Salem Sustainability, Energy, and Resiliency Committee

09/10/2026

https://www.npr.org/2026/09/10/nx-s1-5964676/scientists-august-hottest

The European climate service Copernicus said the Earth just sweltered through its hottest month on record in August. Scientists said the heat surge is mostly due to human-caused climate change.

09/10/2026

BREAKING: Donald Trump is trying to make it easier for private companies to harm habitats where endangered species live.

From the Cape to the Berkshires, Massachusetts’ plants and animals are critical to our environment.

As a mom, I'll always fight to protect our planet for our kids. I'm suing.

09/09/2026

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/un-admits-exceeding-paris-agreements-1-5-degrees-c-warming-target-is-unavoidable/

The world is set to blow past the Paris Agreement’s longtime threshold “within the next few years,” according to a new report

09/09/2026

Melting glaciers spell disaster around the world. Protecting people will be a challenge for decades to come.

09/09/2026

09/08/2026

Spotted in Salem!
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The spotted lanternfly, an invasive insect that can imperil certain kinds of trees and create headaches as its sticky excrement mists down onto patios and cars, has now been found in almost 150 communities in Massachusetts, about triple this time last year, officials say.

Just weeks ago, New Hampshire officials recorded what could be their first ever wild lanternfly population, spurring concerns that the pests are moving north.

Native to Asia, spotted lanternfly larvae pierce plants and the bark of trees, feeding on their sap, leaving behind a sticky residue, and inviting mold growth. They can be especially active around grapevines and maple, apple, and black walnut trees. While the adult bugs can fly, they mostly hop rapidly from place to place.

During a serious infestation, hundreds of flies can swarm tree trunks, yards, even decks, generating a mess for homeowners. Residents in other states have reported having to use umbrellas as a shield against deluges of lanternfly p**p while their backyard trees turned an apocalyptic black from the waste.

September is considered peak season for the bugs, which mature into gray winged insects about an inch long with black spots and red accents.

“Massachusetts is just now getting to the point where there is such a heavy infestation of spotted lanternfly that the general public is starting to take notice,” said Jennifer Forman Orth, an environmental biologist with the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources. “They just [keep] spreading.”

Last August, state officials reported lanternflies in more than 50 cities and towns. Now, infestations have spread to almost 150 communities, where large lanternfly populations lay eggs and feed on local plants.

“Once those eggs hatch,” said Piera Siegert, a New Hampshire state entomologist, “you can reduce” the lanternfly populations, “but it would be very difficult” to eradicate them. By spring, the eggs hatch into tiny black nymphs that disperse quickly and become hard to catch.

Massachusetts hasn’t seen significant reports of tree death or long-term damage from lanternflies, but that can take years, Orth said, even with a strong infestation.

Harmless to humans and pets, lanternflies are what’s known as a nuisance pest, according to the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management, which has logged the species in all of its counties.

But for some farmers, particularly growers of fruits, the insects represent a greater danger.

“They attack our grapes more than any other plant,” said John Galvan, a commercial small-fruit production researcher with UMass Extension.

He estimates roughly 10 percent of all orchard and berry farmers in Massachusetts may eventually be affected.

Agritourism ventures including pick-your-own orchards are especially at risk, both from lanternflies feeding on tree sap and the unpleasant swarms driving away visitors, Siegert said.

Their main host plant is tree-of-heaven, an invasive species from China.

Even if you were to cut those down, you shouldn’t be surprised to find the insects infesting your backyard maple instead, said Rolf Briggs, owner of Holliston-based Tree Specialists Inc., who has been getting two to three calls a week from homeowners about lanternfly outbreaks.

He describes patios and cars that have turned completely black under layers of sooty mold that feeds on the lanternflies’ sugary excrement.

The bugs “pass so much liquid that it comes to be like a misting of rain across your property,” Briggs said. “The layers of fungus get thicker and thicker until you can’t see the green of the leaves anymore, it’s all black.”

In Pennsylvania, where lanternflies first appeared in the US, “they had it so bad that people were using umbrellas to go from their front doors to their cars,” Briggs added. “That’s the future of what we’re going to see.”

The insects are thought to have arrived in the US as eggs inside a shipment of stone bound for Pennsylvania from Asia sometime between 2012 and 2014.

In 2019, Penn State economists estimated that unchecked growth of spotted lanternfly populations was costing their state around $324 million a year in losses to fruit growers and the forestry industry.

But seven years later, such losses haven’t fully materialized, said Timothy Kelsey, a professor in agricultural economics at Penn State. Still, lanternfly prevention efforts are costing producers and homeowners, he added, and will likely do the same in a denser state like Massachusetts.

“The out-of-pocket costs for the homeowners will exist in Massachusetts regardless of what the type of agricultural production you have,” he said.

