled boards and hardware, sits on a floor that once lived elsewhere.

no road. It was totally overgrown. We were bushwacking our way around it, calling out to each other, looking for the property lines, when I came upon two giant pigs having sex [her property abuts Blackwater Farm]. It was hilarious!” She bought the land. Laura worked with Ralph and friends in the trades to design and build her 1,200-square-foot home. She has repurposed doors from the original Agricultural Hall — “pulled out of a dumpster,” and floors and screen doors from a gutted bungalow on Abel's Hill. “I was on an extremely tight budget.” As Laura worked, she began to refine her woodworking aesthetic, which, like her food, is made from scratch. “I began building furniture for the house because I couldn’t afford to buy it. It also seemed pointless to spend money when I had so much scrap wood to work with.” She found she likes drawer faces that sit on top of the frame more than in a frame (in

the same way she likes to see the seams on clothes). She found a vocabulary with crystal handles, highlighting old hardware, face-mounting antique hinges, steam valves, and antique grates. She found colors: “At first, I was drawn to a colonial palette, but then that evolved to a more ’30s and ’40s look. I don’t know if anyone remembers the pale green interior of the Humphreys on State Road in West Tisbury, but I just loved that color. I get all my paint mixed at Island Color. Mixing color is almost a lost art form. Bill was an artist. I could bring in a flower, and he could match it. His daughter Jen is equally talented.” Laura also began to develop her painting techniques: “I like to see the grain, the wood.” She explains that she aims to play the paint off the life the wood has had, and the grain to come through the paint. She also prefers woods where the grain is pronounced — particularly when the wood has been exposed to the elements. She likes sassafras, catalpa,

Siberian elm, sycamore maple, sometimes English elm, and, these days, uses the end cuts for her cheese boards. She works with wood miller Tom Turner in Katama, and estimates that she now uses 80 to 90 percent reclaimed wood and building goods on all of her projects. “I think of my work in terms of geography. How the eye will travel over the piece.” She laughs again. “It’s kind of how I think when I’m cooking. I look at temperature, texture, crispy, fresh, cooked, and how that all plays together.” Laura credits much of her success with her woodworking to Andrea Rogers, who is the organizer of the Artisans Festival. “My first fair was 17 years ago this spring, and I usually do all the multiday festivals — Memorial Day weekend, Labor Day weekend, Columbus Day weekend. I wouldn't have Demolition Revival (demolitionrevival.com) without the Artisans Festival. Most of my customers have connected with me in some way via

the Artisans Fair. And the artisans are very supportive of each other’s work — it's a really great community of talented people.” These days, half of Laura’s Demolition Revival work is ready-made and another half is commissioned: “I love the process. People come to me with a storage problem, or want a bathroom vanity, or a place to work. I’m always designing with function first. And I want the piece to last 100, 200 years.” For the most part, Laura still works alone. On big projects, she uses Don E. Turnell of Haven Homes: “He’s just so talented. He has an incredible eye and a real understanding of reclaimed materials.” This winter Laura has been finishing up a few custom projects, and getting stocked up and organized for the summer. “In some weird way, this slower pace of life suits me,” she says. She describes an organic rhythm of working on the Housing Bank, projects for clients, and cooking. “I never have a bad day in the kitchen, it’s relaxing for me. Food is love, romantic, artistic, essential.” After dinner, she might relax with a cup of tea looking for antique hardware or Victorian grates on eBay. She is always thinking about new ways to use what is available — in her food, life, furniture, and in our community.

She says people come to her with a storage problem, and she designs with function first. She designs so a piece will last a century or more.

MICROGREENS • FEATURE

There’s a lot to love about these fluffy little greens, including their small footprint, requiring fewer resources than traditionally farmed food — much less soil, 95 percent less water, and no herbicides, pesticides, or fertilizer.

Grow them on your sunny windowsill

microgreens 42

FEATURE • MICROGREENS

Tiny in size, big in taste, and good for the planet, to boot.

In about seven to nine days — less than two weeks — all were ready to harvest and test out in the kitchen.

Story and recipes by Catherine Walthers Photos by Randi Baird

arah Vail showed off her trays of spicy salad microgreens, growing in a sunny alcove on the second floor of her West Tisbury home. It was mid-February. “It’s fresh, and I’m growing it,” she crowed, pointing to the tiny leafed microgreens about two inches tall that would be ready for clipping in a day or two. “I pick what I need, and it doesn’t go bad.” A family and consumer science teacher in Edgartown who loves to cook and eat healthy food, Vail said she was surprised at how easy microgreens are to grow and use in the kitchen. “It’s fun — it’s my new thing,” she said. She’s not alone. Microgreens might be having a kale moment. Seed catalogs now feature microgreen sections; you’ll find them at farmers markets, and supermarkets are selling them too. There’s a lot to love about these fluffy little greens, including their small footprint, requiring fewer resources than traditionally farmed food, much less soil, 95 percent less water, and no herbicides, pesticides, or fertilizer. Microgreens could be considered a model of sustainability, because they can be grown in small spaces indoors, year-round, in cities, in greenhouses, and in homes. Microgreens sprout from regular vegetable seeds, but are clipped for consumption at only a few weeks old, generally seven to 14 days. The visual appeal, wonderful texture, nice flavors,

and high nutritional value make them a hit in the kitchen. The dozens of varieties range from an attractive and diminutive purple-stem red cabbage to dark green collards, and from mild-tasting broccoli microgreens to mustards that taste like wasabi. And there’s plenty more to experiment with: microgreen basil to clip and toss on pasta, chia greens, even Asian varieties like napa cabbage or pac choi. I had guessed growing microgreens would be fairly easy, and probably cheaper than buying them all the time. But I’m a bit of a procrastinator. I’ve thought about raising chickens, and purchasing or building a coop — for years. During the beekeeping craze, I bought two bee boxes. I just sold them at my yard sale when I re-

cently moved. Seeing Sarah’s success was the push I needed. I ordered some seeds! To my doorstep came my three favorites (which I usually buy in the market) — broccoli, arugula, and pea shoot microgreens — and a few small seed packets to experiment with, including chives and red amaranth. I don’t remember ordering popcorn shoots — literally popcorn kernels to start — but what the heck? I put the recommended inch or two of moistened soil in a mix of containers — a few plastic boxes (save those strawberry or salad containers), a disposable pie plate, and a few shallow germination trays. Each microgreen has its own rate of growth, so it’s best to plant one variety to a container. A fine potting or seed-

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For the most part, the microgreens do not regrow after being clipped, so recycle or reuse the soil as well as the containers (after washing) for next batches to have a continuous supply.

ling soil is recommended. After leveling the soil and pressing it down slightly, I scattered the seeds densely on top, misted them with water from a spray bottle, and then covered the containers to keep dark until germination. Each day, I lifted the covers to mist and moisten, and in just two days, the broccoli and arugula had started to grow! I uncovered the trays and moved them to the sunniest spot in the house. In about seven to nine days — less than two weeks — all were ready to harvest and test out in the kitchen. If you have fluorescent or LED grow lights for seedlings, go ahead and use those, as most commercial microgreen growers do. Water each day as they grow, since soil is shallow and can dry out. For the most part, the microgreens do not regrow after being clipped (with exception of pea shoots and wheatgrass), so recycle or reuse the soil as well as the containers (after washing) for next batches to have a continuous supply. And then appreciate the bounty from your own shelf – all year long.

kitchen uses for microgreens Microgreens may be tiny in size, but everything else about them is big: their nutritional impact; the myriad of colors, flavors, and textures; and their surprising versatility in the kitchen. The wonderful flavors of these small, tender leaves match the adult plants, though in subtler ways. Pea shoot microgreens, for example, offer a hint of pea flavor. If you are not a fan of kale or broccoli, you might find the microgreen versions pleasantly milder and a lot more tender. Did I mention there’s no chopping or prep work, aside from gently rinsing in a salad spinner to remove any bits of clinging soil?

Microgreens grow most often in soil (and sometimes hydroponically) before being snipped after seven to 14 days, with delicate, beautiful green or red leaves and tender stems for consumption. Gearing up for summer, my own favorite uses include greening up grain, pasta, and potato salads with handfuls of microgreens, like the arugula salad with strawberries you see here. I’m already thinking

of slices of summer peaches, microgreens, and creamy Burrata cheese. Simple! Tim Smith of We Grow Microgreens in Boston, who sells at the Wayland Winter Farmers Market, finds lots of other uses at home. “I like the daikon radish in omelets; the sunflower in green smoothies,” he says. “I like amaranth in salad with avocado — the contrast is very beautiful.”

