Greener without Grass
Incentives for Drought Tolerant Lawns in LA
In Los Angeles, you can now cash in on all those years of devoted turf farming at one dollar per square foot.
Verdant Urbanity
Friday, 12 June 2009
Thursday, 11 June 2009
Agribiz Brandishes Squash
Vegetative Implications for the ACES
Shocking! Large industrial interests are opposed to change! Seriously, though, this article has tons of great links.
Also: previously.
Toxic Soil
Soil Remediation Ideas for the Home
This is a very light article about what to do about contaminated soil but it might be a good launching point so I'm posting it for future reference.
Cohousing Tour
The End of Posts that Begin with ‘G’
This is an interesting article about tours of cohousing in Oakland, California. This has been on my mind a lot since thinking about community gardening as it relates to urban planning. Since the entire point of urban agriculture, for me, is about decentralizing the production and distribution of food for urban areas, cohousing always comes to mind as an ideal partner to this approach. My problem with it, though, is the same problems I have with housing associations. I’m just not into obligating behavior. The article mentions some of the challenges of cohousing, like meeting fatigue caused by a consensus decision-making process. I can imagine a host of other problems as well and some of them may well be unavoidable but for my money, I tend to lean toward solutions that put the inconveniences at the beginning and end of the arrangement rather than throughout it. If the hard choices are placed on getting in and getting out of the cohousing arrangement, along with plenty of significant rewards for cohousing participation throughout, that should be enough to motivate acceptable levels of participation without any arbitrary quotas.
Nevertheless, more cohousing experiments are better than none. More power to all of them.
Grand Paris
City of Compromised Dreams
Sarkozy dreamed of leaving his mark on Paris with a grand reimagining of the city, integrated with its suburbs and focused on a environmental responsibility. When he woke up, he settled for some improvements to the transit system that would begin in 2012 and be done by 2022, and more housing.
Green China
China Matches Renewable Energy Goals of the West
This is a rather giant, China-sized reversal of expectations. With all the bad environmental conditions highlighted by the recent Olympics in China along with the seemingly frustrated negotiations on climate change, the fact that China is setting forth on a renewable energy plan that basically matches plans in the West, 20% renewables by 2020, puts a great big competitive spin on the future of sustainable electricity infrastructure. This is the smart choice for China, and it should have welcome effects on how seriously the West, and more specifically, the US, approaches these inevitable and necessary changes. The pervasive and stubborn myth that short-term costs outweigh the long-term rewards must come to terms with the broader economic reality that there will be trillions upon trillions of dollars in future markets in which we can either be profitable innovators or paying customers. And with the huge investment demands of such markets, the unilateral dictates of China’s system will have inherent advantages over our multilateral democratic plus market-based system. This has to be addressed in the early stages. With China now crowding in on the competitive mix, we’re going to have to come to terms sooner than later.
UPDATE: See also: this.
Google Search: “Grid Parity”
Getting Close to Renewable Energy for Less Than Coal
Google says it’s close to paying the same price for renewable energy compared to coal. If that sounds optimistic, that’s because it is. They are hoping for grid parity in three years, with “multiple megawatts of plants out there,” through various renewable sources including solar, geothermal, and wind.
Tuesday, 9 June 2009
Grand Boulevard
North Temple Community Plan
The Salt Lake City Department of Community & Economic Development is sponsoring a public discussion of plans for the redevelopment of the North Temple corridor. It will be June 18th from 5:30 to 7:30 PM in the Grand Building at the Utah State Fairpark. There will be free pizza and drinks.
I presume this will mostly be about the Fairpark side of North Temple and reworking the North Temple overpass area to accommodate a transit station the UTA plans to build there, as well as make the area more pedestrian friendly and a better gateway into downtown.
The UTA North Temple station was brought up at the Utah APA chapter luncheon held at the UTA offices today. They also mentioned they will be contributing money to the redevelopment project, and one UTA rep specifically mentioned that the transit station might be a good economic development opportunity for the area.
