Citizen Scientists Needed To Monitor Turtle Crossings

12:23PM / Wednesday, May 02, 2012Print Story | Email Story

LENOX, Mass. — Turtles have existed for millions of years, but roadways are threatening the survival of local populations. A state coalition is seeking volunteers to help monitor the turtle vs. motor vehicle action.

Turtles often cross roadways from late spring to early fall and are vulnerable to car collisions. Ambitious citizen scientists, turtle enthusiasts, and conservation organizations are encouraged to join state wildlife and transportation personnel in collecting data for the Turtle Roadway Mortality Monitoring Program.

The state is especially looking for crossing "hot spots" at which multiple turtles are killed.

Linking Landscapes for Massachusetts Wildlife, a recent partnership between the Division of Fisheries and Wildlife, Department of Transportation Highway Division and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, trained volunteers to collect data in 2010. It is expanding its volunteer program this year by offering two citizen scientist information and training sessions in Amherst and Westborough.

These sessions are designed to train new volunteers, acknowledge current volunteer efforts, and share results from the first year of data collection. The information gathered through this volunteer effort will be used to coordinate local turtle conservation efforts.

There will also be an information and training session on Wednesday, May 16, at United Methodist Church, 6 Holmes Road, starting at 6:30 p.m. The event will be co-sponsored by Berkshire Environmental Action Team and Project Native. The sessions are free, but advance registration is required. Interested volunteers can register with Dave Paulson at David.Paulson@state.ma.us or call him at 508-389-6366.

Tags: monitoring, turtles, wild animals,

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Lee Wants Bioremediation in Housatonic River Vernal Pool Study

05:24AM / Thursday, September 03, 2026

LEE, Mass. — The town has asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and General Electric to include PCB bioremediation in its vernal pool study on the Housatonic River.

Lee officials are urging the EPA to require GE to add a bioremediation treatment arm to the vernal-pool study or provide the public with a clear explanation for why such testing is being excluded.

"This is exactly the kind of question EPA and GE should be asking before final remedy decisions are locked in," Select Board Chair Bob Jones said in a statement released to the press. "The town is not asking to slow the cleanup. We are asking EPA and GE to make the cleanup smarter, less destructive, and more protective over the long term."

An open house was held in Pittsfield earlier this summer for the Vernal Pool Pilot Study on Reach 5A of the Housatonic River, a five-mile stretch between the river's confluence and Lenox border.

EPA has required GE to conduct a Vernal Pool Pilot Study as part of the Housatonic River Rest of River remediation, comparing excavation and restoration with activated-carbon-based treatments, including a product called SediMite and powdered activated carbon, the town said.

Ten vernal pools will be cleaned of polychlorinated biphenyls in total, five with excavation and five with active carbon, and seven additional vernal pools will be monitored as controls. Construction will be complete around October, but the pools will be left to their natural processes and monitored with surveys and sampling for three years.

The Lee PCB Advisory Committee wrote a letter calling for the 21st-century approach it said could reduce long-term toxicity, avoid unnecessary destruction of sensitive habitats, and improve the effectiveness of the cleanup.

It states that Lee supports the study's purpose and agrees that EPA and GE must understand how cleanup activities affect sensitive vernal-pool ecosystems.

"The current pilot includes 10 treatment pools and seven control pools, while local officials understand that roughly 100 vernal pools may occur in the broader remediation corridor," the Aug. 27 letter reads.

"That makes the pilot study consequential: the methods tested now could shape how many sensitive wetlands are excavated, reconstructed, treated, or left with PCBs managed in place."

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