Showing posts with label urban gardening. Show all posts
Showing posts with label urban gardening. Show all posts

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Stratification, Germination And Climate Change

We are finally getting a bit of snow here in the Portland metro area. Snow levels are quite meager; it's as if someone decided to bake a cake and got very stingy in applying the frosting. Today our snow is melting as soon as it hits the ground. By Wednesday, there will be very little evidence that it snowed at all here.

Otherwise, the snow drought of 2011 seems to be continuing into 2012 throughout the Pacific Northwest. We probably won't see any more snow this winter. This same snow drought has also affected most of the United States and Europe. A mounting body of increasingly plain evidence continues to point to a deranging global climate, a climate that is being wrecked by human activity.

In response, someone recently wrote a somewhat denialist piece about weather in Maine. In his piece, he wrote that “a little global warming would be a gift for Mainers paying for heating oil. Somewhere in New England, the climate may actually improve because of greenhouse gases.” It seems odd that this guy's piece made it onto the Energy Bulletin website, but then they've done a few odd things over the last several months, such as publishing Tea Party propaganda and articles by shills praising Ron Paul.

Being the contrarian that I am, I thought I'd point out a few disadvantages of anthropogenic (man-made) climate change. I'd like to point out something else as well, namely, that while most mainstream media either does not acknowledge climate change at all, or relegates its worst effects to a time frame around 100 years from now, I think we can start looking for serious adverse effects right now.

One of the adverse effects I see – a phenomenon that is probably starting to affect us now – regards the effect of warmer weather on seed germination of valuable trees, shrubs and other plants. Right now I have in my refrigerator a packet of currant seeds. The planting instructions on the currants say that to prepare them for planting, I am supposed to stratify them by leaving them outdoors in pots all winter or by putting them in the fridge for at least 60 days prior to planting. Last winter or the winter before, I would probably have left the seeds outdoors. This winter I was not certain that the weather would be consistently cold enough for successful stratification. Hence, the fridge.

Cold stratification is necessary for a number of plants of economic, agricultural and medicinal interest. Echinacea, evening primrose, and a number of other medicinal perennial herbs and flowering plants all require a period of cold stratification to achieve a high degree of successful germination. Without this cold stratification, most of these seeds will not germinate. This also applies to fruit-bearing shrubs such as juneberry, pawpaw, quince, crabapple, and the shrubs of the hawthorn family. Some species of maple trees also require cold stratification for successful germination. Speaking of trees, there are several species of stratification dependent trees that, while not useful to humans for food, are useful for their wood. Interestingly, some of these trees and shrubs are native to the American South, and typically require a few months of temperatures averaging around 40 degrees Farenheit for successful germination of a large portion of their seeds.

This brings up a pertinent question, namely, how man-made climate change will affect the continued cultivation and survival of these plants. As I said earlier, it's something to worry about right now. Some other questions:

  • What non energy-intensive processes can be used in place of cold stratification where the climate is becoming too warm to guarantee successful germination of valuable cold-dependent seeds? (We can't rely on refrigerators forever.)

  • How will agricultural and horticultural climate zones evolve and shift over the next ten to fifteen years?

  • How will man-made climate change affect small farmers and urban gardeners over the next ten to fifteen years?

  • Is there any research being done, either by formal institutions or by talented, well-organized volunteers and amateurs, to formulate and document effective adaptive strategies for small farmers and urban gardeners to employ over the next ten to fifteen years?

These questions can serve as a homework assignment for some enterprising souls. I'd tackle them myself, but I am already teaching one class and preparing to teach two others, so I'm about as busy as a cat with a long tail in a room full of rocking chairs. Maybe I could threaten to interview an urban farmer to find out how he would answer these questions. That might provoke someone over at the Energy Bulletin website to try to beat me to the punch. If I were beaten to the punch, it wouldn't break my heart. (It might also make up for some of the er, recent er, lapses on that site.) These questions are too important for one person to sit on them. Failure to consider these questions might leave more than a few of us without much to eat for dinner over the next several years.

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Chickens for Poor People, Part 2

Aimee, a fellow blogger who writes New To Farm Life, made another insightful and informative comment on my post, “Chickens for Poor People.” She said,

I mean, it [the tendency I spoke about to make chicken-keeping and other acts of self-reliance more complicated than necessary] might be another symptom of the same disease that causes helicopter parenting - an overwhelming anxiety that things will go to pieces if you aren't in total control of all variables at all times.

“I'd like to recommend Storey's guide to chickens (they have a whole series on farming). These guides are down to earth and relaxed, providing information but with a general attitude that even children can successfully raise animals of all types. Storey's chicken book has plenty of plans for simple chicken houses, too.

“My chickens roost in the rafters of the barn. Most breeds of chicken will do fine with a roof, a good windbreak, clean water and ample food. They need a few square feet apiece, minimum, to stretch and scratch. Chickens will be extra happy if they can also make wallows and take dirtbaths.”

That sounds like good advice. I'll have to find Storey's book when I get a chance. And it's helpful to realize that chickens, being birds after all, are quite able to survive without human intervention. (Otherwise, there'd be none on earth today!)

On another note, posting will be light over the next week (and maybe two). I've got a ton of homework to grade and I need to catch up.