All of this plays very well with my ideas for the area, specifically the North Temple overpass. Right now, it’s a wasteland and because of the train tracks, I was worried there might be some reluctance to modifying the area enough to make it more bike and pedestrian friendly but UTA’s involvement makes me a little more hopeful. Ultimately, what I’m hoping for is a more accessible and inviting corridor between downtown and the west side, and it sounds like that’s what everyone already involved wants as well.
I might write something up for the luncheon soon but I did want to mention one interesting thing I want to look into as soon as possible: Transit Oriented Development. The first presenter brought this up by mentioning that every Park & Ride is for sale for this TOD program. It would be nice to know the terms and what, if anything, has been done so far. And maybe this will motivate me to find out if the city is still planning on closing the 1000 North freeway access since the Park & Ride on that east corner would be a nice candidate for some kind of transit related development if the onramps and off ramp were no longer there.
DC Urban Farming
MSNBC Spotlights the Common Good City Farm in Washington DC
The video mentions that the farm sells its excess produce at a local farmers market with the proceeds going back into the farm, so there’s more confirmation that my whacky idea for Rose Park Community Gardens is potentially viable, though I’m still looking for any case studies of the brand name/member entrepreneurial opportunity idea.
Saturday, 30 May 2009
Play For Pay
Vermont Feed-in Tariffs Become Law
In light of yesterday's post, this is good news.
The basic idea with feed-in tariffs is the electricity utilities are obligated to purchase electricity fed into the grid from distributed generators using renewable sources at above-market rates to offset the cost disadvantage that renewables have against fossil fuels. In simpler terms: Put up solar panels and sell the electricity they generate to the electricity utilities for a fair price.
This is on the heels of Canada’s Green Energy Act, which traces back to what’s been going on in Germany’s neighborhood 
.
All of this, of course, makes me wonder about its implications in context among the climate bill and the smart grid. This might be something I ask in the Smart Grid Followup, which is from 9:30 AM to 11:30 AM in room 401 of the Heber Wells Building in case anyone is interested.
Friday, 29 May 2009
Roads Paved with Gold
Renewable Standard May Not Be Transformational
Jesse Jenkins gives a detailed look at the potential impact the American Clean Energy and Security Act might have on the use of renewables in this extensive post. And it's part 7 of an ongoing analysis of the climate bill. Mr Jenkins does evaluate the national renewable energy standard measured against being ”transformational” rather than the more optimal, cynical baseline of “incremental but in the right direction,” but that doesn't get in the way of this comprehensive analysis ( also: since this is posted to the Breakthrough Institute, the premise is fitting; the cynical baseline would be more appropriate if it were called the Baby Steps Institute ). It also manages to play into my preconceived notion that the electricity utility companies will adopt renewables reluctantly.
Wednesday, 27 May 2009
Insert Big Apple Pun Here
Rooftop Farm in Midtown Manhatten
This is not only an excellent example of urban agriculture, it's confirmation that my idea is not completely crazy. There shouldn’t be any reason we can’t do something similar. They're considering a stand to sell to passerby, and even brewing beer. A brewery is a little too ambitious for me, but the stand has potential.
Once they’re ready to harvest, the group plans to provide local restaurants and other community organizations with their crops. But only very local ones—they plan to transport everything they grow by bike. Nearby Greenpoint restaurants might be in luck, like Anello, where the group often picks up compost scraps from. The Eagle Street Rooftop Farm might also set up a stand for passer-by customers later in the summer. Ben plans on growing some hops for Sixpoint Brewery soon.
I like that they’re working with bees, too. I’ve been wondering if an apiary would be viable but I haven’t done any research yet.
And chickens. In my wildest dreams, I’d love to keep goats, too, but I realize that will be extremely unlikely. Chickens, though, could be possible if we can eventually get a full time staffer. It’s good to know of another project with such similar goals. We wouldn’t even need to worry about keeping them on a roof.
