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Date: 2/28/2023
SHUTESBURY – Leslie Cerier grew troubled recently after stepping outside her door.
“I went out to my garden,” Cerier said. “I saw my garlic was coming up and I thought, ‘Wow, this is early.’…So that’s how I know climate change is here, I’m in the garden.”
Gardens grow in soil. The dirty brown stuff is a hot topic now because it plays a significant role in reducing the impacts of climate change. Soil is also hot because the commonwealth adopted a law, first in the nation, drafted to support the health of soils.
Recognizing its central role, Shutesbury’s Energy and Climate Action Committee (ECAC) took the cue. Members are looking at ways to educate residents on why it’s important to nurture soil health and how that idea should guide the town, going forward.
“I’d like to have a little conversation in terms of a timeline, a five-or 10-year timeline,” said ECAC Chair Michael DeChiara. “What do we need to do now? Things are changing now [and] where do we have a little breathing room?”
A discussion of soil health, the tools and practices for measuring and restoring it, calls for expertise committee members do not have. That’s especially necessary since the goal in the near term, DeChiara said, is to win a Municipal Vulnerability Planning (MVP) action grant.
Eric Giordano, an expert with Regenerative Design Group (RDG) in Greenfield, attended the Zoom meeting to describe some projects that have won MVP action grants for other towns, and what practices are used in the field.
Giordano rattled off the top threats of climate change, heavy precipitation, flooding, storms, bitter cold and fiery heat. Those extreme weather events threaten the town water supply, infrastructure, agriculture, trees, forests and gardens. The surprise Giordano brought to the table is the idea that a town can tweak its ecosystems to improve how they work to protect the town.
Giordano said soil is “a leverage point for a lot of ecosystem functionality…in terms of water storage and filtration, capturing carbons, and also in directly providing nutrients to plants [that] support healthy ecosystems.”
Soils sequester carbon. Carbons in the atmosphere do damage by disrupting normal weather cycles and are a key to climate change. Minerals are one of two forms of carbon stored in the soil, are a natural part of it. The other kind, organic soil carbons (OSC), come from plant and tree matter broken down by mycelium, insects and organisms.
“It’s shown that a 1 percent increase in soil organic matter,” Giordano said, “results in almost 10,000 gallons per acre” in increased water retention. “Imagine all the acres in Shutesbury… and how important it is for the forest to…increase that over time.”
More water in the soil improves disease resistance and water filtration, restores ecosystems and increases agricultural yields. Trees serve a primary role in water retention by stabilizing the soil, mitigating the heat of sunlight, and shedding leaves that become ground cover. Trees also grab carbon out of the air and quickly transport it into the soil.
“Ten percent of all terrestrial carbons in Massachusetts are stored in temperate forests, and 60 percent of that is actually in soils,” Giordano said. “It’s often thought that carbon sequestration in forests would be the carbon in the bodies of the trees, but actually 10 to 40 percent of that is exuded into the soil within the first hour after it’s breathed in, by the tree. The trees are pumping it into the soil.”
Giordano, a Shutesbury resident, said forests are only one type of land cover analyzed by RDG. Land cover types show differing densities of organic soil carbon. Forests have about twice as much as agricultural acreage. Turf, grassy lawns, meadows and athletic fields, hold less, while impervious surfaces like roadways and sidewalks store just a quarter of the carbon of a forest.
Committee members asked whether seminars could be offered to educate residents. Giordano didn’t nix the idea. RDG usually prepares a soil map showing where soils are performing well, or not. Wetlands increase the storage of organic matter because the waters slow down its loss. The areas of low and high carbon and water storage are assigned different colors on a map to help municipalities know which areas need attention.
Giordano said RDG starts with an identification map showing areas of performance. That map leads to a second map for generation and regeneration. RDG employees then think about ways to translate all the information into useful bylaws. Possible bylaws might include a forest upland overlay district, a zoning bylaw that would identify high performing areas. Another possibility is a post-construction soil performance bylaw that would work to maintain soil health, probably through limiting impervious surfaces and promoting high storage covers.
Giordano left ECAC members with options to consider and the facts of soil health. Cerier’s unsettling discovery of the effects of climate change in her garden reminded the committee of the need to act.
“Climate change is here,” Cerier said. “If we keep going the way we’re going, there ain’t gonna be any going.”