Freshkills Park Blog

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We’ve been linking to Colin Beaven’s No Impact Man blog for a while now.  The No Impact project, and others like it, are appealing to us because they’re at least partly about assuaging the massive environmental guilt (or owning up to the responsibility, if you slice it that way) that comes with fuller understanding of our effect on the world around us. 

For our Freshkills Park Talk two weeks back, Dr. Steven Handel shared insights into the emerging field of urban restoration ecology, which focuses on the challenge of bringing ecological diversity back to degraded lands like brownfields and landfills.  He discussed his research at the Freshkills Park site and others in the region and went on to describe how his expertise has informed the design of Orange County, CA’s Great Park.

Next Friday, we’ll be taking a field trip to visit the green roof at the Parks Department’s Five Borough Technical Services Complex on Randall’s Island.  This is no ordinary green roof–it’s the fourth largest in New York City (at over 15,000 sq ft) and uses 13 different green roof systems.  

More on the mind-boggling Great Pacific Garbage Patch: it’s now the object of a grail quest across the ocean.  Scientists from the Algalita Marine Research Foundation and videographer Drew Wheeler have set sail on a two month voyage to study and sample the Patch and document its impact on marine wildlife. 

Another constructed wetland system, this time at the Sidwell Friend’s School in Washington D.C.  The Wetland Machine by Andropogon Associates, Kieran Timberlake Associates and Natural Systems International incorporates two self-contained systems to recycle water, one for wastewater and one for stormwater. 

According to Urban Ecologist Robert DeCandido, 60% of native plant species ever recorded in the State of New York can currently be found in New York City–a statistic DeCandido attributes to the City’s large public parks.  Even so, populations of native species are shrinking in every borough except for Staten Island. 

Installation of composting toilets in public facilities is catching on.  In New York City, The Bronx Zoo and Queens Botanical Garden have been operating restrooms with composting toilets, with no need for sewer lines, for the last few years.   The technology in both facilities is made by Clivus Multrum and resembles a conventional toilet, except that it uses only 3-6 ounces of water, in combination with a bio-compostable foam, for flushing. 

The Waterpod is a a certified public vessel, a vegetable and chicken farm, a hodge-podge of sustainable systems (solar panels, rainwater collection, bicyle-produced electricity) and a recycled, floating home for six artists.  They’ve lived there since Saturday and call it “a floating sculptural living structure designed as a new habitat for the global warming epoch.” 

Try as we might, it’s hard *not* to be a consumer.  GoodGuide is a tool for being as responsible as possible while shopping: it’s a consumer resource app that lets you scan bar codes with your iPhone’s camera and then receive information about a product that evaluates it along dimensions of health, environmental, and social performance. 

Looks like Saul Griffith’s ideas are catching on.  A recent study by Carnegie Institution and California State University, the first ever in high altitude wind power, says the jet streams 30,000 feet in the air, where the wind blows on average 10 times stronger than it does close to ground, could satisfy the  world’s energy needs. 

It’s a common belief that access to green space in our everyday lives is crucial for the well-being of humans, especially the majority who live in urban environments.  Studies have shown that greenery and green space makes us happier and physically healthier, and reduces crime rates. 

We had a great time co-hosting Tuesday night’s panel discussion on public art with the Council on the Arts & Humanities for Staten Island (COAHSI).  All of the panelists make exciting and engaging work, and they had a lot to say about the ways in which financing, permissions and public interaction have played into their work (or the work they curate). 

No need to be indoors to see art this summer.  Here’s a list of New York City parks playing host to a whole variety of art installations.  Pictured above is DDP 2.0 (Digital Dirt Processor) by Ethan Long, on exhibit at Rockaway Beach at 32nd Street until November 1. 

Last Saturday’s downpour didn’t faze the hardy group of about 30 that came out to hear Robin Nagle’s talk on top of North Mound at the Freshkills Park site.  Our coming together “not in protest but in appreciation” for what was buried beneath our feet, in spite of the rain, was strong foundation for Robin’s claim that we can love a landfill. 

The generous folks at Nikon cut us a sweet deal on a few pairs of their new Ecobins binoculars. They’re manufactured with lead- and arsenic-free glass and built with non-chloride rubber that uses no harmful inks or dyes.  The straps and carrying bags are produced from sustainable eucalyptus and manufactured with minimal waste. 

Urban Omnibus interviews designers Margie Ruddick, Sandro Marpillero and Linda Pollak about the Queens Plaza Bicycle and Pedestrian Landscape Improvement Project.  Some good discussion about the potential of the urban park, salvaging industrial history in the making of green spaces and the question of “How can something hard, urban and harsh operate ecologically?” 

CityLAB, part of UCLA’s Department of Architecture and Urban Design, is conducting an open design competition, WPA 2.0: Working Public Architecture, calling for “innovative, implementable proposals to place infrastructure at the heart of rebuilding our cities during this next era of metropolitan recovery.”

Steve Cohen’s Consilience editorial on New York City waste management offers some good examples of how other cities deal with their garbage and offers some alternative proposals for our current system, with a focus on composting.  He calls out the Lower East Side Ecology Center, which we’ve mentioned before, for its efforts to reduce the 47% of landfill waste that could otherwise be composted in New York City.

One of the panelists at next Tuesday evening’s panel discussion on public art, The Challenges and Channels of Public Art Production, is Mierle Ukeles, who is the Department of Sanitation’s Artist-in-Residence and contributed to the Freshkills Park master planning process as a Percent for Art artist. 

Monday evening, we’ll be holding a public hearing on the Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (DSEIS) for the roads system that is to connect across Freshkills Park.  The Supplemental EIS is a document that analyzes the potential environmental impacts of the proposed road alignment, construction and phasing, particularly in the East Park section of Freshkills Park, as well as the impacts of alternatives to the proposed alignment.