They’re calling themselves a farm rather than a community garden, though, which is interesting because I’ve been thinking about precisely this term for what Rose Park Community Gardens has set up right now. Wasatch Community Gardens rents out plots to community members to generate revenue and ensure a certain level of community participation, thus, it’s a community garden. RPCG, on the other hand, has one large plot that everyone works on, sharing the harvest among everyone who shows up and works. The latter is more like a community farm than community garden. I initially figured I’d refer to this plot as the Collective Parcel to differentiate it from any other parcels we might get in the future where I would like to institute plot rentals, but I’ve been uncomfortable with the term. This is Utah, after all. So I’ve been thinking of calling it the Farm Plot instead. Much more innocuous, kind of rustic and homey, in fact. Framing it this way might also help with my hope to eventually replace the chain link yard fence with something a little more inviting.
And since I mentioned the fence, I’ve got another crazy idea that’s hard to put into words. I’ll need some kind of botanical artist, and I really don’t know if such people exist. I imagine they must, I just don’t know of any. So I’m picturing the rustic lookinhg fence and integrated into it, like in the corners, for example, would be these sculptural, botanical installations that grow and develop over the years. And, of course, they would have to have some practicality to it all, so I’d prefer whatever trees or shrubs are twisted into the sculptures would yield fair amounts of food, as well as a good amount of aesthetic charm.
UPDATE: Apparently, botanical artists are folks who draw plants. I guess I should use the term horticultural artists.
Color Your Collar
Stimulus Money for Green Jobs and Job Training
Donovan said some of the $4 billion from Obama's $787 billion economic stimulus plan that was budgeted to renovate public housing will be spent to create jobs for making the dwellings more energy efficient.
Solis, another task force member, said $500 million will be distributed as grants for training workers. That sum includes $50 million for communities battered by job losses and restructuring in the auto industry.
Tuesday, 26 May 2009
USGBC Student Group Update
Hint at the Fall Agenda
From today's APA Advocate: “The president's FY 2010 budget provides nearly $26.4 billion for the Department of Energy, a 2 percent increase. In a combined effort with HUD, an Energy Innovation Fund was proposed to drive the creation of an energy-efficient housing market, which would include retrofitting older, inefficient housing to spur private lending in the residential sector.”
The main thing I want to focus on with the USGBC Student Group at the U is retrofitting old residential housing so this is both timely and encouraging. I'm still waiting for further instructions from the Utah Chapter before I can start promoting the group and working on its agenda but I definitely want to do something with this if we can. As much as I appreciate promoting sustainable building practices for new buildings, I've always thought retrofitting and renovation will create a much more significant impact.
Of course, the EIF is only a proposal at the moment, and it's for the 2010 budget, but that will probably work in our favor since it will give us the entire Fall semester to come up with a compelling approach.
Sunday, 24 May 2009
The Smart Grid
Part One: The Challenges of a Modern Grid
On May 13th, 2009, the Utah Public Service Commission hosted a one day workshop on the smart grid. Most of the attendees were representatives from the industry. The non-industry attendees included a representative of Utah Clean Energy, an engineer from ATK Launch Systems representing an innovative approach to commercial energy use, manufacture, and grid integration, an economics professor from the University of Utah, and me.
The smart grid is an amorphous concept about a robust, modern approach to the manufacture, storage, distribution, and metering of electricity. There is no standard definition of the smart grid. At the moment there are around thirty federal, state, and municipal groups working on smart grid projects, and with about four and a half billion stimulus dollars available for smart grid projects, there are more on the way this very moment, I’m sure, so I don’t expect a completely smooth transition, or a clear, comprehensive set of standards by the end of this year when NIST ( National Institute of Standards & Technology ) is expected to have its proposal ready for review by FERC ( Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ).
