SHARON — The atmosphere was steamy, yet sweet at the Sharon Audubon Center’s sugarhouse Saturday, March 15, during the annual MapleFest.
Each year at this time, as the days warm up, but nights stay cold, the sap from maple trees begins to flow. And each year Sharon Audubon offers guests a look into the process of converting the sap into the sweet-tasting syrup.
As she has for several decades, Wendy Miller, education program manager at the center, welcomes those who arrive at the sugarhouse. The visitors have already strolled down a path surrounded by maple trees to learn how they are tapped. When they get to the tiny building, where the evaporator is going full steam, Miller demonstrates the procedure and explains how sap is mainly water, containing only 3% sugar. To classify as maple syrup, it has to be 67% sugar.
The process is completed when the sap smells sweeter, is thicker and is a golden-brown bubble. She noted it has to reach a temperature of 219 degrees Fahrenheit.
Miller then displayed a hydrometer, which shows the level of sugar in the syrup and demonstrated how the product gets filtered to remove dirt and bugs. When the syrup is bottled, it needs to be between 185 and 190 degrees. Syrups, she said are graded by color.
While learning all about making maple syrup can be interesting, the best part of the tour for many comes at the end, when samples of the treat are offered. For Theo Adkins, 7, of Lakeville, this was the second time in a week he’d been at the sugarhouse. On Saturday he was there with his dad, Craig Adkins, and earlier in the week he’d been there on a school trip. He didn’t have to be coaxed to take a second sampling for a photo.
Wendy Miller, education program manager at Sharon Audubon Center, and intern Brandt Boscio, welcome guests to the sugarhouse during Saturday’s MapleFest.Ruth Epstein
Helping Miller this year with the program is Brandt Boscio, 17, who just graduated in January from Housatonic Valley Regional High School. He has been interested in making maple syrup since he was a freshman, when he began learning the process. “I love syrup for breakfast,” he said, which was a motivator. He produced two eight-ounce bottles his first year and in his sophomore year had 30 taps, building his own evaporator. Last year he had 80 taps, creating a small tubing system for more efficiency. But, Boscio said, finding private property owners to allow their trees to be tapped became a real challenge, so he wasn’t able to continue. His capstone project was about making and selling maple syrup, for which he was able to secure several grants.
David Moran, his vocational agriculture teacher, put him in touch with Miller, and he has been interning at the center with her.
Boscio said he’s gotten a lot of good experience and Miller said he’s been very helpful, “so it’s a win-win situation.” Boscio plans to attend college and study landscape management. He is a member of the Canaan Fire Company.
There was also a bake sale at the event where all the items were made with maple syrup.
Telecom Reg’s Best Kept On the Books
When Connecticut land-use commissions update their regulations, it seems like a no-brainer to jettison old telecommunications regulations adopted decades ago during a short-lived period when municipalities had authority to regulate second generation (2G) transmissions prior to the Connecticut Siting Council (CSC) being ordered by a state court in 2000 to regulate all cell tower infrastructure as “functionally equivalent” services.
It is far better to update those regs instead, especially for macro-towers given new technologies like small cells. Even though only ‘advisory’ to the CSC, the preferences of towns by law must be taken into consideration in CSC decision making. Detailed telecom regs – not just a general wish list -- are evidence that a town has put considerable thought into where they prefer such infrastructure be sited without prohibiting service that many – though not all – citizens want and that first responders rely on for public safety.
Such regs come in handy when egregious tower sites are proposed in sensitive areas, typically on private land. The regs are a town’s first line of defense, especially when cross referenced to plans of conservation and development, P&Z regulations, and wetlands setbacks. They identify how/where the town plans to intersect with the CSC process. They are also a roadmap for service providers regarding preferred sites and sometimes less neighborhood contention. In fact, to have no telecom regs can weaken a town’s rights to protect environmental, scenic, and historic assets, and serve up whole neighborhoods to unnecessary overlapping coverage and corporate overreach. Such regs are unique to every town and should not follow anyone else’s boiler plate, especially industry’s.
Connecticut is the only state that has a centralized siting entity for cell towers. The good news is that applicants must prove need for new tower sites in an evidentiary proceeding and any decisions have the weight of the state behind them. The bad news is that the CSC used to be far less industry-friendly and rote in their reviews, which now resemble a check list. There is an operative assumption at CSC that if an applicant wants a tower, they must need it, otherwise why spend significant money to run the approval gauntlet? This reflects a subtle shift over the years at CSC from sincere willingness to protect the environment toward minimal tweaking of bad applications with minor changes. The bottom line is that towns really cannot rely on the CSC to do all the work for them.
What CSC issues telecom providers is a “certificate of environmental compatibility” after an evidentiary proceeding (not unlike a court case) with intervenors, parties, expert witnesses, and the service provider’s technical pro’s sworn in and subject to cross examination. Service providers get to do the same with any opposition from intervenor/party participants – like towns and citizens -- and their experts. It’s an impressive process whose ultimate goal is the fine balancing between allowing adequate/reliable public services and protecting state ecology with minimal damage to scenic, historic, and recreational values. They unfortunately often fall short of their mandate – like approving cell towers with diesel generators over town aquifers -- evidenced by CSC only rejecting about five cell towers in the past 15-20 years.
The CSC was founded in 1972 and clarified its mission in the 1980’s to prevent the state from being carved up willy-nilly by gas pipelines, high tension corridors, and broadcast towers. With the sudden proliferation of cell towers beginning in late 1990’s, it became the most sued agency in Connecticut by both an arrogant upstart industry if applications were denied and by towns/citizens when bad sites were forced on them. CSC gradually formed a defensive posture that drives their decisions toward industry with deeper pockets and attorneys on retainer.
For citizens, nothing can wreck one’s day like the CSC. It behooves towns to protect what little toolkit they have, and understand the legal parameters of the CSC’s playing field. The CSC is not a “normal” government agency where municipal/citizen redress is based on logic and local support. Their process is largely immune to everything but specific kinds of evidence – like town regs with setbacks/fall zones, radio frequency transmission signal strengths, sensitive areas identified, and detailed wildlife inventory, among others.
There is a current cell tower fight involving two intervening towns -- Washington and Warren; both with good cell tower regs – over a tower site within 1200’ of a Montessori School, near Steep Rock’s nature preserves with comprehensive geology/wildlife databases that include endangered, threatened and special concern flora and fauna, on established federal/state migratory bird flyways, within throwing distance to a historic site capable of being listed on the Underground Railroad, and with an access road on a blind curve entering a state highway that will permanently damage wetlands, vernal pools, and core forests. There are well credentialed environmental experts, including Dr. Michael Klemens, former chair of Salisbury’s P&Z, as well as the former director of migratory bird management at the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and an RF engineer testifying to alternative approaches, plus three attorneys representing intervenors. It is the most professional challenge I have seen at CSC since Falls Village successfully mounted one that protected Robbins Swamps several years ago.
The hearing is ongoing, with uncertain results. To see what it takes today to stop an inappropriate tower siting, see Docket #543 under “Pending Matters” at https://portal.ct.gov/csc before removing local cell tower regs – the lowest hanging fruit that any town can possess in case it’s needed.
B, Blake Levitt is the Communications Director at The Berkshire-Litchfield Environmental Council. She writes about how technology affects biology.