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Brownfields and Urban Agriculture - Assessing The Challenges (Part 2)

This is the second part of a transcript of an interview I conducted last week with Clark Henry of the Portland Brownfield Program. In this interview, we discussed the prevalence of brownfields (areas of land polluted by commercial or industrial activity) in urban environments, and the implications for urban agriculture and food gardening. Today's post contains the remainder of that interview, in which solutions to brownfields are discussed. For the sake of continuity, I have also included all of the transcription from last week's post. My questions are in bold type, and Mr. Henry's answers are in normal type.

People talk about adapting to Peak Oil, economic collapse and resource constraints...and there are all sorts of responses, including trying to make things work where we live. Food systems are a big part of this, including urban gardening and urban farming. But some have pointed out the pollution of the urban environment, including pollution of soil due to lead. Telling people, “Don't grow food in the city; it's too dangerous,” won't fly as people find that they can't afford to rely on our present food systems. Yet the issue of pollution is valid. Can you comment on the scope of the problem, starting with lead pollution?

Sure, and just to qualify my statements, I am not a scientist, but an urban planner. I've been working with this [Portland Brownfield Program] project for eight years, so I have developed some understanding of levels and pervasiveness of contaminants. My wife, however, is director of the Josiah Hill III Clinic, a community-based nonprofit organization that does blood lead level testing for pregnant women and children in lower income neighborhoods and among communities of color.

The #1 source of lead contamination in Portland is lead paint, from older construction and older houses. The problem of lead contamination grows more severe as one moves eastward across the United States and as one goes into older neighborhoods. Scraping and sanding paint, or chipping and flaking of paint is the source of soil contamination in the home environment. In commercial and industrial areas, shipbuilding and shipbreaking, bulk oil terminals, old gas stations and old storage sites for leaded gasoline are sources of lead contamination.

Lead is a background element in nature, and agencies like the EPA and HUD publish environmental lead level figures that, in their view, “do not pose a driving risk to human life.” However, they also say that there is no safe level of lead in the human body. And there are documented detrimental effects to small children up to the age of 7 from exposure to lead. The City and County Health Departments partner with the State to publish guidelines for lead exposure, and there is a “Lead Hotline” available to City residents.

What other contaminants are a concern (including organic contaminants like organic compounds from leaking underground tanks)?

Petroleum of all varieties – gasoline, heating oil, motor oil, diesel fuel, bulk oil, and so forth. Former gas stations occupy a large portion of America's commercial corridors, and they were usually situated on corners where people drive by. Many sites of these former stations show few or no signs of such previous use; yet when people look into the records for such sites, they discover that, “Oh, a gas station was here!”

Modern gas stations operate under rigorous oversight by state regulators, but these older sites represent a mystery, an unquantifiable risk, and available databases don't do justice to this risk. Verifiable sites are maintained in two State (Oregon) Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) databases: the Leaky Underground Storage Tanks (LUSTS) database, and the Environmental Cleanup Site Inventory. Some of the sites on this list have been cleaned up and re-used. All of these sites are candidates for State involvement in assessment and/or clean-up.

There are two stages of State environmental assessment. First is the Phase 1 assessment in which a consultant determines the history of the site, using sources such as the County library, building records, the Polk Directories and the Sanborn Fire Insurance maps. (In the 1950's, the Sanborn Fire Insurance company made very detailed maps of underground tanks for underwriting purposes.) Also, the consultant will visit the site to do a visual inspection, where he may notice old concrete pump islands or old gas station structures or fill ports for underground tanks.

The Phase 2 assessment follows once the consultant has determined that a site is a former gas station or dry cleaners' facility or metal plating facility or so forth. Phase 2 consists of taking soil samples or groundwater samples, or taking samples of the contents of barrels if there are barrels on the site, or taking samples of the materials of any existing buildings or structures on the site.

Once the assessment is finished, the level and type of contamination is compared to the desired future use of the site. The DEQ is concerned with limiting exposure to contaminants. Thus, a site that meets regulatory approval isn't necessarily cleaned up, but is configured in a way that limits exposure – via placing a parking lot or building foundation on top of contaminated soil so that people are prevented from coming in contact with the bare soil. This is called an engineering control. Another form of control, called an institutional control, consists of placing restrictions on the title and permitted uses of the site.

So then, it is possible that there are sites that would be under institutional controls that forbid their use for urban agriculture?

Absolutely. Unless you worked through a new way of getting the site cleaned up. And the City is working with some groups who are researching how to make brownfields both safe and functional for urban agriculture, whether it's small-scale community gardens or something larger. We're working with a group called Groundwork Portland, which is just a year and a few months old. It's part of a network called Groundwork USA, whose mission is to identify brownfields within environmental justice communities, and to have them assessed and cleaned up and re-used in a way that reflects the surrounding community. Not necessarily to eyeball these sites for condominium development or Starbucks, but to make sure that they are doing something for the people who live there – by protecting their health first, and then by insuring that these sites are used in a way that meets the needs of the people around them.

Groundwork Portland has a board of directors whose members come from several local organizations: Organizing People, Activating Leaders (OPAL); the Oregon Tradeswomen; and the Oregon Sustainable Agriculture Land Trust (OSALT). The Oregon Tradeswomen provide training in hazardous waste handling for brownfield work. OSALT owns property for agricultural use and they are doing research on appropriate agricultural development of urban properties. There is a project on 8th and Emerson in NE Portland, the “Emerson Garden Project,” now being undertaken by OSALT, and it is a 4000 square foot lot that was donated by the County through foreclosure.