Several states, including Pennsylvania, have imposed quarantining measures, which heap extra costs onto farmers who must now check their plant shipments to ensure they are free from claylike egg deposits or the small black bugs hiding inside, Siegert said.

In spite of those efforts, Pennsylvania still has lanternflies in more than 80 percent of its counties as of 2026, state data show.

“We already know from other states we can’t stop the spread,” Orth said, but “if you slow it down you can give people time to prepare to manage this pest.”

Lanternflies have already been spotted in every county of Connecticut as of this year, and on Aug. 25, New Hampshire officials confirmed their first field detection of spotted lanternflies in Salem.

The Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources has so far focused on trying to “slow the spread” to uninfested northern states, Orth said.

That means dealing with lanternfly populations in Massachusetts is mostly left up to residents.

Irene Phipps, who lives in Framingham, said it seemed like hundreds of lanternflies appeared in her neighborhood overnight recently.

“It’s upsetting,” she said, adding she had noticed them first in New York City over a year ago and heard friends complaining about lanternflies in Boston last year, before finally finding trees near her apartment covered.

Massachusetts officials have not mandated quarantining methods but have released multiple training guides on lanternfly removal and containment.

Experts previously advised people to squash the bugs on sight. Now the state’s fly management guide advises residents to use a plastic card to scrape their eggs off of trees, vacuum up live bugs with a shop vac, or employ sticky traps to catch them. Home remedies such as soap sprays are also popular, though Penn State Extension experts caution against using them as they could also harm plants.

Various insecticides, when professionally applied, are more effective, officials said. Cutting down an infested tree is unlikely to be a permanent solution, according to the guide.

Residents should also avoid parking under trees and check their vehicles before departing an infested area, Siegert said, as lanternflies are plant-hoppers that get around mostly by hitchhiking.

In 2021, Fitchburg was the first Massachusetts city to be infested with lanternflies.

But in an anomaly that has confounded researchers, surrounding towns and cities in northern Worcester County haven’t seen outbreaks, even as lanternflies have traveled to the farthest reaches of the Berkshires, the Merrimack Valley, and Bristol County.

Lanternflies now infest at least one city or town in every Massachusetts county except for those around Cape Cod and Islands, though Orth doesn’t hold out much hope that will continue.

“The host plants are there, and a lot of people will vacation to the Cape from infested areas,” she said. “We hope that people are being diligent.”

Native to Asia, the insects pose a serious risk to some trees and plants, and their sticky p**p can create a mess for residents.

09/07/2026

The state’s highest court has ruled against Northeastern University’s bid to expand its Marine Science Center on coastal land in Nahant, saying the town was within its rights to use eminent domain to block the development.

The ruling by the Supreme Judicial Court last week reversed a 2024 appeals court decision in favor of Northeastern, which found that the town had “no reasonable expectation” the university would ultimately dedicate land for public use as an ecological preserve.

“It is for a town to decide if and when to take property for proper conservation and open space purposes, and such a taking may not appear warranted so long as a private landowner leaves open space undeveloped,” Supreme Judicial Court Justice Elizabeth Dewar wrote in the decision released Thursday.

The ruling also ends an eight-year legal battle between the North Shore town and the university, which has operated its marine research center there since the 1960s.

Town officials in Nahant celebrated the ruling, which they said would preserve the land’s open character and its recreation and conservation uses.

“The Town looks forward to moving forward with this process,” town administrator Alison Nieto said in a statement.

Renata Nyul, a university spokesperson, said that Northeastern was “deeply disappointed” by the decision, “given the evidence of improper motive.” She added that, should the land be taken, there could be a “devastating impact” on the university’s ability to conduct “cutting-edge research” to benefit Nahant and other coastal communities.

“We hope today’s judgment will prompt town officials to pursue a collaborative path forward before Nahant taxpayers bear the steep cost of eminent domain,” she said last week.

The university first announced plans to expand its marine science center in 2018 by building a 55,000-square-foot addition on an undeveloped part of the property. The decision drew fierce opposition from local advocates, who argued it would ruin the natural beauty of the town’s East Point peninsula; Northeastern owns most of the area, while the town owns the easternmost tip.

In 2021, the town’s Board of Selectmen moved to take 12.5 acres of undeveloped land on East Point by eminent domain, in an effort to block the construction project. Northeastern filed a legal challenge, arguing that the land was being taken in bad faith.

But in Thursday’s ruling, Dewar wrote that “the town’s stated purpose for the taking is a proper public purpose.”

“Contrary to Northeastern’s argument, preserving or enhancing the scenic character of an area is a valid public purpose,” she wrote.

Northeastern also argued that the taking of land was influenced by private actors in the town who stood to benefit from blocking the campus expansion. But the court cited a deference to the select board’s “legislative judgments.”

