Spring 2021

FIELDNOTES Spring 2021

letter from the editors As we embark once again through this quarter of Zoom meetings, Slack messages, and the world of online learning, we look onto the horizon at a hopeful future where we can all safely return to our regular conference room in the UW Fisheries Building and meet again in person. This quarter—hopefully our last online—has once again pushed us to find, write, and showcase the outstanding undergraduate research done by the College of the Environment.

This quarter, we take a look at undergrad research ranging from the microhabitat choice of salamanders in the Union Bay Natural Area to the use of drones to detect wetland loss in Washington State. In our community features, we highlight organizations like the Black Farmers Collective, spotlight the disparities in access to clean air that accompany socioeconomic status, and discuss the issue of light pollution across the US. The editorial board this quarter also touches on more social aspects of scicomm, such as the sinister combination of environmentalism and the white nationalism movement, and how misinformation can be published in predatory journals.

As the days pass, we remain hopeful that the era of online learning is behind us, but take with us the lessons learned in the time of COVID-19 and look forward to this coming year with bright eyes.

We continue to thank the College of the Environment for their generous support throughout our endeavors. In addition, we thank our fearless leader Julian Olden for his guidance, wise words, and continued support throughout the quarter.

COVER PHOTO CHRIS MANTEGNA

Best,

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meet the team

MADELINE BROOKS CO-EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

EMILY SEAMAN CO-EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

ASHIKA CAPIRALA DESIGN LEAD

LISSA BREWER EDITOR, DESIGN

ANTHONY EDWARDS EDITOR

SIDNEY GREENSLATE EDITOR

BELLA HILLYER EDITOR

ERIKA KHOSROVIAN EDITOR

CHAJA LEVY EDITOR

MADIE MAMER EDITOR

JUAN MORFIN EDITOR

JAZZY SHEPARD EDITOR

LIAM STONE DESIGN

SHAWREE ZHANG EDITOR

JULIAN OLDEN FACULTY ADVISOR

FIELDNOTES / SPRING 2021 3

table of contents feature article 6

SEASONAL PATTERNS OF FIN WHALE CALLS IN THE NORTHEAST PACIFIC KATHLEEN GONZALEZ, OCEANOGRAPHY ‘21

research communications 14

LONG-TOED SALAMANDER MICROHABITAT PREFERENCE AND MOVEMENT IN THE UNION BAY NATURAL AREA JULIANNA HOZA, ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & RESOURCE MANAGEMENT AND AFS ‘21

17

MONITORING INVASIVE WETLAND VEGETATION WITH DRONES: A PILOT STUDY ON REED CANARY GRASS ASTRID SANNA, ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & RESOURCE MANAGEMENT ‘20

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POTENTIAL PATTERNS AND DRIVERS OF LAKE USE IN WASHINGTON STATE HANNAH KIELER, AFS AND MARINE BIOLOGY ‘21

community features 24

THE AGE OF (MIS)INFORMATION JAZZY SHEPARD, OCEANOGRAPHY ‘22

26

GROWING DISPARITIES BETWEEN ACCESS TO CLEAN AIR AND SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS IN WASHINGTON ANTHONY EDWARDS, ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES ‘23 AND BELLA HILLYER, PROGRAM ON THE ENVIRONMENT ‘23

29

PARADISE IN TROUBLE: THE CO-OPTING OF ENVIRONMENTALISM BY WHITE NATIONALISTS CHAJA LEVY, ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & RESOURCE MANAGEMENT ‘21 AND JUAN MORFIN, JOURNALISM & PUBLIC INTEREST COMMUNICATION ‘22

32

SATELLITES, STREETLIGHTS, AND THE STARS: LIGHT POLLUTION IN OUR MODERN WORLD LISSA BREWER, ENGLISH LITERATURE ‘21, ERIKA KHOSROVIAN, BIOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY ‘23, AND MADELINE MAMER, EARTH AND SPACE SCIENCES ‘21

35

“FIELD OF DREAMS”: HOW THE BLACK FARMERS COLLECTIVE IS CULTIVATING HEALING AT SMALL AXE FARM SIDNEY GREENSLATE, LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE ‘21 AND SHAWREE ZHANG, ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & RESOURCE MANAGEMENT ‘22

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feature article

PHOTO ASHIKA CAPIRALA

Seasonal Patterns of Fin Whale Calls in the Northeast Pacific

BY KATHLEEN GONZALEZ

ABSTRACT After a century of commercial whaling, fin whales are currently listed as a vulnerable species and are increasingly at risk of displacement and reduced success in reproduction. These grievous results stem from behavioral changes found by new studies in whale endangerment from anthropogenic noise, vessel traffic, entanglement, and habitat degradation. As there are currently no studies on fin whale location preference in the Northeast Pacific, this study sought to identify fin whale calls to analyze patterns in distribution, or trends, based on movement and site preference. Data was collected with a low-frequency hydrophone and a vertical seismometer from a cabled observatory at the southern foot of a submarine seamount ~475 km from the Oregon coast, and adjacent to the continental slope ~125 km from the Oregon coast respectively. Fin whale calls were identified and analyzed with an algorithm for automatic detection. Gross call differences in vocalizing fin whales were analyzed to identify seasonal trends in call counts from both sites over five years. The trend of detections shows that the fin whales’ calling season appears earlier in the year and in greater magnitude on average closer to the continental shelf, with presence in more pelagic waters following in the subsequent two to three months. This could be due to the relationship between climate and the amount of prey available at coastal sites, and fin whale migration in response to prey distribution.

INTRODUCTION Over a century of commercial whaling has endangered many species of whale.

As of today fin whales are classified as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN 2020). Since the international ban of commercial whaling, several species have made recoveries in populations.

However vulnerable species are increasingly at risk of endangerment from new anthropogenic noise, traffic, entanglement, and habitat degradation (Clapham et al. 1999). Methods for observing whales include visual surveys, satellite tagging, and passive acoustic monitoring (Weirathmueller 2016).

Visual surveys are used to estimate 6 fieldnotesjournal.org

abundance and identify individual animals, although this method is limited by field conditions which can make sightings difficult. Tagging experiments are restricted by the deployment methods used and the sample size of whales tagged, but can report when a whale is near the surface (Panigada et al. 2017), and some even give insight to diving and swimming patterns below the surface which cannot be accounted for visually. Passive acoustic monitoring of whale calls has the benefit of recording data for long periods in locations that do not have to be visited regularly in person. This can also provide insights into their social behavior below the surface. A drawback of this method is that only vocalizing whales are recorded,

therefore determining popu­­­lation den­ sities requires separate methods to account for non-vocalizing whales.

One source for vocalizations in fin whales can be found during the fall and winter months as mature males compete for the attention of females. Fin whales are considered mature between five and fifteen years and they travel in deep-water offshore to migrate from feeding and breeding grounds. Their diet consists of krill and small schooling fish, and is determined through analysis of stomach contents from necropsies, fecal samples (Hunt et al. 2013), and whales captured during whaling. However, knowledge of the prey species is limited by the seasonality and location of catches (Mizroch et al. 2009). Fin whale

FEATURE ARTICLE

Fin whale migration behavior may be linked to the distribution and abundance of this species’ food source, which in turn may be correlated to climate covariates such as sea surface temperature (SST) and winter mixing. distribution ranges from the Subarctic Boundary to the southerly reaches of the California Current, and have been recorded in the Northeast Pacific year-round. Studies of fin whale call abundance in the Southern California Bight show calling trends consistent with visual survey estimates from 2006 to 2012 (Širovic et al. 2015). This provides evidence that passive acoustics can be a useful tool in estimating population trends and distribution.

Observations of seasonal calling patterns show peak call detections occur during the fall and winter months (Stafford et al. 2009). An audio track of fin whale calls predominantly headed northwest along the continental shelf suggests that a portion of the fin whale population maintain residency rather than the expected seasonal southern migration pattern that most baleen species follow (Soule and Wilcock 2013). Fin whale migration behavior may be linked to the distribution and abundance of this species’ food source, which in turn may be correlated to climate covariates such as sea surface temperature (SST) and winter mixing.

Though there are currently no studies on fin whale preference for bathymetry and proximity to the coast in the Northeast Pacific, it has been found that baleen species along the eastern coast of North America congregate near

the continental shelf and areas of high bathymetric relief (Roberts et al. 2016).

This study seeks to detect and identify fin whale calls to analyze distribution trends between two sites with differing proximity to the coast during the fall and winter months. Analysis of fin whale vocalization trends during the fall and winter months would lead to more insight on fin whale call distributions in the Northeast Pacific. I hypothesize there to be a greater presence of fin whale calls closer to the continental shelf, as compared to pelagic sites further offshore due to greater coastal production and high bathymetric relief.

Biological productivity at the coast and offshore from covariates related to bathymetry and SST may contribute to the understanding of fin whale spatial ecology in the Northeast Pacific.

