Dave with striper on Great Bay

While Rich and I have a lot of passion around sustainability, project management, and sustainable project management, occasionally we diverge a little and talk about our obsessive side, our personal crusades.  Back in September, there was an EarthPM post about Omega 3 and menhaden.  By the way, that campaign was successful as the Atlantic Marine States Fisheries Commission (AMSFC) voted to reduce the catch of menhaden.

While related, this is different, and I thought we were done with this issue.  Apparently we are not.  In the 1970′s we almost lost one of our major fisheries resource, the striped bass.  I remember when there were a few really big fish being caught, and no small fish.  The years following those were the worst on record for striped bass fishing.  For all intents and purposes, striped bass disappeared.  Intensive fisheries management saved the striped bass fishery then,  Look out, deja vu, it is happening again, for some of the same reasons it happened before, over fishing.  In their infinite wisdom, some states refuse to acknowledge the striped bass as a gamefish.  That acknowledgement would go a long way to protecting this resources.  I am very proud of my adopted state, Maine, and the State of New Hampshire where I lived prior to moving to Maine.  Those states have adopted gamefish status for the stripers.  Massachusetts has not and I don’t understand why.

Southwick Associates, a company that compiles statistics for fish and wildlife issues, concludes that wild striped bass are worth 20-times more per pound as a gamefish as opposed to its commercial value in the market.  Doesn’t it make sense to declare the striper a gamefish and keep collecting that kind of revenue?  While I was on Cape Cod recently, I stopped at an outfitter whose business is based around the influx of striper fishermen.  Cape Cod has always been an ideal fishery for the stripers.  There is plenty of squid and other baits for the stripers to feed on and endless flats for the stripers to patrol for food.  Last year was one of the worst on record for stripers.  Fishing the usually productive flats was virtually non-existent.  A few fisher were caught offshore, but there was a marked decline in the stripers available along the shoreline.

I just can’t get my head around the commercial interests who are so short term oriented that they can’t see the forest for the trees.  This fishery is not sustainable abused this way!  Of course commercial interests put those short term gains in their pocket, but it certainly is not allowing future generations or for that matter, our generation, to continue to enjoy walking the beaches, fishing the rock piles, or searching the estuaries and oceans for stripers from boats or kayaks.  Isn’t that what sustainability is all about.  Oh, by the way, it makes “cents”, too.

As I said, this struggle is well documented.  For further reading, see George Reiger’s Striper Chronicles and Dick Russell’s Striper Wars.  Here is an important video that also helps to put the issue in perspective.  Seveeal of my friends an aquaintances appear on this video like Lou Tabory, who I’ve know for about 20 years and Coop Gilkes.  A quick story about Coop.  I had the opportunity to fish Martha’s Vineyard (almost cost me my marriage, but that’s how the fishing obseesion can affect your life, another story).  The stripers were keying on a particular fly that Coop ties.  I stopped at his shop and he was out of that fly.  He went in the back and tied two for me.  This was the first time I had stopped in his shop so I wasn’t a regular.  But he did it anyway.  That’s just the way most members of this fly fishing faternity are.  The head cement was still wet when he gave me the flies.  Those produced most of the fish I caught during that time on the Vineyard.

Anyway, here is the video.  I hope it inspires you to contact ASMFC or the Massachusetts congressional representatives to voice your opinion on making the striper a gamefish.  We certainly won’t lose a food sources as stripers are particularly suited for aquaculture.  Unlike salmon who have to re raised in saltwater pens, therefore have a chance to compete with wild stock, stripers are raised in freshwater.  In addition, when pond raised, there is little change of the heavy metal concentrations that affect wild stock.  Please do your part.

Stripers as Gamefish

We’ve tend to stay neutral when it comes to the global climate change debate, although we have tried to arm you with the information we believed you, as project managers, need to make sure you can take advantage of any projects that may arise as a result of any mitigation strategies.  Today, we heard about a couple of disturbing reports due out over the next several months.  Their titles were pretty ominous so we decided to dig a little deeper.

Take a look at some of these headlines and reports to be released and see if you don’t agree that they are unnerving;

NOAA: Past Decade Warmest on Record According to Scientists in 48 Countries 

Earth has been growing warmer for more than 50 years.

And this one a report that is indicative of what is to come.

The Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation.

The title says that those extreme events we have been experiencing, a major snow storm in the northeast in October 2011 for instance, are going to continue and we need a risk mitigation process to address them.  Further, we will need to “adapt” to these changes.

Another report coming from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC);

Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation

And finally, an interview from a scientist who has not only been one of the questioners of global climate change, but also his study was partially funded by an organization made up of climate change skeptics.  Dr. Richard Muller, professor of physics from the University of California, Berkeley, and founder of the Berkley Earth Surface Temperature Foundation, undertook an independent two year study of global climate change.

It was not that he himself was a sceptic, he just didn’t believe the likes of Tom Friedman and Al Gore because Dr. Muller believes their contentions were not truly science based.  Here is part of the interview between Dr. Muller and Eleanor Hall with Bronwyn Herbert from the Australian Broadcast Network (ABC).  You can hear the entire interview here.