The Portland Brownfield Program tested the lot and found that there were really high lead levels in a couple of spots. We (Groundwork Portland, OSALT and the City) are now trying to clean up the soil using phytoremediation (decontamination via plants), in order to turn this lot into a community garden. OSALT will test native plants on this lot, to determine their phytoremedial qualities with lead, in order that we can turn this into a site for food production and education at the same time.

What are the available remediation strategies, starting from the most expensive strategies down to those that are within reach of communities and non-profits?

That's a good question, and the answer is not obvious. Soil removal is one option. But this is very expensive compared to trucking dirt to a regular landfill. Dirt at regular landfills is simply used as a cover. But contaminated dirt requires removal to a toxic waste landfill. Fortunately, there is such a landfill in eastern Oregon, but the cost of trucking dirt there is over $700 a ton, compared to $70 a ton for removal to a regular landfill. And a ton of dirt is not that bulky. So soil removal quickly becomes very expensive, not to mention the cost of finding virgin, clean dirt and trucking it in to your urban agriculture site.

Another strategy is groundwater treatment, but this is an ongoing process that may last several years, and it too is expensive. When dealing with petroleum products, oxygenation and breakdown of compounds using bacteria and/or mushrooms is sometimes used. But this requires continual monitoring. The big questions for bioremediation, and indeed for all remediation, are “How long will this take?”, “How much will this cost?”, and “Who will pay for this?” These are often unknown until one gets into a project. Those who undertake such projects therefore take on a significant risk. Private developers must take this risk on themselves, but communities and tax-exempt non-profits can get help.

The Portland Brownfield Program focuses most of its efforts on helping community-based revitalization efforts, and I think we've achieved some good successes. But we also help private markets figure out remediation, as even large private firms who specialize in brownfield redevelopment sometimes get in trouble.

As far as nonprofits, there's a group, Southeast Uplift, that owns a former gas station on southeast 57th and Division. This land was given to them by the U.S. Marshal. This site was known to have underground storage tanks that had leaked. We helped them deal with the environmental liability issues and obtain the resources to deal with regulatory requirements for dealing with the site's past use. Our approach was straightforward – “dig it up and haul it away.” Fortunately, when we started digging out the tanks, we found very little contamination. But a site with identical usage and identical tanks might have had monstrous contamination – you just doesn't know until you start digging. We can test all we want, but the reality is that we drill a series of holes spaced a certain distance apart, and we make assumptions about what lies between those holes. If we find contamination, we will drill more holes until we don't find any more. This helps us determine the zone to be cleaned up. But the testing is expensive, and it is not fast. We can make educated assumptions about what we hope to find, and then have a plan B – a healthy contingency. Private developers have the luxury of having a large investment pool for cleaning up land for large projects, such as the Pearl District and South Waterfront. Things get tighter as the project size shrinks, though there are State and Federal grants available to tax-exempt organizations and nonprofits.

It sounds like there really needs to be a partnership with city governments in order to promote urban agriculture. The extent of urban pollution is fairly widespread. Are you saying then that people should not rush in blindly and grow vegetables in any bare patch of land?

Yes, that's a fair assumption. But it depends on what you're growing – does your tomato plant take lead out of the soil and store it in the fruit? It's questionable. Look at the literature to see what contaminants plants actually take up. The more serious threat comes not from eating the vegetables, but from working the soil – digging, planting, then bringing contaminated soil into your home.

The National Brownfield Conference was recently held in New Orleans. My co-worker Jen was there, and spoke at an urban agriculture session. There was also a woman named Anne Carroll of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency who is working with city groups to help accurately communicate the risk – there really aren't a lot of regulatory standards that people can follow to determine what's safe; most of it is perception.

At that Conference, one researcher from the University of Washington said, “There's a very scientific approach to this; there's very little risk, so why address it? We haven't seen plants take up contaminants; all you're doing by applying this stigma to areas of land is stopping people from growing food. There's no risk; just go ahead and do it.” To me such a statement sends up a red flag – because people don't necessarily respond well to purely scientific reasoning. Even if that reasoning is communicated clearly, people don't always respond well. For instance, if you were told, “That soil is safe for you to garden in so long as you and your children aren't consuming more than 18 percent of your annual broccoli intake from that plot,” how would you feel? Perception of risk – perception of contamination is everything. Perception that a site is too dangerous to use may cause it to lie fallow, unused for anything- along with the perception that any assessment or remediation is too costly to undertake.

This is why partnership with a city government or other group that understands these issues can help in reusing sites. This is why we have been working with OSALT on the 8th and Emerson site, and why we have been working with Anne Carroll on accurately communicating the risk, and what to do to manage the risk. Not everyone who wants to start a community garden has a few hundred thousand dollars to remove the existing soil and bring in verified clean, composted new soil – that's unrealistic. So what's the alternative? To not use land? To use only the most pristine land? The vast majority of this world exists right in the middle, and if we want to use urban land for agricultural uses, we will be walking with some risk. That's okay, as long as we understand the risk and we take reasonable steps to limit it.

There are some obvious no-no's – you don't plant directly in extremely contaminated soil, for instance. And composting has been shown to bind contaminants in soil so that they are not mobile and can't be absorbed by plants. But some of this is subjective. And one size doesn't fit all. What's needed is an arsenal of many tools to deal with contamination in many situations.

One question is “What does sustainable cleanup really mean?” Does sustainable brownfield redevelopment consist of digging up contaminated soil and hauling it to a landfill? That just makes it someone else's problem. These landfills don't remain landfills forever. We're already dealing with the problem of closed landfills, and the big voids they leave in the urban environment. Landfills are big. Once they get closed, normally nothing happens on them. Will we try technologies and products that clean soil and groundwater? Do these products really do what they're supposed to do? Or do they actually make the contaminants more toxic?

