Planes, Trains and Surfskis, Boston, Mass

Boston Skyline(taken by Chris Chappell)

Plane Landing at Logan, Mike Tracy Paddler

Deer Island(by wikimediacommons)

Digesters of the Treatment Plant Deer Island

Bill K. and Francisco coordinated a group paddle on a splendid winter day in the heart of Boston. Thanks for setting this up. I had a great time!!!Francisco just recently bought a house a few blocks from Constitution Beach in East Boston. We launched off the sandy beach with the train roaring in the background and planes roaring overhead. The east coast has some of the most varied places to paddle, most of it with easy access like today.

Conditions were ultra flat as we paddled around Deer Island, just over 12 miles total. Kirk, Mike, Mike M. and Francisco played in a few breaking waves on the backside of Deer Island before we turned around. As you can see this paddle goes by Logan Airport. I got the above shot of Mike Tracy in the same frame on the way back from Deer Island. Our group was made up of Mike Tracy, Bill Kuklinski, Mike McDonough, Francisco, Kirk Olsen, Mike Chamness,and myself. Chris Chappell met us at the launch to see everyone and take my new paddle to put it together for me and to give back one of my GPS’s that need a firmware update that I had trouble doing. Chris drove to Deer Island and took some shots of us from Deer Island. A few of Chris’s pics were stunning when you open up the link. Mike M. peaked my interest about Deer Island so I looked it up online and it has a great history, most of it not to be proud of but nevertheless history. I included a brief summary.

Link to more Pics Below. Chris’s took the pics on the 2nd link from Deer Island.

https://picasaweb.google.com/111670948231605580163/ConstitutionBeach

https://picasaweb.google.com/100893240478342044075/BostonHarborNovember262011

Bill Kuklinski/Mike Chamness

Francisco, Kirk, Mike T.

Deer Island has served a variety of social uses over the years, but perhaps none as dramatic as its current use — treating wastewater from 43 communities to ensure Boston Harbor remains one of the cleanest harbors in the United States.

Deer Island was so-named in the 1600s because of the deer that had been chased there from the mainland by wolves. Since colonial days, Deer Island has served at one time or another as a detention center for Native Americans, a quarantine station and hospital for immigrants, an asylum for the city’s social outcasts and the poor, a reformatory for juvenile delinquents, an orphanage, a prison for petty criminals, and a military post. The first in a succession of regional sewage treatment facilities was built on Deer Island in 1899, a hundred years before the present plant was completed. In the 1940s, the Army Corps of Engineers built a causeway connecting the island with the town of Winthrop on the mainland.

Today, Deer Island is home to a state of the art wastewater treatment facility. Begun as a court-ordered facility, the Deer Island plant is the centerpiece of the Boston Harbor Project. A gem in the eyes of environmentalists and water-quality activists, this secondary treatment facility serves as a model for engineers and public works professionals around the world. The 140-foot-high, 3-million-gallon egg-shaped digester tanks have even been hailed as an architectural marvel.

As one of the largest electricity users in the Northeast, Deer Island has embarked upon an ambitious goal of generating 30% renewable energy by 2020. Two 190-feet high wind turbines were installed on Deer Island in August, 2009 and will generate over 2 million kW hours per year. Roof mounted photovoltaic system, lighting improvements, as well as methane from the sludge digestion process to create heat for the facility are just some of renewable fuels used on Deer Island.