Belmont Farmers’ Market Opens June 2

 May/June 2022, Newsletter  Comments Off on Belmont Farmers’ Market Opens June 2
May 082022
 
Belmont Farmers’ Market Opens June 2

The Belmont Farmers’ Market 17th season opens on Thursday, June 2, and will be operating on Thursdays from 2 to 6:30 PM in the Belmont Center municipal parking lot. Opening day will feature information about food assistance programs available statewide and through programs offered in Belmont and at the market. Find out about SNAP (formerly food stamps), HIP (free produce for SNAP recipients), and the Farmers Market Nutrition Program (free produce for seniors and WIC families). The market doubles SNAP funds; note that the number of SNAP households in Belmont increased by almost 50% between 2019 and 2021. You can [READ MORE]

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How Can We Control Urban Rats?

 Environment, May/June 2022  Comments Off on How Can We Control Urban Rats?
May 082022
 
How Can We Control Urban Rats?

By Fred Bouchard Plague-ridden Saxony hired the legendary Pied Piper to toot rats out of Hamelin. Other age-old tactics—trapping, shooting, pan-banging—raise fresh collateral issues in densely populated areas, in addition to mess and noise. Chicago in recent years resorted to sniper stealth by siccing 1,000 neutered feral cats on its record rat population. Passive approaches to rat control yield slow results, as city-centric man confronts Rattus norvegicus, the world’s most populous and prolific urban mammal. Rat fertility is gaining ground as shorter, warmer winters encourage them to squeeze out an extra litter or three a year. Exterminators concur that the [READ MORE]

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Miyawaki Forest Boosts Biodiversity, Resilience

 Climate Change, Environment, May/June 2022, Newsletter, Plants  Comments Off on Miyawaki Forest Boosts Biodiversity, Resilience
May 082022
 
Miyawaki Forest Boosts Biodiversity, Resilience

By Maya Dutta  The first Miyawaki forest in the northeast United States was planted in Cambridge’s Danehy Park last September. Miyawaki forests are dense, biodiverse pocket forests that aim to recreate the symbiotic relationships between diverse life forms that make a natural forest so resilient. By densely planting a diverse array of native species, Miyawaki forests encourage nutrient exchange between the plants and with fungal and microbial life in the soil, resulting in fast-growing forests with high survival rates.  Benefits of Miyawaki forests The Miyawaki method offers a vision of not just planting trees to raise their sheer number, but [READ MORE]

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Virginia “Ginny” Jordan

 May/June 2022, Newsletter, Volunteer  Comments Off on Virginia “Ginny” Jordan
May 082022
 
Virginia “Ginny” Jordan

Virginia “Ginny” Sara Jordan died on March 28, 2022. Ginny was a woman of many accomplishments. She was a Phi Beta Kappa Radcliffe graduate with a master’s in applied math, and a programmer and tech expert who held instrumental roles at EG&G, NEC, and Polaroid. She was a long-time Belmont Town Meeting member, and she rallied her neighbors to found the nonprofit Friends of the Benton Library, which now operates the facility and is supported entirely by donations. But here at the Belmont Citizens Forum, we remember Ginny because she served on the BCF Newsletter Committee. Ginny was a painstaking, [READ MORE]

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Belmont Community Path Costs Explained

 Bicycles and bike paths, Bike Paths, May/June 2022, Newsletter  Comments Off on Belmont Community Path Costs Explained
May 082022
 
Belmont Community Path Costs Explained

By Vincent Stanton, Jr. The Belmont Community Path is approaching an important milestone—a potential construction funding decision by the Boston region Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO). Although municipalities, including Belmont, are responsible for funding path design and for securing the path right of way, state and federal governments fully fund path construction via the Transportation Improvement Program (TIP). Construction costs are generally about 85% of total project costs. TIP funds are allocated to cities and towns in the greater Boston area via a competitive process administered by the Boston MPO, which receives about 80% of its budget from the federal highway [READ MORE]

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New Director Discusses Habitat’s Future