BRONWYN HERBERT: Richard Muller says he wasn’t convinced the earth was warming, and set out two years ago to find out if mainstream climate scientists were wrong.

RICHARD MULLER: Sceptics had raised legitimate questions. Many of the thermometers were of very poor quality and poorly placed. There were  djustments being made to discontinuities in the data. There was perhaps undue influence from warming of cities, which was warm, but that’s not global warming.

BRONWYN HERBERT: He says he was particularly surprised that his results so closely correlated with previously published data from other teams in the US and the UK.

RICHARD MULLER: Somewhat to my amazement, none of the effects changed the answer. We wound up getting the same answer that the other groups had previously gotten for the amount of warming. It’s about 0.9 degrees Celsius over the last 50 years. The poor temperature quality data, even though it was at bad locations, the change in temperature I recorded was accurate. The urban heat island, just not that much area of the earth is urban. The temperature adjustments that people made, well those adjustments were made with more care than we could know, and in the end the adjustments didn’t bias the data. We picked five times as many stations as they did. Their selection of stations was sufficiently representative that it didn’t change the answer. So, in the end, the amount of global warming is what they said it was.

BRONWYN HERBERT: So do you now believe that global warming on earth is occurring?

RICHARD MULLER: Oh yes. I certainly believe that now.

And finally, from a report Agence France-Presse (AFP) states that a draft UN report three years in the making concludes that man-made climate change has boosted the frequency or intensity of heat waves, wildfires, floods and cyclones and that such disasters are likely to increase in the future.

“The document being discussed by the world’s Nobel-winning panel of climate scientists says the severity of the impacts vary, and some regions are more vulnerable than others. Hundreds of scientists working under the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) will vet the phonebook-sized draft at a meeting in Kampala of the 194-nation body later this month.

“This is the largest effort that has even been made to assess how extremes are changing,” said Neville Nicholls, a professor at Monash University in  Melbourne, Australia, and a coordinating lead author of one of the review’s key chapters. Mindful of an outcry by climate skeptics over flaws in an earlier IPCC text, those working on the document stress that the level of “confidence” in the findings depends on the quantity and quality of data available.

But the overall picture that emerges is one of enhanced volatility and frequency of dangerous weather, leading in turn to a sharply increased risk for large swathes of humanity in coming decades.”

“Its publication coincides with a series of natural catastrophes around the world that have boosted the need to determine whether such events are freaks of the weather or part of a long-term shift in climate. In 2010, record temperatures fuelled devastating forest fires across Siberia, while parts of Pakistan and India reeled from unprecedented flooding. This year, the United States has suffered from a record number of billion-dollar disasters ranging from flooding in the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers to Hurricane Irene to the ongoing Texas drought. Large swathes of China are suffering from intense drought as well, even as central America and Thailand count their dead from recent diluvian rains.

Most of these events match predicted impacts of manmade global warming, which has raised temperatures, increased the amount of water in the atmosphere and warmed ocean surface temperatures — all drivers of extreme weather.

- It is “virtually certain” — 99-100% sure — that the frequency and magnitude of warm daily temperature extremes will increase over the 21st century on a global scale;

- It is “very likely” (90-100% certainty) that the length, frequency and/or intensity of warm spells, including heat waves, will continue to increase over most land areas;

- Peak temperatures are “likely” (66-100% certainty) to increase — compared to the late 20th century — up to 3.0 degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2050, and 5.0 C (9.0 F) by 2100;

- Heavy rain and snowfall is likely to increase over the next century over many regions, especially in the tropics and at high latitudes;

- At the same time, droughts will likely intensify in other areas, notably the Mediterranean region, central Europe, North America, northeastern Brazil and southern Africa.” © 2011 AFP

Sometimes we need to remind ourselves that there is more to life than just work, work, work.  In 1890, Yosemite National Park was created.  It’s not that a beautiful place did not exist prior to 1890, it did as shown in the 1878 watercolor of the Digger Indians by Constance Frederica Gordon-Cumming en, Indian Life at Mirror Lake.  National parks are great stress relievers.  No matter what your preference, camping, fishing, hiking, birding, photography and more, you can do any or all of it in the myriad of state and national parks scattered across our country.

Although, we certainly can’t get away from projects no matter where we go.  Not only is the designating of a state, local or national park a project, especially for those directly involved in a project like Yosemite, like Galen Clark and John Muir, or the president at the time Benjamin Harrison, but it will create more projects.  Fast forward to present day and the jobs initiative.  While we have not read all of the text of the proposed jobs initiatives, we haven’t seen anything on improving the infrastructure of our national parks.  While it may be that it is buried in there someplace, it probably isn’t.  Maybe it is because it only affects a specific, and small, group of people who use the parks.  We have a feeling that the number may be larger than we think.  According to the latest (2010) figures, more than 281,300,000 people visited our national parks.  Just like this website, however, they may not be all “unique” visits.  But still, 281+ million people per year is nothing to sneeze at, since the total population of the US in 2009 was approximately 307 million people.