The wonderful flavors of these small, tender leaves match the adult plants, though in subtler ways.

FEATURE • MICROGREENS

RECIPES QUINOA WITH ARUGULA MICROGREENS, STRAWBERRIES, AND FETA Any of the milder microgreens, such as broccoli or kale, also work nicely in this salad. It makes a nice accompaniment with grilled fish, chicken, or steak. Serves 4 to 6. 1 cup quinoa, rinsed 1 ⅔ cup water 2 to 3 cups strawberries, sliced 3 or 4 radishes, thinly sliced into half-moons approx. 2 cups arugula microgreens, rinsed, spun dry Mermaid Farm feta, to garnish (optional) sliced almonds, toasted (optional)

Microgreens could be considered a model of sustainability, because they can be grown in small spaces indoors, year-round, in cities, in greenhouses, and in homes.

Dressing zest of 1 orange zest of 1 lime 4 Tbsp. fresh orange juice (about 1 orange) 2 Tbsp. fresh lime juice (about 1 juicy lime) 3 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil ½ tsp. kosher salt

Bring the quinoa and water to a boil in a medium saucepan, with a few pinches of salt. Once water boils, reduce to low, cover, and cook about 12 to 14 minutes until water is absorbed. Let sit covered until cooled. Meanwhile, slice the strawberries and radishes. Mix the strawberries, radishes, quinoa, and microgreens in a bowl. (Save a few of the strawberries and radishes to put on top after dressing.) Make the dressing by mixing together the zest, orange and lime juice with the olive oil and salt. Dress the salad just before eating. Garnish with feta and/or toasted almonds, if using. For any leftovers, add a bit of orange or lime juice to brighten up.

When you have microgreens in the fridge, don’t forget you have the same tool as chefs for beautiful garnishes, atop crispy flounder or a chilled cucumber soup. The final upside is the nutritional density of these mini greens, which have higher concentrations of vitamins, carowtenoids, and antioxidants. Broccoli microgreens, for instance, contain 20 to 50 times the chemoprotective compounds found in mature broccoli heads, according to scientists at Johns Hopkins. The seeds contain all the nutrients of the plant, but the first shoots and leaves contain these nutrients in denser forms than larger grown plants, which also include more water, fiber, and starches.

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MICROGREENS • FEATURE

PEA SHOOT SPRING ROLLS WITH PEANUT SAUCE Light, refreshing, and full of veggies, these spring rolls will disappear quickly. Serve on mini-appetizer or salad plates with this homemade peanut sauce or a prepared sweet chili sauce (or both sauces), so people can dip in their own sauce before each bite. These are best enjoyed the day they are made. About 20 spring rolls.

Have all ingredients cut and ready in bowls. Wet a clean dishtowel, wring out, and place on a cutting board. Fill a skillet with water and bring to a simmer. Once it simmers, turn heat off. Quickly dip 1 rice paper wrapper in warm water, making sure it’s submerged. When flimsy, in a few seconds, transfer wrapper to the dampened dishtowel. Place a small handful of pea shoots on the bottom third of the wrapper. Top with a line of rice noodles, some

the right consistency, a bit al dente, usually 2 to 3 minutes. After straining, run cool water over the noodles to stop the cooking.

Peanut Dipping Sauce ⅓ cup smooth peanut butter ¼ cup water or coconut milk, or more for consistency 1 tsp. fresh minced ginger 2 tsp. fresh lime juice 2 tsp. soy sauce 1 Tbsp. brown sugar or honey 4 to 5 drops hot sauce, or to taste

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl and whisk until smooth. Add more water or coconut milk until a dipping consistency is reached. Don’t refrigerate the day you are using, or it will thicken too much.

SEARED TUNA AND AVOCADO SALAD WITH MICROGREENS This makes a great lunch or casual dinner, all in one. Cut the avocado and tuna when you are ready to serve. If you are not a tuna fan, try this salad with roasted salmon or smoked bluefish (see variations at end of recipe). Serves 2 to 4.

ackage of spring roll rice P wrappers (8- or 9-in. round or square) 4 to 5 cups pea shoots, washed and spun dry ½ package rice sticks or Chinese rice vermicelli (see note for cooking) 2 to 3 carrots, peeled and shredded using food processor shredding disc 1 English cucumber, peeled, cut into matchsticks approx. 1 cup red cabbage, sliced razor-thin ¼ cup chopped cilantro leaves ¼ cup mint leaves, thinly sliced or chopped, but not minced

shredded carrots, 5 to 6 matchstick cucumbers, a few pieces of red cabbage, and generous pinches of both the cilantro and mint. Starting with end closest to you, roll the wrapper tightly around filling. When it’s rolled halfway up, fold the sides of the wrapper toward the center and continue rolling to the end of the wrapper. Place the spring rolls on a plate, and cover immediately with plastic wrap to prevent from drying out. Refrigerate until ready to serve. Best consumed the same day as making. Cook’s Note: Cooking rice noodles is like cooking regular pasta. Boil them in a pot of salted water and taste until the noodles are

FEATURE • MICROGREENS

1 Tbsp. Cajun spice or lemon-pepper mix approx. ¾ to 1 lb. of sushi-grade tuna olive oil 2 cups broccoli or arugula microgreens, rinsed and spun dry 1 English cucumber, cut into thin slices on a diagonal 2 just-ripe avocados, cut into slices ½ small red onion, sliced razor-thin lemon slices for garnish

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES How to Grow These online videos give step-by-step growing details by experts. • “Seven Easy Steps for Homegrown Microgreens” from Sow True Seeds, YouTube video (8 min.): bit.ly/ MG7EasySteps • “How to Grow Microgreens” from “Ask This Old House”; Tim Smith of We Grow Microgreens explains his process (6 min.): bit.ly MGAskOldHouse • “How To Grow Microgreens Start to Finish,” from Kevin Espiritu of Epic Gardening, detailed YouTube video (41 min.): bit.ly/MGEpicGarden

Lemon Basil Vinaigrette 3 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice 1 Tbsp. chopped basil 1 clove garlic, minced ½ cup olive oil

Place the spice rub on a plate and coat the tuna on both sides. Heat a cast iron or small heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Add a film of olive oil and place the tuna in the pan, and sear for 3 to 5 minutes to get a nice crust about ¼ inch thick. Turn the run over and sear the other side, until you see a

Leftover vegetables from spring rolls make a colorful salad.

¼-inch crust. Let cool, and place in the fridge until ready to slice and use. Place the microgreens in a large, wide bowl or platter, with enough room to show off the toppings. Top with thinly sliced cucumber, sliced avocado, and red onion. When ready to serve, slice the tuna and place on top, with lemon garnishes. Make the dressing by whisking together the lemon juice, basil, garlic and olive oil. Season with salt and pepper. Pass the dressing at the table, and let each guest spoon or pour on their own. You’ll have leftover dressing.

VARIATIONS • Roasted Salmon 1 lb. salmon. Preheat oven to 400°. Sprinkle salmon with salt and pepper and a film of olive oil, and bake for 15 to 20 minutes, depending on thickness, until just cooked through. Cool slightly. Break into large pieces and scatter over the salad. • Smoked Bluefish or Salmon No cooking needed. Buy packages of smoked bluefish or salmon fillets. Break into large pieces, and place on the salad.

Buying Seeds Seeds for microgreens are the very same as regular vegetables just harvested early and packaged with larger amounts because you plant them more densely. These seed companies have decent microgreen sections. • Johnny’s Seeds, employee-owned/ organic, has one of the better selections of microgreens seeds: bit.ly/MGJohnnys • High Mowing, also organic: bit.ly/ MGHighMowingw • True Leaf Market, non-GMO and heirlooms: bit.ly/MGTrueLeaf

Local Sources to Buy Microgreens (already grown) • Mermaid Farm, 9 Middle Road, Chilmark, offers the best deal locally for pea shoot microgreens. • Island Grown Farm, includes them in its CSA, Mobile Market, and stocks Cronig’s Market. • Morning Glory Farm, 120 Meshacket Road, Edgartown, continues to have a nice variety of microgreens in two-ounce containers. • Ghost Island Farm, State Road, West Tisbury, sells microgreens and pea shoots at the farm stand and Cronig’s. • Deep Roots Island Organics, 844 State Rd, West Tisbury, farm stand (across from Ag Hall) sells microgreens and edible flowers, also to restaurants and Cronig’s.

