In All Fairness To Barack Obama...

Some of them knew pleasure, and some of them knew pain,

and for some of them it was only the moment that mattered.

And on the brave and crazy wings of youth, they went flyin' around in the rain

and their feathers, once so fine, grew torn and tattered.

And in the end, they traded their tired wings

for the resignation that living brings

and exchanged love's bright and fragile glow

for the glitter and the rouge.

And in a moment they were swept...

before the deluge.

– Jackson Browne, Before The Deluge

The President of the United States has been the subject of some (seemingly) searching media examination lately. Both Time and Newsweek magazines have featured articles describing Obama as a stymied president facing challenges that may well be insurmountable. Even our own newspaper, the Oregonian, jumped in with their own two cents' worth.

Opinion in the street has not been altogether favorable to Obama lately. I remember how I had misgivings about him even as I voted for him, and even as I defended him in conversations with some of my acquaintances who were true believers in Fox News, the National Enquirer, Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin. This last Christmas, a relative (who believes to this day that Obama is a Muslim) asked me again what I thought of him (this question was related to health care “reform”). When I said, “I think he's a liar,” you should have seen the look of triumph in my relative's eyes. That look of triumph made me angry, however, as I didn't want to have to go into a fact-based defense of my statement in the presence of someone who feeds on professionally-spun rumors.

Me, I think it's time to give Mr. Obama a bit of a break – but not too much of a break, because, unfortunately, I still have to be truthful. So let's talk a bit about the challenges facing this President of the United States at such a dark time for the nation and for the world, and some missteps that could have been avoided.

In all fairness to Barack Obama, the mess into which he stepped by becoming President is not a mess of his own making. Many of the trends which comprise this present mess began before a lot of us were born – including Obama. Free-market predatory economist Milton Friedman had already hit his stride by the time Obama came into the world. The liabilities of our present industrial society were only beginning to be discussed in the 1970's – a time in which Obama was just turning from a kid to a teenager, learning to shave and to drive. The arrangements of empire by which Europe and the United States exploited the rest of the world have been decades in the making.

The politicians whose rise to power facilitated America's state of denial about limits to growth entered office while he was still a college student. I think particularly of Ronald Reagan, who was aided and abetted by his friend across the Atlantic, Margaret Thatcher. Obama was far from the centers of power that gave us Reagan, Bush the First, and Bill Clinton, and was thus not in much of a position to do anything about them.

By the time Obama was elected to the Illinois Senate, America and its leaders had already begun to decline. Our manufacturing had largely been outsourced, our technical work was beginning to be outsourced, our main exports were starting to consist of “financial products” instead of real goods, the gains of the Civil Rights Movement were being quietly reversed, we were already fighting wars of hegemony (such as Bill Clinton's invasion of Haiti), the rich were claiming an ever-larger share of the nation's wealth and were in fact running the country while the rest of us were being trained to “aspire” to ever more lavish lifestyles, even though we were getting poorer, our resource base had long since started declining and we were having to buy more and more things on credit. By the time Obama became a U.S. Senator, the country had become mired in an unjust war of conquest in Iraq, and our collective debt was already becoming unsustainable. This was all taking place against the backdrop of the end of cheap oil and the resulting stresses on the American society and economy, and the first real beginnings of the derangement of our planet's climate. Anyone who became President in 2008 would have had one huge mess to clean up.

But in all fairness to Barack Obama, (and by “fairness,” I mean telling it like it is), I have to say that many of us who voted for him in 2008 did so because we realized that the U.S. and the First World were facing limits to our way of life – limits so profound that they would require a total change of our way of life. We clearly saw the problems we were facing – resource depletion; the decline of our “prosperity”; the blood on our collective hands and the unwillingness of other, poorer nations to allow themselves to keep getting jacked in order to keep America fat, dumb and happy; the destruction of the environment due to our excessive consumption and industrial activity.

We correctly identified these all, not as mere “problems” that could be solved by technology or trickery, but as a predicament to be gracefully accepted and endured. And we looked at Bush, McCain and Palin, and the Fox News/neocon/neoliberal crowd as children who were refusing to acknowledge reality. We saw in Obama the possibility of an adult who would speak the truth, who would tell us, “We're not going to return to the glory days of unending prosperity. It's not right that we should want to. We're in for a difficult time. Let's learn to gracefully adapt to it; I'm here to help you and to lead by example.”