But let’s not lose sight of the real issue here.  The question is, if there were infrastructure projects instituted as part of a jobs initiative, what is the economic, social and environmental ripple effects.  Just to give one example:  how many people would be employed during the infrastructure improvement?  If there are improvements, how many additional people would use the facilities?  How many people depend on the visitors themselves; e.g. restaurants, camping/rv suppliers and hotels surrounding the parks?  What are the effects on the environment?  Most importantly to us, these projects will need to be managed.  The different projects will lie along the green spectrum, from green by definition to green in general.

Let’s keep an eye on any jobs initiatives.  They will create projects! 

Obituary: Wangari Maathai

We recently lost Ray Anderson and wrote about his contributions.

A couple of days ago we lost another hero of sustainability, not known too well in North America: Wangari Maathai.

Here is a composite of her amazing life, assembled from bits and pieces of stories from Time Magazine, The Guardian, and other sources.  Be prepared to be amazed (and a little saddened by virtue of losing her).

For a young Kikuyu girl growing up in the early 1940s, the small village of Ihithe, in the lush central highlands of Kenya, was next to perfect. There were no books or gadgets in the houses, but there were leopards and elephants in the thick forests around, clean water, rich soils, and food and work for everyone. “It was heaven. We wanted for nothing,” Wangari Maathai, the Kenyan environmentalist and Nobel peace prize winner, who has died of cancer aged 71, told me when I saw her last in Nairobi. “Now the forests have come down, the land has been turned to commercial farming, the tea plantations keep everyone poor, and the economic system does not allow people to appreciate the beauty of where they live.”

Maathai was lucky. If she had been born even a year later, she and her family would have probably been caught up in the Mau Mau uprising that raged around Ihithe, and it is unlikely that she would have got any kind of education at all. “You would see me there now: I most likely would have stayed in Ihithe, married, had children, and continued to work the land. I would not tell stories, because they have been replaced by radio, books and TV,” she said.

As it was, her family sent her away to a primary school run by Italian nuns, where she excelled. But her remarkable academic rise to become the first woman to run a university department in Kenya was due entirely to her closeness to nature. It was the land that showed her and taught her everything, she said.

After graduating in 1959, she won a scholarship to study in the US, as part of the “Kennedy airlift” in which 300 Kenyans – including Barack Obama’s father – were chosen to study at American universities in 1960. After further study in Germany, she returned to a newly independent Kenya in 1966, and five years later become the first woman in east and central Africa to obtain a PhD from an African university. There followed a tumultuous personal and public 40 years in which she ran the University of Nairobi’s veterinary department, was imprisoned several times, stood for president, became a minister and won the Nobel peace prize.

Her early work as a vet took her to some of Kenya’s poorest areas, where she saw firsthand the degradation of the environment and the stress it put on the lives of women who produced most of the food. Kenya’s forests were being cleared and replaced by commercial plantations. The result was more drought, loss of biodiversity and increased poverty. The experience, she said, made her determined to address the linked, root causes of poverty and environmental destruction.

Realisation that communities were destroying their own resources led her to work directly with the poorest. It was the women, she reasoned, who experienced the worst impact of a degraded environment. In 1977, she set up the Green Belt movement, more in hope than expectation that it would grow.

“They lack wood fuel, water, food and fodder. They are poor, have no cash income and are confined to rural life,” she told me. “They find themselves in a vicious cycle of debilitating poverty, lost self-confidence and a never-ending struggle to meet their most basic needs.”

Initially, the Green Belt movement’s tree-planting activities did not address issues of democracy and peace, but it soon became clear to her that responsible governance of the environment was impossible without democratic space. The tree became a symbol for the democratic struggle in Kenya and a way of challenging widespread abuses of power, corruption and environmental mismanagement. She and others planted trees in Uhuru park, Nairobi, to demand the release of prisoners of conscience and a peaceful transition to democracy.

But as she became more vocal in her criticism of Kenyan elites, she ran headfirst into the corruption and casual brutality that surrounded President Daniel arap Moi. There had been attempts before to dismiss her as mad or foolish, but she came to prominence in 1989 when she led a campaign to stop the construction of a multimillion-pound office development in Uhuru park, Nairobi’s equivalent of Hyde park in London. The complex, backed by the media tycoon Robert Maxwell, was about to be built when Maathai and other pro-democracy individuals challenged Moi in the courts. The international campaign succeeded and the development was scuppered. Moi and the political establishment were furious.

In 1992, she found herself on a list of people targeted by the government for assassination. For protection, and as a defiant statement, she publicly barricaded herself in her home for three days before the police broke in to arrest her. She and others were charged with sedition and treason, and were only released after a campaign orchestrated by the Kennedys.