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ROOM FOR CHANGE: THE BATHROOM

ROOM FOR CHANGE

JAMIE KAGELEIRY

The Bathroom Story by Mollie Doyle Photos by Jamie Kageleiry

The rooms in our homes are ripe for change. The clothes in our closets, the products in our pantries, the bins in our basements. They might be made with less-than-planet-friendly materials, or come in packaging that will clog our landfills, and there just might be too, too, too much of everything. Where to start can feel overwhelming. Follow along as Mollie Doyle explores our shopping, living, and home habits, and leads us toward a healthier home — for both the people in it and the Earth it sits on.

his month, I turn 50, which is a landmark. To celebrate, I was going to go to Japan and walk from temple to temple, eating sushi. Obviously, this option is out. So I keep wondering, “What is it that I want to do to mark the occasion?” Meditate for 50 days? Raise $50,000 for a cause? Every day I have another idea. I know I don’t want to celebrate, as some of my dearest friends have, by getting

injected. As these women have rounded the 50 mark, they have chosen the path of Botox and its partner fillers to honor the moment (and maybe turn back time a bit?). Of course, I see the appeal and the results. Most who have injected and filled do look refreshed and a bit younger. But the lines on my face hold the story of my life — laughter, tears, tension, time in the sun. When I talk to my friend Sarah, who also is choosing to forgo the lure of medical beauty interventions, she laughs and asks, “I guess the real question is, What is the endgame? What are you trying for?” My answer: “Well, I’m never going to look 24 again. Nor do I want to. I just want lovely hair and skin. But as someone who also fights plastic pollution, I want to know what is effective, but not at the cost of the planet. I guess I want sustainable beauty in every sense.” So, how do we support our health and beauty in a way that is not medically assisted, but still effective? The first thing to know is that when people talk about sustainability and beauty products, there are two key terms: “clean” and “zero waste.” Clean beauty is a term used at places like

Sephora, on popular wellness sites such as Goop, and in fashion magazines such as Vogue or Harper’s Bazaar. And, these days, it is pretty easy to find clean products. But note that words like “healthy,” “natural,” “green,” and “eco,” and even “clean,” are meaningless unless there is a respected thirdparty verification. If you want to be “clean,” look out for and avoid parabens, phthalates, PEGs, ethanolamines, chemical sunscreens, synthetic fragrances, BHT, and BHA. According to the Environmental Working Group (EWG), there are many products with harmful PFAS chemicals in them. You can look your products up on Environmental Working Group’s database of cosmetics called Skin Deep: ewg.org/skindeep. While I could find only some of my products here, their guidelines empowered me as a consumer. And then there is the term “zero waste,” which goes a step further. The Zero Waste Alliance defines it this way: “The conservation of all resources by means of responsible production, consumption, reuse and recovery of products, packaging, and materials without burning and

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FEATURE • NATURAL NEIGHBORS

COURTESY M.V. MUSEUM

The map has filled in, and in half a lifetime, places all over Oak Bluffs are now houses with yards, Tom Chase says. And that’s the story that’s told by every conservationist everywhere on the planet. Of how it used to be.

Tom Chase has a wild idea for your backyard. Story by Sam Moore

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NATURAL NEIGHBORS • FEATURE

Tom Chase in his Oak Bluffs backyard (pictured below). Backyards all over down-Island could become linked wildlife habitats.

hen Tom Chase was growing up in downtown Oak Bluffs he experienced a profusion of wildlife. Bobwhite quail were everywhere, “under everyone’s bird feeder,” and their namesake call was heard all over town. Enormous rhinoceros beetles flitted around the lights of hotel windows, and walks with his childhood friends were an odyssey of field and forest, often just a few streets away. Not to mention the snakes. “All the kids coming home from school would go by Whiting Milk Co., and flip the sheets of tin down there and catch snakes,” Chase said. “And there used to be little elvers, baby eels, going up the creek and back at Sunset Lake. My life was filled with wildlife everywhere I went.” “Then there were these places,”

Chase has turned his own yard into a haven for wildlife. His work shows it’s possible to create an oasis of abundance visited by wild birds, mammals, reptiles, insects, and neighbors, even in the heart of Oak Bluffs. Chase said, “that were just so beyond belief, they were so exquisite.” He remembers Fresh Pond, a kettle pond near Sengekontacket, as “this wild, wild

PHOTOS BY JEREMY DRIESEN

FEATURE • NATURAL NEIGHBORS

place that had one house on it.” “And now it’s surrounded by development,” Chase said. The map has filled in, and in half a lifetime, places all over Oak Bluffs are now houses with yards. “And that’s the story that’s told by every conservationist everywhere on the planet,” he reflected. “Of how it used to be.” But Chase, a longtime ecologist on Martha’s Vineyard, was only waxing nostalgic at my request. He doesn’t see the backyards of Oak Bluffs, Edgartown, or anywhere else as doomed. Instead, he and others on the Island see thousands of acres of potential wildlife habitat. These acres just need a little work. Chase’s vision: Convert one in 10 Vineyard backyards into hyperabundant habitat for native animals, sources of life so productive they overpower the mortal devastation of suburbia. By working together for wildlife, he thinks, neighbors can also nurture a local aesthetic that prizes native plants, sandy soils, and all the other idiosyncrasies that define Island biology. “He has bats in his bat box,” said Luanne Johnson, director of BiodiversityWorks. That may not seem like a nice thing to say, but it’s a big compliment —

Angela Luckey and Luanne Johnson, of Biodiversityworks, inspecting a screech owl box.

especially for Chase’s small backyard. She added, “He’s had river otters show up.” It’s true. Chase has turned his own yard into a haven for wildlife. His work shows it’s possible to create an oasis of abundance visited by wild birds, mammals, reptiles, insects, and neighbors, even in the heart of Oak Bluffs. Now, Chase has a plan with BiodiversityWorks to supercharge habitat in yards around the Island. The nonprofit has plenty of experience working with

local landowners. “I always say that we’re kind of like ‘wildlife without borders,’” Johnson said. “A lot of people don’t know what the best thing is to do for the wildlife on their property, and a lot of them are looking for input.” Those people, and their neighbors, are an indispensable part of an Island-wide conservation strategy. “Roughly speaking,” Chase said, “a third of the Island is conserved, a third is developed, and a third is up for grabs.” The remaining

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NATURAL NEIGHBORS • FEATURE

Gus Ben David's yard backs up to Felix Neck in Edgartown, and hosts a diverse population, including this alligator snapping turtle, and the tree swallow, below.

third is much more difficult to set aside for conservation, and the areas already protected are not enough to sustain the Island’s native wildlife. “There’s some great news, and there’s some misleading news,” Chase told me. The land the Vineyard has already conserved is an incredible achievement, but, “many species, and almost all ecological processes, require large, intact landscapes. Much of the landscape we’ve conserved is in parcels of land that are too small to hold a viable population of a given species.” Johnson agrees. “What we increasingly find is that the conservation lands that we have set aside just aren’t enough for connectivity, for our animals to be able to maintain their population,” she said. “A river otter, or northern long-eared bat, or spotted turtle, they don’t look at who owns the property,” she said. While

" There used to be little elvers, baby eels, going up the creek and back at Sunset Lake. My life was filled with wildlife everywhere I went." the big parcels like the State Forest, Long Point, or the Land Bank’s many acres of down-Island woods are crucial, they are isolated. In between lies a checkerboard of residential development that forms a gauntlet for wildlife. If enough spaces on the board are improved and connected, Chase and Johnson say, that gauntlet could become an olive branch. Lawn is our country’s largest irrigated crop, but it doesn’t nourish much of anything. It’s “a biological desert for most wildlife,” Johnson said. Often, the more money people spend on landscaping, the worse their lawns get for wildlife. One National Science Foundation study found

that higher-income households all across the country had less biodiversity on their lawns, likely as a result of more money for weeding and fertilizers. “People already spend enormous amounts of money and time managing their yard,” said Chase. “We’re just asking [them] to convert the money that they already spend into different things. Spend your money differently, spend your time differently.” For Chase, this goal is equal parts biology and social movement. In order to improve habitat on an ecologically effective scale, “we need to get beyond the individual backyards to the collective backyards,