Instead, he lied to us.

Just like all the Presidents from Reagan onward. And he proved to be a stooge of the rich, just like the members of the other branches of the U.S. Government and all the major political parties. Which is why there are American troops still in Iraq, there are American troops in Haiti and Colombia and the African continent and Afghanistan and Kyrgystan and Kazakhstan, there are still torture bases in Guantanamo and elsewhere, and any country that has things we want is bound, sooner or later to be described in our media as a “terrorist threat.” Oh, and the rich (especially those on Wall Street) are still getting bailed out by the Federal Government, and the “official” unemployment rate is still below 11 percent, but real unemployment is much higher. And atmospheric CO2 is at nearly 390 parts per million and 2010 is on track to be the warmest year on record, globally.

And yet, in all fairness to Barack Obama, he only told us the lie that most of us wanted to hear. It's the lie being told by every major American political figure, as well as their media mouthpieces – even though the finer details of that lie differ from liar to liar (and they fight convincingly over those minor details). It's the lie that our present troubles are “solvable” in a way that would return America to prosperity or “keep America strong!” without forcing any fundamental change in our way of life.

I am thinking just now of some conversations I've been having with people who identify themselves as conservative or sympathetic to groups like the Tea Party, who get their news and views from Glen Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. Some of these people even claim to be "well-informed." Yet they all cling rabidly to the promise held out by ultraconservative American politicians and organizers that say, “Support us, because we have The Solution. You don't have to give up your way of life. The threat to our American Way comes from them liberals and illegals and dark-skinned people and foreigners and socialists and scroungers and 'terrrists' who hate our freedoms! If we just get rid of these people, we can have prosperity forever!” In the event that these people actually seized political power in this country, they'd simply install their own liar as spokesman to tell them the kind of stories that are about to be swiftly be disproved by reality.

But the so-called American “Left” is just as much to blame in talking about clean coal, carbon capture, the promise of renewable energy and unbridled faith in the power of technology to grant us unending prosperity. I think of a guy I know... (But then, I'm trying to stop talking widely about these things around some people. Talking just makes me a bit of a pest, not to mention making me mad. Maybe I should duct tape my mouth shut.) Anyway, this guy regularly listens to KPOJ, “Portland's only progressive talk station,” where he regularly hears that the reason the economy is falling apart, the ecosystem is dying and people are jobless is because of the greedy Republicans, and that somehow a better system run by Democrats would solve all problems while guaranteeing prosperity for everyone.

It is true that many of our problems are being exacerbated by greedy rich people in places of power. But the underlying problems would still have to be faced by all of us anyway. Whenever I mention resource depletion and the resulting inevitability of the decline of the industrial economy, this guy's eyes glaze over.

So Obama's a symptom of a larger problem. We want to be lied to. We are facing a predicament, but we want to be told that it's merely a problem, a solvable problem – so we can continue driving our Escalades and Suburbans and Explorers and Yukons and Expeditions and monster trucks, so we can continue aspiring to be rich and living gluttonous and materialistic lives without thinking that such lifestyles must soon end. No matter who was President, we'd have quickly turned him into a liar. And it would soon have become obvious that he could not keep his promise to "solve" our problems.

City of Portland Fix-It Fair, 30 January 2010 - A Summary

Here's a follow-up post regarding the Fix-It Fair I attended last weekend. The Fairs are a series of workshops hosted each year by the City of Portland staff, volunteers and nonprofit groups. The City flyer announcing the fairs describes them thus: “The Fix-It Fair is a FREE City of Portland event where you can learn simple ways to save money and connect with resources. Join your neighbors and talk to the experts about how to spend less and stay healthy.”

The Fair I attended consisted of a hall filled with exhibits and booths whose staffers gave presentations on weatherization, health and nutrition, water and energy savings, recycling and composting, environmentally friendly home maintenance and cleaning, gardening, affordable housing and resources for people on limited budgets. In addition, there were formal classes on the following topics:

• household energy conservation (including weatherization, lighting, appliances and so forth)

• creating a safe home environment ( including dealing with mold and lead contamination)

• bicycle commuting

• household budgeting for debt reduction (including one very interesting class titled, “Community Resources for Living On A Limited Budget.” I made an audio recording of that class, and I hope to post it to the Internet soon.)