METHODS Data acquisition Fin whale call data was obtained from two IRIS stations HYSB1 and AXBA1 (https://www.iris.edu/hq/), with their coordinates (44.51°N, -125.41°W) and

(45.80°N, -129.74°W) respectively (Fig. 1). Data was collected with a vertical seismometer (channel HHZ, Guralp manufacturer, model CMG-DM24 Mk3) at -2920.5 meters with a 200 Hz sampling rate at the Slope Base site ( ~125 km from the Oregon coast), and a low-frequency hydrophone (channel HDH, High Tech manufacturer, model DM-24 Mk3) at -2607.2 meters with a 200 Hz sampling rate at the Axial Base site (~475 km from the Oregon coast).

Instrumentation used is connected through the Oceans Observatories Initiative Cable Array Network located in the Northeast Pacific off the coasts of Washington and Oregon (https://ooinet. oceanobservatories.org/). SST data from both sites were obtained from NASA’s Physical Oceanography Distributed Active Archive Center (https://podaac. jpl.nasa.gov/) and provided through Simons Collaborative Marine Atlas Project (https://simonscmap.com/).

Data is derived from a combination of multiple AVHRR (Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer) satellites along with in-situ sea surface temperature measurements from ship and buoy measurements.

FIGURE 1 Study site locations along the cabled array. Reproduced from OOI Regional Cabled Array.

FIELDNOTES / SPRING 2021 7

FEATURE ARTICLE

Call detection

RESULTS

Fin whale calls were automatically detected using spectrogram correlation (Mellinger and Clark 2000). This method cross-correlates a time− frequency kernel, created with the specifications of a human-verified fin whale call, with a spectrogram and waveform of the recording. Detection is considered to have occurred when the correlation value exceeds the specified time and frequency threshold. In the case of our detector a duration of 2 s and frequency between 15 and 25 Hz (Fig. 2). To optimize precision and recall values, threshold prominence values of 0.6 for both sites were determined, where detection scores are scaled by an arbitrary constant so only relative heights of values are significant.

Reliability was determined by human visual confirmation of validity with the use of the waveform panel. Fin whale calls from August through April from 2015 through 2020 were observed for trend analysis.

A total of 143,102 fin whale calls were detected at two sites over five seasons (1,243 days), although some calls may have been falsely detected or neglected due to instrument variation. The highest calling anomalies occurred in the 20152016 season at the Slope Base site, and in the 2017-2018 season at Axial Base where a great number of fin whale calls were detected (Table 1). These suspect increases in call counts may be attributed to sensor or code error, therefore analysis is focused on seasonal patterns. Total and average seasonal call counts over all five years of data are greatest at the Slope Base site.

Trend analyses

Call detections for both sites are correlated with hours of call presence.

Their comparison helps account for detection biases by providing a simple “true/false” metric for fin whale presence (Fig. 3). Patterns of peak months for calling correlate with hours of call presence across the 2018-2019 season demonstrating reliability. The count detection and hours of presence scale for Slope Base is larger than at Axial Base, showing a greater number of calls and longer call presence detected at the site.

The Slope Base site has a larger amount of seasonal call counts on average compared to Axial Base. A noticeable flip in the trend where Axial Base had the most call counts occurred in the 2017-2018 season (Fig. 4).

TABLE 1 Total fin whale call detections per annual season and over five years of data collection.

SEASON

AXIAL BASE

SLOPE BASE

2015-2016 2016-2017 2017-2018 2018-2019 2019-2020

8413 5892 30306 2282 3840 50733

48371 11312 7248 13268 12170 92369

TOTAL CALL COUNTS

Methods for analysis include a histogram code for identifying patterns and gross count differences, and an algorithm for cross-correlation comparison of waveform and spectrogram created with Python. Visualizing trends in seasonal call counts was made easy in Microsoft Excel (2019). Seasonal and interannual trends in the abundance of fin whale calling across sites were evaluated by overall monthly and annual mean daily fin whale call detection rate and hourly call presence index.

FIGURE 2 (a) Example spectrogram of a recording showing seven fin whale call doublets. (b) The resulting detection score of fin whale calls in a waveform, where detection scores are scaled by an arbitrary constant so only relative heights of values are significant. (c) The spectrogram correlation kernel, with violet representing negative areas, yellow representing positive areas, and navy representing the zero background.

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FEATURE ARTICLE

FIGURE 3 Detection counts for the 2018-2019 calling season sorted into bins of 7-day periods over months corresponding to the calling seasons at both sites. The count and hour axes are scaled for respective call counts and call presence detected at the sites.

with high percentage from December to March, the Slope Base site has two peaks in November and January. January peaks of greatest monthly average call counts at both sites in this study match the reported timeframe for winter mixing in the Pacific Ocean (Venrick et al. 1993). The most notable observation is that fin whale presence is detected two to three months earlier at the Slope Base site than at Axial Base, with both calling seasons lasting approximately seven months (Fig. 5).

Sea surface temperatures from available data (January 1, 2015 through April 27, 2019) were plotted in Simons CMAP to find correlations between trends of increased calling at both sites.

High winter SST values in early 2015 may cautiously be associated with the “blob” and correlate with the greatest number of calls at the Slope Base site during the 2015-2016 season (Fig. 6b).

A spike in temperature can be seen in the 2017-2018 season at Axial Base which may correspond to the anomalous flipped trend in calling averages, if not attributed to sensor error or background noise (Fig. 6a).

DISCUSSION

FIGURE 4 (a, c) Average percent of seasonal fin whale call detections at Axial and Slope Base respectively, visualized in a pie chart. (b, d) Average percent of seasonal fin whale call detections at Axial and Slope Base respectively, visualized in a histogram. Visualization of seasonal call counts are averaged over all five years of data collected and normalized with hours of presence.

The highest call count at Slope Base occurred in the 2015-2016 season, where a very high number of fin whale calls were detected (Fig. 4). The 20152016 season is notable for a large mass of relatively warm water in the Pacific Ocean commonly known as the “blob”.

Fin whale calls were generally detected at Axial Base between October and April, and at Slope Base between October and January with peaks in August and February (Fig. 5). While the average monthly call counts at Axial Base show a single peak in January

This study analyzed five years of data from sites at the base of the continental slope and 300 km further offshore for fin whale counts. It enables a comparison of both temporal patterns and spatial trends between and near offshore sites. The analysis was limited to investigating patterns in relative counts and gross differences in counts as it is extremely hard to normalize data between sites for sensor and sensor installation differences or acoustic propagation. Detection events only occur when whales are vocalizing, therefore determining population densities requires separate methods to account for non-vocalizing FIELDNOTES / SPRING 2021 9

FEATURE ARTICLE

North-South migrational movement.

This trend of calling presence could be correlated with this species’ food source, as productive coastal waters would have more resources available for a greater abundance of prey. This may cause a phytoplankton bloom earlier in the season and then a lag following zooplankton grazing, where fin whales congregate in productive coastal waters and then disperse offshore later in the season either in search of food or for breeding.

CONCLUSION FIGURE 5 (a, c) Average percent of monthly fin whale call detections at Axial and Slope Base respectively, visualized in a pie chart. (b, d) Average percent of monthly fin whale call detections at Axial and Slope Base respectively, visualized in a histogram.

FIGURE 6 (a) A spike in temperature can be seen in the 2017-2018 at Axial Base season corresponding to the flipped trend in call averages. This covariate may correlate to the distribution of prey over the season. Data only available from January 1, 2015 through April 27, 2019.

whales and the calling rate of whales that vocalize.

Call counts are generally larger at Slope Base than at Axial Base; this could be due to preference in bathymetric proximity to the coastal shelf. Fin whales are present two to 10 fieldnotesjournal.org

three months earlier at the Slope Base site than the Axial Base site over all five seasons, with the calling season at Axial Base subsequently ending two to three months later. This may suggest seasonal East-West fin whale movement in addition to the previously known

While studies along the Eastern coast of North America have found an abundance of fin whale calling near areas of high bathymetric relief, this study aimed to analyze seasonal call patterns between two sites at different distances from the coast. Fin whale calling occurs two to three months earlier at the near shore Slope Base site than further offshore at the Axial Base site near the foot of a submarine volcano, having the calling season at Axial Base ending a subsequent two to three months later.

This could be indicative of the relation between climate and prey abundance, as measured by sea surface temperature

Fin whale calling occurs two to three months earlier at the near shore Slope Base site than further offshore at the Axial Base site, having the calling season at Axial Base ending a subsequent two to three months later. This could be indicative of the relation between climate and prey abundance.

FEATURE ARTICLE

FIGURE 6 (b) High winter values in early 2015 may cautiously be associated with the “blob”, corresponding with the greatest number of fin whale calls during the 2015-2016 season. Sea surface temperature from January 1, 2015 through April 27, 2019 at the Slope Base site.

and productivity from winter mixing.

