Lo Zombie politico

What is it about Silvio Berlusconi and Italy?  The former prime minister, leader of one of the country's two largest political parties, and member of the Senate, has been convicted of tax fraud.  Finally, it's an unappealable conviction.  Meanwhile, he faces charges in at least two other proceedings.  One involves buying votes and the other underage prostitution.  Political commentators repeatedly point out that in any other Western democracy he'd be gone; he'd have quietly disappeared to Arcore, his villa near Milan, to spend more time with his family and maybe his football club, A.C. Milan (which could use some help at the moment).  Instead, like some political zombi, he's still very much a part of the scene, showing his fangs most days on the front page of most newspapers.

Tim Parks has a good piece (subscription required for full access) in a recent (maybe the latest) New York Review that talks about all of this.  Parks is originally from England, but lives in Italy, is married to an Italian woman, and they have been raising their family there.  Still, it sounds like he might be losing patience.  Describing recent media coverage, he says that "it was almost unheard of for anyone to suggest that regardless of moral concern or the desire to uphold the rule of law, Berlusconi simply cannot be of any use to his country politically . . ."  He also has some interesting things to say about the country's "vocation for factionalism."

I don't live there.  I'm in Washington, D.C., several thousand miles and six time zones away.  I've never had to struggle through the glue-y bureaucracy or been required to ally with an influential patron to protect my job and career, things which Parks (and others) see as a normal part of Italian society.  So why do I care that the country finds it so hard to address, let alone deal with, its collective problems, things like youth unemployment, the environment, and, of course, organized crime?

I'm not sure.  I'm not Italian-American and, so far as I know, I don't have any Italian ancestors.  The one's I'm aware of are all from further north -- Germany, Ireland, and Scotland, in particular.  But I have Italian friends and I've gotten to know some of their teenage children.  And this, I think, is the emotional connection.  These are remarkable kids with enormous talent and so much promise.  They deserve a better country.  They could contribute so much, but they're likely to leave and make their contributions elsewhere -- in England, in Australia, or, if we're lucky, the U.S.  There are other reasons to care about Italian politics, but right now that's probably the most important.

John McPhee talks about writing

In the past few years, John McPhee, who’s now 82, has been talking about his writing, not the articles and books so much as the writing itself.  This is remarkable for someone who has almost never referred to himself in his earlier writing.  Several of these articles on his craft were published in the New Yorker, where he’s been a staff writer since the mid-1960s.  These are available on-line in the magazine’s archives, but I’m pretty sure the full versions are only available to subscribers.  In 2010, he also gave a long interview to Peter Hessler (another New Yorker writer) covering some of the same ground and this is freely available on The Paris Review's site.  I just came across it the other day and I highly recommend it to any non-New Yorker subscriber who’s ever enjoyed McPhee’s writing and/or is curious about how he does it.

A new deal for cyclists in Italian cities?

Positive news from Italy this time.  The association representing Italian cities is proposing some really interesting ideas to make life easier for urban cyclists.  Earlier this week, the Associazione Nazionale Comuni Italiani (ANCI; National Association of Italian Municipalities) presented a set of draft ideas to the Minister of Infrastructure and Transport, Maurizio Lupi.

© Agence France Presse

Maybe the most remarkable of their proposals would be a change in the burden of proof in case of accidents.  In legal disputes. the "less vulnerable" vehicle would need to show that it was not responsible for damage to the "more vulnerable" vehicle, or injury to the latter's driver.  As a cyclist, it's amazing to think that if I was hit --god forbid! -- by a car in, say, Milan, the legal focus would be on the driver to show that he or she wasn't at fault.  What better way to get motorists pay more attention to cyclists.

Some other ANCI proposals would:

• Allow for bike lanes along the right side of each direction of roadways;

• Require, in certain cases, an additional light on traffic signals for cyclists giving them a head start in making right turns;

• Allow cyclists to travel in both directions on one-way streets; and

• Require apartment building owners to provide bicycle parking areas.

The city officials are taking advantage of the fact that the transportation committee in the Chamber of Deputies is preparing to revise the national traffic code (Codice della strada) and that the Minister will be submitting his ideas for revisions sometime before the end of the year.

It's thought that the bicycle measures stand a good chance of being included in the code revisions since the same officials proposing the ideas would be responsible for their implementation.

Ilva Steelworks (again)

Italy doesn't need another long-running saga of corruption.  And my reporting on one doesn't say much of anything new.  But I came in early on this one.  And I've had a kind of morbid fascination to follow the story as it develops.  (See four earlier posts.)

This has to do with the Ilva steelworks, the largest steel producer in Europe.  The facility is located right next to the southern Italian city of Taranto in Puglia.  Last year, faced with hard-to-deny evidence that the facility was poisoning the air and the residents of Taranto, and that governmental authorities were unable or unwilling to stop it, judicial authorities stepped in.  They seized the entire facility and removed Emilio Riva and his two sons Nicola and Fabio.  The sons are under house arrest and the father has decided to live in England for a while.  

Taranto with the Ilva works in the background.

The authorities also began several criminal investigations.  The most interesting character to emerge so far appears to be a Girolamo Archinà, Ilva's director of "institutional relations."  In this position he developed and maintained relationships with individuals in all levels of government, the press, and the church.  He aim was always to allow the company to keep making steel and to avoid any constraining environmental or health rules.  As he would make his case, it must certainly have made a difference that Ilva is the region's largest employer with about 5,000 employees.  Even so, it appears Archinà may have been ready to use other means of persuasion.  He is suspected of paying 10,000 euros to a consultant to the prosecutor's office to have him tone down findings in a study of the sources of pollution in Taranto.