FEATURE • NATURAL NEIGHBORS

whether those are neighborhoods, or multiple property owners associated through social networks, or communities of faith, or whatever it is,” he said. The aesthetic of the American lawn is entrenched, well-studied, and part of a long history. Transforming it on a cultural level is a big project. This is where Chase’s vision, of building critical mass using connections between neighbors, offers a foothold. It doesn’t force a change on people who don’t want one — but it suggests a practical course of action for those who do. During a pilot run of this idea by Chase and his colleague Matt Pelikan at the Nature Conservancy called the Vineyard Habitat Network, this approach seemed to pay off. Chase said, “What we found is, by the time we got to the kitchen table, they were already in! The question was, ‘What do you want me to do?’ That always led to a walk around the backyard.” “And when you walk around someone’s yard,” Chase said, “you can say, ‘Look, that oak tree right there? Oak trees feed more organisms than any other group of plants in North America. Keep that oak tree.” “People love to find out what they

actually have,” he said. “They didn’t know what it was, or what they should do, but they got so thrilled at knowing that they actually owned something that had history, and had meaning, and had wildlife.” This brings Chase down to brass tacks: What practical steps can one person take in the backyard? The basics are easy, according to Chase. First, work with what you’ve got. No need to tear everything up, he said, because “the native plants you have are usually there for a good reason.” Second, water. “Everything needs it, and many species of wildlife orient towards it,” says Chase. His own homemade pond is a key resource for many species, even if a few of those species are known to eat his goldfish. Third, cover. This is in the eye and the size of its beholder. Snakes, which on the Island are harmless to people and help keep prey populations in check, like simple boards or corrugated tin to hide under, while other species prefer dense shrubs of the kind rarely found in the suburbs. Last, and with the most potential for eager gardeners, is to seek and encourage native plants. “Some native plants, like oaks, are the breadbasket for so many invertebrates and the vertebrates that feed on them, as birds do on caterpillars,” Chase said. “Other plants are good at absorbing toxins, or act as host plants for pollinators.” There are so many ways to approach each of these steps, and such variation based on the qualities of the land itself, that Chase recommends whichever measures you have the time and the resources to pursue. Small inroads are still helpful ones. Matt Pelikan, another Island biologist who keeps a close eye on his back 40, has noticed a surge of native insect life since he began his own regimen. What’s the regimen? “To be honest, my wildlife landscaping involves a lot of doing nothing,” he told me. “I knew I wanted to support wildlife, and I knew I wanted to cut back on yardwork. So I stopped mowing, stopped tending the beds and borders, and just kind of let stuff happen.” The dividends were clear. Of course, many national organizations offer similar advice — food,

cover, water, native plants. But this can be daunting unless you are a botanist or wildlife biologist. “What most people want to know, says Chase, “is, ‘What is the wildlife that is relevant in my neighborhood? What can I do in my yard?’” “If someone lives in the sandplains, they’re not going to be able to grow the kind of trees that grow out of the moraine, because it’s really crappy soil, and the wind is howling, and there’s salt spray everywhere,” said Chase. “So where you live does constrain some things that you can produce. Understanding where you live also tells you where you have the greatest opportunities: which species of butterflies, which species of snakes, which species of shrubs.” That’s where the biologists come in — in particular, a botanist named Angela Luckey, who just got an MV Vision Fellowship to work with BiodiversityWorks to help Islanders improve their backyards. Mentored by Chase, she will help landowners identify what’s in their yard now, and what could be there with a little help from the neighborhood. In Chase’s yard, several new plants showed up on their own, like Venus’ looking-glass, a delicate purple wildflower that rivals some ornamentals. Once the ecological processes in a yard start rolling, all sorts of latent potential gets unlocked, from dormant seeds hidden in the soil to curious creatures who soon encounter the fresh new digs. In the end, it’s about shifting our relationship to land from one of style to one of substance. “Land is here to support life. Human and wildlife,” Chase emphasized. “The popular myth is that it’s mostly a cosmetic, maybe a recreational kind of amenity for the Vineyard. But if you want clean water, if you don’t want to smell chlorine when you turn on the tap, if you want your garden pollinated, if you don’t want so many deer, if you don’t like getting bitten by ticks, if you don’t want Lyme disease” — well, you better get to work. Want to find out more? Email info@biodiversityworksmv.org.

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OUR TEAM • BDL

Continued from page 32

Wholesome MV, a community-based yoga and healthy cooking initiative. We are renovating and adding to the existing garage and guesthouse to make a year-round home for Casey and Jason. SMCo architect Matt Coffey worked with the family to set goals for the new project. The long-established patterns of craft, care, and progressive environmental measures were extended to this new iteration. A more contemporary addition blends the old with the new — both will meet the energy, comfort, health, and durability standards of the best high-performance new buildings. Always ahead of their time, the Mazars challenged us to push beyond net-zero energy to address the embodied carbon of the building assemblies. This new frontier in environmental building requires the reduction of carbon content that is embedded and/or expended in the mining, manufacturing, and transportation of materials from their raw state to the job site. Plant-based and responsibly sourced materials offset the effects of less benign materials. Ultimately, carbon-positive buildings sequester more carbon dioxide than they emit. Locking carbon into the built environment is a critical strategy, and an immense opportunity to move beyond buildings that do less harm to buildings that have a net positive impact. Toward this goal, the deep-energy retrofit to the existing structure included wrapping the shell with wood fiberboard

insulation, leaving the exposed timber frame intact. The new 700-square-foot addition combined this strategy with additional cellulose insulation. Timbers from a decommissioned airplane factory, reclaimed chestnut floors, and river-bottom cypress millwork add to the low-carbon material palette while adding a layer of history and patina. The solid sawn lumber floor frame and slabless crawl space helped push us closer to carbon neutrality, our ultimate goal. The project is currently nearing completion. South Mountain’s relationship with the Mazar property and family has been a multigenerational journey. We are proud to be, along with The Nature Conservatory, their partners and friends. Brian and Anne, due to their commitment to craft, carbon neutrality, land protection, and restoration, have pushed our practice forward, created a family destination for the ages, and made dramatic contributions to the ecological health of the Vineyard. They said recently, “We are glad this property found us. We never wanted to own a second home, but the combination of protecting a rare habitat, living on a beautiful site overlooking the Edgartown Great Pond, and finding TNC and SMCo was too good to pass up. Sharing this special place with our friends, family, and other conservation-minded people has been a blessing.” Not just any old summer house, is it? Kinda different from a golf course, too.

BDL • CONTRIBUTORS

page 59) is a journalism student at Northwestern University who lives with her family in Chilmark. “To help combat the effects of fast fashion while still staying up with the latest trends, I upcycle clothing, and thrift many of my outfits.”

Continued from page 8

Sam Moore (“Natural Neighbors,” page 49) is a writer and photographer who often works in conservation. “I try to get around by bicycle whenever possible, and in the process have sustained many injuries.” Laura D. Roosevelt (“My Mother the Pinchpenny,” page 33) is a journalist and poet who lives in West Tisbury, and is currently at work on a memoir. “When it comes to kindling, my current favorite fire starter is the dried stalks from last year’s garlic harvest.” Kyra Steck (“Local: Ollie Becker,”

page 10; “Favorite Things: Green Tech,” page 14; “Keep This Handbook,”

Lucas Thors (“Local Heroes,” page 64) is a reporter at The MV Times, covering climate change. “About a quarter of my wardrobe is from a company called tentree — for each product you buy, they plant 10 trees and include a little token with a digital code on it. You enter the code and can see where your trees have been planted.” Elissa Turnbell (“Dear Dot” illustration, page

18) lives on Martha’s Vineyard with her two daughters. “I get a lot of satisfaction from using all my scraps in my compost, so that I can use it later on in my own garden.”

Catherine Walthers (“Microgreens,” page 42) is a freelance writer and author of four cookbooks. “Now that I’ve learned to grow my own microgreens, my goal for 2021 is not to buy another plastic laundry or dish detergent container, thanks in part to my discovery of GoGo Refill in Portland, Maine.”

PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE CONTRIBUTORS

BUILT FROM • FEATURE A HOUSE ON SCRATCH A GREAT POND • FEATURE

FEATURE • CRUISING WITH CURRIER

Geoff Currier cruises with Hasoni Pratts in Oak Bluffs. After years of evaluating electric vehicles, Pratts and her husband Michael settled on the Tesla Model X Plaid.