• composting and gardening (including gardening basics, raised-bed gardening and tree care)

• stormwater management (including downspout disconnection, rain gardens and ecoroofs. I made some videos of the ecoroof class. Unfortunately, they are rather large, even though they are not that long, and uploading them to Youtube has been problematic.)

• and disaster preparedness and crime prevention (including a class titled “Know Your Neighborhood” as well as another very interesting class titled, “Emergencies: Beyond 72 Hours.” The “Beyond 72 Hours” class covers many things that are of interest to people adapting to a low-energy future in a collapsing economy.)

And that brings me to an observation about resources like this – namely, that while the City probably had nothing more in mind than simply trying to be helpful when they created these Fairs and their classes, resources like these can yet have applications far beyond their original intent. The Fix-It Fairs and their associated classes function to foster a resilient city – a city that is more resistant to damage caused by economic downturns and resource scarcity.

That is the goal of post-Peak planners and “preppers” generally. Our trouble is that it is very “late in the day,” so to speak, and many opportunities and resources that could have been applied to adaptation to a post-Peak world have been squandered. Our remaining resources are limited, and are dwindling. What better way to use those remaining resources than by teaching people to take care of themselves and connect with each other? This is what the City of Portland is doing. (And I'll bet that many of them haven't even heard of the “Transition Towns” movement.)

But one note of caution. While it is true that Oregon in general and Portland in particular have some very bright, foresighted and altruistic people working hard to make our place more resilient, this by no means applies to everyone who lives here. There are still many voracious, compulsive, shopaholic consumatrons speeding around in their SUV's. And there are still people (including some very rich and well-connected individuals) who would like nothing better than to dismantle all community-based safety nets and alternative arrangements, so that they can more efficiently loot this state for their own profit. I think in particular of people like Kevin Mannix and Bill Sizemore, and their attempts to collect signatures to put anti-tax initiatives on the Oregon ballot. Ironically, they also are trying to pass extreme pro-punishment ballot measures in order to swell the Oregon prison population with people convicted of non-violent crimes. This is in order to grow the “prison industry” in Oregon. My question is, who is going to pay for this? Mannix and Sizemore are using a for-profit signature-gathering firm, “Vote Oregon,” to try to get their measures on the ballot (you can see some of these “Vote Oregon” people at work if you ride the MAX a lot).

Then there's the Oregonian newspaper, which recently voiced strong opposition to Measures 66 and 67, designed to raise the tax on the wealthy and corporations by a few percentage points in order to make up for budget shortfalls. The Oregonian later published articles attacking the City of Portland's plan to increase bicycle commuting to 25 percent of all commuting trips by 2030. Surprising for a paper that's supposed to be “progressive,” isn't it? I think I'll buy a Sunday edition of the Oregonian this weekend (I need more newspaper anyway, so I can sheet-mulch some more of my backyard), and I'll count the number of ads there are for auto dealers.

Anyway, on to more pleasant subjects. Below are links to videos I took while I was at the Fix-It Fair.

Videos

• Portland Fix-It Fair Interviews, Part 1 – A video of Keith Berkery from the Portland Office Of Emergency Management, describing the class he teaches, titled, “Emergencies – Beyond the First 72 Hours.” He taught this class at the most recent Fix-It Fair, and is available to give special presentations to neighborhood groups.

• Portland Fix-It Fair Interviews, Part 2 – Brett, a staffer with the City, explains a bit of the “Portland Plan,” the development of the City's strategic plan for the next 25 years. He also explains how City residents can provide input to the plan.

• Portland Fix-It Fair Interviews, Part 3 – A staffer from the City explains how homeowners can reduce stormwater runoff by disconnecting their downspouts and redirecting roof runoff to rain gardens and rain barrels.

• Portland Fix-It Fair Interviews, Part 4 – an explanation of consumer electronics recycling by a staffer from Free Geek, a local volunteer group that recycles consumer electronics, including computers, and donates them to poor and disadvantaged individuals.