Ilva and Taranto are back in the news because new information from one of the investigations involves several political figures, the best-known of whom is Nichi Vendola, the governor of Puglia, an on-again, off-again national political figure, and subject of a mostly-complimentary Washington Post profile a couple of years ago.

Nichi Vendola, President of Puglia.

Apparently, telephone recordings indicate that Vendola tried to persuade the regional environmental protection agency (Agenzia regionale per la protezione ambientale) to go easy on Ilva so that it could stay open.  Vendola has denied any wrong-doing and says he hopes to meet with investigators as soon as possible.  

Meanwhile, thanks to two governmental decrees, the plant is still open, operating under a receiver.  But there are no signs the air in Taranto is any cleaner.

Following the Loire: Day One

Day One from Saint-Étienne to Feurs (24 July 2013)

I started with a short detour to Cycles Marcon on the rue Bergson; the street is a major thoroughfare running north in the middle of the city.  I'd forgotten to pack my cycling gloves.  The evening before, I'd found a nearly new store near the hotel called Cyclable specializing in "city bicycle riding."  I'm pleased to see new stores like this, and hope it's part of a successful trend (I came across another Cyclable branch in Orléans.)  But apparently city bicycle riders don't bother with gloves.  Cycles Marcon was a real bicycle store and I found what I needed.

Leaving Saint-Étienne, I'd planned to ride to Aurec-sur-Loire.  This was where I'd left off riding two years ago when I'd started at the source of the Loire at le Gerbier de Jonc and rode the first 200 kilometers.  But I should have studied the map better; and it should have been a topo map.  Saint-Étienne is set in a kind of bowl of hills.  A few, more or less flat routes lead out but they're mostly heavily-traveled roadways.  Probably for this reason Google maps directs a cyclist to take to the hills.  But Google maps may not know the cyclist is carrying 20 pounds of baggage.

Hills just outside of Saint-Étienne

I'd planned on averaging roughly 22 -- 25 kph.  As it turned out, between the hills and a couple of wrong turns, I probably averaged half of that for the first couple of hours.  I was getting worried that it could end up being a very long day.  At a point just west of Firminy, a town known for a le Corbusier project, Google Maps brought me to La Côte Martin.  I was facing a barely-paved pathway, way too steep to ride.  I wondered who devises these routes?  Was it some kid back at Google headquarters in Mountain View, who had no idea of the roads in this part of the world, who wanted to send me up this hill?  This wasn't going to work.  Looking at the map again, I could see there wasn't really any alternative; If I was going to go to Aurec-sur-Loire, I would have to do a lot of climbing.  At that point, it was nearly 1 p.m. and I still had about 50 km to go.  I decided I'd have to compromise a little in my commitment to ride the full length of the river.  Just ahead, along a nice, flat road, was Le Pertuiset.  It was on the river.  I could pick up my Loire route there.  It would only be 7 km downstream from Aurec.

Vacation homes at Le Pertuiset on the Lac de Grangent

But on the bridge at Le Pertuiset I saw that the road was going up again.  The Grangent Dam is about 6 km downstream from the bridge and has flooded any possible route down close to the river banks.  To go north towards Feurs I needed to climb up the D108 above the west side of the Lac de Grangent, the lake behind the dam.  Sometimes, after all the fretting, a climb can turn out actually to be fun.  From Le Pertuiset to the top of the climb at Chambles is about 7 km.  Over that distance the road rises about 200 meters (about 650 feet), which means a gradient of a little less than 3 percent.  But I didn't know that when I was riding.  All the way up I worried that the road would get steeper around the next bend.  And, at the same time, I was continually relieved that it didn't.  Most of France was suffering from a heat wave that week, including the areas around Saint-Étienne.  But long stretches of this road were shaded; I don't recall ever breaking into much of a sweat.  I also don't recall encountering more than one or two cars; several other cyclists, yes, but few, if any, cars.  At the top I felt great.  Coming to France I believed I was in decent shape.  But I wouldn't know for sure until I started riding.  The steep roads out of Saint-Étienne and the decision to turn away from La Côte Martin had made me nervous.  Here, though, I rode without any real strain.  I could handle this.

After the descent from Chambles, most of the rest of route to Feurs followed flat, straight roads.  Between the Monts du Lyonais off to the east and the Monts du Forez to the west, the Loire has created a wide, rich valley for agriculture.  I rode through fields of wheat and corn and felt for a moment like I was back in Iowa where I grew up.

Flooding in Italy

Two years ago today, heavy mountain rains caused flash flooding in Cinque Terre and other parts of Liguria in Italy. Lynda and I visited the area in 2006 and spent a wonderful day walking the narrow trail above the Tyrrhenian Sea from Riomaggiore to Monterosso. Vernazza (below) was about the mid-point of the 10 km walk.  We never thought of anything like this.  The flood waters rushing down the narrow canyons from the mountains to the ocean directly and indirectly 13 killed people and destroyed homes and businesses.  The area is still getting back on its feet.

Flash flood waters emptying into the harbor at Vernazza. © Tom Wallace

So, along with news about Berlusconi's latest legal problems and the Letta government's new budget proposals, flooding has been on Italian minds lately, at least some Italian minds.

Gian Vito Graziano, president of the National Geologists Council (il Consiglio nazionale dei geologi) warned recently of the likelihood of more such flooding and likely deaths. Everywhere in Italy, he said, misuse of land -- urbanization of agricultural fields, in-fill of wetlands, dikes along rivers -- has reduced its ability to absorb heavy rains like those that hit Liguria.