FEATURING HASONI PRATTS AND HER 2021 TESLA MODEL X PLAID

Cruising with Currier Story by Geoff Currier Photos by Jeremy Driesen

or our inaugural issue of Blue Dot Living, we’re kicking off a series of stories featuring Islanders and their electric vehicles to give readers a taste of what kind of EVs are out there, how people like them, and if they might be right for you. The series is called “Cruising with Currier,” and in each case I’ll take a ride with an EV owner, and we’ll talk cars and whatever else pops into our heads. As for my credentials, I have none other than I’m curious. I’m not a “car guy”; I drive a 2004 Toyota Tacoma pickup truck with a broken taillight. But hopefully I’ll ask the kind of questions that will give you a better-informed idea of what’s going on in the ever-changing world of electric vehicles. And for my first cruise, I’ll be driving along with Hasoni Pratts. Hasoni is a political and policy strategist; she’s a founding member and treasurer of Higher Heights for America, which helps Black women get elected to public office. She was also the national director of engagement for Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaign. She and her husband and their two children live in Brooklyn and Oak Bluffs, but when the pandemic started in

March 2020, they moved to Oak Bluffs full-time, or at least until the COVID lifts. The car we’ll be driving in is Hasoni’s 2021 Tesla Model X Plaid, which she just got in December. Much has been said about the Model X, but if I could put it in experiential terms, it was like riding in a space capsule. The bucket seats seem to embrace you, the oversize windshield stretches back forever, and you’re surrounded by screens. The engineering, the performance, and the innovation are all off the charts with the Model X, but what also comes through, loud and clear, is that Elon Musk loves to have fun — and has a very quirky sense of humor. I agreed to meet Hasoni at the Bend in the Road Beach parking lot in Edgartown, and from there we’d go for a ride. As I rounded the corner on Beach Road, I saw a sleek white SUV with its gullwing (Tesla calls them Falcon Wing) doors open and reaching up to the sky, and I knew I’d come to the right place. Laurie David, who is an advisor to Bluedot Living, suggested I talk to her friend Hasoni, saying she loves talking about her new

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CRUISING WITH CURRIER • FEATURE

car. Hasoni indeed did love talking about her car — she proved to be funny, informative, and a damn good driver. I asked Hasoni how she happened to get the Tesla Model X Plaid. She said the primary reason was that “we want to get off fossil fuels, we want our kids to inherit a better Earth. We do a good job of recycling, and composting and having an electric vehicle is an extension of our lifestyle.” The Pratts started off with a 2017 Prius V, which is a hybrid, but they wanted to get a totally electric car. They shopped around for a couple of years, and decided on a Tesla because they were American-made, and no one could match their technology and engineering. She said that the technology had been significantly upgraded for the 2021 model so she looked at her husband and said, “Let’s do it!” I did a little research on the Model X Plaid, and it showed Elon Musk at his most innovative and unconventional. The Model X is offered in two Models, Ludicrous and Plaid, which struck me as odd names for cars, to say the least. Musk is a huge fan of the 1980s parody of Star Wars called

Sleek interior. Whoopie cushions optional.

Spaceballs, starring Mel Brooks. In the movie, the Ludicrous Mode enabled the spacecraft to go faster than the speed of light. And the Plaid mode went even faster. Hasoni and I chuckled at the fact that the guy putting together a Mars launch takes his inspiration from Spaceballs. I asked Hasoni about the much-acclaimed acceleration of the Model X, and she pulled over on a deserted stretch of road to show me a screen on the console that gave four options: Chill, Sport, Ludicrous, and Ludicrous +. Hasoni pressed the Ludicrous + button, and the screen read, “Are you sure you want to press the limits?” and Hasoni said, “OK, hold on,” and hit the gas. For my part, I screamed like a small child. “Sweet Jesus, Hasoni!” I believe were my exact words. She pulled over and said, “It’s like you’re in a rocket ship, it goes from 0 to 60 in about two and a half seconds. The funny thing is I don’t even like that feeling of exhilaration. I don’t like roller coasters.” When I asked Hasoni what her favorite feature of the car was, she said, “Karaoke” (Tesla spells it “Caraoke.”) Having

FEATURE • CRUISING WITH CURRIER

two children, 10 and 11 years old, Hasoni said, the car has an amazing selection of games and apps, and the kids especially love the Caraoke. “When we’re home, my son will go out and sit in the car and play games and watch videos. It also only took him a day to discover the Whoopie Cushion Mode,” Hasoni said. “It makes a sound like a fart when you sit in the seat. Oh, he loved that.” I looked at Hasoni and laughed, and said, “Why would Musk make a car that farts?” “Boys will be boys,” Hasoni said. As it turns out, there are some pretty amazing features on Model X that are right out of science fiction. The car has a Summons Mode that lets you retrieve your car. “It’s sort of like that show Knight Rider,” Hasoni said, “where someone says, ‘Kitt, come to me,’ and the car will come. Let’s say I’m at Target, I have an app that calls the car, and it drives over by itself to pick me up.” Sentry Mode uses the car’s external cameras to detect potential threats. If someone tries to break in, Sentry Mode will

Geoff and Hasoni in front of the Tesla.

Much has been said about the Model X, but if I could put it in experiential terms, it was like riding in a space capsule. The bucket seats seem to embrace you, the oversize windshield stretches back forever, and you’re surrounded by screens. notify the user, sound the car alarm, and in a nice Elon Musk– like twist, it will play the car’s audio system at the maximum volume, presumably to drive the thief insane. The Model X has a self-parking feature using proximity sensors, which other manufacturers are now offering, but it also comes with a full-auto-drive function, which Hasoni’s husband Michael sometimes uses on the highway but Hasoni stays away from. “I’m not even comfortable with cruise control,” she says. Space prohibits me from getting into all the other features of the Model X, but Hasoni says, “Even the way you buy the car is different. It’s all done online. You go to a website and build the car, and set up a delivery destination — there doesn’t have to be any human interaction — and there’s no haggling, which I love.” Hasoni hasn’t been able to calculate exactly how long the car can go on a charge, but the Tesla catalogue claims that the Model X Plaid can get about 340 miles per charge. Almost enough to get from here to New York and back. “It really depends on how fast you drive,” Hasoni said. It’s a little early to figure out the real economies of the Tesla X, the tradeoff between the cost of gas and electricity — the Pratts have only had the car for a few months. “But one thing’s for sure,” Hasoni said, “I don’t miss going to the gas station.” So now let’s cut to the chase. “If you don’t mind me asking,” I said, “but how much does a car like this cost, Hasoni?” “It was over $100,000,” she said. “Not everyone can afford that,” I said. “Is it worth it?” “First of all, it makes us feel good about not polluting the air. And coming from a financial background, I feel like we’re actually getting a return on our investment. Other cars decrease in value and cost more as they get older. I feel Tesla holds onto its value, and we get software upgrades every year that introduce all-new features to the car. I feel like we’re getting a return on our car.” Whether it’s for the Autopilot feature, the Ludicrous Mode, the Caraoke or the Whoopie Cushion Mode — “We all love this car,” Hasoni said; “we’ll be hanging on to it for quite a while.”

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ESSAY

Continued from page 33

We already saved the rubber bands from the newspapers that arrived rolled up in them every morning, and we already reused grocery store plastic bags until they got holes, but now we could feel good about not contributing to landfill. She already forbade using paper towels for frivolous purposes like hand drying (“What’s wrong with a dishtowel?!”), but now we could pat ourselves on the back for saving trees. Especially during the energy crisis of the 1970s, she clumped all her errands together so as to take fewer car trips and use less gas. When our clothes dryer went on the fritz, she decided not to buy a new one, and instead strung up a clothesline outside the kitchen. I learned to love the smell of air-dried clothes, but wasn’t crazy about towels that felt like nubby cardboard. Years later, I discovered that the dryer hadn’t broken at all — my mother had simply unplugged it.

made her own red pepper spray to deter beetles and rodents, and mustered an army of bad-bug-eaters by ordering praying mantis egg sacs and tubs of ladybugs through the mail. Most of my mother’s penny-pinching and environmentally friendly habits were lifelong, with the notable exception of making my clothing. After my schoolmates laughed at my homemade Peter Max LOVE pattern pants, I rebelled, and my mother gave me a clothing allowance when I became a teenager. She made sure it was a small allowance, so I learned to shop the sales as she did. In so many ways I am my mother’s daughter, down to the bag of peelings in the freezer, the drawer of plastic supermarket bags for reuse, and the box of rubber bands saved not from newspapers, but from bunches of asparagus and scallions. If a fancy vinegar comes in a pretty bottle, the bottle becomes a flower vase. My sourdough starter grows in large glass jars that once contained hearts of palm. Our chickens get first dibs on kitchen scraps, and what’s left goes into the compost, along with, yes, hair from us and our pets. When we reroofed our house last year, we saved the old cedar shingles for fireplace kindling. In my office, I have a pile of used 8½- by 11-inch paper, the clean backsides of which I use for printing recipes and drafts of my writing. All of these habits appeal to my inherited frugality as well as my concern for the environment, just as they did to my mother. Someone recently gave me a book by Amy Dacyczyn, called The Complete Tightwad Gazette: Promoting Thrift as a Viable Alternative Lifestyle. It’s nearly 1,000 pages long, and contains a mind-boggling number and variety of tips for living frugally. Many are things I already do, like making my own salad dressing and storing it in a jar that once contained jam, or reusing yogurt tubs for freezing homemade broth. But many are quirkier. My mother, who’s always had cats, would love the one on fashioning a cat carrier from two plastic laundry hampers and string. She’d definitely have tried making a garden sprinkler by poking holes in the bottom of a heavyduty plastic jug and attaching it to the end of a hose. Now about to turn 100, my mother lives — mostly in a bed — in a nursing home. She’s lost her mobility, and nearly all of her memory. If I ask her to tell me about things she used to do to save money and/or protect the environment, she draws a blank. But she’s still herself; if I tell her something like, “We had takeout sushi for dinner yesterday, and I saved our used chopsticks for kindling,” she’ll laugh and reply, “I taught you well!”

