Great Barrington Select Board Meets in Housatonic

Rising Mill closure on the agenda. Here is the audio.

Locally Grown Program Notes

Be listening for Eli Pariser, Executive Director of MoveOn.org.

Eli Pariser, joined MoveOn.org after starting 9-11peace.org, an international peace campaign with over half a million supporters in 192 countries. (9-11peace.org is now a part of MoveOn.org.) Eli directed MoveOn's campaign against the Iraq war, tripling the member base in the process, and was one of the co-founders of the ad contest Bush in 30 Seconds. He's been profiled in the New York Times Magazine, Money Magazine, Details, Mother Jones, and other publications, and has appeared on every major cable news channel and television network. Eli graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in Political Science from Simon's Rock College. He is originally from Camden, Maine, and now lives in New York City.

Tuesday, May 24 at 8:00 am--WBCR-LP Special Presentation, Eli Pariser delivers 2005 Commencement Address at Simon's Rock College of Bard

Wednesday, May 25 at noon--Eli Pariser interview on Locally Grown

Wednesday, May 25 at 7:00 pm--WBCR-LP Special Presentation, Eli Pariser delivers 2005 Commencement Address at Simon's Rock College of Bard

Saturday, May 28 at 10:00 am--Eli Pariser interview on Locally Grown.

Thanks for listening, Bye.

Sixth Annual Native Plant Sale

Berkshire Wildlife Sanctuaries announces its Sixth Annual Native Plant Sale, Pleasant Valley Wildlife Sanctuary, 472 W. Mountain Rd., Lenox, MA, on June 3-5, at from 9 am to 4 pm, rain or shine.

The sale of nursery-grown wildflowers, ferns, trees, and shrubs will benefit programs at Pleasant Valley as well as Canoe Meadows in Pittsfield. Joseph Strauch, author of "Wildflowers of the Berkshire & Taconic Hills", will offer gardening recommendations and advice.

Monica Fadding of Marconica Inc. will present a free workshop at 1 pm on Friday and Saturday, "Five Steps to a Beautiful Natural Woodland". Participants will learn to enhance special places on their property-a fallen log, large rock, etc.-by identifying and removing invasives and encouraging Berkshire wildflowers. Please sign up in advance.

More than seventy-five species of plants for all garden conditions are for sale, including wild ginger, lady's slipper, columbine, and fringed gentian. Admission to the sale is free and Mass Audubon members receive a 10% discount on their purchases.

Please call 413-637-0320 for further information.

This Week's Program Notes

Join us for a fascinating panel discussion on notable Great Barrington native, W.E.B. DuBois. We also have a sense of place interview with local historian and writer Bernard Drew. Bernard takes to the Muddy Brook area of Great Barrington and we discuss it's history and heritage.

Will McDougal, Host of the Culture Shift program on WBCR Thurday nights at 10:00, shares an excerpt from an interview he did with Melissa Kushi, Executive Director of the Our Sacred Future Foundation.

The program wraps up with an stirring charge put to the Class of 2005 graduates of Simon's Rock College. Commencement was held this past Saturday and Dr. Leon Botstein, President of Simon's Rock College and Bard College issued a ringing defense of the enlightenment and rationality in our modern world. Tune in, its worth the effort.

Special Edition: Farmers Markets Are Back

Locally Grown is celebrating the return of the Farmers Markets to the Berkshires. They kickoff this weekend with Sheffield on Friday and Great Barrington on Saturday morning. We interviewed Danielle Mullen, Executive Director of Berkshire Grown about her organization and their support for our local farmers. Berkshire Grown will be providing a Farmers Market Report to Locally Grown all through the Berkshire growing season. Listeners will know what to expect at the Farmers Markets week-to-week.

Our microphones will be at the Sheffield Farmers Market this afternoon. Come on down and voice your support for local farmers and their products.

Thanks for listening, bye.

Public Forum on Electoral Reform

Berkshires for Progressive Change is sponsoring a public forum on electoral reform. The forum features four speakers:

Bill Shein, political humorist, blogger, and Berkshire Eagle columnist;

Pamela Wilmot, Executive Director of Massachusetts Common Cause;

Alexandra Russell, Director of Massachusetts Voters for Fair Elections; and

Peter Vickery, member of the Massachusetts Governor's Council

The speakers will give an overview of the electoral system and suggest ways in which it can be improved. Topics of discussion include: redistricting, public financing, and instant runoff voting, as well as other electoral issues.

Berkshires for Progressive Change is a grassroots organization dedicated to supporting candidates and issues that advance socially responsible reform in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

The forum is being held at the Monument Mountain Regional High School Auditorium on Wednesday, May 11 at 7:15. The event is free and open to the public.

For more information please call Bob Feuer at (413) 298-4749.

A Visit to the Vernal Pools Adjacent to Lake Mansfield

We recently had the pleasure of a visit to the vernal pools by Lake Mansfield to tape an interview with Suzie Baum from the Lake Mansfield Alliance. We also had the opportunity to capture the sounds of a spring ritual in these Berkshire Hills, Peepers and Wood Frogs. It was a lovely evening, a great interview, and the frogs were in full voice.

The Program also features an interview with the actors/producers involved in mounting the first-ever Berkshire Fringe performance festival. Get in on the ground floor of this exciting new event on the local cultural landscape. Please join us.

The interviews will be heard on Locally Grown in a encore broadcast on Saturday, April 30 at 10:00 am. Thanks for listening, Bye.

Ten Certified Vernal Pools in Great Barrington

According the Commonwealth's Natural Heritage & Endangered Species Program there are ten certified vernal pools in the Town of Great Barrington. I'm currently trying to find out where they are located.

Vernal Pool Certification

Certification is the procedure by which citizens in Massachusetts can document the existence of a vernal pool. The documentation material is submitted to the Natural Heritage & Endangered Species Program which then certifies the vernal pool. When a vernal pool has been certified, it receives automatically any protection afforded to vernal pools under the Wetlands Protection Act. If a pool has not been certified prior to a Notice of Intent hearing, then evidence must be provided during that hearing to support the argument that the water body is a vernal pool. Many towns have local Bylaws which further strengthen the wetland regulations pertaining to vernal pools.

Vernal pool certification requires evidence that a vernal pool exists physically and that it contains the biological indicators which define it as a vernal pool. The most obvious and most easily documented indicators are the "obligate species" which can only be observed during the seasons of breeding and development (fall through summer, depending on the species). Spring is generally the best time to document a pool by the obligate species method. In other seasons of the year, evidence for certification can be gathered by documenting the use of the pool by various "facultative species". These are organisms which use various wetlands as well as vernal pools. If they are using a vernal pool and that pool is free of fish, then the pool can be certified. In a similar manner, if a pool is found in the dry condition (fish-free) and it has remains of facultative species, the dry pool can be certified.

In Massachusetts, vernal pools are certified as "existing" by the Natural Heritage & Endangered Species Program based on documentation by citizens. Documentation for vernal pool certification has three components: 1) you must complete and sign the Observation Form, 2) provide Maps that precisely locate the vernal pool, and 3) provide Evidence for the presence of the vernal pool itself and its use by the indicator species. The Evidence will differ depending on both the season of year and the species you use to certify the pool.

For more information, links and forms: http://www.vernalpool.org/macert_3.htm