Overall trends show greater counts of fin whale call detection and presence at the Slope Base site likely due to the proximity to the coastal shelf and prey.

As availability of prey in productive waters decreases, fin whales may disperse offshore in search of food or for reproduction. Further studies can be done to determine the relationship between climate and species’ prey, visualize migration of fin whale populations, account for total population densities, and assess the precision of instrumentation used to collect data.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank William Wilcock for his insightful suggestions and guidance during my research and analysis, Rose Hilmo for their help with the use of the automatic detection algorithm, Deborah Kelley and Wendi Ruef for inspiring me to research this topic, and my Ocean 445 peers for their comments and review of the manuscript and presentations.

FIELDNOTES / SPRING 2021 11

PHOTO KATIE HEARTHER

esearch ommunications

BY JULIANNA HOZA

LONG-TOED SALAMANDERS: MICROHABITAT PREFERENCE AND MOVEMENT IN THE UNION BAY NATURAL AREA

14 fieldnotesjournal.org

from ponds to forests, and forested areas must support adults throughout the non-breeding season. Since both aquatic habitats, terrestrial habitats, and the area in between are required for a healthy amphibian population, amphibians in a wetland restoration site are one indication that the site as a whole is functioning well. So are amphibians present in UBNA and the Amphibian Corridor?

To figure out whether the Amphibian Corridor had succeeded in providing new amphibian habitat and connectivity between existing habitats, I studied amphibians in UBNA with a focus on long-toed salamanders (Ambystoma macrodactylum ssp. macrodactylum).

Long-toed salamanders have blotches of yellow in patterns unique to each individual, like a fingerprint, so these patterns can be used to “mark” individuals photographically in a markrecapture study. I intended to illustrate how long-toed salamanders use the Corridor to move, as well as which

Corridor microhabitat features the longtoed salamanders use most frequently.

My survey methods captured longtoed salamanders at a wide range of times and in many activities. These salamanders are nocturnal, breeding at night in the middle of winter here in the Seattle area, so I conducted nighttime surveys two hours after dusk.

However, I also wanted to see where the salamanders went during the day, both on land and in the water. So I alternated between daytime and nighttime as well as aquatic and terrestrial surveys. On terrestrial surveys, I flipped over every piece of woody debris in the hopes of finding salamanders underneath, and on aquatic surveys I waded through shallow water with my eyes peeled for eggs or adults with a bucket in hand to capture them (see Fig. 1 for survey areas). This broad set of surveys gave me data on where long-toed salamanders were during a range of activities from breeding to hiding under logs.

When I found long-toed sala­

CONSIDERED TO BE INDICATORS OF CLEAN WATER AND “LONG HEALTHY ECOSYSTEMS, THESE SMALL ANIMALS’ PRESENCE HELPS US UNDERSTAND HABITAT AVAILABILITY IN THE UNION BAY NATURAL AREA.

“

T

he Union Bay Natural Area, now a vibrant ecological site renowned for its birding opportunities, was once a landfill. The landfill was capped with clay in 1964 (Ewing et al. 2010), and restoration efforts headed by the UW have been ongoing since the ‘90s.

However, there are only a couple of feet of real soil under this wetland. With this, does the wetland function like a natural system should?

Amphibians can help us find out.

Long considered to be indicators of clean water and healthy ecosystems (Blaustein 1994), these small animals’ presence helps us understand habitat availability in the Union Bay Natural Area (UBNA). A small restoration site within UBNA, the Amphibian Corridor, aims to boost amphibian populations in UBNA. To do this, it increases habitat connectivity between a pond where amphibians could breed and upland forested habitat where amphibians could spend the non-breeding season.

The site was installed by a Masters of Environmental Horticulture student in 2015 with hopes that the Corridor could increase amphibian habitat and link terrestrial and aquatic habitats (Walter 2015). Ponds are required for amphibian egg and larval development.

Juveniles must successfully migrate

PHOTO JULIANNA HOZA

RESEARCH COMMUNICATIONS

FIGURE 1 Union Bay Natural Area Survey Results.

manders during terrestrial surveys, I noted microhabitat information such as soil moisture, substrate type, woody debris size, overhead vegetation, and distance from the nearest pond. I used this data to find out exactly what areas long-toed salamanders frequented. To keep track of recaptured salamanders, I “marked” individuals by photographing their spot patterns (see Fig. 2). This allowed me to conduct a mark-recapture study to see when and where individuals moved and can be used to construct a population estimate.

Although population estimate data is still being processed, we can already say that long-toed salamanders are using the Corridor as habitat. My surveys revealed they were found commonly in the Corridor under woody debris, an important restoration feature.

Woody debris with a larger diameter had a higher probability of being used by a salamander for cover at some point during the study (p=.02). The data also revealed that salamanders did not prefer the center of the corridor over the edges (p=.24) despite the center of the corridor having denser vegetation and presumably higher soil moisture.

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This leads us to believe long-toed salamanders prefer large woody debris but have little preference for where woody debris is within the Corridor.

Once in the Corridor, did salamanders stay there? Available movement data was minimal. Many long-toed salamanders remained under a single piece of woody debris for weeks on end while others left their debris for a week or two at a time only to return to the same spot at a later date.

A few salamanders were caught moving around within the Corridor, showing that the Corridor does provide multiple

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#17

3/15/21

suitable microhabitats, and potentially indicating that they used the Corridor as a pathway from aquatic to forested habitat. However, these few examples would only serve as a launching point for future studies about connectivity in UBNA since the sample size was so small.

Even though we can’t conclude that the Amphibian Corridor is used to link habitats within UBNA, it is clear that it is used as salamander habitat. We also know that this habitat use is high during the winter months from DecemberMarch, as expected based on Corkran and Thoms (2006). Future studies could determine how this time window varies between years, and UBNA management could use this information to decide when to perform further ground-disturbing restoration efforts and maintenance. If further restoration targeting amphibians is attempted, the microhabitat data collected in this study provides a basis for what restoration long-toed salamanders will use. For instance, larger woody debris installations could get more use from salamanders than smaller pieces of woody debris. While more difficult to transport and install, larger woody debris could facilitate greater amphibian use of restoration projects, making the effort well worthwhile.

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#29

3/15/21

FIGURE 2 Recaptures identified by unique spot patterns. The left photo pair shows salamander #17 in my study on Jan. 4st and March 15th. The right photo pair shows salamander #29 in my study on Jan. 25th and March 15th.

Wetland Vegetation with Drones: A Pilot Study on Reed Canary Grass

BY ASTRID SANNA

F

PHOTO ASTRID SANNA

or years, wetlands have been exploited, drained, and impervious surfaces such as roads facilitate their dispersal converted to industrial uses indiscriminately due to their (Wisconsin Reed Canary Grass Management Working Group mischaracterization as “wastelands,” leading to a dramatic 2009).

50% loss of wetlands worldwide (Mitsch and Gosselink 2007).

Water level, thick vegetation, and remote locations As habitats, wetlands provide important ecosystem services all challenge wetland field surveys and invasive species such as the provisioning of fuelwood, as well as the regulation monitoring. With this study, I explored the application of drone of floods, water supply, and water quality. Additionally, these imagery to overcome field survey challenges. Moreover, I places support biodiversity and are important carbon sinks, investigated if using imagery with a higher spectral resolution helping to stabilize the climate system (Brander et al. 2013; would help with the identification of reed canary grass.

Wang et al. 2008).

The Washington State Department of Transportation One major human stressor affecting wetlands is the (WSDOT) routinely surveys wetlands as part of their expansion of impervious surfaces, such as roads, parking mitigation plans in response to damage caused by road lots and buildings. These are projects. I collaborated with responsible for stormwater Wetlands have been degraded, exploited, drained, the WSDOT Environmental runoff of polluted water and converted to other uses indiscriminately for Drone Team in charge of (Bernthal 2004), which plays the Evan’s Creek wetland a long time due to the mischaracterization of a major role in the degradation restoration in Redmond, of wetlands. Changes in a Washington. That site was wetlands as “wastelands.” wetland’s hydrologic system, rehabilitated to mitigate the inputs of nutrients and sediments, and sunlight exposure to loss of approximately 6.77 acres (0.027 km2) of wetlands and bare soil all create favorable conditions for the propagation their critical functions resulting from road improvements and of Phalaris arundinacea (Bernthal 2004) — a ubiquitous construction. invasive weed found in wetlands, commonly known as reed The WSDOT team provided the field survey and boundary canary grass. Reed canary grass has abundant soil seed banks, polygon derived from the GPS coordinates of the study site and due to the buoyancy of its seeds and vegetative fragments, as well as their own drone imagery, which I processed,

RESEARCH COMMUNICATIONS

FIGURE 1 Map showing the Evan’s Creek wetland in Redmond, WA, invaded by reed canary grass, and the surveyed study site.

analyzed, and compared to the drone imagery I collected. For this project, we had 2 total fly-over missions using 2 drones and 3 cameras. One flight was with a drone that had a camera with a spectral resolution in the visible-light range, and the second flight was with another drone which had two cameras, one with a spectral resolution in the visible-light range and one in the visible-light-near-infrared range. Both drones flew at an altitude of about 37 m and the images varied in spatial resolution. The two visible-light cameras captured images with a higher spatial resolution of ~1.5 cm/pixel, while the visible-light-near-infrared camera captured images with a lower spatial resolution of 2.8 cm/pixel.