Grass clippings from lawnmowing, pulled weeds, raked leaves, and shredded newspaper were also compost fodder, as was hair harvested from our hairbrushes and the cat brush. (“It’s full of nutrients!” my mother swore.) Like me, my oldest friend, Jo, who lived down the street from me when we were kids, credits my mother with her eschewal of paper napkins in favor of cloth. In my mother’s house, cloth napkins were used for multiple meals — until they got gross enough to need washing. Everyone at our table, including frequent dinner guests like Jo, had their own napkin, with a unique napkin ring to identify it. Since Jo wasn’t at dinner every night, her napkin sometimes went for a month before getting washed. Well before the term “organic” was on most people’s radar, my mother gardened organically. She had learned to garden by reading, and she understood that plants that absorb nutrients from their environments could just as easily absorb toxins, so why would she want to put deadly chemicals on what would become our food? And what kind of damage might such chemicals cause to other plants on our property, and to the birds and beneficial insects that ate them? Instead, she placed saucers of beer near the lettuces to attract and drown slugs, 58

‘KEEP-THIS’ SIMPLE, SMART, SUSTAINABLE HANDBOOK

RECYCLING

All six towns have the same rules for what can and can’t be recycled.

CAN

METAL CANS • Primarily food and beverage cans • Empty and clean wash PLASTIC CONTAINERS • Bottles, jars, jugs and tubs • Empty, wash clean • NO caps or lids GLASS CONTAINERS • Bottles and jars • Empty, wash clean • NO caps or lids • NO ceramics, NO window panes PAPER AND PAPERBOARD • Office paper, junk mail, newspaper, magazine, paperboard boxes • Empty and flatten, NO shredded paper • NO pizza boxes • NO books with bindings CORRUGATED CARDBOARD • Empty and flatten • Remove packing tape • NO pizza boxes • NO waxed boxes

CAN NOT

• Recyclables in a garbage bag • Garbage • Plastic bags or plastic wrap • Food or liquid • tyrofoam items or packaging materials • Clothing or linens • Tanglers (hoses, wires, chains) • Electronics

TRANSFER STATION RULES • Aquinnah, Chilmark, Edgartown, West Tisbury • Dual sorting system • Cardboard and paper go together • Plastic containers, tin cans, aluminum cans and glass go together • Oak Bluffs (local drop-off ) • Dual sorting system • Cardboard, newspaper and paper go together • Everything else single stream • Tisbury (local drop-off ) • Dual sorting system • Cardboard and newspaper together • Everything else single stream • Oak Bluffs Bruno’s Drop-Off • Dual sorting system • Separate cardboard • Everything else single stream

Aspirational Recycling • If you’re unsure about whether some thing is or is not recyclable, it’s better to throw it out. If recycling bins are contaminated with too many non-recyclable materials, the entire bin will be thrown out. “When in doubt, throw it out.” • ABC’s & Bruno’s • No-waste policy: if there is any nonrecyclable material, bin is thrown out • MVRD • Similar, but more materials-dependent. Food waste and oil contamination are more no-tolerance, whereas materials like plastic bags and styrofoam are more tolerated. • The biggest mistake Don Hatch of MVRD sees: • Putting plastic bags, plastic wrap or cellophane plastic in recycling

COMPOSTING

Bruno’s and ABC’s Pick-Up Recycling Rules: • Single bin, don’t need to separate materials

Recycle, compost, volunteer, write your rep, buy secondhand.

HOW-TO • ACCEPTED ITEMS • All meat and fish (including bones, lobster shells and egg shells) • All dairy • Grains, nuts, seeds, flour products • Fruits and vegetables • Tea bags (staples removed) • Coffee grounds and coffee filters • All flowers • Paper napkins and paper towels • Unless they have toxic products that will not break down with high heat on them • UNACCEPTABLE ITEMS • Large amounts of oyster, clam, little neck, mussel shells. Contact the Martha’s Vineyard Shellfish Group to recycle these! • Fat/oil/grease

The ‘Keep-This’ Simple, Smart, Sustainable Handbook M A R T H A’ S V I N E YA R D / S P R I N G 2 0 2 1

‘KEEP-THIS’ SIMPLE, SMART, SUSTAINABLE HANDBOOK

• Small amounts in the form of leftover prepared foods is fine • Compostable serviceware • IGI piloting this in August • Plastic or trash of any kind • Compost buckets available for free at IGI’s offices in West Tisbury or at town transfer stations. To request a bucket, email office@igimv.org or call 508-687-9062 • Drop-off locations (currently all free) • Transfer stations in all towns except Aquinnah • Chappy ferry dock • IGI’s farm • Best way to reduce food waste is still to shop and cook mindfully, repurpose foods that are close to expiring (smoothies! soup!), and even reorganize your fridge to be more aware of perishable items

VOLUNTEERING

• Polly Hill Arboretum grounds volunteer Volunteers are welcomed to work with staff staff at the 70-acre West Tisbury public garden on activities like planting, pruning, weeding and mulching. Volunteers can learn more about gardening and apply their new skills to their own landscape. PHA will provide tools, but volunteers should bring gloves and wear outdoor attire. Volunteers welcome from 9 am - 12 pm on June 3, July 1, August 5, September 2 and October 7. Contact Ian Jochems for more information at ian@pollyhillarboretum.org. Have fun getting in touch with your green thumb! • Glean with Island Grown Initiative Located in West Tisbury, Island Grown Initiative is a non-profit organization that works to build a regenerative and equitable food system on Martha’s Vineyard. Volunteers can help Island Grown Initiative harvest fresh local produce for Islanders in need. No experience is needed as your field captain will provide a harvest demonstration and tools. Gleaning lasts for around two hours and volunteers may even keep a share of the harvest for themselves. To sign up, go to igimvg.

org/volunteer.php. Happy harvesting! • Great Pond Foundation The Great Pond Foundation is a nonprofit organization focuses on enhancing the health of the Edgartown Great Pond. While volunteer opportunities are currently limited due to COVID-19, future volunteers are encouraged to assist with their Ecosystem Monitoring Program and educational outreach events. Potential volunteer opportunities include aiding in water quality and biodiversity data collection, conducting surveys of pond species, helping staff with demonstrations of scientific concepts and assisting with science communication. These opportunities are especially perfect for anyone with an interest or background in STEM! For updates on volunteer opportunities, email science@ greatpondfoundation.org. • Community Greenhouse of Martha’s Vineyard Community Greenhouse of MV is a community organization in Oak Bluffs to gather and grow food and plants and learn together. They have a range of year-round volunteer opportunities for all mobilities and level of expertise. On Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10 am 12 pm, volunteers can work inside and outside to help with weeding, pruning, seeding, planting and beautifying plants - really any activity that nurtures thousands of beautiful plants and vegetables. Members have the added benefit of picking fresh produce! There is no need to sign up for these days, one can simply show up. Toni Kauffman, who helps with volunteers, has described this opportunity as “soil therapy,” so make sure to check it out!

REPRESENTATIVES Got something to say about pending legislation? Want your voice heard?