The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 is, in its own words, an act “[t]o move the United States toward greater energy independence and security, to increase the production of clean renewable fuels, to protect consumers, to increase the efficiency of products, buildings, and vehicles, to promote research on and deploy greenhouse gas capture and storage options, and to improve the energy performance of the Federal Government, and for other purposes.” Within this broad scope is the mandate for smart grid development. The main premise of the smart grid is to avoid the need to add generating infrastructure—there are enough existing opportunities for efficiencies that new generating infrastructure is unnecessary and wasteful.
From the industry standpoint, there are fundamental challenges to be faced, the meter infrastructure, the software systems, integrating distributed generation, increasing renewable sources, load balancing and demand response under the new paradigm, reducing manufacturing costs, and dynamic rate structures that will be marketable to consumers. And these were what the workshop focused on, for the most part.
Metering received the most focus, which makes sense. Automatic meter reading ( AMR ) was a recent innovation of utility companies to make meter reading easier and less costly. This technology might have a place in the new infrastructure but for areas where it hasn’t been implemented, it will be pointless. Advanced metering infrastructure ( AMI ) will be used instead. Mention was made of “smart meters”, which would basically be the same as AMI but with more features. The basic distinction between AMR and AMI is that AMR is one-way communication while AMI and smart meters would enable two-way communication, as well as hour-by-hour or minute-by-minute usage tracking. The hope for AMI is that it might provide new capabilities like time-varying pricing options, usage data useful to customers and service providers, improved outage detection and response, and identifying and replacing equipment inappropriately sized for the load it serves. A FERC survey conducted in the first half of 2008 notes that 4.7% of meters in the US are “advanced” with the highest penetration in Pennsylvania ( 23.9% ), Idaho ( 13.8% ), Arkansas ( 11.3% ), North Dakota ( 8.9% ), and South Dakota ( 8.7% ). Consumer-owned utilities ( COUs or co-ops ) account for half of the advanced meters. 26% of the co-ops already have their outage management systems integrated with their AMI systems. Utah is one of two states in this survey ( the other is Mississippi ) that had no advanced meters.
Startup costs for software were initially dismissed as inconsequential until another presenter brought up one case where software implementation represented nearly 40% of total startup costs. The complexity of the myriad data required for the new systems makes this a significant part of any new infrastructure. Software costs over the long term might be of little consequence but initial outlays could make cost justification difficult in the beginning.
Security was mentioned, of course, but it wasn’t really explored beyond the security concerns of open source software and a very brief mention of microgrids. The gentleman from ATK Launch Systems provided details of their DOE funded project as an example of a microgrid. It includes the classic example of pumping the water up the hill during off-peak hours then letting the water flow down hill to generate electricity at peak load hours ( which is more about arbitrage and storage than security ). They also utilized a few other alternative energy sources like wind, which was abundant on their site. These systems provide up to 15% of their energy needs. This was mainly to cut their energy costs and carbon footprint, and it certainly does a good job of it, as well as providing reliable backup for a limited set of mission critical systems in case of outage, but I don't really relate to something like this as a microgrid since it’s just for one site. ( He also provided interesting insight into the problems they’re having with Rocky Mountain Power, which he characterized as reluctant and evasive. This was, of course, when the rep from RMP wasn’t around. )
It seemed that the industry was using reliability as a proxy for security and focused on this a bit more. But the main point here was that there is no standard evaluation of power quality. Reliability is more than just avoiding outages, or recovering from them quickly, it's also about the general consistency of the power delivery. Here, the presentation verged on highly technical discussions of waveforms and PMUs, and I hadn't had my cookie yet, so it’s all rather fuzzy for me.