 Climate Change, Environment, May/June 2022, Newsletter, Open Space  Comments Off on New Director Discusses Habitat’s Future
May 052022
 
New Director Discusses Habitat’s Future

By Jeffrey North This interview has been edited for length and clarity. BCF Congratulations on your December appointment to the role of regional director for Metro West. We understand you will have oversight of the Habitat Education Center and Wildlife Sanctuary in Belmont, as well as the wildlife sanctuaries Broadmoor in Natick, Drumlin Farm in Lincoln, and Waseeka in Hopkinton. You’ve been in nonprofit management and some notable education roles. Your background includes teaching, starting a 6–12 grade school, leading a graduate school, strategy and organization design consulting with nonprofit organizations, and studying communities’ shared sense of direction. Can you [READ MORE]

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Belmont Moves on Decarbonization Roadmap

 Climate Change, May/June 2022, Newsletter, Solar Power, Transit  Comments Off on Belmont Moves on Decarbonization Roadmap
May 052022
 
Belmont Moves on Decarbonization Roadmap

By Marty Bitner and James Booth In 2009, Belmont’s Town Meeting committed to reducing Belmont’s emissions of the greenhouse gasses that drive dangerous climate change. In 2019, the Belmont Energy Committee put forward the Belmont Climate Action Roadmap for achieving our town’s greenhouse gas reduction goal. The general framework laid out a two-part strategy that was strongly endorsed by a vote of Town Meeting in May 2019: Electrify everything! (adopt electric vehicles and transition to heating with electric heat pumps) Move Belmont’s electricity supply to renewable sources How are we doing with moving forward on this strategy? Vehicles We analyzed [READ MORE]

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Belmont’s Watersheds Cross Many Boundaries

 Environment, May/June 2022, Newsletter, Sewers, Water Quality  Comments Off on Belmont’s Watersheds Cross Many Boundaries
May 052022
 
Belmont’s Watersheds Cross Many Boundaries

By Anne-Marie Lambert Here in Belmont, we live on the edge of two large watersheds—the Mystic River watershed and the Charles River watershed. Understanding our role in these watersheds is more important than ever as storms in the Northeast grow more intense and more frequent, and as the rise in Atlantic Ocean sea levels starts to affect the underground water table.  The lack of alignment between our political maps and the topography of our watersheds can make it tricky to understand Belmont’s role. In the flat low-lying areas of town where there isn’t much gradient, waters flow in directions that [READ MORE]

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Lone Tree Hill Volunteers Clean, Weed, Plant

 Environment, Lone Tree Hill, May/June 2022, Newsletter, Open Space, Plants  Comments Off on Lone Tree Hill Volunteers Clean, Weed, Plant
May 052022
 
Lone Tree Hill Volunteers Clean, Weed, Plant

By Radha Iyengar On Saturday, April 30, a sunny but cool day, BCF, in conjunction with the Judy Record Conservation Fund, held its eighth annual Lone Tree Hill Volunteer Day.  At the Pine Allee, volunteers planted 46 white pine saplings of which 40 saplings were store bought and 6 were transplants from Lone Tree Hill. The new plants replaced some of the Allee’s missing trees as well as some of the dead saplings from the 2017-2019 volunteer day plantings. At the other end of the property, the volunteers collected 11 bags of trash, one box of recyclables and six bags [READ MORE]

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Belmont Needs More Affordable Housing

 Construction and Housing, May/June 2022, Newsletter  Comments Off on Belmont Needs More Affordable Housing
May 052022
 
Belmont Needs More Affordable Housing

By Tomi Olson and Rachel Heller Belmont has great schools, restaurants, and local businesses and is located near job centers in Boston, Cambridge, and the MetroWest area. The Boston area’s burgeoning life sciences industry alone is projected to create up to 40,000 new jobs by 2024, but our region’s economic engine is hampered by a lack of housing near jobs—and Belmont’s limited housing supply is part of that problem.  Population growth, together with housing production that hasn’t kept pace, has made housing shortages in appealing parts of the country like ours front-page news. Our region builds much less housing every [READ MORE]

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