Unfortunately, the country’s creaky political institutions and sputtering economy (to say the least in both cases) probably mean that heads will be nodded sincerely, but little will change and the flooding risks will remain. (I recognize one could say the much the same thing about this country’s Republican-sabotaged politics and precarious economy and their effects on environmental policies.)

"No Tav": Turin-Lyon train line

Certainly lots of environmental issues are more significant than the high-speed rail line between Turin, in Italy, and Lyon, in France.  But an article on the project in today's Corriere della sera caught my eye.  I have a personal interest in the line having once followed the route on a train from Milan to Paris.  I'd paid for a ticket on a high-speed train, but in fact very little of it was high-speed until after we passed through the mountains and got into France.

For years, the French and Italian rail companies, backed by political authorities, have wanted to modernize the rail connection between the two cities.  The most dramatic engineering feature of the line is a planned 57 km long tunnel from the Susa Valley in Italy to the Maurienne Valley in France.  (Several famous Tour de France climbs, like the Col du Télégraphe, the Col du Croix de Fer, and the Col de la Madeleine, rise out of the Maurienne Valley.)

Environmentalists in both countries oppose the line out of concern, among others, for its impact on a fragile alpine ecology.  Questions have also been raised, especially in France, about its costs.  Lately, in Italy, elements of the "No Tav" ("Treno alta velocità") opposition has become violent.  The article in Corriere della Sera reported what is counted as the 15th incident of sabotage against the line.  Yesterday, while workers were off for lunch, someone entered a worksite at Bussoleno in the Susa  Valley and set fire to a piece of heavy equipment.  Bussoleno is about 50 km west of Turin.

This kind of violence is never acceptable opposition. It's dangerous and extortionist and those found responsible deserve serious judicial sanction, never mind their motives.  Still, I'm not sure yet where I stand on the matter of the line itself.  Will it, in fact, cause environmental harm?  I've visited the Maurienne Valley and it is not an isolated alpine environment, at least down along the highway running along the Arc River.  And that highway, as I rode my bike next to it, seemed to be carrying quite a bit of truck traffic.  Wouldn't that freight travel with a lot less pollution on a train?

Colorado flooding

For four years back in the early 1970s, Lynda and I lived in Boulder, Colorado.  It's been a while since we've been back, but i can still sort of recall the little stream that came down out of Boulder Canyon.  So the videos and pictures of the recent flooding are that much more remarkable, if not incredible.  The New York Times reports that 4,000 people in Boulder Canyon were told to evacuate immediately; and another 4,000 were told to move to higher floors.  The main campus of the University of Colorado has been closed.  Early estimates report that 20 percent of the university's buildings have had some amount of water damage, including the theater and main library.  There have been three reported deaths so far and more flood damage in and around canyons all along the Colorado front range.  The state's governor, John Hickenlooper, has referred to it as among the worst flooding in the state's history.

How could that much water collect and roar down the canyon and cause all that damage?  The Times reports 15 inches of rainfall in the past few days.  And where the rain fell on hillsides above Boulder and other canyons that had been burned by recent forest fires, there was nothing to absorb it.  Worse, heat from the fires had created a layer of soil that is virtually waterproof.  The rain falls and virtually all of it immediately heads downhill, collecting dirt, rocks, and all sorts of debris as it goes.  It knocks down and sweeps along almost everything in its path and doesn't stop until it looses energy on the plains beyond the mouths of the canyons.

After people recover as best they can from the shock, and after the cleanup, I hope the papers will continue to cover how, if at all, Boulder and the other communities respond.  It's a version of the situation following almost any weather-related disaster.  It's on-going in New York and New Jersey in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.  Is this combination of bare hillsides after forest fires and heavy rains an extraordinary, highly unlikely ever-to-be-repeated event?  Or does climate change make such extreme weather, even without the forest fires, more likely?  Is there a need to take steps to mitigate damage from similar floods in the future?  Would this influence land use decisions in the canyons?

The Écopole du Forez

Preparing for a trip can be nearly as enjoyable as taking as it.  This time, with lots of arrangments to make beforehand, that was particularly true.  How many days would I take to cover the 800 km?  How long would each day's ride be?  Were there certain towns where I wanted to stay?  Which chambres d'hôte seemed best placed and most attractive?

I didn't, though, plan what I'd be doing in each place.  I'd stay there at least two nights, giving me a full day to explore.  But I had no plans for that day, apart from possibly looking for something related to the river.  Invariably the chambres d'hôte offer multiple brochures describing local attractions.  Usually, traveling with Lynda, we already have plans and I ignore the brochures, except to stuff them in a drawer to make room on the desk for my computer.  This time, though, I thought they might offer something.  That's how, while I was in Feurs for the first two nights of my trip, I learned about the Écopole du Forez.

It took France a while to recover from World War II.  Eventually it did and from the mid-1950s through the 1970s, the so-called trentes glorieuses, the economy took off and grew steadily.  Especially after the destruction from the War, the growth meant construction -- roads, rail lines, buildings, homes.  And construction meant sand and gravel, much of which came from river beds.  Over time, the environmental effects of this became more and more evident.  In places with heavy extraction stream levels went down, in turn affecting fish populations and upsetting plant and animal habitats along the banks.  

In the mid-1980s, environmentalists were trying to stop extraction of sand and gravel from pits along a stretch of the Loire in the middle of the Forez Valley.  The mining was lowering the river bed, which, in turn, was affecting fish populations and upsetting plant and animal habitats along the banks.  In 1987, the Fédération Rhône-Alpes de Protection de la Nature (FRAPNA) managed to find the funds to buy one of the gravel pits covering about 27 acres.  That same year, three companies with contiguous pits decided to donate to FRAPNA an additional 370 acres.  The Écopole's history is silent on what may have been going on in the background to cause this.  Now, with responsibility for nearly 400 acres, FRAPNA turned to the European Union for funds to restore the pits and surrounding areas.  La Nef ("The Vessel"), a wood and glass visitors center recalling an inverted ship's hull.  The building sits on pilings several feet above ground, both to provide a vantage point and to protect against Loire floods.