STATE

• Governor Charlie Baker 617-725-4005; Twitter: @MassGovernor; Instagram: massgovernor

• State Senator Julian Andre Cyr 617-722-1570; Julian. Cyr@masenate.gov; Tw: @JulianCyr; • State Representative Dylan A. Fernandes 617-722-2013; dylan.fernandes@mahouse.gov; Tw: @RepDylan; Insta: dylan1fernandes

FEDERAL • Senator Ed Markey

617-565-8519; Tw: @EdMarkey; Insta: edmarkey • Senator Elizabeth Warren 617-565-3170; Tw: @SenWarren; Insta: elizabethwarren • Representative William R. Keating 508-771-6868; Tw: USRepKeating

SECOND-HAND STORES Reuse, repurpose, refashion. Chicken Alley Thrift Shop 38 Lagoon Pond Rd, Vineyard Haven, MA 02568 Hours: Sunday - Monday, closed; Tuesday - Saturday, 11 am - 5 pm Sells, nearly everything! Clothing, furniture, dishware, glasses, decor, knickknacks, etc. Martha’s Closet 79 Beach Rd #9, Vineyard Haven, MA 02568 Hours: Sunday - Monday, closed; Tuesday - Friday, 11 am - 5 pm (Sat. to 6) Sells women’s clothing Second Treasures MV 61 Beach Rd, Vineyard Haven, MA 02568 Hours: Sunday, 12 pm - 5 pm; Monday, 10 am - 5 pm; Tuesday - Wednesday, closed; Thursday - Saturday, 10 am - 5 pm Sells antiques, collectibles, jewelry and artwork Want something else included? Email us at editor@bluedotliving.com

ROOM FOR CHANGE: THE BATHROOM

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with no discharges to land, water, or air, that threaten the environment or human health.” While most of the products I was using were “clean,” they were not good for the planet. Many of my favorite creams were packaged in plastics such as highdensity polyethylene (HDPE No. 2), which is the most commonly recycled plastic (think shampoo bottles), and low-density polyethylene (LDPE No. 4), which is much harder to recycle, and is used in things like squeeze bottles. As most know, even if plastics can be recycled, chances are they are not, even if you put it in your recycling bin. According to the Environmental Protection Agency’s website, only 8.7 percent of U.S. plastics are recycled. Furthermore, all plastics break down, pollute our land and water systems, and release harmful greenhouse gases, including ethylene, carbon, and methane, which all add to our climate change problem. Before you freak out and say, “I can’t possibly give up this or that,” please know that moving toward less waste is the goal here. But so is having great hair and skin! So the motto is: Progress, not perfection. For instance, I tried bar shampoo. Too many kinds to name here, but some left my hair feeling like I’d stripped it with turpentine, while others felt like I’d put a gallon of coconut oil in for some kind of deep-conditioning project. I’m sorry to say that I have not found a single bar that works, at least for my very straight, very fine, very flat hair. But I did find a shampoo I love that is clean, and is manufactured by a company that is dedicated to being carbon-negative. I also tried jar deodorant and deodorant in a cardboard tube, fighting pollution in two ways. And I checked out dental hygiene products that include charcoal or Eco-Dent floss, toothpaste tablets, and natural toothbrushes. No plastic in my mouth! The tablets had sugar alternatives and flavors that were overwhelmingly sweet. The natural toothbrushes and floss both left bits between my teeth. Yuck. I did find some face oils that smell lovely, come in glass, and give me dewy rather than greasy skin. But the one I loved most, which was given to me, costs a whopping $185. All in all, the process included a lot

of trial and error, and some dollars spent. As I was sorting and sampling, the final and maybe best beauty philosophy emerged: Use less. There is now much scientific evidence that argues that all of our skin cleansing, polishing, and layering of products is actually harmful to our skin, breaking down our body’s own protective acid mantle. The skin, which is our body’s largest organ, accounts for about 8 pounds of an average person’s weight, and is about 22 square feet. Our skin is our shield, our sensor, our factory for transferring vitamin D, converting calcium into healthy bones, and it literally holds us together. Just like our guts, the skin has its own ecosystem. And if we disrupt it with all this scrubbing, swabbing, slathering, we dismantle the skin’s ability to find balance, and we just make things worse. James Hamblin’s book Clean: The New Science of Skin talks about this in fantastic, and entertaining, detail. Hamblin has not showered in more than five years. I’m not ready to go this far, but the fundamental idea of letting my skin be makes sense. I do not futz around with my other organs — can you imagine exfoliating your lungs? — so why am I messing with my skin? My grandmother did little to interfere with her skin’s microbiology. She splashed her face with cold water in the morning, and wiped her face with a warm washcloth at the end of the day. That’s it. And she was, by anyone’s standards, a knockout. My mom, who is 74 and is also gorgeous, uses maybe one cream and some nondescript soap. So maybe less really is more? Beyond shutting down my birthday plans, the pandemic also arrested my 25 years of dedicated blondifiying hair dyeing. Talk about harmful chemicals! Until recently, many hair dye products had lead acetates in them. Yes, that lead. Many still contain ammonia, hydrogen peroxide, and paraphenylenediamine (PPDA), which is a common allergen, and found in both cheap and expensive salon products. Researchers at the North Carolina State’s College of Textiles and Department of Chemistry worked with their Max Weaver Dye Library to create a database of more than 300 substances found in hair dye and to look at ways to make hair color safer and more

sustainable. So it might be worth asking your hair person about what kind of chemicals they are dumping on your skin and scalp and into your body every six to eight weeks (if you are on a root maintenance program). The most unexpected thing happened to me when I stopped the dye addiction: People started telling me I look younger.

Try this instead

of that?

When one begins to think about new ways of living, there is such a pull to replace the bad with something that might be better. Believe me, I know! And while that is not the general tack we are espousing, there are times when it is completely and utterly necessary. For instance, in the bathroom, toilet paper. It really is a must-have, mustuse situation. Here are a few brands we like that are a bit gentler on the planet: Seventh Generation toilet paper is made from 100 percent recycled paper and whitened without chemical bleach. Who Gives a Crap toilet paper: Beyond its amazing packaging, which somehow makes the purchase of toilet paper an event, it gives 50 percent of profits away toward supporting sanitation efforts — a.k.a. toilets — to communities that need them around the world. Marcal: While a lot less snazzy than Who Gives a Crap, Marcal is also made with 100 percent recycled paper, and nonchemical bleach, and does the job. Or, you can invest in a bidet attachment for your toilet! Most attachments cost between $250 and $300, and are easy to install. We like the Tushy.

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NITROGEN • WHAT'S SO BAD ABOUT

Continued from page 25

pollution and algae blooms, Earle Barnhart and Hilde Maingay are mainstays. Pioneers of urine diversion toilets, Barnhart and Maingay learned in 2005 that Falmouth was planning to spend $900 million on sewers over roughly the next half-century. They teamed up with State Representative Matt Patrick, who urged the town to adopt urine diversion systems as a much cheaper way to address the nitrogen pollution that was ravaging the Cape ponds. Barnhart and Maingay operated the nonprofit Green Center. Their Eco-Toilet Summits highlighted current technology and best practices. “We calculated that the cheapest and best solution to the Cape’s wastewater nitrogen problem was for 50 percent of the population — primarily the men — to adopt urine-diverting urinals,” explains Barnhart. “That alone would completely solve the nitrogen problems in many of the Cape’s towns that were otherwise planning several billion dollars in sewers.”

The Martha’s Vineyard Commission reports that ‘about 64 percent of the Vineyard’s land area is made up of watersheds that drain into nitrogen-sensitive coastal ponds, either through runoff or groundwater flow.’ Eventually, the town ran a twoyear program testing roughly a dozen eco-toilets. The conclusion was clear. Urine-diverting toilets were extremely effective at reducing nitrogen in the Cape’s groundwater. Urine contains most of the nitrogen and phosphorus in human waste. By diverting it into a separate holding tank, where it’s stored for pickup and potential use as fertilizer, it’s kept out of the groundwater and, therefore, the bodies of water. What’s more, eco-toilets

dramatically reduce the amount of water required for flushing, require little energy, and eliminate the costs and disruption of infrastructure associated with sewer systems. Ultimately, though the project itself did what it intended — showed that the use of eco-toilets could remedy much of the pollution problems on the Cape and could also work on the Vineyard — as a report later noted, “Very few Falmouth homeowners agreed to participate in the program.” This finding doesn’t surprise

The way we live on land is harming the health of our water. By controlling nitrogen, we can vastly protect aquaculture.

Bradley Kennedy, research associate at the Rich Earth Institute in Battleboro, Vt., which Barnhart and Maingay set up to continue their research. “I think the biggest hurdle is just people’s awareness that it’s an option,” says Kennedy. “And people’s resistance to trying new things or just being uncomfortable with something unfamiliar. Most people when they try it just say, Oh, that was pretty normal. Not a big deal.” A good entry point, she says, would be for people to install urinals, which already separate out urine from solid waste, though plumbing would have to send the urine to a separate holding tank where it can be removed. At the Rich Earth Institute, they have a lineup of farmers eager for the urine, which they use as fertilizer. But, she admits, it’s a tough sell, and there are regulatory barriers too. But, she says, “If you’re willing to think outside the box, you can make it happen.” (Want to try it? You can read more about the process on the Rich Earth Institute site, richearthinstitute.org.)