Maathai and the rest did not stop there. They took part in a hunger strike in Uhuru park, which they labelled Freedom Corner, to pressure the government to release political prisoners. After four days, she and three others were beaten up by the police. This time Moi called her “a mad woman” who was “a threat to the order and security of the country”. For the next few years she lived in fear of her life, and was increasingly threatened and vilified by political leaders. In 1993, she was forced into hiding after Moi claimed she was responsible for leaflets inciting Kikuyus to attack Kalenjins.

As her political thinking developed, she became increasingly critical of worldwide governance. Her falling-out with politicians in Kenya reflected her deep disillusionment with the World Bank, the IMF, Britain and other former colonial powers. Increasingly she sided with the world’s poorest people, becoming a hero of the worldwide ecological and African democracy movements.

“The elites have become predators, self-serving and only turning to people when they need them. We can never all be equal, but we can ensure we do not allow excessive poverty or wealth. Inequality breeds insecurity,” she said.

By this time, the Green Belt was flourishing. What began as a few women planting trees became a network of 600 community groups that cared for 6,000 tree nurseries, which were often supervised by disabled and mentally ill people in the villages. By 2004, more than 30m trees had been planted, and the movement had branches in 30 countries. In Kenya, it has become an unofficial agricultural advice service, a community regeneration project and a job-creation plan all in one.

In the early 1990s, Maathai moved into mainstream Kenyan politics. She set up Mazingira, the Kenyan Green Party, winning 98% of the votes in her constituency, and then joined the coalition that finally overthrew Moi in 2002. She was a junior environment minister in the government of President Mwai Kibaki between January 2003 and November 2005. She later planned to run for president but claims she was tricked out of it.

In 2004, seemingly out of the blue, she was awarded the Nobel peace prize, to the consternation of many politicians and governments who still did not see the “peace” connection between human rights and the environment. It gave her an international profile and a strong platform to travel the world, pressing home the message that ecology and democracy were indivisible. In 2006, she led a Unep tree-planting scheme that has resulted in more than 7bn trees being planted across the planet.

In her last years, she took on the commercial palm plantations that have destroyed so much of Indonesia and Malaysia and badgered politicians to address climate change, which she said was hurting women the most.

“The tree is just a symbol for what happens to the environment. The act of planting one is a symbol of revitalising the community. Tree-planting is only the entry point into the wider debate about the environment. Everyone should plant a tree,” she said.

In her memoir Unbowed, Maathai recalls her early childhood in the shadow of Mount Kenya. “At the time of my birth, the land around Ihithe was still lush, green and fertile,” she writes. “The seasons were so regular that you could almost predict that the long, monsoon rains would start falling in mid-March. In July you knew it would be so foggy you would not be able to see 10 feet in front of you, and so cold in the morning that the grass would be silvery-white with frost.”

Decades on, Maathai, the first woman in East Africa to earn a Ph.D., began noticing that the seasons were becoming less dependable and that her country’s vegetation was fast disappearing. A population explosion and years of corrupt government were imperiling not just Kenyan society but the land itself. In the late 1970s, Maathai and other women founded a small environmental group called the Green Belt Movement and encouraged people to plant trees — more than 40 million so far — to prevent soil erosion and provide firewood for cooking. They also took on the most powerful man in Kenya then: President Daniel arap Moi, whose ruling party wanted to build an outsized office tower in a park in the capital, Nairobi. Few people gave Maathai much hope of making a difference. But her folksy charm belies a steely resolve, and her group’s protests eventually forced the government to drop its plans.

She is survived by two daughters, Wanjira and Muta, and a son, Waweru, as well as her granddaughter, Ruth.

Just as project managers – by definition – make a difference, you can see what one person can do with persistence and dedication.

Rarely do we use this forum for political discussions, and even more rarely do we use this forum for personal campaigns, but in this case, it is both and directly related to sustainability.  So I’m (Dave) going to go out on my own limb and declare that this post is from me, not EarthPM.  The sustainability issue is one that is personally meaningful to me, fishing.  Sometime around 2005 – 2006, I penned an article about the Great Bay, New Hampshire fishery.  It was  published in the Fly Fisherman, September 2009 issue, and is titled “Granite State Stripers – A blueprint for catching striped bass in New Hampshire’s Great Bay Estuary.”  During the time I was doing the “research” (fishing) for this article, big menhaden and herring inhabited the bay in good numbers.  I used to go to the falls in Exeter and watch the lobsterman throw their wire baskets into the falls to collect herring for bait for their lobster traps.

Unfortunately, I don’t see the number of herring or menhaden that I did in the past.  According to research, the menhaden population is down to between 8-12% of historic highs.  I am going to try to be as politically correct as I can be here, but point out that there is a difference of opinion between those of us who are trying to protect striped bass and other species we get so much pleasure fishing for, and Omega Protein (OP), Inc.  According to their website, OP “is a nutrition and wellness company dedicated to delivering healthy products to the animal, human and plant nutrition industries. Omega Protein’s marine product lines are sourced from menhaden, an Omega-3 rich fish harvested along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts.”  The key word there is menhaden.  OP supplies “a custom line of omega-3 fish oil, protein-rich specialty fishmeal and organic fish solubles for aquaculture, companion animal, livestock and equine feed manufacturers. We produce ultra-refined, molecularly distilled omega-3 ingredients for human food manufacturers, and we market branded fish solubles
as agronomic plant food.”  They need huge quantities of menhaden.

