Protecting Aquatic Ecosystems is one of NGC’s Special Projects for 2011 - 2013. This project recognizes that it is of utmost importance and urgency that members of National Garden Clubs, Inc., identify and address critical water issues at local, state, regional, national and international levels because Water equals Life.

To Download a 6 page PDF featuring: Information on The NGC Project - Protecting Our World Living Green – Living Clean - including:
Suggestions Projects for Action and Education
What is a Watershed?
How Water Works for Us?
Aquatic Ecosystem Facts
Strategies for Protecting Aquatic Ecosystems - Click Here

To Download a 6 page PDF featuring:
Water Conservation - Facts and Strategies
Water Trivia Questions
How to Go Green: Top Water Conservation Tips - Click Here

Many of our natural resources took a hard hit when BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill flooded the Gulf with millions of gallons of oil.  Recently this chairman has been in contact with John H. Hankinson, who has been appointed Executive Director of the newly established Gulf Coat Ecosytem Restoration Task Force.  This task force will coordinate efforts to implement restoration programs and projects in the gulf coast region.

The Ex. Director has spent 30 years working on Environmental issues, including the National Estuary Program in the Gulf of Mexico.  He appreciates the garden club’s interest in the Gulf Restoration and is going to followup with outreach plans as each of the gulf coast states work together on the restoration.

The website for the Task Force restoration is http://www.restorethegulf.gov/. You may get information about the programs the task force is implementing.  If this Chairman receives information about their projects, I will try to get them posted on the Deep South’s website.

More information may be obtained from a report by John W. Tunnell, Jr. of the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies from Texas A & M University-Corpus Christi.  The author states an opinion of the recovery time for the biology after the oil spill.  However, some in the academic community believe it is largely unjustified and not backed by good science.

Go to the task force website to see what you can do to aid the restoration efforts.

FACTS ABOUT BOTTLED WATER

Imagine Every Bottle of Water You Drink Half Filled With Oil …..That’s How Much of the Fuel is Used to Make the Bottle.  Fill it Over 3 More Times to Measure the Water Used.

Bottled water feels like a healthy choice, but it has hidden consequences for the environment.

United States’ residents drink more bottled water per person than any other country:  nearly 26 gallons each in 2005.

Bottled water costs as much as much as $10 per gallon, compared with less than a penny per gallon for tap water.

Worldwide, 2.7 million tons of plastic are used each year to make water bottles, but in the United States, less than 20 percent of that plastic is recycled.

Around the world, factories are using more than 18 million barrels of oil and up to 130 billion gallons of fresh water a year to create something that, by and large, most people don’t need.

An estimated 40 percent of bottled water sold in the United States is just filtered tap water.

Source:  American Museum of Natural History:  www.amnh.org

THE DANGERS OF PLASTIC BAGS

“Data released by the US Environmental Protection Agency shows that somewhere between 500 billion and a trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide each year.”  National Geographic News, Sept. 2, 2003

Please access the following link and watch the video about the misuse of the plastic bags and the serious consequences: http://www.poconorecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080506/Multimedia02/80505016