They also found resources to build

 The center opened in 1993.  Twenty years later you need the old photos on display there to know what the area was like before.  The old pits have become a series of ponds bordering the west side of the Loire.  Grasses and reeds cover the banks and black alders and willows have grown up on the land nearby.  The restored habitat has brought fish to the ponds and lots of birds, including cormorants, grey herons, black kites, egrets, and several varieties of ducks.  The upstream Grangent and downstream Villeret Dams eliminated beavers from the Forez Valley.  But Écopole staff successfully reintroduced the animal several years ago.

On a daily basis the Écopole concentrates on environmental education.  It has ties to universities in Lyon and Saint-Étienne.  It works with schools in the area.  And it hosts a regular flow of tourist like me.  It is also trying to extend the écopole concept up and down the river.  This year, at the end of May, during the celebration of the Écopole's 20-year anniversary, supporters designated the center as the first component of what they're calling the "Transligérienne."  "Ligérien" (feminin, ligérienne) describes someone or something related to the Loire River.  The term derives from the Latin name for the river, the Liger.  Supporters of the Transligérienne idea hope to see a series of similar natural preserves created all along the 1,000 km of the river.  Eventually, too, they hope to link to the Via Rhôna, a hiking, cycling trail along the Rhone River.  The dream is a line of nature preserves from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean.

Back in Paris

This may be an odd way to maintain a blog.  It's supposed to be a more or less daily log of what you're doing or what's on your mind.  But what I'm going to do here, at least for a while, is to post notes on what I've been up to over the last nearly six weeks.  I'm catching up on what I'd hoped do do during my Loire bike ride, but didn't.  I have several reasons (excuses) for that, but mostly they have to do with being busy riding, recovering from a ride, or exploring a little of the area where I was staying.  Most days while traveling, I did well if I made a few notes at the end of the day or next morning with coffee.

In the middle of July, I was back in Paris.  It was only for a couple of days, but it was good to be back.  I didn't always feel that way about the city.  My relationship with Paris wasn't love at first sight.  I've never quite understand why everyone is so seduced.  My appreciation came grudgingly and over time, the same as it did with New York.  Maybe this comes, at least in part, from growing up in Iowa and Los Angeles, the Midwest and Far West.  As an "outlander" I think I mistrusted their reputations, couldn't believe they were all people said they were.  I didn't think I needed whatever it was they offered.

Also, in the case of Paris, I learned French before I ever knew very much about France the country.  I'd learned the language in the Peace Corps to be able to teach English in Senegal.  I only got to know the country later, mostly through the Tour de France bicycle race.  In the late 1980's, when I first got interested -- a time before Google maps -- I'd sit with the Michelin road atlas and trace out each day's stage.  I learned the geography of the country; and I got familiar with regional cities and small towns where the Tour stopped regularly.  When we started traveling to France, I was more interested in visiting these places than Paris.  But that changed.  The city grew on me.  Every time we went, I got a little more comfortable; it felt better.  

"Bonheur"

I took the pieces of my bicycle out of its travel case yesterday and put it back together.  I was staying with a friend in Paris and I'd found some shade in the courtyard of her apartment building; I was hurrying to be done before the temperatures went into the 90s.  (And here I'd thought I'd be escaping Washington D.C.'s heat when I got to Paris.)  At one point, I dropped a small screw.  I found it again right away, but it occured to me then how much this whole project depends on this seemingly fragile machine.  One piece missing or broken and all the planning is up in the air.

Maybe if I gave the bike a name it would feel more like part of the family and be on its best behavior.  But I've had it for nearly ten years without knowing it as anything other than "the Hampsten," so it's probably too late for that sort naming, personification thing.  In any case, as long as I don't lose critical pieces, the bike has always (knock on wood) been highly reliable.

So I'm off for a month or riding down the Loire River.  Last night, the apartment across the courtyard seemed to offer what I'm glad to take as an encouraging sign of what's ahead.

The Minister takes her leave

Well, she certainly didn't just hand over the keys to her office and go home.  Delphine Batho, recently dismissed from her position as French Minister of the Environment, gave a press conference today in which she took aggressive shots at the Prime Minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault and certain "economic lobbies" that wanted her out.  Her remarks have been called "politically naive," and they probably were.  All of the blame was directed elsewhere, for example, none her own way.

But her political inexperience and lack of press conference skills shouldn't obscure the fact that the Hollande/Ayrault government, when it chose her ministry to take the largest budget cuts in its 2014 budget, announced that, to put it mildly, environmental programs were way, way down on its list of priorities.  That, to me,  has a lot more significance than Ms. Batho's press conference.

The government's priorities may be jobs, and correctly so.  But, more like socialists of 40 or more years ago, they seem to act as if jobs mean infrastructure and regional economic development.  It's as if they're out to recreate the "Trentes Glorieuses" the 30 years of post-war economic growth.  Thus Ayrault's Notre-Dame-de-Landes airport project just west of Nantes where he was mayor for many years, justified as critical for economic growth in that part of western France.  No one in the government seems much interested in what all this does to land and water resources, or whether the jobs being created will still be around in five or ten years.