The menhaden is also key to the survival of many of the fish species I alluded to above, striped bass and big bluefish for sure, as well as weakfish and maybe even sharks.  All of the species have seen serious declines in their population over the same periods as the aggressive efforts of OP.  I don’t feel it is overfishing the striped bass or others that is causing the decline, but rather a drastic reduction in the natural foods those fish feed on, particularly the menhaden.  I remember the years I spent on the Jersey coast.  Huge schools of menhaden travelled up and down the shoreline.  It was very exciting to see the gamefish tearing into those schools.  The frenzy was a site to see.  Little did I know that I may have been witnessing that for the last time.

Politically, Omega Foods is a juggernaut.  They possess both the political clout and money to overwhelm any and all opposition to their agenda.  Their agenda right now is to move their operations inshore because they have virtually wiped out the larger, offshore menhaden.  The next thing they will do is go after the “peanuts” that have provided much of the inshore forage for the stripers and blues of late.  The peanuts certainly aren’t enough to maintain the fishery, just to slow its decline a little.  Evidence shows that the stripers from the Chesapeake are not faring well and probably stems from being undernourished.  The fishery cannot be sustained much longer without some protective measures.  The omega-3 contained in the very oily menhaden is also good for the striper.  Without it, they probably won’t survive.

To be fair, Omega Foods has a sustainability tab on their website and accepted a “friend of the sea” recognition in 2009 for their marine conservation efforts.  To me, however, there seems to be some contradiction here.  It’s a “they said they said” argument.  Who is right needs to be decided.  So if you are interested in the marine environment, because we don’t know how this will affect the entire ecosystem, do some research, and take a stand.  If you find what I found, you need to let The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) know how you feel.   They are the body that regulates this fishery,.  At its summer meeting in Arlington, Virginia, ASMFC approved public hearings for Addendum 5 to Amendment 1 of the Atlantic Menhaden Fishery Management Plan. That addendum would establish a new interim fishing mortality threshold and target (based on maximum spawning potential — MSP) with the goal of increasing abundance, spawning stock biomass, and menhaden availability as a forage species. The MSP approach was recommended by the 2009 peer review panel that determined menhaden weren’t being overfished at that time – but were in 2008. Indeed, scientific documentation indicates that menhaden have been overfished in 32 of the last 54 years.

The Menhaden Defenders aim to push the ASMFC to establish the first-ever coastwide catch limits for the 2012 fishing season with a conservative target of 30 percent MSP, and a threshold of 15 percent -leaving 30 percent of mature fish free to maintain the stock. The ASMFC would also be urged to quickly begin management of the species on an ecosystem basis, taking into account its importance as a forage fish. Then there must be appropriate monitoring, management tools, and additional enforcement in order to achieve the goals.

That decision needs to be made on a level playing field.  Unfortunately, it is a David and Goliath effort. But remember, David did win!

Often times we talk about the Green Spectrum, particularly with respect to projects that are green in general, or appear to have no sustainability aspect, when, in actuality, all projects have a sustainability element.  This time, we’ll look at a project that is Green by Definition, but is scrutinized through a sustainability lens.  And, it is a very,very interesting concept.

As part of the “Smart from the Start” (that sounds like a good phrase for sustainability in projects, too) initiative by Secretary of Interior Salazar, there is a proposal for a 200 mile-wide wind energy corridor stretching from Canada to the Texas coast of the Gulf of Mexico.

While we don’t know yet about the other sustainable aspects being considered, we do know, at this point, that the US Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) will write an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS).  “Wind energy is crucial to our nation’s future economic and environmental security. We will do our part to facilitate development of wind energy resources, while ensuring that they are sited and designed in ways that minimize and avoid negative impacts to fish and wildlife,” said Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe. “This EIS process gives us an opportunity to evaluate impacts to dozens of imperiled species at a landscape level to ensure that wind energy development occurs in the right places in the right way.”

The reasoning behind the EIS is that in order to accomplish the project, an Incidental Take Permit (ITP) needs to be granted.  Section 9 of the Endangered Species Act and its implementing regulations “prohibit the take of animal species listed as endangered or threatened.”  It doesn’t allow the harassment, harm, pursuit, hunting, shooting, wounding, trapping, capturing, or collecting or, an attempt to engage in those practices when it comes to endangered or threatened species.  However, Under Section 10 of the Act, it allows for people to obtain an ITP as long as they are pursuing otherwise legal activities.  The permittee is then provided “incidental take” authorization.

The applicant must submit a Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) containing the measures that it will take to minimize, avoid, or mitigate incidental take.  The Service will then review the HCP and issue an EIS that considers the impacts.  The Service will also identify “potentially significant impacts on biological resources, land use, air quality, water quality, water resources, economics, and other environmental/historical resources that may occur directly or indirectly as a result of implementing the proposed action or any of the alternatives. Various strategies for avoiding, minimizing, and mitigating the impacts of incidental take will also be considered.  Sounds like risk management to me!

