Happy Earth Day -- the 30th

300 students wading in to clean up the Charles

By Hope Green

This time of year, the tree-lined pathways along the Charles River banks offer city dwellers a welcome respite from the day's pressures. BU students are among the most enthusiastic appreciators of this natural corridor, where they can sunbathe, roller-blade, or catch up on reading while classmates enjoy the water in sailboats and shells.

BU students have participated in many Charles River cleanup efforts over the years. Above, a team from the School of Management on trash patrol in 1998. Photo by Fred Sway

A century ago, nearby residents used to complain of the stench from sewage dumped into the Charles. By the 1960s, industrial and household pollutants had turned the river into a toxic stew.

Since then, civic involvement and federal initiatives have made the river cleaner than it has been in decades. But there is still much work to be done, and this month hundreds of BU students are joining in the cause. Marking the 30th anniversary of Earth Day, more than 300 students from the University have pledged to participate in a mammoth multicity litter cleanup along the Charles River on Saturday, April 15.

Meanwhile, BU's newly invigorated Environmental Student Organization (ESO) is preparing a daylong Earth Day 2000 festival outside the George Sherman Union on Wednesday, April 19.

Historic cleanup
Organized by Massachusetts Community Waterwatch, a division of the federal volunteer program Americorps, the riverbank event involves 15 colleges and universities and several community organizations. Americorps promises it will be the largest single-day cleanup of the Charles ever: a total of 900 volunteers are expected along a 67-mile route from Bellingham to Boston.

The BU group will comb a stretch of the Charles riverbank from the Larz Anderson Bridge, near Harvard University, to the Museum of Science. The team will also patrol a section of land along the Muddy River, where 20 students performed a preliminary cleanup near the Boylston Street Bridge on April 1.

The polluted Muddy River, which empties into the Charles, is part of Boston's Emerald Necklace, one of the oldest series of parks in the country, designed in the 19th century by Frederick Law Olmsted.

"There are a lot of beautiful places in the city where there's still nature, and I want to preserve them," says Jasmine Bigelow (COM'02), one of four BU student coordinators for the April 15 cleanup. "I like to walk on the Esplanade, but I get disgusted because there's garbage everywhere."

An opening ceremony is slated for 9:30 a.m. on Saturday at the Hatch Shell. The keynote speaker is Mindy Lubber, regional administrator of the EPA's New England office. The cleanup runs from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Pam Flattich, an administrative manager in BU's Office of Environmental Health and Safety, will help distribute gloves, trash bags, and tools to volunteers at the BU sailing pavilion throughout the day. She will also ask them to fill out data cards identifying the most sullied areas of the riverbank and the items they find. Americorps will use the data in planning future cleanups.

Barring a rainstorm, the Metropolitan District Commission plans to adjust the Charles River Dam to lower the water level a foot so that volunteers in hip waders can reach shopping carts, tires, and other large items.

'Our biggest event ever'
The Earth Day 2000 fair, cosponsored by ESO and the Center for Energy and Environmental Studies, will be held from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Wednesday, April 19, at the George Sherman Union plaza and Marsh Chapel.

"Earth Day is our biggest event ever," says ESO President Elisabeth Shedd (MET'02). "Our goal is to focus on positive social change and educate people about renewable energy and environmental conservation."

Visitors to the fair can learn about career opportunities in environmentally friendly organizations and companies. Emissaries from the national program Campus Green Vote will be on hand to register students for the November election and report on the environmental positions of candidates.

There will be jugglers, Native American drummers, folk music, a cappella singers, a raffle, and an opportunity to test drive the Honda Insight, a new hybrid vehicle powered by both electricity and gas. The Silber Bullet, a battery-powered vehicle built by students in the College of Engineering, will also be on display.

Concluding the festivities, Norman Willard, climate-change coordinator for the Environmental Protection Agency, will give a keynote address from 4 to 5 p.m. at Marsh Chapel. He will speak on climate change and how states and industry can work together to reduce air pollution.

Proceeds from the fair will be donated to Roundup for the Rainforest in the Philippines and the Nature Conservancy's Adopt an Acre Program in Brazil.

The Silber Bullet, a battery-powered car designed by a team of BU students, will be on view at the Earth Day 2000 celebration on Wednesday, April 19. The body of the vehicle is made of carbon fiber and Kevlar, the same material used in bulletproof vests. Construction is still in progress, but after some tinkering, students hope to enter the car in next year's American Tour de Sol, a race of electric-powered automobiles from around the world.

According to Shedd, this has been a good year for ESO. Membership has grown under her leadership, with a core group of about 20 students who meet once a week and a campus mailing list of more than 100 names. The group's activities have included letter-writing drives urging congressmen to approve legislation that would protect wilderness areas, and members have investigated ways to improve the collection of recyclable materials on campus. But planning Earth Day has been the group's largest undertaking.

Shedd has been an intern at the Nature Conservancy, briefly worked as a field manager at the Sierra Club, and also has worked for a company that builds air-pollution control systems. She believes that her recruiting efforts for ESO have succeeded because her generation shares a sense of responsibility for the planet's future health.

"Branches of my family have been going up to the Adirondacks for the last century and a half," she says. "I grew up hiking in the mountains and the woods, and someday, when I have a kid, I don't want to have to tell her what trees used to be like."

For more information on the April 19 fair, contact Elisabeth Shedd at 262-8024. To sign up for the April 15 Charles River cleanup, call Jasmine Bigelow at 352-2268.