Meanwhile, Ms. Batho retains a seat in the National Assembly as a deputy from the Deux Sèvres, a largely rural district directly south of Angers and the Loire River.  I don't have the impression she was particularly identified with environmental issues before being name to her ministerial position.  Nor has she been that close to EELV (Europe Écologie Les Verts) party members.  It will be interesting what role she plays now.

Budget cut, environment minister gone

French president François Holland's government recently announced its budget for 2014 with more cuts in public spending; the agency taking the biggest hit turned out to be the Ministry of the Environment with a seven percent reduction in funds.  Who knows what was going on behind the scenes, but this turned out to be too much for the Minister, Delphine Batho.  She publicly criticized her own government, calling it a "bad" budget.  On Tuesday she was sacked.

The budget cuts together with Ms. Batho's firing, even allowing for her failure of collective responsibility, says nothing good about the Holland government's interest in the environment.  And this is not the first time Holland and Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault have axed a head of the department that seemed to taking a commitment to the environment too seriously.  Holland's first Minister of the Environment, preceding Ms. Batho, was Nicole Bricq.  But shortly after being named to the position, she suspended oil exploration permits in the waters around Guyane.  The oil companies complained and Ms. Bricq was gone.

Ms. Batho has been replaced by Philippe Martin, a PS deputy from the Gers and until now a member of the Assembly's commission on sustainable development.

Apparently Ms. Batho wasn't particularly close to the EELV members of the government or environmentalist members of her own Socialist Party.  But after the government's severe downgrading of environmental policy as indicated by the budget -- quite apart from Ms Batho's firing -- one wonders at what point the EELV members of the government will decide their project may be better served by leaving.

Bosco Verticale

These look almost real.  And, remarkably, they're about to be.  The two apartment towers, referred to as the "Bosco Verticale" (Vertical Forest), are currently under construction in the Porta Nuova neighborhood of Milan, Italy.  Hines Italia, the project developer, expects they'll be finished and ready for occupancy later this year, or perhaps early next year.  Already, they report that 60 percent of the units have been sold.  The neighborhood, about 10 minutes north of the landmark Duomo and between the Garibaldi and Centrale train stations, in the midst of a major redevelopment effort including new commercial and residential buildings and park space.

© Stefano Boeri Architects

 





Clearly, their distinctive feature is the greenery.   Could they have been inspired by the Torre Guinigi in Lucca (below)?  Maybe.

© Richard Mounts, 2006

More likely the inspiration would have come from a contemporary building like this one, the Royal Park on Pickering Hotel in Singapore.  Stefano Boeri, the architect for the Bosco Verticale, and a few others seem to be dramatically extending the idea of a green building.

© Singapore Air

Statistics for the Bosco Verticale are impressive.  Together the two towers, one 262 feet (80 meters) and the other 367 feet (112 meters), will include the equivalent of a two-and-a-half-acre woods.  Once planted, a gardening service will be responsible for some 730 trees, 5,000 shrubs, and 11,000 groundcover plants.  To reduce the weight of normal dirt, gardeners developed a lightweight substrate material.  Besides the sense of being in the woods even at 300 feet over Milan, it's expected that all of this greenery should reduce building energy usage by nearly a third.

A complication developed at the end of May when the firm doing the construction filed for bankruptcy.  But it's reported the developers have found a new firm to take over and they should be able to finish construction more or less on schedule.

World Heritage "curse"?

Later this summer I'll be biking through a part of the Loire Valley that's been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  The designation, which only occurred about ten years ago, is meant to help preserve, and at the same time draw attention to, the remarkable chateaux along the middle portion of the river, and to their history.  I suppose it's not unexpected that these two objectives should end up creating tensions.  The people who want to draw in tourists and the people who want to preserve sites aren't necessarily the same.  And once the UNESCO designation has been achieved, they aren't likely to have the same interests.  In fact, they may well end up in conflict.

A recent example of this is the Loreley Plateau, a site along the middle portion of the Rhine River, about 80 km west of Frankfurt, Germany.  (Hat tip to M. McDonald)  The plateau is at the top of a nearly 400 foot-high rock at the narrowest point of the Rhine.  The rocks below and the turbulence in the river have caused numerous accidents over the years and helped give rise to local legends.  In 2002, the rock and the plateau were included in a 65 km stretch of the river receiving UNESCO World Heritage designation.

Google Satellite identifies several hotels, restaurants and a sizable camping ground on the plateau, all of which feature great views above the river and probably benefit from the UNESCO designation.  But it seems that a recently-constructed summer bobsled run was one thing too many. 

http://www.spiegel.de

Just this week, the World Heritage Committee issued a statement declaring that the run was "not compatible with the outstanding universal value of the World Heritage property" and calling for its removal.

I'll be on the lookout for tourism run amok when I'm riding past the Loire chateaux.  But I have to say I have trouble seeing this bobsled run as an example.  The World Heritage Committee seems to be okay with places to eat and sleep and park your camper van.  But the bobsled run seems to strike them as just too touristy, too tackily mass touristy. 

http://www.spiegel.de

 I'd probably prefer a beer on one of the restaurant terraces before I took a run on the bobsled.  But it's a little hard to see, from the photo here, how it has more of an impact on the site than do the other tourist facilities.

Meanwhile, commercial barge traffic continues along this stretch of the river below and a little over two years ago one of them capsized near the Loreley rock spilling 2,400 tons sulphuric acid into the river.  One wonders whether the barges and their cargos are "compatible with the outstanding universal value of the World Heritage property?"

Messy is better

Could a small boat, a chainsaw, and a hand winch be enough to bring a river back to life?  Possibly, in some cases.  An example comes from the River Bure, a short river, only about 50 long, flowing through Norfolk in northeastern England.  It joins the River Yare at Great Yarmouth just before reaching the North Sea.