WHAT'S SO BAD ABOUT • NITROGEN

S O N O W W H AT ? Continued from page 63

Vicious cycle: Excess nitrogen can lead to water acidification, making it harder for mollusks to build their shells, which can dissolve in too acidic water.

While all these efforts are to be lauded, Doug Cooper points to things that get in the way, including the impact of waterfowl and their nitrogen-saturated poop. “I have heard scientists say the contribution by waterfowl, especially with the climate warmer, we have geese and ducks and cormorants overwintering here, where in the old days things would freeze up and these birds would go South,” says Cooper. “There’s probably a larger contribution than ever before just from waterfowl.” “We can do an awful lot managing wastewater and septic systems, and at the end of the day may not get the full value of water quality improvement in the estuaries,” he says. “That’s my

Continued from page 17

energy, which we then take in and, ultimately, we will give back out. Somehow, everything we do next is affected by that bliss we are experiencing now. So I believe it’s actually canceling out any negative effects the wood is doing to us and to the planet. Joel: I know what you’re saying. Me: Good. So if you take away that pleasure, which I know you call indulgence, then you’ve got robots — unfeeling, emotionally inaccessible, unevolved, hollowed-out automatons walking around in rarified and purified air. Joel: But pollution is pollution. Me: I’m not talking about hedonistic living — only-forour-own-gratification pleasure. I mean being responsible, loving beings, but having some soul food should not be that wrong. Joel: I’m not saying it’s wrong. I love the fire, too. It’s just that if everyone cut back, which I know they never will, on meat because of the methane; on water waste, on driving stupid, big vehicles … Me: Easy there, big fella. You can’t take people’s big cars away from them till they know what harm they are doing. And you can’t call the vehicles stupid, because then you’re calling the people driving them stupid. You’re just frustrated because you’ve been watching the beautiful blue ball die for all the years I’ve known you, and you’ve had it. So instead of insulting people, educate them. Joel: That’s the thing. It’s too late. I’m afraid it’s too late.

own guess, but I might be wrong.” Green-Beach, for one, thinks he is. “We’re not going to see it right away, because the groundwater takes a while to travel through the sediment into the pond,” she says. “So we might not see benefits for 15 to 20 years.” But, she feels confident, they’re coming. Sheri Caseau with the commission believes the efforts “show a lot of promise.” She hopes each of us will do what we can: Eschew fertilizer, update our septic systems, support the work being done by others. She points to the Cape’s severely polluted ponds as a cautionary tale if we don’t continue to fight hard for our coastal waters. “We can still save them,” she says. “We’re not to the point we can’t recover.”

The man sounds like a one-issue ogre. He’s not. Last week a friend of ours came over with her broken toaster. He worked on it for two hours. She could buy the Westinghouse company, but he fixed her toaster for her. He volunteers with kids at a school near where he works. Anyone who has questions about their ideas for inventions and patents, he spends time with. He’s the best, most loving grandfather. Plus, I leave my Christmas lights on day and night all year long, and I drive a Volvo, not a Prius. But whenever anyone announces their plans to fly somewhere, he is quick to tell them there are close to a hundred thousand flights in the air every day. And then he gently looks away. A plane overhead interrupts our conversation. My husband looks up and says, with despair in his voice, “Do you realize there are close to a hundred thousand flights in the air every day? Every day, Nance. A Boeing 747 uses one gallon of fuel every second. A flight from Logan to LAX puts out about 400,000 kilograms of carbon dioxide!” His head is in his hands now. “It’s too late. It’s just too late.” I love this man who cares so much about the planet, and I don’t like myself for needing to travel to this fancy-schmancy celebration. I look at my poor man. Now is obviously not the right time. I take the gorgeous invitation and slip it inside last week’s newspaper. I can’t throw it out. Not yet, anyway. M A R T H A ’ S V I N E Y A R D / S P R I N G 2 0 2 1 63 M A R T H A ’ S V I N E Y A R D / S P R I N G 2 0 2 1 63

LOCAL HEROES

Bluedot Local Heroes: The Plastic Free MV Kids

t all began when a group of kids at the West Tisbury School, led by teacher Annemarie Ralph, convinced many Island stores to stop offering plastic straws with their Straw Free MV campaign. But they wanted to make a bigger impact. Since then, Plastic Free MV (PFMV ) has succeeded in getting nonbinding resolutions passed in five Island towns that ban the sale of plastic water and soda bottles under 34 ounces.

Because you are never too small to make a difference.

“Many people say that Sweden is just a small country, and it doesn’t matter what we do,” Greta Thunberg said in a December 2018 speech. “But I have learned you are never too small to make a difference.” Like Greta, our students — our own Gretas — were not too small to make a difference when they stood before a full room at the West Tisbury annual town meeting to ask that the town Plastic Free MV kids take on Tisbury town Hall. From left, end the use of single-use Runar Finn Robinson, Emma Bena, Quinlan Slavin, Elliot plastic bottles. They came Stead, and Odin Robinson. armed with more than T shirts and earnest faces — they were prepared with facts and rehearsed remarks. “Did you know that plastic doesn’t biodegrade?” “One hundred percent of the fish in the deepest part of the ocean March 4, 2020 After Tisbury abruptly removed have plastic in them.” “We are looking to you to make a better the plastic bottle bylaw article future for us all.” from its town warrant, PFMV Before the meeting, they’d met with business owners who storms the town hall and would be impacted. When the owner of 7a expressed support at says they will seek a petition the meeting, the room erupted. for a special town meeting One not-so-small step for the Island. if selectmen don’t place the There are other changes we need to make to protect the Island article back on the warrant. we love. They aren’t difficult, but we will need to do them together. With leadership — kids and adults working together, one step at a March 6, 2020 In a rare move, Tisbury time — there are solutions. officials vote to reopen the The Plastic Free MV kids and other student activists I’ve met warrant, and return the bottle recently inspired me to create this magazine to help communities bylaw to the warrant. find solutions to sustainability problems where they live. We hope Martha’s Vineyard Bluedot Living will be the prototype of more June 13, 2020 Voters approve the plastic local magazines we plan to launch around the country. With the bottle ban, making Tisbury the proceeds, we will create an Emerging Leaders Program to support first down-Island town to pass student climate projects. the nonbonding resolution. Guess where that idea came from.

April 5, 2019

West Tisbury bottle ban becomes of the first of its kind in North America. Tod Hardin, of Plastic Oceans International, told The MV Times then that passing the bylaw was “an example of a long-term solution that can serve as an inspirational model for other communities to follow.”

April 22, 2019

PFMV passes plastic bottle bylaw in Chilmark, and the room full of voters stands and cheers.

May 14, 2019

Aquinnah, the final up-Island town, passes PFMV bottle bylaw.

August 7, 2019

PFMV begins selling and distributing reusable water bottles, and partners with the Take Back the Tap initiative to encourage the use of public water bottle refill stations.

May 15, 2021

Oak Bluffs voters approve the plastic bottle ban, becoming the fifth Island town to do so. –Lucas Thors

–Victoria Riskin

Want to nominate someone — an Islander, a group — as our next “Local Hero”? Write us at editor@bluedotliving.com.

PHOTO LEXI PLINE

Here’s a timeline of their quest:

Early Summer: Martha’s Vineyard awakens

1st issue: June 18 (Ad Deadline 6/4) Also publishing August 6 & October 8

PAINTINGS BY BROOKE ADAMS

The Faces of Islanders Publishing July 12th (Ad deadline 6/25)

To advertise, email adsales@mvtimes.com or call 508-693-6100 [Press 35]

Vineyard Haven 508-693-4457 • West Tisbur y 508-693-2234

Vineyard Haven 508-693-7097

BlueDotLiving issue 1-2021

Articles inside

Cruising with Currier

Local Heroes: We Nominate the

Natural Neighbors

The Keep This Handbook

What. On. Earth

My Mother the Pinchpenny

Contributors

Nitrogen: What’s so bad about it, anyway?

Building from Scratch

Good Food Cathy Walthers Grew Microgreens on a Sunny Windowsill

Room for Change Mollie Doyle Casts a Critical Eye on Her Bathroom Products

A South Mountain Home on a Sandplain