• Portland Fix-It Fair Interviews, Part 5 – A staffer from the Portland Housing Bureau describes the “211 Program,” an initiative to provide affordable housing to low-income residents.

• Portland Fix-It Fair Interviews, Part 6 – Clay Veka from the Portland Bureau of Transportation describes the “Safe Routes to School” program, which focuses on providing schoolchildren with safe biking and walking routes from their homes to their schools. (She also talked about the bike tune-ups and repairs performed by volunteers at the Fix-It Fair.)

• Portland Fix-It Fair Interviews, Part 7 – Kate O'Donnell from the Josiah Hill III Clinic describes the free blood lead level tests offered by the Clinic. These tests are important for people living in older housing where walls may have been painted with lead-based paint.

• Portland Fix-It Fair Interviews, Part 8 – Nicole McKinney from the Multnomah County Commission on Children, Families and Community explains the County's free financial planning resources for households. (After I recorded this video, we got to talking about neighborhood resilience and threats, such as predatory lending, that are faced by minority neighborhoods. I told her that I had covered these topics before on this blog (for those of you who are interested, see “Our Least Resilient Neighborhoods”, “Breaking Neighborhoods For Fun And Profit” and “Homeboy Culture And The Solari Index.”).)

City of Portland Fix-It Fair - 30 January 2010, Introduction

I attended a one of the City of Portland's "Fix-It" Fairs today. The Fair was held in East Portland, and consisted of a variety of classes and exhibits hosted by City departments and volunteer groups. The Fix-It Fairs are designed to foster and encourage general neighborhood resilience in the face of disasters or economic distress.

I couldn't attend all the classes I wanted to visit (there were so many, and there was just one of me). However, I was able to get a friend to do audio recordings of some of the classes while I did video interviews and a video recording of a separate class. The classes we covered discussed resources for people with low incomes, rain gutter disconnection to reduce stormwater runoff, eco-roofs for homeowners, food gardening in the Pacific Northwest, and neighborhood preparedness and crime reduction. I also interviewed staff from the Portland Office Of Emergency Management, the Josiah Hill III Clinic, the Portland Master Planning Office, and many others.

I am hoping to soon have the audio and video clips up on the Web, and available for those with sufficient download speeds. (Unfortunately, uploading seems to take forever (and I mean, forever!) with my connection.) I also hope to post transcripts of some of the classes, as time permits. In addition, I will provide a bit of analysis of the material that was presented along with comments regarding applicability to differing communities. Stay tuned...

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 8^th 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 57^th 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 8^th 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:

• Philadelphia Green

• Growing Power (I think this is the Milwaukee organization that Mr. Henry was referring to.)

• Indianapolis Brownfields Redevelopment Program

• Office of Environmental Remediation – NYC.gov

• brownfields2009.org (National Brownfields Conference, 2009)

• Southeast Uplift Neighborhood Coalition

• Josiah Hill III Clinic | Working to keep children and their homes safe

• OSALT: The Oregon Sustainable Agriculture Land Trust

• Organizing People, Activating Leaders (OPAL)

• Oregon Tradeswomen Inc.

• Groundwork Portland

• Groundwork USA

The Dark Persons of America

Dark matter: that matter in the universe that is not directly observable. Dark internet: that portion of the Internet that can no longer be accessed through conventional means. Dark people: those individuals who have fallen out of society’s view, who have disappeared from society’s radar. (Most of them are poor.)

My follow-up post containing the rest of the brownfields interview will be posted this weekend. But for this present post, I want to discuss something different.

Bernard Hill is a name that is probably familiar to most people who remember the Lord of the Rings movies. He played Theoden, the King of Rohan. That role was the first role I saw him play, because I don’t go to movies much and I don’t have a TV. But because I was intrigued by the Lord of the Rings movies, I did a bit of research on the principal characters, and discovered a surprising amount of information on their previous acting roles. It turns out that an early breakout role for Bernard Hill was in a British TV miniseries titled, The Boys From The Blackstuff.