Are there other cities throughout the U.S. and the world whose city governments are working to reclaim brownfield sites in their city limits for use in urban agriculture?

Yeah, absolutely. Philadelphia has been receiving national attention for their “Philadelphia Green” efforts. There's a group in Milwaukee, Wisconsin – I feel bad because I can't remember the man's name – but there's a gentleman who has done a tremendous job with aquaculture and urban agriculture, and he's doing it in a way that's educating tons of people, while generating enough funds to support itself; it's economically viable. There's also the Groundwork USA network. New York City is also looking at this as far as urban gardening, and they recently launched a very ambitious Brownfield Revitalization office.

Germany has a very interesting “Interim Use” philosophy. If a site is not being used, the government asks, “What can we use this for?” They don't have the same “property rights” gusto found in the USA, so the German government has a lot more statutory authority to put sites to use when their owners leave them fenced off and contaminated. Urban agriculture is one of the uses Germany has looked at for these sites, particularly in Leipzig.

In Indianapolis, my counterpart is Christopher Harrell, and he's looking at this as well. We're definitely not unique, but we like to think we're doing good work.

So here we are and someone wakes up to the insecurity of our economy and our industrial food system, and as he thinks of the need to start building local economic systems and systems of food production, he looks out his apartment window at the vacant lot across the street. Where does this person start?

Talk to the property owner if you're thinking of using some vacant land. Then, do your research on the site's history. In Portland, the Polk Directories are a good resource. Then, if you find that the site has a history that might have generated contamination, do some testing. Call the Portland Brownfield program. Also, talk to neighbors who know the history of the site.

But should you find that the site is contaminated, what do you do with that knowledge? You can compare your findings against the DEQ standards for agricultural use. Also, HUD and the City of Portland's Building Department have guidelines. But you have to be able in the end to look your neighbor in the eye and say, “Yes, this site is safe for use.”

* * *

Debrief: Mr. Henry provided some very useful information, which I am sure is greatly appreciated. Three things stand out: first, that pollution of the urban environment is a widespread and serious problem; secondly, that functioning in the urban environment therefore involves intelligently managing the risk from urban pollution; and thirdly, that providing sustainable and viable local economic systems – especially, local systems of food production – in urban areas will require us to learn to live differently. If we care about relocalizing our food, we will have to stop polluting our land, and we will have to stop supporting those businesses and activities of the present official economy that continue to ruin our cities. I know there are cities in China and on the African continent that are learning this the hard way.

One other note: The City of Portland's Bureau of Planning and Sustainability is hosting its “Urban Growth Bounty 2010” series of classes on urban agriculture and self-sufficiency. There will be 82 classes, covering topics such as urban farming, keeping chickens and bees, food preservation, and cheesemaking. Those who live in Portland and who are interested can go to http://www.portlandonline.com/bps/ugb for class descriptions and online registration links.

Lastly, here are links to the organizations mentioned in this interview:

Saturday, January 16, 2010

Brownfields and Urban Agriculture - Assessing The Challenges (Part 1)

This post is a continuation of a theme I first began exploring in two previous posts, “The Chicken That Laid Leaden Eggs, and Other Horror Stories,” and “Brownfield Remediation For Urban Homesteaders.” What I discussed in those earlier posts was the problem of soil pollution in urban environments, and the impact of that pollution on efforts to practice safe and sustainable urban farming and urban food gardening.

As noted in those earlier posts, there are many individuals, volunteer groups, nonprofit organizations, research bodies and governments who are tackling the problem of remediation of urban environments in order to foster safe urban food production. Their efforts are vital in helping localities build local food systems so that they can stop relying on industrial factory farming and long, fossil fuel-dependent supply lines stretching from centralized farms to local supermarkets. This last week I had the privilege and opportunity to speak with a member of our own city government, who is involved in the issue of brownfield reclamation. Mr. Clark Henry is an urban planner who serves in the City of Portland Brownfield Program, and he agreed to be interviewed for this blog.

We discussed the extent of urban pollution in the United States, the various kinds of urban soil contaminants, and the costs of some brownfield remediation strategies, as well as the uncertainties associated with these strategies. Following is a transcript of our interview. My questions are in bold type. (I did something different for this interview: I captured it on a digital recorder. I was thinking of making it into a podcast, but in listening to the interview, I wasn't quite satisfied with its pacing (this is my fault, not Mr. Henry's), and I'm not sure I like hearing my own voice...so I chickened out. Maybe next time.) The interview is rather long, so I am breaking it up into two posts. Next week I will post Part Two, God willing.

People talk about adapting to Peak Oil, economic collapse and resource constraints...and there are all sorts of responses, including trying to make things work where we live. Food systems are a big part of this, including urban gardening and urban farming. But some have pointed out the pollution of the urban environment, including pollution of soil due to lead. Telling people, “Don't grow food in the city; it's too dangerous,” won't fly as people find that they can't afford to rely on our present food systems. Yet the issue of pollution is valid. Can you comment on the scope of the problem, starting with lead pollution?

Sure, and just to qualify my statements, I am not a scientist, but an urban planner. I've been working with this [Portland Brownfield Program] project for eight years, so I have developed some understanding of levels and pervasiveness of contaminants. My wife, however, is director of the Josiah Hill III Clinic, a community-based nonprofit organization that does blood lead level testing for pregnant women and children in lower income neighborhoods and among communities of color.

