ChangeHampton Promotes a New Land Ethic

Loathers of loud leaf blowers formed ChangeHampton when residents of Sammy’s Beach couldn’t take it anymore.

Co-founder Gail Pellett spoke to me about the organization’s expanded mission, and the standing-room only discussion they recently hosted at The Nature Conservancy, “Toward a New Land Ethic: Principles and Practices for Ecological and Human Health.”

“They’re just horrendous tools, destructive of our peace and quiet,” Pellett said. “Whether gas or electric, blowers blast habitat to smithereens.”

“East Hampton already had regulations regarding gas blowers — months, dates, hours of day— when we took up the issue three years ago,” she said. “The regulations are complicated and don’t cover the fall and winter when most blowing takes place.”

Pellett learned there were other reasons to hate the ever-present machines. They are bad for the operator’s health, potentially affecting the respiratory system, heart and hearing. Blowers kick animal feces into the air and gas blowers emit toxic fumes.

And they are very bad for the health of the environment. Mechanically displacing leaves disrupts natural cycles. The soil, the beneficial insects, birds and other animals only flourish when leaves are left in place to provide protection and nutrients.

We are fighting nature when we should be embracing it.

“Other cultures enjoy, and celebrate nature’s natural fertilizer and don’t put up with the incessant noise and the air pollution that is destroying the local ecology and poisoning us in the process,” ChangeHampton’s co-founder and website designer Stephan Van Dam told me in an email.

Our love affair with lawn care started right here on Long Island, with the development of Levittown. Originally created to house returning World War II veterans, the uniform look of the suburban lifestyle quickly morphed into a status symbol nationwide.

By 1951, Levitt and Sons had built 17,000 homes in Nassau County. A manicured, green lawn has been part of the American Dream for 75 years. That’s a hard habit to break.

While there is a trend toward a more naturalized environment, a walk around Clearwater Beach in Springs proves that the suburban yard is alive and well.

Lots are being cleared of red oak trees, black cherry, white pine, sassafras and Eastern cedar. It’s maddening to witness a half acre of woods turned into a pile of steaming chips in a day or two.

By the end of the week, an instahome is situated in the center of a bare, muddy lot, with no refuge from the sun. Sometimes, the house takes up the entire lot. After the lot is stripped of its topsoil, it’s replaced with sod, considered a monoculture, which needs chemical spraying to maintain.

“Nature does not like monocultures,” said Edwina von Gal, a landscape designer and the founder of Perfect Earth Project, who has become a mentor to ChangeHampton and was part of the panel discussion. “Biodiversity is the key component.”

A hedge of privet or arborvitae, more monoculture, will follow, offering home dwellers “privacy.” A few clumps of ornamental grass, a couple of Cryptomeria trees and “Disney” lighting line the drive, adding insult to injury.

Meanwhile, the owls, the beneficial bees, the fox and the box turtle must find food and refuge elsewhere.

Von Gal describes this maintenance practice as “noise and poison,” and is adamant. “You need to know your property. You need to be able to know what’s under your feet,” she told the crowd. “Recognizing the fact that when you step on the ground there are billions of microorganisms there, and they’re your buddies.”

Thanks to a grant from the Peconic Land Trust, the Perfect Earth Project offers “landscape therapy,” with the Living Lands Program. Sign up on their website and a representative will come to your house for an hour to help you set landscaping goals.

The environmental advocate is such a big fan of clover, she even named her dog after the nitrogen-fixer. “Leave your grass clippings,” she urged. “This is a trend. Our lawn culture has to change.”

“Suffolk County uses more pesticide than any other counties in the state” Pellett said. “Suffolk County Water Authority only tests for a quarter of those.”

“Long Island has one single aquifer,” Pellett continued. “The nitrogen level is higher on Long Island than the rest of the state.”

Nitrogen has long been known to cause toxic algae blooms, which has killed off the eelgrass and the scallops that need the grass to survive. That’s one less catch for the fishermen, and one less food source for us.

As we continue to pour synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides on our lawns, those chemicals seep into our drinking water too, in addition to wiping out all the insects.

“We’re looking at a massive collapse in biodiversity,” von Gal said. “Some places are looking at a 75 percent loss of invertebrates.”

Firefly populations are probably the most vulnerable. Clear-cutting trees, lighting, pesticides and leaf blowing are all to blame. Like a lot of pollinators, they overwinter in decaying leaves.

The panel suggested dedicating a part of the yard to growing a wildflower meadow.

Paul Muñoz, owner of Eco Harmony Landscape and the chair of East Hampton Town’s Energy and Sustainability Committee, was also part of ChangeHampton’s panel discussion. “I was trying to find an alternative to leaf blowers. I was sick of them,” he said. “I made the switch to electric equipment and planting native. Any little bit makes a big impact.”

The panel suggested, if you’re ready to get off the sauce, make a commitment first. Find out what ecoregion you are in. Find out what kind of soil you have and choose plants that are suited to that soil. “Work with what you got,” von Gal said. “There are a lot of options. None of them happens to include an herbicide.”

The best thing to improve the bird population, according to von Gal, is thickets instead of privets. Thickets are biodiverse dense planting of shrubs that are not pruned. Wingspans of small birds have evolved to fly through the branches of our native bushes. “Birds find shelter and food there,” she said.

Deer are yet another issue to contend with in landscape design and the wild. They have destroyed the understory of the forest, and also eat pollinating wildflower meadows. Most of the panel and audience members seemed to be in favor of culling as a means of deer control, but since the anti-culling crowd is a force she’d rather not reckon with, von Gal has designed a double fence that allows turtles and foxes to pass through but stops deer in their tracks. “The inside fence is just posts and rope,” she said.

If you missed the discussion, you can find a link to the video on ChangeHampton’s website, changehampton.org, along with a lot of information on how to begin the process of rewilding your yard.

“Turnout proves interest,” Pellett said.

Pellett is proud that ChangeHampton instigated a change at the East Hampton Town Hall campus by turning a 4,000-square-foot turf lawn into a beautiful pollinator garden, which Muñoz’s company helped to plant.

As a parting gift, Muñoz gave away packets of seeds to start a small wildflower meadow. Some pollinating flowers to consider planting are black-eyed Susans, coneflowers, asters and sunflowers.

“We are part of nature,” Muñoz said. “We cannot control it.”