The Charles River has been the focus of clean up efforts. A recent bill could make it better than ever. Photocredit: Susan E. MacDonald, Wikimedia

The Environmental Protection Agency wants you to rethink your lawn. Or at least the stuff you put on it.

Let me explain. Many fertilizers have phosphorus in them, because phosphorus is an essential ingredient to all life, plant or otherwise. But this life-giving quality also has the potential to kill fish, poison water, and stunt the tourism industry, all through a process called eutrophication.

Eutrophication happens when large amounts of phosphorus or nitrogen end up in a body of water like a lake. Algae then blooms and uses up oxygen until the fish in the lake can no longer breathe. The blanket of algae also blocks sunlight and starves lake plants of sunlight. The blue-green algae that commonly cause the blooms can produce a toxin called Mycrocystin L-R, which is more poisonous than cyanide. Needless to say, this makes the water undrinkable. Usually, it’s Lake Erie that gets all the attention when it comes to eutrophication, but it’s also a problem in Massachusetts. A 2002 study found that the Boston Harbor, as well as the Charles, Mystic, and Neponset rivers all exceeded the EPA standards for phosphorus loading, even on their lowest days. This phosphorus overload can hurt the appearance and smell of the rivers, making them useless as recreational places, and in paces like the Charles River, recreation is of critical importance. In 2013 the Head of the Charles Regatta attracted around 9, 000 rowers, made $4.8 million in local and state taxes. Some local businesses and hotels depend on the nearly $47 million earned during the regatta weekend. Once phosphorus runoff gets into a body of water, it can be hard to get it out again. Phosphorus deposited 10 or even 20 years previous can still cause an algae bloom. Every day without action causes harm.

Fertilizer runoff is a primary source of this phosphorus. For this reason, Massachusetts passed a law that would limit the amount of phosphorus in lawn fertilizers. The decreased phosphorus load of these fertilizers could save the state of Massachusetts as much as $ 180 million per year in water treatment costs. The law imposes a fine for putting phosphorus on a non-agricultural area without first testing the nutrient balance of the underlying soil. Lawns that aren’t established yet are exempt. The law also regulates times of year in which the fertilizer can be applied, since during some times of year soil conditions make runoff more likely. In addition, fertilizer retailers must display phosphorus-rich fertilizers separately from non-phosphorus fertilizer and put up a sign explaining that the law prohibits the use of phosphorus fertilizer on non-tested lawns. This is an important regulation and should be pretty non-controversial. While fertilizer used for food could potentially have a reason for high phosphorus, since that phosphorus is meant to fuel plants that people eat, non-agricultural land does not need this kind of attention.

Not to mention that the fertilizer might not even help your lawn that much. Using a fertilizer with too much phosphorus can actually hurt your garden. This excess phosphorus can crowd out other more important soil nutrients, and can harm soil organisms that live symbiotically with garden plants, helping them grow with fewer nutrients.

The lawn laws enacted in August were a notable victory with a just as notable gap. As mentioned previously, there is a fine for non-compliance, but a monitoring system would be next to impossible to implement. The best thing citizens can do for this law now is to follow it voluntarily and to spread the word about the personal and statewide financial benefits this law produces.

Non-Massachusetts residents can also help their own states by voluntarily reducing fertilizer consumption. Get your soil tested to see what your soil actually needs before you load up on fertilizer. A simple test usually costs from $7 to $10 while a container of high phosphorus fertilizer which you might not need can cost as much as $13 or even $40 . UMass Amherst is one of many places that will test your soil. Here are some guidelines for reducing phosphorus runoff from your lawn, and here is a guide for reading fertilizer bags, so you know what you’re buying. Extra credit: ask your representatives to seek phosphorus regulations in your own state. Your local water sources, and maybe even your lawn, will thank you.

A recent New York Times article raises a question that’s plagued the outdoor recreation community for decades: “Why are our parks so white¹?” While people of color represent nearly 40% of the US population, they make up only 22% of National Park visitors and even less of Park Service staff.