The WSDOT team and my crew, Jonathan Batchelor and I, flew the drones during the first week of November 2019 over two consecutive days. The WSDOT flight occurred on a sunny day, while our flight occurred on an overcast day. As ground reference points, we used 4 orange cones which were placed at each corner of the study plot that was surveyed by WSDOT technicians. After collection, I processed the imagery using photogrammetric software to generate geometrically corrected aerial images, known as orthoimages.

I analyzed the 3 orthoimages using object-based image analysis and Random Forest, a supervised machine learning algorithm. Using ArcPro, I generated 3 classified maps, each one showing 3 classes: reed canary grass, other vegetation,

FIGURE 2 Aerial image acquisitions from drone flyovers (left) and respective classified maps (right). Images A and B are true color images. Image C is a false-color image showing in bright reddish tones the green vegetation; this false coloration was created during image analysis by placing the near-infrared (NIR) band in the red channel, the red band in the green channel, and the green band in the blue channel. This was necessary in order to visualize the NIR band.

and soil/water (Figure 2). I assessed the accuracy of each classified map by using 1000 random stratified sample points, and by calculating the probability that each point/pixel was committed to or omitted from the right class (known as “user accuracy” and “producer accuracy”, see figure 3). I then calculated the cover estimate of reed canary grass within our drone-surveyed area and its 80% binomial distribution exact confidence interval based on their user accuracy (Morisette and Khorram 1998).

The classified map derived from the visible-light

TABLE 1 Reed canary grass (RCG) percent land cover estimates derived from the classified maps in Figure 2, and RCG cover estimates derived from the WSDOT field survey with their respective 80% confidence intervals (CI).

CLASSIFIED MAP

DRONE-SURVEYED RCG (%)

80% CI (%)

FIELD-SURVEYED RCG (%)

80% CI (%)

A

66.4

65.6 - 67.1

57.6

54.4 – 60.8

B

34.4

33.2 - 35.5

C

69.9

69.2 - 70.3

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RESEARCH COMMUNICATIONS

FIGURE 3 User and producer accuracy of reed canary grass (RCG). Both accuracies measure the percentage of data that were correctly classified as RCG. From a viewer perspective, only the user accuracy can be observed in the classified maps (Figure 2).

For a given class (i.e. RCG) it tells the probability of whether the pixels on the map are actually what they claim to be. Overall Map Accuracy describes the classification accuracy of all the mapped classes (RCG, other vegetation, soil/water).

orthoimage “A” had the highest overall map accuracy — the percentage of points correctly classified, including all classes: reed canary grass, other vegetation, soil/water. Classified map A also had the lowest overall misclassification for the reed canary grass class. All classified maps either overestimated or underestimated reed canary grass cover compared to the field survey data. However, classified map A was the closest to the field survey cover estimate and roughly 9 percentage points higher (Table 1).

Drone imagery offers a complete overview of the site that cannot be achieved by ground-based observers. Given a high spatial resolution, reed canary grass cover estimates derived from drone imagery could be more accurate compared to those derived from field survey data, however, a larger sample size is needed to verify this hypothesis. The lower accuracy values of the classified maps B and C could be due to the sunlight conditions on the day of the flight and the lower resolution of the sensor, respectively. Although map C was captured by a camera with a higher spectral resolution, it had an overall lower spatial resolution which led to less reliable results.

Flying the drone on a cloudy day was beneficial for capturing a wider range of vegetation’s phenotypic characteristics and reducing the presence of shadows as shown in image A. On the other hand, flying the drone on a sunny day generated more shadows and led to greater misclassification as shown in classified map B. From a remote sensing perspective, the

Drone imagery offers a complete overview of the site that cannot be achieved by ground-based observers.

results obtained from orthoimage “A” can be considered satisfactory, especially due to the complexity and variability of the herbaceous vegetation under investigation. However, ecologists and natural resource managers may need higher accuracy depending on their goals.

Higher map accuracy with machine learning classifiers could be achieved by increasing spatial resolution (flying at lower elevation) and by collecting data during full growth when more distinguishing features are available to identify reed canary grass. Other scientific studies (Hill et al. 2017; Rominger and Meyer 2019) have shown that manual image interpretation and analysis is also a valuable method to achieve higher classification accuracy, although it’s more time consuming. The benefits of using a visible-light-near-infrared camera should be further explored in combination with higher

By maintaining a ground-based relationship with the study site, we can improve classification methods and processes, be more confident in the assessment of the final classified maps, and explain ecologically significant relationships. spatial resolution.

While effective, the use of drones to monitor invasive vegetation in open wetlands should not substitute field surveys.

Acknowledgments I would like to thank Dr. L. Monika Moskal, Dr. Meghan Halabisky, and Jonathan Batchelor for their support and encouragement. I would also like to thank the Washington State Department of Transportation Environmental Drone Team.

Photo credit to Jonathan Batchelor, UW SEFS Ph.D. Candidate and Remote Sensing and Geospatial Analysis Lab Manager. Jonathan guided and assisted my flight mission and helped me process the raw imagery.

FIELDNOTES / SPRING 2021 19

Potential Patterns and Drivers of Lake Use in Washington State

H

uman societies and water go hand-in-hand.

Water near humans has historically been utilized by different communities for cultural practices, fishing resources, transportation, energy, and economic growth. Some studies further suggest that the presence of water, or “blue space”, such as lakes can be a positive contributor to personal well-being (White et al. 2010). Lakes also hold value by supplying recreational activities. However, heavily used and visited aquatic environments are disrupted by human use (Reed-Andersen et al. 2000). Some anthropogenic stressors lakes can endure include water quality, pollution, and the transport of invasive species (Rothlisberger et al. 2010, Andersen et al. 2014, Drake and Mandrak 2014). As lakes are a benefactor for physical and mental health, and are a base to ecosystem functions, it is critical for humans to return the favor and care for their health as well. Due to the increasing concern for aquatic ecosystem

20 fieldnotesjournal.org

longevity, it is important to distinguish the factors that shape the intensity of lake visitation.

Some factors that may determine lake visitation include seasonality and weather conditions. Weather conditions of temperature and rain are evident to be prominent cues for determining recreational activity (Finger and Lehmann 2012).

Having knowledge behind the drivers of lake visitation would be important for investing in locally popular lakes, minimizing future anthropogenic impacts, improving the health of the lake ecosystem, and ensuring the safety of accessible activities.

The objective of this study was to investigate the influence of varying environmental parameters on lake use in western Washington state, as well as determining patterns across variables or time. Specifically, we examined how seasons and weather, such as warmer seasons and sunny conditions, drive lake visitation.

The lake monitoring data we used was collected by

PHOTO JULIAN OLDEN

BY HANNAH KIELER

volunteers from the Lake Stewardship Program. Volunteers have collected measurements from 41 King County lakes between 1996 to 2020. Data we utilized includes weather observations and the number of boats, swimmers, people, and anglers present at the lake. Weather observations were categorized into different degrees of cloud cover as well as wind speed. After data compilation and organization, the overall human visitation was summed from the counts of swimmers, people, and anglers. Additionally, average annual visitation was averaged from all human or boat visits across years. Boat visitation was kept as a separate variable, to

FIGURE 1 (A) Portrays overall human visitation across cloud cover conditions (B) overall boat visitation depending on specific wind conditions.

Due to the increasing concern for aquatic ecosystem longevity, it is important to distinguish the factors that shape the intensity of lake visitation. account for differences in a single count versus individual persons.

Across the twenty-five years of data there was a total of 63,791 observed visitors. Broken down, there were 11,676 swimmers, 44,871 people, and 7,251 anglers. There were also a total of 23,920 boats observed. To account for skewness, data was log transformed. For weather, the first relationship we looked into was how cloud cover impacted human visitation (Figure 1). Sunny conditions had the highest average human visitation (0.975), while raining had the lowest (0.108).

Essentially, there was more visitation on sunnier days over cloudy, overcast, and rainy days. The other weather variable analyzed was wind conditions on boat visitation (Figure 1). Surprisingly, boat visitation was higher on breezy days (1.105) than days with no wind (0.87). However, stormy days had the least amount of boat visitation, which would align with unfavorable conditions receiving less visitation. Finally, the last variable we considered was seasonal influence on visitation (Figure 2). Lakes were visited the most in the summer months of July (1.22) and August (1.24), while the lowest human visitation occurred in October (0.093).