The #1 source of lead contamination in Portland is lead paint, from older construction and older houses. The problem of lead contamination grows more severe as one moves eastward across the United States and as one goes into older neighborhoods. Scraping and sanding paint, or chipping and flaking of paint is the source of soil contamination in the home environment. In commercial and industrial areas, shipbuilding and shipbreaking, bulk oil terminals, old gas stations and old storage sites for leaded gasoline are sources of lead contamination.

Lead is a background element in nature, and agencies like the EPA and HUD publish environmental lead level figures that, in their view, “do not pose a driving risk to human life.” However, they also say that there is no safe level of lead in the human body. And there are documented detrimental effects to small children up to the age of 7 from exposure to lead. The City and County Health Departments partner with the State to publish guidelines for lead exposure, and there is a “Lead Hotline” available to City residents.

What other contaminants are a concern (including organic contaminants like organic compounds from leaking underground tanks)?

Petroleum of all varieties – gasoline, heating oil, motor oil, diesel fuel, bulk oil, and so forth. Former gas stations occupy a large portion of America's commercial corridors, and they were usually situated on corners where people drive by. Many sites of these former stations show few or no signs of such previous use; yet when people look into the records for such sites, they discover that, “Oh, a gas station was here!”

Modern gas stations operate under rigorous oversight by state regulators, but these older sites represent a mystery, an unquantifiable risk, and available databases don't do justice to this risk. Verifiable sites are maintained in two State (Oregon) Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) databases: the Leaky Underground Storage Tanks (LUSTS) database, and the Environmental Cleanup Site Inventory. Some of the sites on this list have been cleaned up and re-used. All of these sites are candidates for State involvement in assessment and/or clean-up.

There are two stages of State environmental assessment. First is the Phase 1 assessment in which a consultant determines the history of the site, using sources such as the County library, building records, the Polk Directories and the Sanborn Fire Insurance maps. (In the 1950's, the Sanborn Fire Insurance company made very detailed maps of underground tanks for underwriting purposes.) Also, the consultant will visit the site to do a visual inspection, where he may notice old concrete pump islands or old gas station structures or fill ports for underground tanks.

The Phase 2 assessment follows once the consultant has determined that a site is a former gas station or dry cleaners' facility or metal plating facility or so forth. Phase 2 consists of taking soil samples or groundwater samples, or taking samples of the contents of barrels if there are barrels on the site, or taking samples of the materials of any existing buildings or structures on the site.

Once the assessment is finished, the level and type of contamination is compared to the desired future use of the site. The DEQ is concerned with limiting exposure to contaminants. Thus, a site that meets regulatory approval isn't necessarily cleaned up, but is configured in a way that limits exposure – via placing a parking lot or building foundation on top of contaminated soil so that people are prevented from coming in contact with the bare soil. This is called an engineering control. Another form of control, called an institutional control, consists of placing restrictions on the title and permitted uses of the site.

So then, it is possible that there are sites that would be under institutional controls that forbid their use for urban agriculture?

Absolutely. Unless you worked through a new way of getting the site cleaned up. And the City is working with some groups who are researching how to make brownfields both safe and functional for urban agriculture, whether it's small-scale community gardens or something larger. We're working with a group called Groundwork Portland, which is just a year and a few months old. It's part of a network called Groundwork USA, whose mission is to identify brownfields within environmental justice communities, and to have them assessed and cleaned up and re-used in a way that reflects the surrounding community. Not necessarily to eyeball these sites for condominium development or Starbucks, but to make sure that they are doing something for the people who live there – by protecting their health first, and then by insuring that these sites are used in a way that meets the needs of the people around them.

Groundwork Portland has a board of directors whose members come from several local organizations: Organizing People, Activating Leaders (OPAL); the Oregon Tradeswomen; and the Oregon Sustainable Agriculture Land Trust (OSALT). The Oregon Tradeswomen provide training in hazardous waste handling for brownfield work. OSALT owns property for agricultural use and they are doing research on appropriate agricultural development of urban properties. There is a project on 8th and Emerson in NE Portland, the “Emerson Garden Project,” now being undertaken by OSALT, and it is a 4000 square foot lot that was donated by the County through foreclosure.

The Portland Brownfield Program tested the lot and found that there were really high lead levels in a couple of spots. We (Groundwork Portland, OSALT and the City) are now trying to clean up the soil using phytoremediation (decontamination via plants), in order to turn this lot into a community garden. OSALT will test native plants on this lot, to determine their phytoremedial qualities with lead, in order that we can turn this into a site for food production and education at the same time.

What are the available remediation strategies, starting from the most expensive strategies down to those that are within reach of communities and non-profits?

That's a good question, and the answer is not obvious. Soil removal is one option. But this is very expensive compared to trucking dirt to a regular landfill. Dirt at regular landfills is simply used as a cover. But contaminated dirt requires removal to a toxic waste landfill. Fortunately, there is such a landfill in eastern Oregon, but the cost of trucking dirt there is over $700 a ton, compared to $70 a ton for removal to a regular landfill. And a ton of dirt is not that bulky. So soil removal quickly becomes very expensive, not to mention the cost of finding virgin, clean dirt and trucking it in to your urban agriculture site.