Too often, this disparity is attributed to the myth that people of color are less interested in nature than whites (by the way, this assumption is easily disproven with a few minutes of internet research). Let’s be honest, this explanation is a cop out – it asks people of color to step up and visit parks instead of confronting the problems that are currently keeping them away.

Identifying these problems – let alone confronting – is challenging, as they’re rooted in this country’s systemic racism and the institutionalized racism of the National Parks. However, the New York Times article cites a number of examples that highlight the impacts of systemic racism in day-to-day life. For example, the article quotes Carla DeRise, a Black Seattle resident, who fears race-driven harassment or attack in the rural areas around parks and in isolated campsites. For DeRise, driving through the sweeping forested lands outside of Mount Rainier National Park will never be entirely comfortable or rejuvenating. As the rural inhabitants of these areas are typically white, her journey quickly becomes eerily reminiscent of landscapes that concealed murders and lynchings of Blacks. She’s not alone – this sentiment is mirrored in a number of other accounts from Black Americans traveling through predominantly white areas².

Access to public natural space is supposed to be a privilege for all US citizens, but it’s not. Since visiting natural spaces can be a moving, even transformative, experience, indirectly denying this right to some Americans is an injustice. And preventing people of color from forming connections with these environments only hurts the conservation movement – we need diverse input and participation in conservation efforts to create a sustainable and effective conservation system in the future.

The New York Times article asks the Park Service to be a leader in diversifying outdoor recreation by making the areas they manage accessible, inclusive, and safe for people of color. But there’s more to be done than wait for the National Park Service to effectively reach out to underrepresented racial groups, especially since NPS outreach efforts continue to target people who already visit the parks¹.

White environmentalists who aren’t employed by the Park Service need to reconsider our participation in the conservation movement. It’s easy to name this as the National Park Service’s problem to take the burden off our shoulders. But we have an opportunity, and responsibility, to help reshape US conservation strategies to reflect a diverse set of backgrounds and opinions. I hope we have the courage to take it, for practicing anti-racist conservation is the only way to sustainably and equitably maintain true public access to natural spaces.

There are many ways to do this. Drawing from Carolyn Finney’s work³ on African American participation in the environmental movement, here are three ways to begin practicing anti-racism in conjunction with conservation work:

• Confront the ways we, as individuals, perpetuate structural racism. Finney found that over 35% of Black Park Service employees felt that exclusionary practices were a key reason the organization was predominantly white. Meanwhile, nearly 80% of their white co-workers listed exclusionary practices as the least important issue or a non-issue. Again, this mindset of white racist denial extends beyond the Park Service. Being an environmentalist or being liberal doesn’t exempt us from perpetuating racism – this denial prevents us from actually addressing the inequalities present in the conservation movement. We must confront our personal biases to create effective multiracial leadership groups and confront day-to-day discrimination and silencing of people of color. This article by writer and activist Ted Glick or this article from Arielle Newton, the editor and chief of the blog Black Millennials, are good places to start understanding what day-to-day antiracism means for white people.
• Diversify Leadership in the Conservation Movement. A recent study shows that most conservation organizations employ less than 16% people of color. Since access to conserved land is supposedly a resource for all Americans, organizations making conservation decisions must reflect the diversity of this country. White environmentalists must work to make our environmental spaces and organizations more inclusive for people of color.
• Ask parks we visit for comprehensive histories. Many National parks present an idealized version of history that erases the violence towards people of color that has occurred, and continues to occur, on this land. For example, many parks in the South choose not to acknowledge slavery in tours. Failure to present slave history not only erases Black Americans’ presence, but also denies the violence towards Black Americans that occurred in those areas and ways that legacy persists today.

Of course, this list is far from comprehensive. Articles like “Why are Our Parks so White” are important to draw attention to the whiteness of outdoor recreation and the conservation movement, but at some point we need to respond. Conserving natural spaces should unify, not fracture, America – centering ourselves and our environmental work in antiracist practices will help us get there.