Hill played the character of Yosser Hughes, one of five unemployed asphalt (tarmac for you British) layers in the 1980’s. The series chronicled the lives of this loose gang of five men as they struggled to maintain their dignity and provide for themselves and their families amidst mounting national unemployment and the indignities of being “on the dole.” It was a struggle that each man eventually lost. The most harrowing portrayal of that loss was shown in Yosser Hughes, who lost his wife, his children, his home, and lastly, his sanity, while constantly asking – sometimes demanding, sometimes pleading – “Gizza job!”

The Boys From The Blackstuff was an eye-opener for many of the British, who had previously been trained by their culture and their own mass media to think of the poor and unemployed as mere scroungers. In fact, the series was widely seen as a dramatic denunciation of capitalist, free-market Thatcherism. Most of all, the series put a human face on the poor.

Such a series would probably not have been made or broadcast in the United States at any time during the Television age. (It is doubtful that such a series could be made anymore in Britain.)

Our nation has been trained to ignore the poor. This training has been accomplished through a steady diet of distraction and aspirational propaganda that claims that “anyone can be rich, and by Gum, everyone should want to be!” So we allow ourselves to be hypnotized by game shows, upscale living and “home improvement” shows, sports, the promise of the Lottery, and the advertising that goes with it all. When we go to the store, the magazines next to the checkout counter are full of flashy covers full of beefcakes and vixens and stories about the lives of these “stars.”

When events force the poor onto the American national consciousness, the response frequently consists of anger and hatred on the part of the rich and the “aspirational.” The poor are blamed for being poor. This, of course, gets the rich off the hook for any sort of duty or obligation of charity toward the poor. Thus the mainstream media (which is owned by the rich) denounces any suggestion that government social spending should be increased (though they are curiously silent when the Government bails out the institutions of the rich). They denounce any suggestion that the rich should be taxed more heavily than they are (and they are not taxed heavily right now). This is why the mainstream media in Oregon (such as that “progressive” newspaper, the Oregonian) have come out so vehemently against Measures 66 and 67. Measure 66 would add an increase of a (very) few percentage points to the tax rate of singles making over $125,000 a year or couples filing jointly making over $250,000 a year. How many people do you know that make over $125,000 a year?

Sometimes that anger and hatred takes even more grotesque forms. Pat Robertson, the outspoken founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network, recently denounced the country of Haiti, saying that the earthquake that struck that country several days ago is God’s judgment on its people for “making a deal with the devil” two centuries ago in order to get free from their French (white) colonial masters. If the earthquake is “God’s judgment,” that excuses rich Americans from having to help Haiti, doesn’t it? By the way, Mr. Robertson has a net worth of between $200 million and $1 billion, according to Wikipedia.

(Pat Robertson claims to be a Christian and a minister of the Gospel. But I am a Christian, and I’ve read the Bible, and I think Mr. Robertson might have to prepare for an unpleasant surprise on the Day of Judgment – see Matthew 6:24; Matthew 25:31-46; Luke 16:19-31; 1 Timothy 6:9-10 and James 5:1-6. I shall have more to say about him on my other blog. Has he ever heard of a place called Gehenna?)

Usually, though, the eyes of American society are directed away from the poor. There’s a store I regularly visit that carries Newsweek Magazine next to its checkout counter. Last week, Newsweek’s front cover was dedicated to picturing the “new face of Al-Qaeda” – the supposed black Nigerian threat. This week’s cover featured the growing American conservative acceptance of gay marriage. To the best of my knowledge, Haiti did not even make the front cover of Newsweek. (In fact, I’ll bet that in two weeks, Haiti will be forgotten – just like New Orleans was after Katrina.)

But we don’t have to go as far as Haiti to see how hard our leaders are working to keep our eyes off the poor. There are the “official” Government unemployment figures that are regularly cooked to a reality-obscuring flavor. I am truly thankful for those analysts who are able to sniff out the truth, people who publish websites like Shadowstats and The Automatic Earth. Basically, what they reveal is that in order to keep the “official” unemployment rate from going much above ten percent, the Government is ignoring huge and growing sectors of the unemployed population. Would you like to meet a “dark person”? You may not have far to look.

