Tour around the harbor

Harbor Tour

      

 For our sixth week, our group was located at the Navy Yard in Charlestown, however, for the rest of the week, we were able to spend on a boat. I was not able to go to work the only day that our group was at the Navy Yard but it turns out that my group went to another site and was able to hang out with different people. They were also able to help them research their deliverable. With no deliverable for the team due this week, we had time to enjoy and take in the Boston harbor. We started off the week with two amazing speakers on the topic of social justice, it was very inspiring to see that people my age were making a difference in the community. They were able to do some much in such a short amount a time, only a few people were able to make such a huge positive impact in Boston. However they did not sugar coat anything to us when talking about the current social climate and I thought that was a great choice, not only was it an eye-opener to a lot of people, it showed the maturity in these young leaders and how they were ready to confront the world at a young age. On Wednesday our group was fortunate enough to be able to go to Spectacle Island for the second time this summer, unlike our previous visit at the island the weather of the day was perfect for taking a dive deep into the surrounding water. After circling the island on a trail, the cold water felt like a nice reward for our efforts. The trips to Spectacle Island have definitely been a treat this summer, while it may be a common occurrence during our regular summers. This time it felt like a day off from our usual type of work. For our last day of in-person meetings, we had a tour of the Boston Harbor on The Belle. With David as our host, it was not difficult to be captivated during the whole boat ride. I ended up learning a lot from this trip, previously I had assumed that there was nothing I did not know after working three years at Save the Harbor/Save the Bay but it turns out you learn something new every day. Apparently, in order to enter the Boston harbor, you have to enter through a specific channel due to the fact that most of the harbor isn't that deep, so in order to allow bigger ships into the harbor, they had to dig out trenches where ships were allowed to drive into. Entering the harbor, a green buoy must be on your left and the red buoy needs to be on your right, so when you're leaving Boston, this is the opposite. The green buoy on your left and the red buoy on your right.

Water in Boston

 

Something that was spoken about on the trip was Deer island and its creation has been instrumental in the restoration of the harbor water. Before the clean up of the Boston Harbor, falling into this water was almost life-threatening requiring that you take a tetanus shot after going into the water. This was due to the fact that trash and human waste used to be thrown into the harbor. As a result of the cleanup, the facilities on Deer Island were created, which then allowed the waste to be reused and changed into fertilizer pellets. Because of this, the water quality was increased dramatically, with the waste out of the harbor, it made it so it became way less dangerous than before. And as the years went by, this happened to most of the water surrounding Massachusetts and now it is home to one of the cleanest urban harbors in America. There is a way to check this in case you do not believe me, with your very own water quality test. With a single PH strip, you are able to determine the water quality in Boston, what the PH strip does is it measures how acidic/basic the water is. With 7 being neutral, this test allows you to check how clean the water would be. While a 7 is extremely rare due to the occurrence of external forces, the water in Boston should be relatively close compared to the other waterfronts in America.

Until next time,

Albert