Another strategy is groundwater treatment, but this is an ongoing process that may last several years, and it too is expensive. When dealing with petroleum products, oxygenation and breakdown of compounds using bacteria and/or mushrooms is sometimes used. But this requires continual monitoring. The big questions for bioremediation, and indeed for all remediation, are “How long will this take?”, “How much will this cost?”, and “Who will pay for this?” These are often unknown until one gets into a project. Those who undertake such projects therefore take on a significant risk. Private developers must take this risk on themselves, but communities and tax-exempt non-profits can get help via Federal grants.

* * *

That concludes Part 1 of the interview. Stay tuned for Part 2, where we continue to discuss the costs of remediation strategies. There will also be a debrief and discussion of key points at the end. Meanwhile, here are links to some of the organizations mentioned so far:

Sunday, May 24, 2009

Brownfield Remediation For Urban Homesteaders

Urban homesteading is a very valuable skill set for the times we now face. One of the most important aspects of urban homesteading is for city dwellers to learn to grow their own food. A unique challenge of growing food in an urban or suburban environment is dealing with pre-existing pollution or contamination of an urban garden site. Such sites are known as “brownfields” as opposed to uncontaminated virgin lands called “greenfields.” Brownfields are common in urban areas and we must learn to deal with them, because as the existing “official” food economy deteriorates, we won't be able to just keep going to the store rather face this challenge. Knowing how to garden successfully on brownfields may soon mean the difference between surviving and starving.

Our Endangered “Official” Food System

The food production and distribution system that now exists in the industrial world is becoming increasingly endangered. This system depends on the concentration of control of vast amounts of farmland, labor, machinery, storehouses, distribution facilities and farm “inputs” in the hands of a few large corporations. These corporations distribute food through a vast global network of supply chains that lead to points of sale at local supermarkets. The whole system depends heavily on artificial means of forcing increased production from the ground that is farmed – means such as mechanized farming, pesticides, fertilizers and long-haul transport. All of these artificial means depend on fossil fuels and the cheap credit that a fossil-fueled economy provides.

Now that fossil fuels are becoming scarce, the entire system is beginning to break down. During the last oil price spike, the prices of petroleum-based fertilizers and pesticides also spiked. During the economic collapse that occurred afterward, lines of credit to farmers were wiped out, just as lines of credit for other businesses also dried up. Farmers have come to depend on credit in order to buy the seeds, fertilizers and other amendments, and machinery for each year's harvest. The reduction in availability of credit is causing farmers to cut back on planting. Several news reports predicted in 2008 that this could result in decreased harvests in 2009, leading to price spikes for food, and possible shortages.

This story will play itself out repeatedly and with ever-increasing severity as oil becomes scarcer and the official economy continues to deteriorate as a result. Under such circumstances, city dwellers will need to farm whatever pieces of ground they can get their hands on. Telling such people that it's safer to get their food from the store is a non-starter. Yet it is important to know how to garden safely in urban soils, and how to deal with contamination. In this post, I will focus mainly on dealing with lead contamination. Future posts may delve into how to deal with other kinds of contamination.

Dealing with lead contamination is a multi-pronged strategy consisting of the following elements: appropriate plants, separation techniques, and remediation tools.

Appropriate Plants

All plants accumulate lead to some extent; however, not all plants concentrate accumulated lead in their edible parts. A study performed by the Argonne National Laboratory examined lead accumulation in edible parts of food plants, the results of which showed that lead generally does not concentrate in the “fruit” of fruiting edible plants. These plants include things like fruit trees, corn, cucumbers, peppers, squash, tomatoes, watermelon and zucchini. Therefore, when dealing with heavily contaminated soils (soils that test over 400 parts per million for lead) that cannot be remediated due to cost or lack of access to resources, plants such as these should be cultivated, along with legumes such as beans and peas. Quite a lot of plants can be safely harvested and eaten, even when grown in heavily contaminated soils.

Once the fruiting parts of these plants are harvested, the crop should be washed thoroughly before use. Some sources recommend washing with both water and detergent. Afterward, these crops are quite safe for human consumption. However, it is generally not safe to eat root vegetables, leafy greens or herbs grown in soil contaminated to 400 parts per million or above. Safe utilization of these vegetables requires appropriate separation techniques.

Separation Techniques

When raising root vegetables and other crops susceptible to lead contamination, it is essential to keep these vegetables away from the source of contamination. Therefore, when gardening on a contaminated site, one must not plant these vegetables directly in the soil. Instead, raised beds or containers should be used. Clean soil should be placed in the beds or containers, and the soil should be monitored every season to insure that it does not become contaminated by windblown dust from adjacent contaminated areas. Wind-caused cross-contamination can also be reduced by planting a cover crop of grass in areas of bare dirt to immobilize the soil, as well as by mulch or weed tarps.

Suitable containers for container gardening are easy to come by, free of charge. One can find used five-gallon food-grade plastic buckets at many restaurants and supermarkets. Empty plastic detergent buckets are also good. As far as raised beds, some sources recommend placing a semi-permeable barrier at the bottom of the bed to separate the contaminated soil from the new clean soil added to the bed. The beds must be deep enough that any root vegetables grown in them will not contact the contaminated soil underneath even when they have grown to their full extent.

Gardening in raised beds or containers limits the size of the harvest available to an urban household. In order have the freedom to grow anything anywhere at any time on an urban homestead, soil remediation techniques must be employed where contamination exists.