Another issue that was only briefly mentioned was enabling new markets, for the utility companies themselves as well as third parties. Google was a ready example but I’m actually more concerned with front end markets, like Gridpoint. Gridpoint appears to be positioning themselves as a service provider to the utility industry by providing an integral product, the Gridpoint Energy Manager, along with customer services ( acquisition, support, and maintenance ), and a full range of services for the utility companies with economic analysis and financing ( through Goldman Sachs Group ), project management, integration, and installation; basically leaving the utility to simply manufacture power and maintain their part of the infrastructure.
Renewables were mentioned, mostly focused on the cost challenges of integrating more renewable sources. I was surprised to learn that there are diminishing returns for such integration. At about 30% to 40% renewables, utility companies will hit that wall. One presenter mentioned that the issue can be addressed, just that it will be difficult.
Distributed generation on a large scale envisioned for the smart grid is probably a little too far away to have been taken too seriously, so it was pretty much glossed over. Aside from diminishing returns, there are basic physics and logistical problems that need to be addressed with multitudes of small scale generator nodes feeding back into the grid intermittently. But this brings me back to microgrids. I see decentralization through microgrids as more fundamental to security than network software security. And microgrids will depend on distributed generation along with the ability to dynamically connect and disconnect to the grid at large. Since the distributed aspects of the smart grid are most related to planning issues, I would have preferred a lot more attention on microgrids.
Very little was said about distributed storage, either. Hybrid electric vehicles were mentioned passingly but nothing was said about lithium ion batteries, nickel-metal hydride batteries, SMES, flywheels, or supercapacitors. So I imagine nothing much has changed on this front.
Consumers don’t get off easy in all of this, either. The complexity of choices will create a barrier to adoption as most people might simply choose to stick with a flat rate on usage. The adoption benefits of an opt-out system were discussed but they didn’t really explore the possibility of consumers who aren’t interested in maximizing the benefits of variable rates eventually finding that standard rates would save them money with the effort to opt-out significantly less than managing the new technology. They readily and frequently admitted that self-selected pilot programs are not representative of potential consumer behavior overall. The rep from Rocky Mountain Power did mention their concern for the opposite disposition, though. She mentioned the possibility of reduced revenue due to increased consumer conservation. The only implication I can get from such a concern is that they are not interested in creating any new services to recoup this lost revenue. This wasn’t representative of the workshop, though. All the other industry reps seemed to take it as a given that consumer conservation is inevitable, and desirable, and new services would need to be created.
Another significant challenge for consumers is equipment replacement costs. Smart home appliances for a Home Area Network setup will need generous incentives for pretty much everyone. Smart thermostats can be relatively inexpensive and many already exist today. The problem is with everything else. You will need to replace every appliance in your home to get the maximum benefit. Apartment complexes will need to replace hundreds of every standard appliance. ( Knowing landlords, they will probably charge a premium for apartments so equipped, effectively offsetting any potential savings in energy costs. ) And since energy isn’t the only industry looking to realize the efficiencies of applied modern technology and systems design, consumers will have concurrent pressures to upgrade the other systems in their home. On top of all that, there's also the issue of interoperability. Here's the list of HAN protocols noted in the presentation: Bluetooth, FlexNet, HomePlug, LonWorks, 6LoWPAN, WiFi, ZigBee, ZWave, RDS, and Insteon. None of this means it can’t happen, it just means that adoption inevitably will be slow.
Home Area Networks also present potential privacy issues. How much control over your appliances would you cede to your utility provider? Would it be okay with you if they could turn off your air conditioner at peak load, basically when you want it the most ( which is why the peak load is created in the first place )? They’ll give you a discount rate for this lack of control, certainly, but would you take it? How much data would you be willing to let your utility company, or worse, some third party service provider, collect from your smart devices?
Remote activation and shutoff presents potential problems for individual consumers but the main problem it presents affects all consumers and the industry itself. The justification is that turning on services would cost the utility company much less with remote activation. ( I’m sure they’d still charge you a convenience fee. ) The problem is with security, though. Remote activation/shutoff will necessarily be a network software solution. I shouldn’t have to say anything more on the potential vulnerabilities this presents. So I won’t. Remote shutoff also presents the problem of utility abuse. This concern is usually presented by consumer advocacy groups.