FIELDNOTES / SPRING 2021 21

RESEARCH COMMUNICATIONS

FIGURE 2 Relationship between human visitation over the year, from April to October.

bettering lake management during these conditions to ensure limited human impacts on lake ecosystems.

Furthermore, there are instances of studies distinguishing climate change as a potential influence on future visitation activity. For example, with climate change increasing temperature there could possibly be spikes in overall recreation levels, especially visitation increases for bodies of water (Richardson and Loomis 2004). Combining past scientific findings with our results can lead to a helpful toolbox for predicting and mitigating anthropogenic influences on lake ecosystems. Blue spaces have held an important connection within cultures and societies, and we would not want their health and prominence to falter.

Acknowledgments All of our findings correlated with our hypotheses, suggesting that lake visitation is driven by favorable weather and seasonal conditions. Statistically, all of these relationships were considered significant (p<0.001). There were clear patterns of increased human visitation with less cloud cover and during the warmer summer season. One surprising relationship was that

Having knowledge behind the drivers of lake visitation would be important for investing in locally popular lakes, minimizing future anthropogenic impacts, improving the health of the lake ecosystem, and ensuring the safety of accessible activities. boats tend to have higher visitation during breezy conditions than no wind, which could be due to breezy conditions being more tolerable, personal preferences, or observational discrepancies.

Similar findings have been presented in other studies, with weather and temperature being critical drivers on recreation, not limited to only lakes (Finger and Lehmann 2012). This relates to our findings of higher visitation on what could be considered more favorable conditions—sunny, breezy, and warm. Taking these drivers into account, there could be predicted higher levels of anthropogenic stress occurring when favorable weather conditions are present, or specifically in the summer. These discoveries have meaning towards 22 fieldnotesjournal.org

I would like to thank Dr. Julian Olden and Rachel Fricke for their guidance, patience, and immense help during this project. I also would like to thank Dr. Greg Jensen for being an outreach during the challenge of finding a capstone.

community features

PHOTO SIDNEY GREENSLATE

To the academic, reading research papers can feel freeing. In today’s media landscape it can be hard to find reports with cold hard facts that don’t push ideologies and overt biases on the reader. Research journals offer a respite from the slog of misinformation. But maybe even this last safe haven is under increasing threat.

Science misinformation has many causes: from hyperbole to predatory publishing, the motive of the misinformation can be accidental to downright malicious. Although misinformation is rare in the scientific literature, fake science allows for mass confirmation bias for those who already disagree with scientific consensus on different topics. The effects of this scientific misinformation can have an untold cost on the world’s response to issues from pandemics to climate change.

In a paper titled “The Hoax of Ocean Acidification” published in the journal Quaestiones Geographicae, the authors intentionally muddy the waters of science and refute forty years of scientific consensus on the origin and effects of ocean acidification. This is a consequence of a practice known as predatory publishing, where publishers display little care for the quality of the research they publish and are purely interested in benefiting from the publication fees associated with printing vast numbers of papers. Researchers can be complicit in predatory publishing schemes because the outside pressure to constantly be publishing papers can lead to scientists accepting questionable publishers. Among the papers that are submitted to predatory publishers, some papers can be intentionally false or misleading as is the case with “The Hoax of Ocean Acidification,” mixed in with papers containing actual research.

Ocean acidification describes the decrease in seawater pH due to the absorption of anthropogenic carbon. This phenomenon involves complex chemistry that can be difficult for those who have only a basic knowledge of the subject. Adding to the confusion, the names of environmental phenomena often lead to misunderstandings. Titles like “global warming” were confusing for people living in regions experiencing cooling; to address this, the new term “climate change,” was coined, for better clarity with the public. Similarly, the descriptor “ocean acidification” can be confusing because it implies that the ocean is becoming a corrosive acid, when in fact, it only describes small changes in pH that have drastic consequences for shelled organisms. Corals and other shelled organisms require a higher concentration of carbonate ions in the water, but the presence of free hydrogen released

PHOTO SHIFAAZ SHAMOON

THE AGE OF (MIS)INFORMATION

BY JAZZY SHEPARD

COMMUNITY FEATURES

from the reaction of carbon dioxide with water reacts again with carbonate, forming bicarbonate. This makes it more challenging for marine organisms to build calcium carbonate shells by decreasing the concentration of carbonate ions, an essential building block in shells and skeletons.

“”

From hyperbole to predatory publishing, the source of the misinformation can be accidental to downright malicious.

Mary Margaret Stoll is a second year Ph.D. candidate in the UW school of oceanography. She studies ocean acidification and seawater chemistry in the Salish Sea. Specifically, she is reconstructing historical seawater pH by studying the chemistry in orange cup corals that were collected in the past, and preserved in the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History.

Comparing the chemistry of these cup corals to modern cup corals reveals the pH change over the past century. As the oceans absorb about one third of anthropogenic carbon, calculations suggest that “since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the average acidity of the surface oceans has increased [by] 30% due to ocean acidification.”

“The Hoax of Ocean Acidification” misleads by purposefully “using half complete arguments [that] create enough confusion for the reader to become skeptical or hesitant to accept what the vast majority of scientists are saying.” The paper uses half-formed arguments to imply that all coral reefs will survive a more acidic ocean by citing examples of coral that live near volcanic seeps and are in a constantly acidic environment. “The other half of that story is that the composition of these reefs is typically vastly different from reefs living at higher pH. These communities are composed of fleshy algae and soft corals whereas communities at higher pH are typically more diverse and composed of stony corals.”

Additionally, “organisms surviving near CO2 vents have had thousands of years to evolve and adapt to those low pH conditions, whereas ocean acidification due to anthropogenic forces is occurring at a much faster rate.”

The consequences of misleading papers being read by the general public go far beyond those who directly engage with them. The ideas from these papers get shared across the internet as the shining example of an expert that confirms popular biases against scientific consensus, possibly affecting public policy. The opinions of the general public are extremely important in a democracy, because the peoples’ votes determine the policies enacted by the state and federal government. This can also affect funding for researchers;

organizations like NOAA often get money through public policy that is determined by popular opinion.

Education about science at an early age is one way to combat misinformation and inspire the next generation to be more passionate about climate topics. It is one of the reasons Amy Larson, a lab technician in the Gagnon Lab, wrote a children’s book on ocean acidification. “I’m trying to hit three demographics: parents, really young kids, and then an older sibling.” Topics like ocean acidification are confusing and we need to find better ways to explain them. One fun experiment that Amy suggested to teach children and adults about ocean acidification involves taking some sea water and testing the pH, and then blowing bubbles into the water and checking the pH afterwards. The pH decreases because we breathe out carbon dioxide. Irrefutable evidence like this can be really compelling for children and adults alike.

As for how researchers might better share their message with the public, Mary Margaret concluded that “too often the impact of science fails to reach beyond publications and scientific audiences. I think that connecting the science and policy domains—creating actionable science that directly shapes policy and management strategies—would go a very long way.” The union of journalists, researchers, and policy makers working together can greatly reduce accidental misinformation. To fight intentional misinformation, researchers should avoid publishing with publishers that have too few requirements and seem to publish for the money rather than the science. The pressure to publish as a metric of productivity is a harmful practice in university administrations that leads to work getting published before it is ready as well as creating a hiding place for intentionally misleading science. Certain red flags can alert readers to

“”

Fake science allows for mass confirmation bias for those who already disagree with the scientific consensus on many issues. untrustworthy sources such as the use of emotive language, uncited opinions, and not containing a methods section, but the scale of this problem requires a multifaceted approach.

FIELDNOTES / SPRING 2021 25

BY ANTHONY EDWARDS & BELLA HILLYER

Growing Disparities Between Access to Clean Air and Socioeconomic Status in Washington

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or many, 2020 was a year to forget. Millions of acres burned on the West Coast of the United States and millions died from COVID-19. With the impacts of unhealthy air from wildfire smoke and virus concerns dominating the media, public health became a more frequent conversation topic. Despite mounting attention to these health hazards, the discrepancy between clean air haves and havenots is not a new issue; it has impacted the less fortunate for decades.

“What studies have found is that a community’s race is the leading predictor of co-location with unwanted environmental land use,” Millie Piazza, an Environmental Justice and Title IX Senior Advisor at the Washington State Department of Ecology, said. “The second leading predictor is income.”

26 fieldnotesjournal.org

Arguably one of the biggest threats to human health propagating from this unwanted land use is poor air quality.

Over 135 million Americans are exposed to air that does not meet the Environmental Protection Agency standard, and studies show that this unsafe air contributes up to 200,000 deaths per year in the United States alone (Tessum et al. 2021).