“The proposed Permit Area is defined as a 200-mile wide corridor determined by defining the center line of the whooping crane migration based on the database of confirmed whooping crane observations from the Cooperative Whooping Crane Tracking Program and buffering that line by 100 miles on either side. This corridor spans the Gulf Coast of Texas north to the Canadian border and encompasses such cities as Houston, TX; Oklahoma City, OK; Wichita, KS; Bismarck, ND; Grand Island, NE; and Aberdeen, SD. In addition, the permit area includes the current and a large part of the historic range of the lesser prairie-chicken which extends the covered area beyond the 200-mile wide whooping crane migration corridor to include parts of Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas.”

“Species currently considered for inclusion under the permit include the following: the endangered whooping crane (Grus americana); endangered interior least tern (Sterna antillarum athalassos); endangered piping plover (Charadrius melodus); and lesser prairie-chicken (Tympanuchus pallidicinctus), a candidate species.”

There are two important points here for a project manager.  The first is that this will be one heck of a program, involving a huge amount of projects, wind energy projects including; the wind power generators themselves, transmission, distribution, support facilities, etc.  Secondly, it involves looking at the project through a sustainability lens.  In above case, a very narrow view because of regulatory issues (specifically the Endangered Species Act) one of the “drivers” in our book.  There will be more and more of these opportunities for the project manager who is not only aware of sustainability issues, vocabulary, and problems and drivers, but also uses that knowledge and considers greenality* when approaching any project.

* The degree to which an organization (project manager) has considered environmental (sustainable) factors that affect its projects during the entire project life cycle and beyond.

It is hard to stay objective and talk about cradle-to-cradle thinking and considering long term effects, “the end of the end”, and other assertions from our book, when there is a major effect on one of our national treasures, The Yellowstone River, the longest undammed river in the US.  We have a personal affinity toward the river since one of our EarthPM principles spent 11 days in the area doing what is affectionately called “combat fly fishing.”  In other words, 11 days were spent fly fishing as many rivers and streams in Montana, Idaho , and Wyoming that is humanly possible fishing from dawn to dark, while passing peanut butter and jelly sandwiches from the back seat to the front during the breaks between fishing and fishing called “racing to a new spot.”  A few hours sleep and  right back at it.  But of all the waters fished, the Yellowstone was one of the most incredible fisheries, to say nothing of the beauty.

Of course, the river was nothing like it is right now (see picture above of how it was when we fished it), with gigantic flows spilling over the banks, running between 25,000 and 35,000 cubic feet per second.  The normal rate is around 8,000 cfs.  That’s good news and bad news.  The good news is that there is lots of water to dilute the oil.  And, while this oil spill is relatively small compared to some of the oil spills of the past, 42,000 gallons, or approximately 1000 barrels, is enough.  What is disconcerting is not the short-term effects, but rather the long term-effects on both wildlife and property.  Sound familiar.  We assert that we can no longer take the short term view.  We were not involved in Exxon Mobil’s decision making process when someone thought it was a good idea to bury a pipeline under one of the premier trout waters in America, we can only hope that they did consider what would happen not only if there should be a breach in the pipe, but also the life cycle assessment of that oil should it be unleashed on the ecosystem.

The bad news is that the long term effects of a spill of this nature are virtually unknown.  Add to that, the high water has pushed the oil up onto surrounding properties where it is pooling.  It is likely that the pooled oil will seep into the ground possible contaminating area water wells.  While Yellowstone National Park and the areas where we fished are not threatened, because the spill is approximately 110 miles downstream, it still affects a “fly fishing and bird watching” area.   “Montana Audubon — a nonprofit that specializes in wildlife conservation, especially birds — fears for the health of the American white pelican, a top-of-the-food chain species that dines on critters in the river. “We may get lucky with the short-term effects” because birds weren’t using their normal river habitat due to the high water, said Darcie Vallant, director of the Audubon Conservation Education Center in Billings, which is just 10 miles from the spill. “But the concern is long-term effects,” especially with the pelicans, she added. Montana had some 7,000 breeding pairs in 2010, and that was a decline from the previous year, she said.”

The high water has also made it impossible to assess what’s happening to that ecosystem.  How the bug population that the trout rely upon for food is affected is another unknown.  There is also a concern about the back channels that hold fish eggs and recently hatched fish being contaminated.

Montana State University researchers will be among those monitoring the river, but it could take months before they have a sense of the recovery’s pace. “In the weeks and months ahead, we will be looking for any unusual changes in the river’s natural environment and any impacts on the species of fish we would expect to find at this time of year,” said MSU ecology professor Al Zale. “Some species or ages of fish may be more susceptible to this type of pollution than others.”