Meanwhile, if you want a peek at the lives of these dark people, feel free to rent or buy The Boys From The Blackstuff. You won't find another such portrayal in our mainstream media. It’s a good preparation for the time when you yourself will have to shout out the American version of the plea, “Gizza job!”

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 8^th 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:

• Josiah Hill III Clinic | Working to keep children and their homes safe

• OSALT: The Oregon Sustainable Agriculture Land Trust

• Organizing People, Activating Leaders (OPAL)

• Oregon Tradeswomen Inc.

• Groundwork Portland

• Groundwork USA

An Adaptor's Reading List

Over the last year I've picked up enough reading material to choke a horse. I guess my New Year's resolution will be to schedule enough time to read it all. Most of it serves the very useful purpose of equipping readers to adapt to the present and ongoing collapse of the Western industrial economy. (However, none of it is about how to reload your own ammo, where to find the best site for a bunker, buying gold, or the best brand of baked beans to stockpile in a mountain hideaway.) Some of it is in hard copy and some of it I downloaded for free from the Web. Here's a short list of some titles that stick out immediately:

The Humanure Handbook, Joseph Jenkins, Jenkins Publishing, 2005. This is a good book for learning why our present industrial Western system of human waste management is unsustainable, how this system is contributing to impending worldwide shortages of fresh water, and what individuals can do about it. I got a paperback copy for myself and I am about halfway through it. I also downloaded a free PDF copy from Joseph Jenkins' website.

Decentralised Composting for Cities of Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A Users' Manual, Eawag/Sandec and Waste Concern, 2006. This publication is available as a free PDF download from the Eawag webpage “Department Water and Sanitation in Developing Countries,” along with a number of other publications. I just started this one. (I'm up to page ten.) While I like Joseph Jenkins' approach to humanure composting, I am always impressed with the potential of ordinary humans to foul something up. The problem is not in Jenkins' method, but in the incompetence of some people I know (who might also say the same thing about me ;) ).The Eawag/Sandec publication seems to be a good way to insure that the composting process is put into trained and competent hands, even at the neighborhood level.

Where There Is No Doctor, David Werner, Hesperian Foundation, 1992. I downloaded this one for free from the Hesperian website as well as picking up a used paperback copy from a bookstore. We've been going through Chapter 11 of this book at work, during my “Neighborhood Resilience Brown Bag Lunches.” My paperback copy has a slightly musty smell, as if it spent a lot of time in someone's backpack in the tropics. Nothing like having something well broken in by the time you get to use it! I also downloaded a PDF chapter out of Where There Is No Dentist.

The Barefoot Architect, Johan van Lengen, Shelter Publications, 2008. I ordered a paperback copy of this book from Hesperian. I was surprised by how thick it is. So far I've barely had time to scratch the surface of the book. But to get some idea of how useful it actually is, I brought it in to work recently and gave it to an architect friend of mine to check out. (I also wrote my name all over it, just to make sure I get it back ;) )He and his colleagues seemed quite impressed. Looks like it's a keeper.

Setting Up Community Health Programmes, Ted Lankester, Hesperian Foundation, 2009. I ordered a paperback copy. This one was also surprisingly thick. I've only had time to lightly peruse it. I saw one rather unnerving section on setting up private health insurance plans in developing countries. I didn't have time to really dig in and see what Mr. Lankester was advocating, so I am holding off judgment on that section for now.

All of these books present simple, low-cost solutions and methods for individuals and communities to meet basic needs for sanitation, shelter and health. These books definitely strive to avoid high-cost, technologically complex, energy-intensive methodologies. They are suitable for poorer people in the Third World. And I suspect that as the glamor and notional wealth evaporates from the societies of the First World, we will see how applicable these resources are to us as well. Already I believe there are municipalities in the U.S. which can no longer afford complex wastewater treatment, or which are facing rate increases due to privatization of wastewater treatment. (See America's clean water systems and “State's wastewater treatment facilities have problems on tap due to declining revenue” for instance.) As I read these books and resources, I may dedicate a post to a more detailed review of each publication.

If anyone has other books or resources they'd like to recommend (or further comments on the books I have listed), feel free to send me a comment. Next week, I hope to have a useful and interesting interview for you all. I also have a new series of articles in the works. Thanks for reading and have a good week!