Remediation Tools

Techniques of remediation of lead contamination have been studied extensively by non-profit urban gardening groups, non-governmental organizations (NGO's), universities and researchers affiliated with the governments of the United States and several other nations. Interest in lead remediation has risen as governments and others have come to grips with some of the negative effects of massive industrialization. The techniques studied have varied in complexity, reliance on advanced technology and cost, with the governments of First World nations tending to favor study of the most costly and complex techniques. These techniques include things like soil removal and replacement, soil washing, electrokinetic methods, and other costly remedies.

Such techniques are beyond the reach of most residents of the Third World, as well as most poor and middle-class people in the First World. I will therefore focus mainly on those techniques which have been studied for use in poor settings by people of limited means.

First, there are techniques of binding lead in soil to reduce its bioavailability to plants. One method, studied in China and in the U.S., involves adding rock phosphate and/or phosphate fertilizers to contaminated soil. The phosphates bind to the lead to form insoluble lead phosphate compounds that are not taken up by plants. Another method is simply to add compost to contaminated soil, as the organic compounds in the compost accomplish the same goal of immobilizing and binding lead in soil.

Then there is phytoremediation, which consists of growing plants that are known lead accumulators in order to reduce the total concentration of lead in soil. Some phytoremediation strategies promise a reduction of 100 parts per million per growing season. Reduction of soil lead levels to an acceptable range by this technique takes from two to over five years. It should be viewed as part of a long-range strategy for healing urban areas.

Final Thoughts: The Correct Way To Assess Contamination Risks

This week's post is a follow-up to my earlier post, “The Chicken That Laid Leaden Eggs, And Other Horror Stories.” In this week's post, I seek to drive home an additional point that I may not have made in the earlier post. That point is the fact that urban homesteading, and particularly urban agriculture, have a disruptive effect on the official global food system, because they result in people breaking free of that system. Therefore it is no surprise that the masters of that system might find it advantageous to try to arouse fear of potential “dangers” of urban food gardening, in order to keep people dependent on the official system.

A recent case in point involves keeping urban chickens for the purpose of eating their eggs. An article appeared in a local newspaper warning urban chicken-keepers of the danger of eating eggs from chickens that have ingested lead-based paint from older buildings. That concern is valid, yet the article went on to imply that because of the ubiquitousness of lead in urban environments, it is largely unsafe for people to raise chickens for food in the city. While the article caused many people to get their property and their children tested for lead contamination, these people then concluded that if there were elevated lead levels on their property and elevated blood lead levels in their children, it had to be due to the children eating eggs from contaminated urban chickens.

Now I believe that the writer of the news article had the best interests of readers at heart. Yet the conclusion of that article and the conclusions drawn by some of its readers seem like “fuzzy” logic to me. I think that before we start blaming urban chickens for childhood lead poisoning, we need to conduct some rigorous experiments, including measuring the lead content of random samples of store-bought eggs, double-blind experiments in which blood lead levels of urban gardeners/chicken keepers are measured against levels of non-gardening urban dwellers, and tissue/egg lead levels of chickens who do not ingest lead paint chips, yet are raised in urban environments. Only after such experiments are performed will we be able to blame or exonerate urban chicken-keeping as a source of lead poisoning. In the meantime, I'm still working on my coop. My plan is to get some chicks in July.

As to the problem of reclaiming brownfields for urban agriculture, I applaud all who are tackling this problem – including the solitary backyard tinkerers doing homegrown research. In finding solutions, you are proving yourselves to be true heroes and heroines.

Sources:

Friday, April 24, 2009

Volunteer Groups And Community Food Security

As has been stated repeatedly on this blog, the globalized, industrialized culture of modern advanced civilization is under great and increasing stress, due to resource constraints, climate change and economic collapse. This stress is severe enough to threaten the small units that make up our modern society – the homes, families, streets and neighborhoods in which most of us live. I seek to do my part to investigate strategies for making neighborhoods and communities resilient in the face of our present stresses. In this I am hardly alone, as there are many individuals and groups striving to achieve the same goal.

In America the challenge of achieving resilience is particularly acute, as most Americans acquire necessities by going into debt, thus forcing them to rely on the breaking systems of the “official” economy. Getting out of debt is very hard in many cases, due to rising prices or diminished earning power (i.e., low wages). Those who lose their jobs usually wind up losing almost everything they “own,” since their ownership is based on making monthly payments on an interest-bearing debt. A key, therefore, to getting out of debt and becoming more resilient is finding strategies which allow people to meet a portion of their basic needs for free or at very low cost.

One such strategy is urban food gardening. Yet urban gardening is a challenge in itself, since most Americans don't live on a farm and don't know how to garden for food, having never grown a food crop. I know how much of a challenge this was for me when I started in 2007 in Southern California. Later that year, when I moved to Oregon, I started a garden in my new backyard. I was trying to grow plants I had never seen before, and was anxious that I wouldn't be able to tell a fava bean plant from a weed.

I was greatly helped in my gardening efforts by the discovery of local, non-profit, volunteer groups of people who have made it their business to host classes on gardening, food preparation and food preservation, and who provide help to residents looking to start gardening for food. Growing Gardens, of Portland, Oregon is one such group. I have had the pleasure of attending several classes hosted by them, on subjects such as urban chicken-keeping, winterizing the garden, food preservation and canning, urban chicken-coop building, and seed saving. Their connection to community resilience seemed to be a natural and obvious topic to explore, so I arranged to interview one of their staff to discuss this in more detail.