Cathy Williams, who raises livestock, wheat, alfalfa and hay with her husband near Laurel, said high water washed oil across much of their 800 acres. “It was the night the river peaked, so the river water was flooded all over the place, and that brought oil all over both ranches,” she said. “All of our grasslands have just thick, black crude stuck to all the grass, trees, low lands.”  Williams said their spring wheat crop and alfalfa are both in need of irrigation, but farmers in the area were advised not to take water from the river for the time being. Drinking supplies also are in limbo, she said. “We get all our drinking water from our wells and for our animals,” Williams said. “All the groundwater, I assume, is probably contaminated. We just don’t know.”

With 20/20 hindsight, and a request for consideration for future planning, there are several places in the project life cycle that greenality issues can be considered:

• Project Charter – connecting enterprise sustainability with project
• Requirements Gathering – again, connecting the enterprise’s environmental management plan(EMP) with the project’s EMP
• Stakeholder Consideration – is there a communications plan in place to notify the stakeholders if this type of issue should occur
• Risk Management – considering environmental risks
• Cost of Greenality – failure costs versus auditing costs for instance

I am sure you can think of more areas where sustainability should be considered.  All in all, we are hoping for a good outcome, here.  The river has an incredible beauty about it.  Let’s not forget that the trout fishing in Montana is a major contributor to the $300 million in revenues from the recreation industry in the state. And, the Yellowstone is also historically very significant.  In late June/early July of 1876, the Far West, a specially designed river vessel, transported the wounded from the campaign against the Indians which included Custer’s Last Stand, down the Yellowstone to the Missouri River and to Bismarck in the Dakota Territories.  Let’s hope for the best here and for long-term, sustainability thinking to prevail for future projects, including those that involve our rare and fragile natural resources.

(Thanks to Msnbc.com’s Miguel Llanos, Reuters and The Associated Press for information included in this blog.)

While we wouldn’t recommend fly fishing naked, too many sharp hooks flying around, this photo, by J. Johnson, does capture your attention.  This comes from Patagonia’s website.

Those of you who know our book, know that Patagonia is one of those companies at the “Top of Their Game” when it comes to sustainability.  Also, those of you who use the products probably know the story of how Patagonia got started when founder Yvon Chouinard felt that the current pitons were harming the rocks he was climbing and invented a more environmentally friendly piton.  But what you may not know relates to fly fishing.

Well, you may ask, “Why is fly fishing relevant to me?”  It may not be per sec, but while Rich and I are both fishermen, I am a fly fisherman bordering on fanaticism and obsession.  Fly fishing may also be why I was drawn to project management or vice versa.  You see, fly fishing to me is about the process; fly tying, getting ready for a trip, the precision gear, the anatomy of a river, stream, pond or lake, rather than catching fish.  Although I do catch my fair share and practice catch and release.  But that is getting a little off track.

In the most recent edition of Fly Fishing in Saltwater, there is small article about Patagonia continuing there sustainability efforts entitled “Patagonia – Green to the Extreme.”  While I don’t think it is so extreme, more of a necessity, Patagonia is undertaking an effort to eliminatepaper catalogs.  What a great thought!  Tired of getting your mailbox stuffed with catalogs, especially around Christmas time?  Patagonia has published their second e-catalog.  While it does have the feel of a magazine, it can do so much more, especially with its videos.  And, it is not only green, but the way I figure it, helps the company’s bottom-line.

The Environmental Defense Fund’s paper calculator estimates that Patagonia will save 1.5 million gallons of waste water, 220,860 pounds of
solid waste, 1,222 trees, and almost 600,000 pounds of CO₂.  While there are some development costs for the e-catalog, I am sure that the savings far  outweigh those costs; thereby adding to the company’s bottom-line, and fitting well into the Triple Botton Line (People, Planet, Profits).   I for one love the products and proudly display a Patagonia decal on the window of my SUV.  Yes, I told you I tend to lean a little toward the Hummer side of the spectrum.  But I’d have trouble towing my boat to the water or my trailer full of yard waste to the composting facility with a Prius.  Although for trips other than to go fishing/boating or towing I do have a much more efficient vehicle,  trading in a gas guzzler for that.  Anyway, it is not about me, or maybe it is, my being a fly fisherman.

On page two of the catalog there is a “commitment” to fly fishing where they say that they spent untold hours on research and development to ensure that the products they povide are the finest that can be produced so that fly fishermen can concentrate on the sport rather than on the “vagaries of Mother  Nature.”  And, all is done in a sustainable way.  Be assured that the e-catalog is not the only effort to reduce their impact on the environment.  The World Trout® Initiative, is addressing the following issues: “overfishing and destruction of habitat threaten trout populations worldwide.  Humans are the cause, though they may also be trout’s saviors.” Read more about the World Trout® Initiative.  (The picture below is also from Patagonia’s website.)