A little north of the city of Norwich, the river passes through the Blickling Estate, a large country house and grounds managed by England's National Trust since the 1940s.  In the past, the river had been dredged and meanders blocked off to accommodate several nearby mills using the water power.  Trees that might fall into the river were regularly cleared away.  A visitor to the Estate might see an attractive country steam (below), but, in fact, the channelizing and debris clearing had seriously undermined its vitality.   

© D. Brady.  The National Trust

These measures, it appears, had caused the flow of water to slow down.  As it did so, silt, normally carried farther downstream, fell out and gradually covered over the gravel in the river bed.  Over time this process eliminated many of the spawning grounds for the local brown trout.  Eventually local fishermen and National Trust staff realized something needed to be done to improve the river's ability to support the fish and other plant and animal life.
 
In 2008 and 2010 the two groups undertook to recreate something like natural stream conditions.  This turned out to be fairly easy.  They carefully picked out trees that looked like they were about to fall into the river on their own, cut them, and let them fall into the river, branches, leaves and all.  In a few cases, they needed the hand winch to drag them into the water.

The result has been impressive.  As water squeezed its way around and through the debris, it accelerated and, in doing so, began to wash the silt off of the gravel.  With this, the trout began to return to spawn; the fishermen have recorded their increased numbers.  Some of the silt has been displaced out to the river banks where it has allowed new plants to take root.

© D. Brady.  The National Trust

The result (here) may be a messier looking river, but it appears to be much healthier.  And the lesson has been picked up by environmental agencies in the area; they are now much more likely to let trees that fall into streams just stay there.

Building up protections

Give New York credit for its efforts to learn from last year's Hurricane Sandy.  Less a year after the storm that causing more than $19 billion in damage, New York City, following the State, has now announced proposals aimed at reducing risks of similar damage in future storms. 
 
Last Tuesday, NYC mayor, Michael Bloomberg, described plans to protect vulnerable buildings along the city's 520-mile floodplain.  The proposals including modifying new and existing buildings to reinforce foundations, as well as raise the levels of critical equipment.  They also include proposals to build a system of flood walls, levees, and bulkheads at critical points around the city.  The total cost is estimated at $20 billion, although most expect it to go higher as measures would be implemented.

As I noted the other day, New York City currently has nearly 400,000 people living and working within its 100-year flood plain (which these days are often more like 50-year flood plains).  Generally, the mayor's proposals are aimed at protecting those residents, and in addition, allowing for that number to double over the next 30 years or so.

What's more, the proposals include one seemingly head-scratching idea to use new residential and office development as a means of protecting against storm surge.  The report describes a project the mayor referred to as Seaport City, a complex of apartments and office buildings to be built on landfill extending out from the shoreline below the Brooklyn Bridge.  Quite possibly I'm missing something, but it seems that, while the new development might protect existing territory along that part of the East Side, the new developments would themselves become the at-risk, exposed buildings. 

I know New York City is very different from coastal areas on Long Island where Governor Cuomo has proposed paying landowners to give up their houses and permit the coast to return to something like a natural protective system of dunes and marshes.  I suspect that there's little, if any, of the New York City floodplain where anything similar would be possible.  Still, as one researcher observed, you "can't guarantee protection for infrastructure that is in vulnerable locations."  Yet Mayor Bloomberg's proposals seem prepared to try. 

I'm hoping an interesting debate will follow since there's a lot I need to learn.

Waterfront property

What is it about living near water that's so attractive?  In the past it was easier to understand.  Waterways were sources of power for milling and early manufacture.  And oceans and rivers were transportation routes.  People lived near water probably without thinking too much about it.  They were simply living close to their work.  But why now when we have so many alternatives to water power and water-based transportation?  Nearly everywhere it seems developers push to offer more waterfront residences, local governments anxious about tax revenues approve them, and and people buy them, both as first and second homes.

And then come hurricanes and floods.  But somehow these disasters seem to have little effect on the waterfront development machine.  These thoughts come from reading a couple of recent New York Times articles.  One, on high water levels and flooding along the Danube in Austria and Hungary, noted that part of the reason for record high water levels was the reduced ability of river flood plains to absorb it. 

A Budapest neighborhood,  June 9, 2013. © Reuters/Laszlo Balogh

It cited a study from the Hungarian national water authority reporting that "the decreased drainage capacity of the Hungarian flood protection system was due largely to increased building on former floodplains along rivers."

The other was an article today on new warnings of risks posed to New york City from climate change, especially rising sea levels.  The City report noted that already some 398,000 people live within the 100-year flood plain.  But, rather than seeing that number reduced, the report expects it will more than double over the next 35 years or so.  It seems that mermaids' fatal siren songs are now sung by real estate developers.

No Big Ships!

Yesterday's post turned out to be more timely than I knew.  More or less while I was drafting it, demonstrators were winding up a weekend of protests against the large cruise ships passing through the Giudecca Canal.  On Sunday, supporters of No Grandi Navi (No Big Ships) lined up at the Stazione Marittima at the port of Venice to block passengers' access to the ships.  Later, dozens of small boats occupied the Giudecca Canal to prevent one of the ships from leaving. 

© Giornalettismo.com

Ultimately, darkness, rain, and wind ended the small boat blockade and the ship departed about three hours late.  