“As we have already discussed, a town’s exercise of its eminent domain authority is a legislative act and as such is entitled to a presumption of validity,” Dewar wrote.

The court also found that Nahant’s use of eminent domain was not merely a pretext for other action — unlike a previous case cited by Northeastern — because even before the dispute, the town had long expressed its intention to keep the land in question undeveloped.

“There is no material dispute that the taking in fact will be used for the town’s stated public purpose,” Dewar wrote.

In the 1960s, Northeastern acquired about 20 acres that had been used for military purposes since World War II and into the late 1950s. In 1964, Nahant residents voted against buying the main parcel, but in the 1970s they obtained more than eight acres of former military property that is now Henry Cabot Lodge Park.

In 1966, Northeastern opened the marine research center and in 2018 announced plans to expand it by 55,000 square feet, drawing sharp opposition. Opponents, including the preservation trust and the town, took the case to court, arguing the university was legally obligated to manage the land as a nature preserve or open space.

The decision brings an end to an eight-year legal battle between the North Shore town and the university.

09/07/2026

Salem has a tree ordinance. Does it cover enough properties?
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As climate change pushes summer temperatures ever higher, trees are some of the best cooling agents cities have to help overheated neighborhoods. They provide shade and pull heat from the air, lowering urban temperatures by as much as 10 degrees.

Boston has been working hard in recent years to expand its urban forests, including launching a forestry division and prioritizing plantings in the neighborhoods that need them most. But if the city wants to grow more trees, it has to solve a thorny problem: how to stop residents from cutting them down.

“We’re not going to plant ourselves a robust and vibrant urban forest,” said David Meshoulam, the executive director of Tree Boston, a tree advocacy nonprofit. “We need to preserve those trees that we have.”

According to Boston’s latest tree assessment, the tree canopy — the branches and leaves that cover the ground when viewed from above — grew modestly by 0.5 percent between 2019 and 2024, covering 28.5 percent of the city when excluding the airport. This marked an improvement from the previous five-year period, when there was no net change in canopy coverage. But the city’s gains on open space and rights-of-way land were largely offset by removals on residential properties, which contain the largest share of tree canopy.

In Boston, the hottest neighborhoods tend to have the fewest trees.

Urban trees cool communities by blocking sunlight and releasing water v***r from their leaves.
Behind those losses are everyday decisions made by developers and residents: Trees are cut down to make room for housing, meet the stipulations of an insurance company, or create a better view. The problem comes when these collective choices constitute a significant loss of trees.

“There is no regulation, no ordinance, or state protection in place over private trees,” said Diana Fernandez Bibeau, the city’s parks and recreation commissioner, though she noted that Boston’s antiquated zoning laws give the city some room to engage with private landowners about their trees.

Some Massachusetts cities and towns have implemented local laws that regulate the removal of trees on private land, including Somerville and Lexington.

In Cambridge, the City Council passed strict protections for private trees in 2019. The city’s most recent tree report, spanning 2018 to 2024, found that residential properties experienced the most canopy growth, increasing by 4.5 percent.

“That difference is hard to ignore,” said Nasser Brahim, the Mystic River Watershed Association’s director of climate resilience, noting that Boston saw a roughly 1 percent decrease in residential tree canopy around the same time.

Cambridge requires residents to seek a permit to remove a tree that has a diameter of 6 inches or more at roughly chest height. Barring special circumstances, such as if the tree is dead or threatens a nearby home, residents must plant replacement trees or pay into a city fund if they want to cut one down.

Boston gained roughly 150 net acres of canopy between 2019 and 2024.

The largest gains were seen in East Boston, Jamaica Plain, South Boston, and West Roxbury. Hyde Park and Mattapan experienced net losses.

David Lefcourt, the city arborist, said the private tree protections required extra staff time but did not necessitate standing up an enforcement division. Cambridge hired an assistant city arborist who is responsible for managing the tree removal permits from private property owners and handling the tree planting side of the program.

Lefcourt said residents help keep an eye out for anyone trying to skirt the law: “It’s pretty tough to get away with,” he said. He tells contractors: “It’s going to be the next-door neighbors, it’s going to be the person walking their dog down the street, saying, ‘Hey, something doesn’t look right in this parcel.’”

An effort to pass a similar measure by Boston’s City Council did not gain traction. In 2023, an ordinance was filed that would have included protections for both public and private trees. The language regarding private trees did not make it into the final policy.

The city said at the time that it was adopting a “phased approach,” allowing it to “lead by example before engaging with the community to extend regulations to trees on private property.”

But Brian Swett, Boston’s chief climate officer, said a private tree ordinance is no longer being explored as a solution in the near term.

Instead, officials said, Boston is looking at other approaches, such as “pedestrian easements” that would allow homeowners to plant trees that the city then takes care of. It is also working with community partners to get more trees planted on private land.