¹http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/12/opinion/sunday/diversify-our-national-parks.html?_r=1

²Ironically, this account was published in the New York Times 12 years ago – a reminder that this isn’t a new problem and it won’t have an easy fix.

³A supplementary bullet point: read Black Faces, White Spaces by Carolyn Finney (2014). It’s a great book.

Town, county and state officials pose for a photo at the future site of Mountain View Park. Photo courtesy Somerset County Park Commission.

It’s been a year since Somerset County and Hillsborough, New Jersey formally dedicated the future site of the new athletic complex at Mountain View Park, site of the old General Services Administration Belle Mead Depot. The first phase of construction, already underway, will result in seven new, lighted, baseball fields. Phase two consists of plans to build an additional six baseball fields, and has yet to move beyond the planning stage. Public interest in the process has been limited in the past few years, partly because every press release announcing these plans describes the site the same way, just as I’ve done- “the site of the old GSA Belle Mead Depot.” Many Somerset County residents have spent their entire lives just a few miles away from the depot, and yet most have no idea what that actually means.

It wasn’t always that way, though. A big part of the problem with Mountain View Park is how thoroughly it erases what could easily be one of Hillsborough’s proudest historical moments. Beginning in the 1940s, the Belle Mead Depot was one of eleven World War II “filler bases” where weapons and equipment were stored before being shipped to the front. On any given day, the warehouses stocked 1.2 billion dollars (over 16 billion in 2015 dollars) worth of nails, bolts, trucks, munitions, and anything else that might possibly be needed overseas. If it was needed on the front, it often went through Belle Mead Depot to get there. When a shortage of labor arose, hundreds of students from Princeton University were bussed in to sort the warehouses’ stock. For a while, it even housed Italian prisoners of war. Yet, the athletic facilities planned for the site make no reference to this past.

Change isn’t always a bad thing, and both the county and the township understand that residents’ needs have changed in the past seventy years. However, according to Hillsborough Parks and Recreation, the town already has more than fifteen public baseball fields. When the park was first proposed, residents overwhelmingly supported using the depot for walking trails and bike paths, and adapting the site for such a purpose opens up a new world of opportunities for recreation as well as a chance to explore the site’s history.

Residents should ask the Somerset County Improvement Authority to reconsider their plans for the second phase of Mountain View Park. This is an opportunity for Hillsborough to embrace its history. The recreational facilities at Ann Van Middlesworth park and Woodfield Park, each less than half a mile away, could undeniably use some upgrades- perhaps instead of building more baseball fields, the town could update those facilities to the standards proposed at Mountain View.  By doing this, we could provide residents with the state-of-the-art athletic fields the county has envisioned, as well as retain part of the GSA depot for less structured recreational use, perhaps with much-needed historical information about the site. This kind of use would augment the nearby Sourland Mountain Preserve, and give residents the opportunity to get outdoors while learning about local history. The Delaware Raritan Canal State Park is one nearby example of the merging of historic information with valuable recreation space, and it could potentially serve as inspiration for a new kind of park at the Belle Mead site- one that uses recreation to complement history, rather than obscuring it. At the D&R Canal, the towpath that once guided mules pulling barges is now used for biking, walking, fishing, and birdwatching, with historic markers that explain what the various locks and bridges were used for. At this point, it’s unlikely an extensive project would be possible for the Belle Meade Depot, but even a rudimentary marker could be fascinating to residents looking to connect with local history.

It’s often difficult for New Jersey residents to connect with their state’s military past. Unlike Boston, with its freedom trail and historic monuments, it’s incredibly easy to grow up in this state and have no idea what’s happened here. By reconsidering what the Belle Mead GSA property could be, we have an opportunity to maintain open space, and educate residents about the history of this town. Somerset County and the town of Hillsborough have a unique opportunity to tell a story that’s been almost completely forgotten. They should take it.