The demonstrators' larger purpose had been to send a message to Venice mayor, Giorgio Orsoni.  Orsoni is due to meet later this week with Minister of Infrastructure and Transport, Maurizio Lupi, to discuss new docking arrangements for the ships.  One option would be to develop new basins inside the lagoon at Maghera.  No Grandi Navi, however, wants the ships kept completely out of the lagoon and favors an off-shore facility from which visitors would be ferried into the city.  Anna Somers Cocks, in her NYRB article (see link in yesterday's post), suggests that the real power in the lagoon is not the mayor, but the head of the Autorità Portuale di Venezia (Venice Port Authority), Paolo Costa.  And, she says, he favors arrangements that would remain within his jurisdiction, i.e., something inside the lagoon.

Venice inundated

I touched on the problem of large cruise ships invading Venice once before.  These floating multi-story hotels, crowding into the Giudecca Canal, bringing thousands of passengers up close to the Doge's Palace and the Campanile in Piazza San Marco, are part of a larger complex of issues connected to how to save the city from tourism and from rising sea waters.  

© Andrea Pattaro/AFP

 Anna Somers Cocks, in a recent issue of The New York Review of Books, discusses all of this.  It's an excellent and unsettling article.

In 1987, Italy sought, and was granted, designation of Venice as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  As part of the designation agreement, Italy promised to develop and implement a management plan for the city and a buffer zone around it.  The French chateaux in the Loire Valley are protected by such a plan.  Only in November of last year did the Venice City Council publish a plan, 25 years after the original World Heritage designation.  Cocks, a former chairman of the Venice in Peril Fund and now the editor of The Art Newspaper, is deeply critical of what they produced for failing to address the critical threats to Venice.  Without significant changes in governance and political will, she fears that the city will be overwhelmed by tourists and rising sea water.

Peaking releases and fish

Hydropower may be a clean, renewable form of energy, but putting a dam across a river certainly has consequences for life in and along a river.  This is particularly true when the power station operates in a "peaking" manner, periodically releasing water from the reservoir to supply extra power.

Recently, France's Fédération Nationale pour la Pêche (National Federation for Fishing) and Électricité de France (EDF) announced the results of a joint six-year study (2006-2011) of the impacts on the down-stream fish populations of these peaking releases (referred to as "éclusées" from the opening of the "écluses" or locks to release the water).  The report covered the first phase on an on-going evaluation and looked at water releases from the dams at La Roche-aux-Moines and Éguzon, both on the Creuse River about 50 km south of Châteauroux (about 150 km southeast of Tours and the Loire River).  Data was collected at some 50 points identified as fish spawning grounds.

Éguzon Dam.  © La Nouvelle République and Patrick Gaïda

Somewhat surprisingly, the study found that the impacts weren't all negative; they varied according to species of fish.  Some seemed to do just fine; others not so fine.  Among the former were barbels, a small carp-like fish, and chub.  Among the latter were perch, trout, and sanders, all of which showed declining numbers.

Already, EDF has agreed to modify its water releases to keep the downstream water levels within specified minimum and maximum amounts.  As reported in the newspaper La Nouvelle République the fishermen and the power company, having collaborated in this project, seemed anxious to find ways to manage the river to satisfy everyone's concerns, or at least those of fishermen and power generators.  I'm curious, though, about what regulatory requirements apply to habitat protection along rivers in cases like this, and the extent to which those are taken into account.  Is there a possibility that governmental agencies may be ceding responsibilities to private interests in this case?

The Gerbier is free

Among the world's rivers, France's Loire must have one of the most clearly marked starting points.  This is le Gerbier de Jonc, a volcanic mound in the department of the Ardèche, where several springs emerge from its base, quickly join, and head off for the Atlantic some 600 miles away.

© Richard Mounts

Despite being rather remote, it's estimated that the site draws nearly a half million visitors a year, many of whom pay a euro or so and push through the turnstile to hike to the top for the impressive views.  

© Richard Mounts

© Richard Mounts

Not withstanding its status as a kind of national monument, le Gerbier and the surrounding land is privately-held.  But starting this summer, the admission charges will be dropped and access will be free.  This comes as the result of a 30-year agreement between the land owners and the department of the Ardèche.

I worry about too many people climbing over an already fragile ecology.  But apparently the department plans new protective measures, along with programs to highlight the unique characteristics of the setting.  I may have to go back.

Grande Pioggia New York

Well, there was plenty of water involved in last Sunday's Gran Fondo New york, but it wasn't the Hudson.  It was the rain.  It seemed to have come, more or less, out of nowhere.  Last Thursday, when I packed, the weather report said sunny with temperatures in the mid- to high-60s.  And that was still pretty much the prediction on Friday and Saturday after we'd arrived in New York.  But Sunday morning, when I looked out the apartment window at about 5 a.m., the streets were wet.  The weather report now showed a chance of rain, but only 30 percent through the morning, with the probability going up to 50 percent about 2 p.m.  I figured that would be an incentive pushing me to get done.  So I set off, worried more about keeping warm, wearing DC Velo kit -- arm warmers, a vest and a long-sleeved windbreaker -- over the regulation chartreuse GFNY jersey.  On the George Washington Bridge I think we were mostly worried about getting underway.

But, as soon as we left the bridge's protection, we met light, chilly rain.  So much for the 70 percent change of no rain.  It was 100 percent the entire day.   Early on, I sort of wished for some mechanical failure to take me out without my having to think about it.  But that didn't happen and, in fact, I felt pretty good.  Then I thought, okay, I'll make it to Bear Mountain, the half-way point, and knowing after that that I was heading home should keep me going.  

It didn't.  At about mile 70, the Rockland County Boulders baseball stadium, I was wet to the skin and couldn't stop shivering.  I climbed off.  But at least I had lots of company.