One of the most harmful of these air pollutants is known as particulate matter 2.5 (PM2.5). Less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter, these particles are harmful when inhaled and can reach deep into the lungs and the bloodstream, leading to a range of effects. Although the short term effects are well understood, irritating the lungs and sinuses, long term effects are the real silent killer.

A worrisome long-term effect of PM2.5 exposure is

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greater susceptibility to severe illness from viral exposure.

Studies show that people exposed to greater concentrations of PM2.5 are at risk of more severe symptoms from diseases such as COVID-19, along with higher death rates. A recent Harvard study examined worldwide COVID-19 statistics and found that PM2.5 exposure accounted for 15% of deaths, while some regions of East Asia were as high as 27% (Pozzer et al. 2020).

Although COVID-19 wasn’t equally distributed, neither were harmful pollutants such as PM2.5. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency notes that anthropogenic sources of PM2.5, such as construction sites, unpaved roads, automobile exhaust, power plants, and industrial pollution, are more likely to be in close proximity to low income and person of color (POC) neighborhoods. Due to demographic inequalities perpetuated through redlining, zoning laws, and modern-day racial discrimination, the socioeconomically vulnerable and minority communities in Seattle have been disproportionately exposed to these sources of particulate matter for decades. In fact, many hundreds of studies published since the 1970s have

Although the short term effects are well understood, irritating the lungs and sinuses, long term effects are the real silent killer.

shown that industrial pollution and hazardous waste sites are located more often than not in places where people of color and low income families live.

The American Lung Association recently found that people of color are three times more likely to reside in the most polluted areas of the country (Tessum et al. 2021). Washington State is no exception. In many eastern Washington counties, non-white regions and poor air quality go hand-in-hand (Washington State Department of Health). Northern Douglas county, one of the most diverse regions of Washington, has PM2.5 exposure higher than 90% of all counties. Similarly, in western Washington, the Duwamish Valley has PM2.5 levels that exceed 90% of all counties. Unsurprisingly, this is the most diverse area of the city of Seattle.

Air quality data has become increasingly easy to access.

The Washington Department of Ecology provides the Information By Location mapping tool (IBL) to allow users to sort through environmental hazards and socioeconomic information by census region. Although socioeconomic and demographic disparity has been a longstanding issue, 2020 provided a different perspective for many. Now considered the worst year in U.S. history in terms of acres burned as well as population affected by wildfire smoke, many people that had not experienced hazardous PM2.5 exposure in the past were beginning to understand its effects.

During the summer a super-massive plume of smoke engulfing Washington state sent hazardous particles into the lungs of millions, leading to horrific health impacts. Over just a 6-day period (September 12-17), the entire state experienced air quality worse than the federal health standard. King County experienced very unhealthy or hazardous air quality (PM2.5 concentrations greater than 80.4 micrograms per cubic meter) for 10 consecutive days. Some counties in eastern Washington were affected for weeks. Throughout the wildfires in September 2020, many people, such as essential workers and those experiencing homelessness, were disproportionately

Due to demographic inequalities perpetuated through redlining, zoning laws, and modernday racial discrimination, the socioeconomically vulnerable and minority communities in Seattle have been disproportionately exposed to sources of particulate matter for decades.

FIELDNOTES / SPRING 2021 27

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The years ahead present an ethical duty to protect these individuals through methods such as setting up smoke shelters during wildfire events, investing in public health, and controlling harmful pollutants. vulnerable in our society: elderly, youth, those with pre-existing health conditions, and disadvantaged societies living near high PM concentrations. As climate change exacerbates factors that promote ideal conditions for both wildfires (Borunda 2020) and pandemics (Lustgarten 2020), the years ahead present an ethical duty to protect these individuals through methods such as setting up smoke shelters during wildfire events, investing in public health, and controlling harmful pollutants.

“I am appalled by 2020 and what has happened in the preceding years, but this is finally something that is in front of everyone,” Piazza said. “But that speaks volumes for why it wasn’t for the last 40 years. How is it that we could as a government ignore such suffering? People have been clamoring this for decades.”

PHOTOS ANTHONY EDWARDS

exposed to PM2.5 as many did not have the luxury of remaining indoors. With the closure of many indoor spaces due to COVID-19 and limited space in homeless shelters, the effects were felt to an extreme.

“The people we are most concerned about during these big smoke events are the people who can’t get away,” said Andy Wineke, Communications Manager at the Air Quality Program at the Washington State of Ecology. “We tell people to stay inside, keep their windows shut, and have their AC or heating system recirculate. But if you are homeless, if you are working outside, then you’re going to be much more affected by that smoke.”

In eastern Washington, agriculture is a dominant industry, and many people are frequently exposed to these particles at high concentrations year after year. With minimal effort being made to mitigate wildfire danger, wearing proper protection may be the only manageable solution for these people to avoid the most severe effects.

“Primarily the recommendation is a respirator or N95 mask, which maybe not everyone has access to,” Kaitlyn Kelly from the Washington State Department of Health said.

“If you do have to go outside, try and limit the time, because risk is the duration of exposure. The longer you are outside, it increases the chance of health effects.”

The people most affected by poor air quality are the most

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Paradise in Trouble: The Co-opting of Environmentalism by White Nationalists

BY CHAJA LEVY & JUAN MORFIN

PHOTO THE OREGONIAN / OREGONLIVE

In March 2019, a white, 28-year-old Australian man killed 51 people in two consecutive mass shootings at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. Six months later, a 21-year-old white man in El Paso, Texas shot and killed 23 people in a Walmart. Both men posted manifestos online that referenced white supremacist, anti-immigrant, and ecofascist ideology (Lawrence 2019 ).

Environmentalism is often con­ sidered a leftist movement, rooted in progressive politics and ideals. Yet this framing of the environmental movement obscures a long and violent history of certain environmental ideas. Critiques of the largely white, mainstream environmental movement include the racist and colonialist origins of the environmental organizations and

academics, as well as education and awareness of the “alt-right” and white nationalist adoption of environmentalism that has been overlooked. In the tangled web of ethnonationlist and paramilitary organizations, the Pacific Northwest has long been a home for a white nationalist environmentalism or “‘alt-right’ eco­ logy.”

Continued ambiguity and racist origins of white environmentalism creates opportunity for white nationalists and eco-fascists to co-opt words and ideas to fit a deadly ideology.

White Nationalist Constructions of the Environment

The link between land and race, nation and nature runs through white

FIGURE 1 Portland Area Mortgage Banker, Andrew “Murphy” Harkins at the “Unite The Right” march wearing a baseball cap with True Cascadia insignia. Charlottesville, VA, August 11th, 2017. Photo obtained by OregonLive.com.

nationalism. Symbols of nature and environmental preservation have been weaponized to insist on “the preservation of the white race and the maintenance of its position at the top of a naturally-ordained racial hierarchy” (Feshami 2020). Some notable white environmentalists have laid this framework. John Muir’s writing was racist towards Indigenous people, while Gifford Pinchot sat on the advisory board of American Eugenics Society (Purdy 2015). The co-founder of Earth First!, David Foreman, was eventually forced out of the organization for his anti-immigration ideology (Cagle 2019). White nationalist movements draw on northern European tradition and symbology to communicate the link between nature and their ideology, while also referencing early white environmentalists and ecologists writing that is interspersed with eugenics thought and racist ideas. Biodiversity, deep ecology, and bioregionalism have been integrated into some white nationalist groups, particularly in places like the Pacific Northwest (Taylor 2000).

Environmentalism is often considered a leftist movement rooted in progressive politics and ideals—yet this framing obscures a long and violent history of environmental ideas.

FIELDNOTES / SPRING 2021 29

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Bioregionalism refers to both geographical place and the “ideas that have developed about how to live in that place” (Berg and Dasmann 2014). Emerging from counterculture movements in the United States, bioregionalism advocates for sus­ tainable, decentralized community self rule, within natural boundaries of different ecosystems (Taylor 2000). While bioregionalism initially grew out of progressive movements, undercurrents of separatism, selfgovernance, and sustainable lifestyles made it an attractive tool for white nationalist groups to articulate their ideology surrounding a white ethnostate.

Bioregionalism is “open to nationalist interpretations contain[ing] seeds for exclusion which have made it attractive to the right” (Taylor and Forchtner 2020).

Roots of White Nationalist Bioregionalism in the Pacific Northwest

Separatist movements are not new in the Pacific Northwest. Dubbed the Pacific Republic Movement, Western sympathizers began to rally behind the South during the Civil War and planned, in anticipation for their victory, to secede along with them (Berger 2015).

The co-seceders included California, Oregon, and Washington. These three states would act as premier “foreign powers” that would sustain an amicable relationship with the south to further the South’s goal of establishing slavery on the west coast.

