It finally got hot here in Rochester and we actually had 3 days in a row without rain. Woot! I spent most of July building a wiki site about Rochester’s hopping entertainment district, quite a good project and one that really got me excited about how well some of the online content management systems work. Though I haven’t been doing the social media thing as frequently lately, I count building 120 pages of original content as a social media activity.

The CMS I’m using is Wetpaint and I’m becoming a default power-user. I highly recommend this platform. It has pretty powerful photo-editing software built-in (Picnic), supports widgets for things like slideshows, makes internal linking really fast and easy and makes SEO a snap with constant reminders to add tags. When I launched the site on its own URL it only took two weeks to get to 55% of visitors coming from organic searches. My SEO peeps will appreciate what this means- basically that Google likes the site!

I’m already building another site on the platform that will soon reside at WaterfrontRochester.com. It features all of Rochester’s varied waterfront neighborhoods- we have a lot of water: Lake Ontario, Irondequoit Bay, the Erie Canal, the Genesee River. When I’m done some lucky Realtor will be invited to sponsor this thing. Then I’m on to WaterfrontFingerLakes.com. If you’ve never been to the Finger Lakes you have to go- absolutely spectacular wine country, beautiful properties, rolling hills with vineyards, boating, skiiing, all within 60 miles of our airport. People from Napa have been buying up acreage at quite a clip with prices quadrupling in the past few years.

That’s my summer activity- tomorrow I get on a train and go to visit the girl in Albany!

For the past week I’ve had a friend from out of town staying with me. She grew up in the Rochester area but left many years ago- though she still has family here. Her visits have been confined to business and family matters and she really hasn’t seen much of the city in the past 20 years. This past week was the Rochester International Jazz Festival, a huge event that fills downtown Rochester with music and music lovers. Since I live within walking distance I took Toni out on several evenings of the fest, including an ad hoc tour of the changes our town has gone through.

Her response was enlightening to me. As we walked by the dozens of restaurants, stores, theaters, galleries, coffee shops, loft developments and more that have opened in the last ten years she could not get over what a different city she was experiencing. It didn’t hurt that there were thousands of people enjoying free and paid jazz, eating and drinking in outdoor cafes and simply socializing in public. We ate at several great restaurants (Good Luck, One Ryan, 2Vine, Pier 45) and had a great time.

On Sunday, when the rain cleared away, we went to Turning Point Park in the Genesee River gorge and walked the amazing boardwalk all the way to the Lake Ontario outlet. There were sailboats everywhere for a big regatta. The city has done an amazing job with the entire Charlotte/River neighborhood. It felt like being on vacation in some hip city!

Rochesterians are known for poo-pooing our city’s ability to change or become a destination. Toni’s reaction was one of continual wonder at how much has changed in significant ways. Her impression was that we live in a very hip and happening place, not the boring and rundown Rochester she remembered. Her perspective cleared my perspective as I got excited showing her all the great things in this town. Sometimes when change is taking place gradually you lose perspective. Take some time to see things from a newcomer’s eyes and you may find that your world is a whole new place.

Ironic isn’t it? Due to a bulge in the rising oceans DC could see 5 meters of water if the ice shelf collapses. That might wake them up a bit.

Money quote:

“The upshot is that the North American continent and the Indian Ocean will experience the greatest changes in sea level – adding 1 or 2 metres to the current estimates. Washington DC sits squarely in this area, meaning it could face a 6.3-metre sea level rise in total. California will also be in the target zone.

“Policy-makers must realise that the effects could be greater or smaller in different areas,” says team member Natalya Gomez. The team have so far only considered one ice sheet, so the effects of other ice sheets across the world could also have a similar impact, she says.”"