 Maybe there was more excitement around the finishing area when the earlier riders had come in.  But by the time the bus delivered us dropouts, it looked pretty sad.  The few people left were huddled under the tents trying to stay dry and moderately warm.  Riders straggled across the finish line.
Eventually, a truck ferrying back and forth to transport bikes down to those of us who'd dropped out, delivered mine.  By then it was 7:30 p.m.  I think we were just about the last group of riders taking the Weehawken Ferry over to Manhattan and a warm shower.  But despite all of that, I'll probably try again
next year.

River rides

I've had a lot of posts here about rivers.  This is another one, but a little different.  Sunday, I'll be riding my bicycle along the west side of the Hudson River from the George Washington Bridge up to Bear Mountain, then back down to Weehawken, New Jersey.  I'll be riding in the 4th annual "Grand Fondo New York."  The route is on the map below.  This is a semi-competitive race/ride modelled on similar events in Italy, France, and several other European countries.  Unfortunately, even though we're following a route whose challenging ups and downs were more or less created by the river, the event organizers have said virtually nothing about that body of water on our shoulders.  I suspect most of the time I'll be riding, as the wonderful French phrase has it, le nez dans le guidon (literally, "my nose in the handlebars"; figuratively, my nose to the grindstone).  But I'll try to report back later on whatever scenes along the way I'll be able to recall.

 

"When the levee breaks, mama, you got to move" (Led Zeppelin)

How many marvelous pictures are there of the Loire River, often as a calm backdrop to towns and chateaux along the banks.  I've taken some myself, although I'd say their quality has mostly to do with the memories they bring back.

However calm the river may appear, recent floods in northeastern France along the Seine and Aube rivers must have reminded people living nearby that the Loire can do the same.  And a recent report from a regional public agency would have reinforced that reminder.  The report, from the Center Region's Direction régionale de l'environnement, de l'aménagement et du logement (DREAL) dealt with the condition of levees (example below) along the Loire and the risks in the event of 100-year flood conditions.  La Nouvelle République (Tours) reports that it's unlikely such a flood would overflow the tops of levees up stream from Tours.  But, it reported, various forces, natural and man-made, may have weakened the earthen barriers in certain places, creating risk of a breach.  

The probability of such a failure may be relatively low, but the consequences would be catastrophic; reportedly more than 100,000 people would need to be evacuated from areas around Tours (about 300,000 in the metropolitan area).  The point of the report was, in part, to remind local officials of the need for emergency evacuation plans, but also to reassure them that levee repair work was on-going.  

In contrast, nothing was said, at least in this forum, about what might be done to reduce the need for evacuations by limiting development in flood-prone areas.  Perhaps that's for another day.

Flood insurance premiums and coastal rebuilding

The consequences of Hurricane Sandy continue to play out along coastal areas where people are deciding what to do about damaged homes.  The New York Times had an article the other day about households thinking about rebuilding, but faced with suddenly much more expensive flood insurance.

© Rosanne Salvatore and Kathryn Kattalia/New York Daily News

Properties in areas classified as at risk for "severe and repeated" flooding will pay new, higher insurance premiums starting October 1 of this year, with 25 percent increases each year until rates reflect the actual cost of providing the insurance.  Owners can reduce these rates by raising their homes by several feet, or by moving out of the riskiest areas.  In either case these measures are likely to be expensive and many are reluctant to take them.  Some property owners have started to organize to oppose the higher rates.

Focused as it is on the financial strains of individual homeowners, the NYT article tends to be sympathetic.  But how much sympathy do they deserve?  The Times article does mention that many people with properties in at-risk areas have been paying subsidized rates.  And a 2011 report from the Center for Public Integrity notes that, nation-wide, property owners in flood-prone areas are paying only about 45 percent of the full-risk price.  One effect of this has been that the National Flood Insurance Program is badly under-funded and several times has had to borrow from the U.S. Treasury to meet insurance obligations.
 
I recognize that people along the New york and New Jersey shores face difficult decisions.  But even so it has to be asked whether there is any public policy reason to use federal resources to subsidize people so that they can continue to live in these high-risk areas?

Curbing urban sprawl

It's estimated that each year France loses over 300 square miles of farmland and open space.  That's about equal to the surface area of new York City; or about 4.5 times more than the size of the District of Columbia.  The same thing is happening in the U.S.  One report from a couple of years ago looked at land consumption in 274 U.S. metropolitan areas.  Researchers found that over the ten-year period 1990 to 2000 urban ooze had spread over something like 5,800 square miles.  And we have some idea of what this means for the environment -- lost farm lands and open spaces, more roads, more cars, etc.

© Sara Leen at environment.nationalgeographic.com

All of this creates interest (for me at least) in work going on in France's Ministry of Territorial Equality and Housing (Ministère de l'Égalité des Territoires et du Logement).  Cécile Duflot, the head of the ministry, has just made the first presentation of her agency's legislative project, a central part of which would be a series of measures meant to increase density in urban areas and limit this kind of land consumption.

The proposals, which are still being discussed within the government, could include the following:

• Make it easier to convert empty office buildings into residences.  It's estimated that France's stock of empty office space is about 54 million square feet (5 million square meters);
• Reduce parking requirements per unit;
• Allow residential buildings to increase height above connected, neighboring buildings;
• Reduce the minimum lot size in townhouse areas;
• Reclassify as natural lands after 10 years those lands eligible for development, but still undeveloped; and
• Transfer urban planning responsibilities from mayors to inter-communal bodies. 

Some of these could be enacted by governmental order; some, like the last, would require new legislation.

France's economy is having trouble generating much, if any, growth.  And François Hollande's government doesn't seem willing or able to do much to help.  With some justification, it's being criticized from all sides.  But here and there, with measures like the highly-visible same-sex marriage law, and this much less visible set of environmental proposals, the government is doing some good things and deserves credit.