“We’ve turned the corner where before 2019, the previous decade, we lost canopy coverage,” Swett said, adding, “We’ve shown the art of the possible in the last five years.”

In the meantime, tensions have flared between landowners seeking to remove trees and some residents who say city regulations on these trees are overdue.

In Hyde Park, several trees were cut down behind an apartment complex in June, including one so large that Becky Shuster, 64, couldn’t get her arms around it.

Shuster, who has lived in a house behind the apartment complex for nearly three decades, said, “I sat there and wept.” She said her deck and home are hotter and sunnier, but she is more concerned about the citywide consequences of trees on private property.

“They destroyed a piece of the tree canopy in Boston, and there’s absolutely no accountability,” she said.

Oleg Uritsky, the director of Advanced Property Management, which manages the apartment complex, said the company does not want to remove healthy trees, but the trees that were removed were in bad shape and dropping branches on neighbors’ yards.

Uritsky said new regulations on removing private trees would add bureaucracy, expense, and delays to cases when property owners need to move quickly to protect safety and homes.

A few years ago during a winter storm, a tree fell on Uritsky’s home in Newton, narrowly missing a window by his young son’s crib. He has since sought to have a large branch removed from a second “dangerous” tree in front of his house, but he said a company refused to do it, saying a city inspector “would not be happy.” Newton requires residents to seek a permit to remove trees that have a trunk diameter of 6 inches or more.

“Safety comes first, and to have additional red tape — I don’t think it’s a good idea,” Uritsky said.

While Boston figures out its next steps to protect private trees, advocates said the city’s gains on public land, aided by community partners, are nothing to scoff at.

Life as a city tree is an uphill battle, fought against depleted soils, pollutants like car exhaust and dog urine, and sometimes even vandalism. Planting the tree, by comparison, is the easy part.

Tree Boston plants trees and cares for them for two years before turning them over to the city. On a recent weekday morning in Harambee Park in Dorchester, two watering trucks staffed by a crew from the nonprofit moved from tree to tree, pumping 30 gallons into watering bags. Despite temperatures hovering in the mid-70s, the team was sweating. The park has very little tree cover, even along the pathways that run between playing fields.

Marco Lomax, the tree care coordinator for Tree Boston, knelt by a young London plane tree and gave it a shake to check how well it had rooted in the rocky soil. He pointed to the nearby roadway, where cars spew pollutants that coat trees’ leaves and send toxic runoff into the ground. One time, he said, the non-profit visited a tree it planted to find a pile of b**r bottles and the stakes keeping the tree upright torn out and flung across the grass.

“We’re throwing these trees in the deep end,” he said.

Trees are one of the best tools cities have to protect against extreme temperatures.

09/06/2026

09/06/2026

On Sunday, there’s a high risk of rip currents at most Massachusetts beaches, including those on Cape Cod and the Islands, the National Weather Service in Boston warned on Saturday.

NWS Boston issued the rip current warning for east-facing beaches starting at 2 a.m. Sunday, through 8 p.m. , with the possibility that the dangerous conditions could continue into Labor Day.

“Especially since that’s a holiday, a weekend day that a lot of people might be headed to the beach, we want to just give everyone a heads-up that the rip current risk is still going to be high on Monday, as well,” said Bryce Williams, a NWS Boston meteorologist. “Always take precautions if you’re going out to the water.”

Williams said the warning broadly covers Eastern Massachusetts’ coastline, including Cape Cod and the Islands, but the risk is lower along the inner bay. The NWS warning map can make it appear as though both sides of Cape Cod are included because the warning highlights entire counties, he said.

Beachgoers are encouraged to check with lifeguards and beach staff before entering the water.

Rip currents don’t pull you under water, they pull you away from shore, according to Ken Mahan, the Globe’s lead meteorologist. Often mistakenly called riptides or undertow, rip currents are powerful, narrow channels of water that rapidly flow away from the beach and extend through the breaker zone where waves form, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The warning comes just weeks after an 81-year-old New York woman was caught in a possible rip current off Herring Cove in Provincetown and died.

A 55-year-old Cambridge man also died this summer, 100 yards off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard after he went into the water at the Long Point Wildlife Refuge to rescue his teenage children, who were caught in a rip current and called for help.

If you’re caught in a rip current, stay calm and avoid trying to swim directly back to shore, experts say. Instead, swim parallel to the shoreline until you’re out of the current, then make your way toward shore. If you’re too tired to swim, float or tread water and signal for help by waving your arms and calling out.

If you see someone else caught in a rip current, don’t jump in after them unless you’re trained and have the proper flotation equipment. Alert a lifeguard or call 911, and, if possible, throw the person something that floats or use an object to help them reach safety.

NWS Boston issued the warning for east-facing beaches starting at 2 a.m. Sunday, through 8 p.m. that day.