I can only quote Robert Travers (better known for his novel “Anatomy of a Murder”);

“I fish because I love to. Because I love the environs where trout are found, which are invariably
beautiful, and hate the environs where crowds of people are found, which are
invariably ugly. Because of all the television commercials, cocktail parties,
and assorted social posturing I thus escape. Because in a world where most men
seem to spend their lives doing what they hate, my fishing is at once an
endless source of delight and an act of small rebellion. Because trout do not
lie or cheat and cannot be bought or bribed, or impressed by power, but respond
only to quietude and humility, and endless patience. Because I suspect that men
are going this way for the last time and I for one don’t want to waste the
trip. Because mercifully there are no telephones on trout waters. Because in
the woods I can find solitude without loneliness. … And finally, not because
I regard fishing as being so terribly important, but because I suspect that so
many of the other concerns of men are equally unimportant and not nearly so
much fun.”

Let’s try to keep it that way.

There are lots of things we could talk about one year later, but for this post we’d like to focus on the suit filed today by BP against Transocean, the rig’s owners, and Cameron International, the supplier of the  blow-out preventer, for $40 billion.  From AP (article), guardian.co.uk,  ”The Deepwater Horizon BOP was unreasonably dangerous, and has caused and continues to cause harm, loss, injuries, and damages to BP (and others) stemming from the blowout of Macondo well, the resulting explosion and fire onboard the Deepwater Horizon, the efforts to regain control of the Macondo well, and the oil spill that ensued before control of the Macondo well could be regained,” BP said in the lawsuit against Cameron.  BP is also suing Halliburton, the company responsible for pouring the cement.

The reason we are focusing on this aspect is because, when we look at the benefits of Green Project Management, we see that green thinking should be a part of all the project’s processes, including the procurement process (just one of the processes outlined in our book).  In this case, if the questions were not asked, we would have asked about the greenality of BP’s “vendors”.  There would have been questions like:  What did Transocean consider for their environmental impact?  What safe guards were in place in case of an issue like a spill or blowout preventer failure?  Were those scenarios even considered?  Driving back into their processes, we could have asked to see the invitation to bid, to examine whether Transocean considered the greenality of their vendors.  This is just a sampling of questions to ask.  On a project this large like this, with the potential for devastation it has, the questioning would have been extensive and rigorous.

We advocate a “greenality clauses”.  We believe that if we choose a company, considering their green efforts as part of the decision making process, that they should be held accountable for those green efforts, as well as capturing that criteria in the contract.   Again, we like to give the obligatory caveat that we were not in the room when the decision was made by BP to go ahead and lease the rig from Transocean, so we don’t know exactly what went on.  But from our point of view, the project did not consider all of the green aspects it should have and that green project management would have helped in that process.

This is an interesting question we’ve paraphrased from a great article by Peter Singer in a recent Wall Street Journal.  Peter considers that we will not hurt the world’s poor as long as industrialized nations are willing to make sacrifices.  Bjørn Lomborg answers that we will harm the poor if we listen to the “green extremists”.  Who has the best argument?

This, to us, is a potential conflict with one of The Natural Step’s sustainability principles.  Principal Four states “eliminate our contribution to conditions that undermine people’s capacity to meet their basic needs.”  While “eliminating our contributions to progressive buildup of substances extracted, and chemicals produced, and physical degradation” are we depressing people’s ability to make a living?  That is the dilemma.  Can we stimulate those economies while trying to green the world?

The answer may truly lie with our ability to do both, and that we must.  It will be a vicious cycle if we don’t do both.  According to the article, industrialized nations must make sacrifices to lift the world’s poor.  If they don’t, then all of the issues that make things worse for the environment will continue.  The premise is that the poorer nations are the ones that have the most significant population growth, which put more pressure on the environment.  We pointed that out in our book as one of the “problem drivers and indicators” of the green wave, along with rapidly developing nations and resource degradation and loss of biodiversity.  These are all related.  Rapidly developing countries are where the poorer people are, and the pressure to harvest rain forests, for instance, to provide firewood, income, and farmland, is felt the most.  SO according to Peter, the easy answer is to reduce poverty.  The difficult question is how.

If we stimulate growth and we stimulate employment, we create projects that may be in conflict with environmental concerns.  If we build schools and housing, we take away land; maybe wetlands, old growth forests, and critical habitat.  If we stimulate farming to help people feed themselves, again, we potentially can destroy entire ecosystems.  Peter points out that “…there is no single currency by which we can measure the benefit of saving human lives against the cost of destroying forests that provide the last remaining refuges for free-living chimpanzees, orangutans, and Sumatran tigers.”

We can see that here is a bitter pill, here, to be swallowed universally, wherever you are on what we like to call the “Hugger-Hummer” spectrum.  Less is what we need to strive for, “less energy from fossil fuels, use less air conditioning and less heat, fly and drive less, and eat less meat.”  When we say universally, we mean the developing countries may need to compromise on what they are striving to do, too.  It is a global issue and needs to be dealt with, globally.  Green projects, or greening of projects if you will, go a long way to helping.  By leading the efforts to increase a project’s greenality, green project managers will increase efficiencies and reduce the use of those scarce resources we talk about in our book.  Remember, it is not just projects that are green by definition, developing alternate energy sources, as an example, all projects can benefit by viewing it through the green project manager’s environmental lens.

More about Bjørn Lomborg response in a future post.