Traction behind the Pacific Republic Movement eventually dwindled and the states that were meant to secede along with the South repudiated the idea of having anything to do with the South’s goals. In fact, in 1860 our own state of Washington issued a resolution that said, among other things, that “we 30 fieldnotesjournal.org

utterly discountenance—as fraught with incipient treason, and the insidious offspring of reckless aspirations and disappointed ambition, or culpable ignorance—all projects for a Pacific Confederacy” (Berger 2015).

The movement did not die with the West’s repudiation of the Pacific Republic Movement or the defeat of the South. To this day we live with remnants of it in the Northwest Front movement.

The Northwest Front iterates that the destiny of an “all-white” republic lies in the northwest—principally, in Oregon and Washington. One of the most commonly referenced ideas in white supremacy is David Lane’s “14 words” (‘We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children’) which is often coupled with the goal of creating a white ethnostate where this idea can be realized. Multiple white nationalist groups have integrated these ideas and goals into their ideologies, including the Aryan Nations and Northwest Territory Imperative, and Northwest Front.

The Pacific Northwest has long been eyed by these groups as the location for a white ethnostate, specifically Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, Washington, and Montana (Balleck 2014). The Northwest Front (also referred to as the Northwest Territorial Imperative or Northwest Imperative) was a movement within white supremacy to make the largely white region a white homeland, beginning in the 1980s. Motivation for this movement partially came from the Ruby Ridge incident, an 11-day siege in Idaho in 1992. Oregon’s attempt to expel Black people from the state through exclusion laws and the presence of the Militia of Montana, a model for many paramilitary organizations in the United States, also made the Pacific Northwest an attractive site for the Northwest Front movement (Medina et al. 2018).

The movement’s self-proclaimed

While bioregionalism initially grew out of progressive movements, undercurrents of separatism, selfgovernance, and sustainable lifestyles made it attractive for white nationalist groups to articulate white ethnostate ideology. leader, Harold Covington, had an amalgamation of YouTube videos, selfpublished books, a podcast, and a now defunct website all aimed at furthering the Northwest Imperative in hopes that it would reach his “people” (Berger 2015).

Covington died in 2018, but his ideas continue to reverberate through white nationalist groups across the world.

White Nationalism in the Pacific Northwest Today

Hate groups continue to be active in the Pacific Northwest today. This includes some groups that explicitly or implicitly draw on white nationalist environmentalism, using phrases like “blood and soil,” referencing the “14 words’’ and the creation of a white ethnostate, and linking environmental destruction with Black people, Indigenous people and people of color in the United States. According to the Anti-Defamation League’s heat map of hate, extremist and antisemitic incidents, there were 7,043 reported incidents in the United States in 2020 and 2021, including extremist murders, terrorist plots & attacks, extremist/police shootouts, white supremacist events, and white supremacist propaganda. Over 500 of those events were in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho.

Cascadia is a progressive bioreg­

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PHOTO THE GUARDIAN

ional movement that shares some similarities with the Northwest Front.

Cascadia has similar symbolism and displays the green, white, and blue colors of the Northwest Front. Although the Cascadia movement disavows “hate, white nationalism, and bigotry” (Cascadia Now! 2017), similarities in geographic place and secessionist leanings have led to the co-opting of certain Cascadia language and symbols by white nationalist groups (Hamlin 2017), including the white nationalist True Cascadia group that had members at the 2017 “Unite The Right” march in Charlottesville, VA. Not only have Washington white nationalist groups co-opted progressive bioregional messaging, but some groups are purchasing land within Washington state. The Guardian has linked the paramilitary hate group, The Base, with the Dec. 2018 purchase of three 10-acre blocks of undeveloped land in Ferry County near Republic, WA by a Delaware LLC called “Base Global” (Wilson 2020). After an advertised “hate camp” was rumored to take place in northeast Washington, the Base released a propaganda video of what appeared to be a paramilitary-style training exercise in a wooded area (Sokol 2020). According to Vice, members

of The Base pushed books written by writers referenced by the eco-fascism movement and used eco-fascism for propaganda within the group’s encrypted chat (Lamoureux and Makuch 2020).

Eco-fascists Online

In contrast to white nationalists who draw on environmentalism to advance their racist worldview, ecofascists are more explicit with their environmental ideology. It is their mission to rid the world of climate change and global warming through hate and xenophobia. What they see as being one of the biggest contributors to global warming and climate change is “multiculturalism”. In their eyes, the riddance of “non-whites” is the key to having a land free of pollution. Some eco-fascists go even further and state that the culling of the population (of non-whites) is the key to the planet’s survival. The large majority of other eco-fascists take a softer approach to the answer of climate change and global warming by arguing that immigration is the cause of overpopulation, leading to greater extraction of the earth’s natural resources. Regardless, their rhetoric is a concoction of xenophobia and racism topped with bigotry and dressed in a

It is up to white environmentalists specifically to disavow white supremacy— they must be active in the recognition and removal of these ideas from their own spaces and ideas. climate change movement (Manavis 2018).

A troubling aspect of this movement is its use of Nazi rhetoric on social media. The Norse rune called the “Algiz” is routinely used by eco-fascists to identify themselves. It’s known as the life rune. After the Nazis were defeated, it was this rune that emerged as the symbol for the successor of the Nazi regime—the neo-Nazis. Using symbols and language, people align themselves with eco-fascism on social media platforms like Twitter, Reddit, 4chan, and 8chan to promote white nationalism using environmentalism (Stateside Staff 2019).

What Next?

The white nationalist connection to place is a myth. There is no fusion of place and the white race on stolen land. It is up to white environmentalists specifically to disavow white supremacy. They must be active in the recognition and removal of these ideas from their own spaces and ideas. The racist origins and continued ambiguity of white environmentalism creates opportunity for white nationalists to twist words and ideas to fit a deadly ideology, which means it is solely up to them to defend and uphold their own values, symbols, and language. If not, then they too will be left in the trash bin of history, along with the other failed movements.

FIGURE 2 Photograph of propaganda from white supremacy group the Base. Photo obtained by the Guardian.

FIELDNOTES / SPRING 2021 31

BY LISSA BREWER ERIKA KHOSROVIAN & MADIE MAMER

Satellites, Streetlights, and the Stars:

Light Pollution in Our Modern World

Whether we watch Jupiter and Saturn rise in the summer, search for the Big Dipper, or confuse a plane for a star, everyone has established some kind of relationship with the night sky. When night falls, many of us gaze up to the sky and dream about what lies beyond. The stars have a tremendous ability to both humble and excite us, offering a gentle reminder of our insignificance but also of our will to keep exploring.

But many don’t have the opportunity to see the stars in the sky. It is estimated that 80% of the world’s population lives in light-polluted areas. When artificial light from human activities spills into our atmosphere, the resulting excess light can be harmful to humans, wildlife, and the climate. This so-called light pollution brightens the atmosphere, disrupting nature’s circadian rhythm. Light pollution is so widespread that there are few remaining spots left in the United States without it.

It’s a race across many regions of the US to 32 fieldnotesjournal.org

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PHOTOS KATHRYN NEUGENT

The Milky Way over Flagstaff, Arizona.

preserve the last remaining dark sky zones as, one-by-one, they disappear beneath urban sprawl and development.

But even then, city lights aren’t the only culprits. Far away from towns and cities, astrophotographers, astronomers, and amateurs alike battle light pollution stemming from satellites and space junk.

With more than 9,200 space objects in orbit around Earth, their ability to reflect sunlight acts as a barrier between us and the great Milky Way. By interfering with Earth’s natural rhythm of light, light pollution is an effective agent for habitat changes making some animals more susceptible to predation while disrupting the natural processes of others. Moths, for example, are heavily attracted to sources of artificial light, drawing them to locations they would otherwise not be. This makes outdoor lights hot spots for predators of moths, in turn making moth populations incredibly vulnerable in developed areas.

Sea turtles may be considered

removed from the effects of light pollution, yet even still this already threatened species is further jeopardized by the glow of cities. When sea turtles hatch they make a trek across the beach towards the moon’s reflection on the ocean. Lights from cities, roads, homes or even just cars can lead the hatchlings away from the ocean and into danger.

These two examples represent the range in which light pollution can affect wildlife and are truly just the tip of the iceberg.

Dr. Kathryn Neugent, a recent Ph.D. graduate from the University of Washington whose research focuses on massive stars (stars that are eight times larger than the Sun), sat down to talk with us about space junk, light pollution, and her personal experience within the astronomy community. When asked for her thoughts on the challenges posed by light pollution, she said that sometimes objects in orbit—such as satellites and space junk—unexpectedly cross into her observation path during data collection.

This momentary photobomb can cost her hours of observing time and data.

While that may not seem like much, an astronomer usually has 100-200 allotted observation hours a year, meaning one hunk of space junk can result in a 10% project loss.