Thus it was that I got to spend a bit of time with Growing Gardens staffer Rodney Bender last week. We met at their headquarters, a simple rented house which has been turned into offices and storage space to support their activities. Rodney's time was somewhat constrained, as they are very busy with this being the growing season, but he was gracious enough to give me about a half-hour. Here are some questions I asked, along with his answers:

How did Growing Gardens start? During the early 1990's, a gentleman noticed the poverty of some local residents, and began building raised-bed gardens for them, using his own materials and money. As word got out about what he was doing, demand for his services rose quickly, and he soon found himself unable to meet all the needs that were popping up. In 1996, he met a network of volunteers who offered to turn his effort into a non-profit organization to carry on his work. (According to the GG website, this first non-profit was called the Portland Home Garden Project. Later, the name was changed to Growing Gardens.)

What is the mission of Growing Gardens? Their mission is to provide food security to people whose income would normally be insufficient for such security. They do this by transferring skill-sets to people without prior gardening experience, as well as building actual gardens in the yards of low-income residents. Over the years they have installed a large number of gardens, both at single-family homes and in apartment complexes. (Rodney provided an interesting quote: “Give a man a carrot and he will eat for a day; teach a man to grow carrots and he will eat for a lifetime.” I laughed and told him that that was a vegetarian version of a similar slogan I had once heard.)

Rodney spoke of how GG's approach to gardening had evolved over the years. A specific example concerns raised bed gardening. When the project first started, volunteers would build wooden box raised beds in people's yards. However, over time the wood would rot and the soil would be compacted or lost, necessitating an expensive rebuild of the raised bed. This was clearly not sustainable for low-income gardeners, so GG changed its approach to building raised mounds directly on ground level, on top of a layer of newspaper. With this “raised mound”/sheet-mulching approach, installing and maintaining a garden bed is much cheaper.

You said that Growing Gardens has installed apartment gardens. How did that work out? Evidently, they have been able to install gardens in 45 apartment complexes. However, there are unique challenges to starting an apartment garden. First, one must find tenants who are willing and enthusiastic, and obtain permission from the management. This is usually the easy part. The harder part is organizing the daily labor and care needed for a successful garden. Sometimes the original enthusiastic tenants lose interest; sometimes they just move away. In any case, these gardens often wind up as weed patches after a few years. Skillful community outreach and organizing is key to a successful apartment garden.

Is Growing Gardens reaching out city-wide, or are your efforts focused mainly on a certain region? Growing Gardens is focused mainly on the east side for the present. However, they hope to expand to the west as they are able to add staff and resources.

How easy is it to find all of the volunteer helpers and teachers on whom you rely? That part is actually very easy, as GG maintains a listserv where those who want to volunteer can sign up. To date, over 1,000 people have signed up in one capacity or another. (For those Portlanders who are interested, you can sign up here: http://www.growing-gardens.org/volunteer.php)

How do you see urban gardening contributing to the establishment of a strong local economy? Urban gardening is a growing contributor to the local Portland economy, with many local merchants taking an interest. One obvious example is the many local restaurants and farmers' market stands that are now buying and selling garden-raised produce. (That prompted me to ask, “There are broad food-safety laws being proposed in the United States Congress, laws that would impose stringent regulations on food grown for commercial use, no matter where it is grown. How do you see these proposed laws affecting the contribution of urban gardening to our local economy?” Rodney was unaware of bills such as H.R. 875 and its cousins, but my question definitely aroused his interest.)

What advice do you have for people who want to start something similar to Growing Gardens in other cities? First, start small, so that you don't get overwhelmed. If the group's main focus is helping poorer families install home gardens, start with five to ten families at first. Second, keep it simple (especially at first). Begin by teaching simple gardening methods. And where supplies are needed, use free or recycled resources wherever possible.

That concluded our interview. One day I'd like to be a helper (and a witness) at one of their garden installation “parties”; if I can do that, I'll write a post describing it. Growing Gardens is an example for others in other locales to imitate. Another such example is the Portland Fruit Tree Project (http://portlandfruit.org/), a group that collects gleanings from backyard fruit trees in order to donate them to charity. They got their inspiration from a similar fruit tree project in Canada, which now has at least two such projects including the Vancouver Fruit Tree Project (http://www.vcn.bc.ca/fruit/), located in Vancouver, British Columbia, and the Victoria Frut Tree Project (http://www.lifecyclesproject.ca/initiatives/fruit_tree/), located in Victoria, British Columbia. The Victoria Project was featured on a 2006 broadcast of Deconstructing Dinner, a Canadian food security radio program (http://deconstructingdinner.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=130221).

I have a few closing thoughts on the subject of volunteer groups and food security. First, volunteer groups will play a vital role in establishing resilient neighborhoods, especially those groups that teach self-sufficiency skills. A whole body of knowledge has largely been lost to our generation, which has only known reliance on far-flung global systems for the most part. Second, the Internet is a great resource for connecting with like-minded people. If you have a skill or a benefit that you would like to impart to your local community and you're wondering where to start, you'll probably be able to find someone in another locality who is already doing (or trying to do) what you want to do. Feel free to write others in other localities who are interested in doing the same things. You might even want to arrange visits where you can observe and learn from what others are doing.

Lastly, consider petitioning your local governments for changes in the way they specify greenery for public places. I think particularly of the city easements that exist in front of houses on many residential streets, and how these are usually planted with ornamental, non-fruiting trees. You might suggest that your city use its funds to plant trees that bear useful things like various fruits, nuts and olives. Such plantings would provide the beginnings of a very public safety net of food security.