From New Scientist

Thanks to Franke James:

Severe pollution causing disease outbreaks, cancer, birth defects and decreasing male births in Great Lakes Communities according to a suppressed CDC report:

MONTREAL GAZETTE

Leaked report on the Great Lakes is a wake-up call

High levels of pollution pose a health threat. U.S., Canadian
decision-makers keep public in the dark for fear of lawsuits, expensive
cleanups, scientist says
WILLIAM MARSDEN The Gazette
Thursday, February 14, 2008

At least 9 million people living on the United States side of the Great
Lakes basin may be in danger from high levels of chemical pollution,
according to a secret study that has been withheld from the public.
The study was kept secret from the public for seven months until this week
when it was leaked to the Centre for Public Integrity in Washington, D.C.

The 400-page study was done by the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and
Prevention on behalf of the International Joint Commission, which oversees
issues relating to the joint management of the Great Lakes.
The study shows there are 26 “areas of concern (AOC),” where there are
elevated levels of illnesses that can be traced to pollution.

These areas of concern are spread out through all five of the Great Lakes
with particular intensity in Chicago, Detroit and Buffalo. More than 9
million people live inside the boundaries of these AOCs.
The report states that illness in the populations “compares unfavourably …
with the U.S. population.”
For instance, the report identifies elevated levels of infant mortality in
26 AOCs, and of premature births in four AOCs.
The study also identified 108 hazardous waste sites, of which 71 are or
could be public health hazards.
Powerful lake currents can distribute the chemical and hydrocarbon
pollutants including dioxins throughout the Great Lakes system and down the
St. Lawrence River. Migratory marine life such as eels, which swim from Lake
Ontario to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, also distribute the pollutants.

The study mirrors a series of reports previously done by Health Canada in
the 1990s that revealed 17 Canadian AOCs, where there were elevated levels
of illnesses that could be traced to pollution.
When the Canadian reports were printed in 1998 they also were kept from the
public. In this case, Health Canada circulated them only to public health
officials in the 17 AOCs.

One study was leaked to a reporter in Windsor, Ont., in 2000, forcing Health
Canada to release the rest.
The Americans have claimed that their study was suppressed because the
science was substandard.
Michael Gilbertson, a former International Joint Commission scientist who
was one of three scientists to peer review the U.S. study, said the reasons
behind the suppression were political.

“Their real reason is that in the States and also in Canada at the moment
there is really a reluctance within the governments to acknowledge that
there are any effects of these chemicals on fish or wildlife or on human
health,” he said.
Gilbertson said the governments are afraid of lawsuits and expensive
cleanups.
“I mean you can find sources of chemicals in the environment,” he said. “But
if you actually find effects, this has a connotation of liability.
Governments are extremely reluctant to allow their scientists to start
making statements about the effects of chemicals on fish, wildlife or on
humans. Particularly on humans.”

The Canadian study, for example, found a series of outbreaks of Minamata
disease in Thunder Bay, Collingwood, Sarnia and Cornwall. Minamata disease,
which includes cerebral palsy among its symptoms, is caused by mercury
poisoning.
Each of the affected areas had large chlor-alkali plants that used mercury
for making chlorine. At various times between 1948 and 1995, these plants
released 742 tonnes of mercury into the Great Lakes. Mercury dumped in
Sarnia went down the St. Claire River to Lake St. Claire and then down the
Detroit River to Lake Erie.

Canadian research has also found an inexplicable drop in the male-female
ratio on the Aamjiwnaang Reserve near Sarnia. The number of male babies had
dropped 40 per cent in the mid-1990s. The reserve is surrounded by 46 large
chemical plants and refineries.

Furthermore, Health Canada studies showed, the Windsor area suffered from
much higher mortality and morbidity rates than in the rest of Ontario.

The federal government and the province of Ontario launched a program in
2000 to reduce pollution in the Great Lakes.
So far, two areas – Collingwood and nearby Severn Sound – have been removed
from the AOC list.
wmarsden@thegazette.canwest.com

- To see the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention report go to
www.publicintegrity.org/default.aspx
C The Gazette (Montreal) 2008