Technological advances such as satellites are important because they allow us to improve our telecommunication systems and observe our Earth from an unprecedented perspective. However, Dr. Neugent reminds us that astronomy isn’t abstract, nor only about discovering distant new planets we’ll never visit. It holds a tangible benefit for humanity too.

For example, a new observatory under construction in Chile has the lofty goal of automatically detecting asteroids, meteors, and comets with the potential to hit Earth, but it can’t do that without a clear sky. In the future, coordination between big tech and astronomers will be necessary in order to keep exploring our night sky and protecting our home FIELDNOTES / SPRING 2021 33

COMMUNITY FEATURES

More than 80 percent of the world’s population, including 99 percent of those living in the U.S. and Europe, live under sky glow, just one form of light pollution. from Armageddon space rocks.

No single country can own the night sky, which makes regulating the ever-growing satellite city difficult.

However, skyglow—the light pollution which blocks star visibility in populated areas—can be managed on a local scale.

The desert southwest is notoriously great for dark skies, which generates an economy built on night sky tourism and astronomy research. To preserve this local economic cornerstone, Arizona officials sought to protect the dark sky—and it worked. In 1974, Arizona’s second-largest city, Tucson, and nearby towns enacted county-level ordinances to regulate the type of outdoor lighting permitted, allowing the county to grow without sacrificing the night sky.

So, how do we apply a similar

34 fieldnotesjournal.org

effort elsewhere? By designating official Dark Sky Parks, not only does more awareness come about the importance of night skies, but a whole new tourism sector opens up. Dark Sky Parks are a direct effort to protect the last remaining stars we can see while promoting the future preservation of night skies across the world. The creation of Dark Sky National Parks will encourage an entire generation to look up to the stars and seek to protect them. With this sort of motivation, Tucson will not be alone in tackling light pollution and its story will be replicated.

But what can we do for our local community? With light pollution happening on a wider industrial, urban, and transportation scale, individual decision-making on a consumer choice

level will hardly lessen the amount of light spilled into our atmosphere. Those of us invested in preserving our night skies to minimize the environmental and health damage caused by light pollution should turn their attention to their municipal governments instead.

Community advocacy here is key, as has already been demonstrated throughout the country.

Advocating for downward-facing outdoor community lighting, reduced or no lighting in public buildings at night, and pushing for Dark Sky designation at your local National Park are small steps towards filling our sky with stars again.

Together, we may not only preserve but reestablish dark sky zones and reverse the effects of excess artificial light.

The creation of Dark Sky National Parks could encourage an entire generation to look up to the stars and seek to protect them.

FIELD OF DREAMS: How the Black Farmers Collective is Cultivating Healing at Small Axe Farm

BY SHAWREE ZHANG & SIDNEY GREENSLATE

PHOTO KELLY LACY VIA PEXELS

I

t’s an exciting day for Small Axe Farm. “We just got a new rototiller,” Masra Clamangou tells us, pointing his cell phone camera at the apparatus attached to the back of a small tractor. “It’s used to break the soil structure into smaller aggregates so it creates a fine seedbed for planting,” he explains. “Sort of like an egg beater.” Both the tractor and its new tool are shiny red, contrasting with the expansive green field behind it. Masra is the newly-appointed farm manager for the 4-acre acquisition in the Sammamish Valley, in the northeast corner of King County.

Masra—and Small Axe—are a part of the Black Farmers Collective (BFC), a network organization supporting black, indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) farmers and urban agriculture in King County. Together with managing director Ray Williams and a 12-person team of young Black farmers

and activists, BFC supports several small farms in the greater Seattle area. Their current projects have grown out of underutilized spaces in the city, such as in YES! Farms near downtown Seattle; Brown Egg Gardens in Columbia City, and now Small Axe farm in Woodinville. The organization continues to look for other opportunities to acquire land and create new farms.

“We’re a very new organization...we’re still doing a lot of our visioning,” Masra tells us after settling into his truck to chat. Asked to describe the mission of the BFC, he pauses, choosing his words thoughtfully. “We’re a collective of urban farmers who want to produce food… and build community through farm and agricultural spaces. And contribute to Black liberation and healing for our community.”

Small Axe leases their acreage from King County, as do the FIELDNOTES / SPRING 2021 35

COMMUNITY FEATURES

“We’re a collective of urban farmers who want to produce food…and build community through farm and agricultural spaces. And contribute to Black liberation and healing for our community.” negotiated between King County and JB Instant Lawn, the turf farm that owns the rights to extract water from the Sammamish River. Previously, the property that Small Axe is located on was dry farmed, meaning there was no permanent irrigation. All water was brought in from off-site, adding even more limitations to the single-year leased farms. Now, Small Axe and their neighbors have an allocation of water from the river during certain times of the year. Additionally, the city

Students learn about farming practices and techniques.

of Woodinville has initiated the process to provide municipal water access to the farm; this would create long term, reliable water access for tenants.

When asked about his contribution to the BFC’s mission, Masra has maintained his sights on the fundamentals. “My main focus through this last summer has been to activate this farm space and to produce food for the community. Nutritious, healthy local food, nutrient-dense food… that’s the main goal.

Laser-focus, as Ray has told me,” he adds, laughing.

As farm manager, Masra is responsible for planning each season’s crops. He describes this year’s choices as “Pacific Northwest CSA vegetables,” which include favorites like cabbage, collards, and kale, among many others. CSA stands for “community-supported agriculture,” and refers mainly to seasonal produce boxes that customers can order and pick up on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. In this first growing season, soil productivity and health takes center stage. Masra explains how agricultural lime is used to buffer the soil’s pH (which, after years of not being in production, is currently highly acidic). Crouching low to the ground, he shows us deep furrows running the length of the field. This is called subsoiling, and allows water and nutrients to penetrate deeper into the earth.

Masra isn’t alone in his field preparations. Over Easter weekend, Small Axe held their first volunteer party, setting up the framing for a high tunnel greenhouse and tackling Himalayan blackberry bushes. Masra also showed off their tractor, the result of a successful crowdfunding campaign last fall. On site there are several huge cisterns waiting to be filled with water. The volunteers’ attitudes were excited and anticipatory as the first steps of revitalizing the soil began.

“I’ve been calling this my field of dreams,” Masra joked.

In this first growing season, soil productivity and health takes center stage.

36 fieldnotesjournal.org

PHOTO BLACK FARMERS COLLECTIVE

flower farms next door. Their neighbors have been farming the land for upwards of 35 years, largely on one-year leases from the county. Without land tenure, it is challenging for farmers to invest in infrastructure such as permanent greenhouses or irrigation. However, “there seems to be a lot of goodwill in terms of supporting agriculture in King County, and really helping out farmers,” Masra says. Small Axe currently has a five-year lease.

The BFC has also received support from other farms in the valley, including 21 Acres and Viva Farms. Last fall, Viva Farms invited the BFC to audit their farm practicum courses, which covered topics like business planning and crop planning.

Early in their visioning process, Small Axe consulted Anthony Reyes, the farm manager at 21 Acres who has a background in nonprofit farming. Reyes offered to facilitate a vision and planning workshop for the BFC, which the group is still in the process of completing.

A major development for Small Axe and their neighbors has recently emerged involving a water rights agreement

COMMUNITY FEATURES

Another important aspect of Masra’s vision is “land healing, and what access to land can do for personal and community healing as well.”

However, unequal access to quality green spaces in urban landscapes is a prevalent problem in the United States. Lower-income and particularly Black and Hispanic neighborhoods have been found to have less green space coverage, and if there are parks nearby, they may have less access to them (Wen et al. 2013).

The key to generating land healing is to provide access to green spaces to recreate safely, increase knowledge of growing food and food justice, and offer opportunities to connect and grow with communities.

The Black Farmers Collective’s Instagram (@blackfarmerscollective) is the best place to stay up to date with the organization’s volunteering and educational opportunities, and to learn more about their mission and activities. To donate, visit their website at https://www.blackfarmerscollective.com/.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY SIDNEY GREENSLATE / PHOTO MEGAN THOMAS VIA UNSPLASH

With this in mind, the importance of the Black Farmers Collective can’t be overstated. Their work addresses multiple issues at once—food sovereignty, access to green spaces, and access to community surrounding those green spaces—and will provide opportunities for BIPOC to learn and experience things they may not otherwise have the chance to. “We want to get people out of the city and onto the land,” Masra explains.

“To just experience a different kind of reality. To be with living systems.”

Illustrations featuring Farm Manager Masra Clamangou.

FIELDNOTES / SPRING 2021 37

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THE AGE OF (MIS)INFORMATION by Jazzy Shepard

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FIELD OF DREAMS: HOW THE BLACK FARMERS COLLECTIVE IS CULTIVATING HEALING AT SMALL AXE FARM by Sidney Greenslate and Shawree Zhang

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PHOTO DYLAN VECCHIONE