The privacy issues from HANs and the fairness concerns of remote shutoff should be easy to overcome. The security concerns of remote shutoff will be more difficult to address.
Consumer participation could have other unintended consequences that may seem to be counter-productive. If given the chance to purchase power through the cheapest providers according to certain automation systems or utility-provided rate structure, consumers might choose this often enough as to significantly increase coal use, since it is the cheapest way to make electricity. Now, the smart grid isn’t necessarily concerned with environmental impact or being “green,” per se—it’s more about exacting efficiencies from existing infrastructure and providing better quality power—so it may not be so concerned about an increase in coal use, but the rest of us should be. And the best way to ensure the industry does care is to monetize carbon. To be fair, this actually is a concern for the research end of the industry at least, though one of the reasons is because they see monetizing carbon as very likely. Roger Levy from the Smart Grid Technical Advisory Services Project at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories gave a presentation that was particularly focused on the carbon savings to be had from a smart grid.
And having said that, I’m not necessarily advocating for carbon credits and a cap and trade system. As much as I want to be, I’m still not convinced. Something definitely needs to be done to create some kind of penalty for carbon. There are enough savings to be had simply from maximizing resource usage that this should be a no-brainer business decision, but all this reveals is the competence of our basic corporate mindset. Individuals seem no better, either—okay, maybe slightly better.
The second half of the workshop was in two parts: a survey of existing smart grid pilots and projects in the US and the EU, and a regulatory road map for Utah’s smart grid implementation. Unfortunately, I think I broke my brain writing this post, so I’m going to take on the second half of the workshop in Part Two: A Scramble for Standards & Stimulus Money. It should be much shorter.
Saturday, 23 May 2009
Saturday Gardeners
Better Turnout on the Weekends
Left to right: Nathan, Allen, Kevin, and Ralph planting rows of cabbage.
Saturday morning was more promising than Wednesday. There were ten of us altogether, which isn’t bad for a garden that doesn’t really get any exposure in the community. Nathan, pictured above left, actually showed up Wednesday, too, just after I had left with Scott to get their garden calendar from his place. And along with another fellow that showed up after I left, that made a total of six for a weekday, which isn’t so bad, either. On my one weekday afternoon volunteering at Wasatch Community Gardens’ tomato garden, there were only two volunteers ( counting me ) and two staff, so this may be much better than I thought, though it still isn’t the kind of turnout I’d like.
Glenn weeding.
Three things I got out of today: we need tools and a toolshed, we need an area for a compost heap or two, and we need a nursery on site. The tools should be easy enough. I can draw up a toolshed in SketchUp but we’re going to need to build it. Actually, building it is easy, too. What I really need is someone who can cut the wood. I can try to design the shed so every piece of wood only needs one cut, so I can have Home Depot, or whoever, cut it for me. That would be difficult and limiting, but I’ll do what I need to do. I might want to avoid a proper shed altogether and just go with more of a chest. That might avoid any potential building permit issues a shed might present.
Right now, all the tools are supplied by Ralph, I imagine. He’s also handling the nursery duties at his house. I realize the nursery would need daily attention so for now this is probably the best, though imperfect, solution. A nursery would also be a serious structure so there’d be a lot more legalities involved than the shed. Ultimately, I’m just thinking of the ideal setup.
I’m surprised there’s no compost area right now. I haven’t asked why not, yet. It was difficult to intuitively judge the soil because the area is still extremely dry, but what I did see didn’t look great, though it’s obviously working. Also, I have no idea how to intuitively judge soil quality. I’d describe it as extra chunky, and what wasn’t chunky had a lot of clay in it. A compost area can only help. And it’s sure to be the cheapest and easiest thing to put together. I set the scene up in SketchUp where I can see if I can find someplace to put it without changing anything else.
