In Our Backyard Podcast Jenn Galler

Elizabeth Gillispie is Soil Scientist and Soil Health Vineyard Manager at Washington State University as well as a member of the Soil Science Society of America (SSSA). 

Soil is the loose surface material that covers most land. It consists of inorganic particles and organic matter. Soils are not only the resource for food production, but they are the support for our structures, the medium for waste disposal, they maintain our playgrounds, distribute and store water and nutrients, and support our environment. They support more life beneath their surface than what exists above. With Elizabeth, we talk about the many different ways soil supports our life and is key in functioning our society. 

Contact and connect: elizabeth.gillispie@wsu.edu 

Soil Science of America: https://www.soils.org/

Lisa Sorg is the Assistant Editor and Environmental Reporter at NC Newsline. She helps manage newsroom operations while covering the environment, climate change, agriculture and energy. She talks with me in two other so listen to episodes 8 and 11 to hear more from her.



Within the episode we mostly reference NC drinking water suppliers, although you can apply this same information to your own area. According to the EPA, there are approximately 150,000 public water systems that provide drinking water to most Americans. Customers that are served by a public water system are able to contact their local water supplier and ask for information on contaminants in their drinking water, and are encouraged to request a copy of their Consumer Confidence Report. This report lists the levels of contaminants that have been detected in the water, including those by EPA, and whether the system meets state and EPA drinking water standards. Then about 10 percent of people in the United States rely on water from private wells. Private wells are not regulated and people who use private wells need to take precautions to ensure their drinking water is safe. 

Contact or connect with Lisa: lsorg@ncnewsline.com 

Consumer Confidence Report: https://www.epa.gov/ccr/ccr-information-consumers

Drinking water info: https://www.epa.gov/ground-water-and-drinking-water/basic-information-about-your-drinking-water

Ben Tettlebaum is the Director & Senior Staff Attorney at The Wilderness Society. Across the U.S. there are 618 million acres of federal public lands, including national parks and forests, wildlife refuges and federally managed desert and prairie lands. Many of these special places are threatened by climate change and poor management decisions that favor development over conservation. And they are important to protect as they are a key piece of our natural heritage. 

Within the episode we talk about the Western Arctic, in regards to federal land laws and to give some more background, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (Arctic Refuge) is a place of spectacular beauty as well as ecological and cultural significance, but right now it's vulnerable to oil and gas development. These industries threaten to pollute our air and water, degrade public lands, and ruin an Indigenous way of life. So we talk about what the Wilderness Society is doing to help there.

BREDL has had a past working relationship with The Wilderness Society. In 1992, the Virginia Dept. of Transportation (VDOT) wanted to relocate U.S. 58 and make it a four-lane highway, bisecting the Mt. Rogers National Recreation Area in S.W. Virginia. Citizens formed a BREDL chapter Mountain Heritage Alliance (MHA) and worked with another BREDL chapter Graysonites for Progressive Change to fight the VDOT proposal. The Wilderness Society (TWS) was instrumental in this fight and continues to do great work for public lands to stay public. 

Contact or connect with Ben: Ben_Tettlebaum@tws.org  

How to protect the Arctic: https://www.wilderness.org/articles/blog/5-questions-how-protect-arctic-oil-drilling 

Here’s a brief press release for the victory: https://archive.bredl.org/MHA/may96pr.html

Serenella Linares is a naturalist at Mt Rainier Nature Center and also on the board of The Mycological Association of Washington, DC. (MAWDC for short) 

This episode we talk about mushrooms. When we think of mushrooms, most of us think of the edible ones we can buy at the grocery store, but really they are everywhere and are vital to our ecosystems. First to give some mushroom terminology , mycelium is the root-like structure of a fungus that has networks underground, then fungi is ​​any of a group of spore-producing organisms feeding on organic matter which includes mushrooms, mushrooms are then what we normally think of as a growth with a domed cap.

They are all critically important in most earthbound ecosystems as they provide life-sustaining mineral nutrients to plants while decomposing their remains, and recycling both organic and inorganic byproducts throughout the biome as they grow and reproduce. Through mycelium, mushrooms help other plants share nutrients and communicate through chemical signals. Fungi make nutrients available to plants either through decomposition and nutrient cycling, or by directly transporting nutrients to the plants, or in some cases, both processes occur.

With Serenella we speak about the history of mushrooms, myco-remediation, fungal DNA sequencing, identification and more.

MAWDC: https://www.mawdc.org/ 

Mushroom articles: https://phys.org/news/2022-08-mushrooms-main-character-ecosystems.html#:~:text=Fungi%2C%20which%20produce%20mushrooms%2C%20are,as%20they%20grow%20and%20reproduce.

Andres Chang is the Senior Research Specialist at Greenpeace. Just last year in 2023, Greenpeace came out with a report that Andres was the lead writer on, called Dollars VS. Democracy. The report talks about how Americans overwhelmingly support government action on the climate crisis. As a result, the fossil fuel industry has expanded its playbook to delay the transition to clean energy and protect its profits through efforts that undermine our right to free speech.



Since the Dakota Access Pipeline protests at Standing Rock in 2016, oil and gas companies have played a key role in the creation and spread of anti-protest laws with provisions specifically intended to stifle protest near fossil fuel facilities. 18 states accounting for roughly 60% of oil and gas production have enacted sweeping versions of such legislation. Another four states have enacted narrower versions of the same legislation, which could be exploited by prosecutors seeking to issue trumped-up charges against peaceful protesters. 

Within the episode we talk about all this report, from the creation of it, key points, its significance, and what their plans for it are. BREDL sent documents to Greenpeace to use in this report, so we discuss that as well. The Anti-Slap petition that Andres mentions in the episode will be linked in the show notes below, so please sign on to that as well as a link to the full report.

FULL REPORT: https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/reports/dollars-vs-dissent/  

SIGN THE ANTI-SLAP PETITION: https://engage.us.greenpeace.org/kuCKizua206SG48Bs-kTFg2

Jesse Howe is the Assistant Director of the Coastal Conservation Association, Maryland (CCA) whose purpose is to advise and educate the public on the conservation of our marine resources. They seek to conserve, promote and enhance the present and future availability of coastal resources for the benefit and enjoyment of the general public.



One of the main projects CCA does are living reefs, which are reef balls that they create in the Chesapeake Bay to provide important habitat for oysters and other estuarine critters and they are valued in both fresh and Bay waters. And since the 1700’s oyster populations have seen dramatic decline due to over-harvesting, disease, habitat loss and more and the Bay has really seen the effects of that as oysters are natural filters. Therefore the reef balls offer a place for oysters to come back to the Bay and help maintain healthy waters and the ecosystem. 

With Jesse we talk about why Maryland's coastline is ecologically significant, the goals of the Living Reefs, how they get the community involved, citizen science, and how to support their work.

Contact and connect with Jesse: jhowe@ccamd.org

CCA Maryland: https://www.ccamd.org/ 

https://www.ccamd.org/product/cca-membership/

https://www.ccamd.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Vision_Chesapeake_Final.pdf

https://www.instagram.com/cca_md/

https://www.facebook.com/CCAMARYLAND