Well, as unemployed as I am, this week has turned out to be quite busy. Luckily, tomorrow I have absolutely nothing to do, which will be a nice change of pace. I really need the idle time to get my creativity going again. And I’m going to need it. Aside from the community garden project, I’ve got to start thinking about heading up the USGBC Student Group at the U for the Fall. It would help if I could actually go the LEED Core Concepts workshop on June 5th but USGBC changed the student price from free to $150, so I’m out of luck.
Thursday, 21 May 2009
Weeds
Initial Assessment of Rose Park Community Gardens
I spoke with Scott Steenblik again last night and I now have a much better picture of what’s going on. It’s not an ideal situation but I can work with it. Right now, the Rose Park Community Garden is managed by the Rose Park Community Council, but Scott, and Ralph, his father, feel that they have been neglectful, and from what I’ve seen—which, admittedly, isn’t much—I can already sympathize with them.
The council treasurer is the de facto treasurer for RPCG. Scott said this hasn’t been a problem, and I’m sure it hasn’t, but it leaves RPCG vulnerable. Scott is open to incorporating so I'm going to press for that if everything else goes well.
Scott and Ralph appear to run the garden themselves. Other than me, only one person showed up yesterday, and we were pretty much done for the evening by then. I'll be going again Saturday morning to see if there's a better turn out. Scott mentioned that they haven't done any community outreach so I'm not counting this as representative.
The garden’s water is supplied by a running well and a river share on Ralph’s property. I’m sure this mitigates costs tremendously but I don’t like the fuzziness of the arrangement. Nonetheless, it would be an extremely difficult problem to overcome right away so I can be content for now.
The garden plot itself is in okay shape, except for the fact that they’ve been working on the water pump so the plot is a bit thirsty at the moment. It’s the condition of the adjacent plot that is worrisome. It’s completely unkempt. It has one large dirt pile at the north end, apparently some industrious kids made it for a little bike fun. Just behind the garden to the west is a large pile of leaves. And the rest of the lot looks completely uninviting, especially the large patches of stinging nettle. It’s a great area, though, right by the river. It’s got the river walkway that continues throughout Rose Park. And it’s a nice quiet little neighborhood. If the parcel were properly managed, it would be a great place to hold events.
Overall, the place isn’t very inviting. When they put up a fence, they put up a standard chain-link yard fence. Replacing it would help a lot, but it cost $2,000 and was installed just four years ago, so I’m not going to push for that just yet. Scott mentioned that he wants to put up a sign and a bulletin board. I’m sure that will be a part of the budget that will arise from the $10,000 grant arriving in July. I’d like to make this count for as much as we can manage. If we can get a sign and bulletin board designed to fit in an overall redesign of the entire site, including a new fence and a landscaped adjacent plot, I’d be happy. Of course the entire redesign would wait, but at least when we get a chance at it, we won’t need to think about the sign and the bulletin board. Now I just need to get some donated landscape architecture work and convince the city to either landscape the vacant lot or let us manage it.
That’s more long term, though. For now, I’ve got to formulate my outreach plan. I already have a facebook page up, but that’s not going to be my primary focus. It’s going to be more a matter of going door to door. I have some invitation copy but I want to work on it some more. And I’m going to need to get it translated into Spanish. And then I’m going to need to get it printed. Then there’s the Rose Park Community Festival at the end of the month. Scott has a lot of seed cans to sell to raise money, which is great, but I’m trying to think of what else we can do. Unfortunately, I’ve only got about a week to come up with something and put it together. And I'm broke.
Hopefully, I’ll have a few ideas and maybe even some pictures for the next post.
Wednesday, 20 May 2009
Tuesday, 19 May 2009
Rose Park Community Gardens
Brainstorm
I’ve only had one short phone conversation with Scott Steenblik, the contact for the Rose Park Community Council, about the current and future setup of Rose Park Community Gardens so this might seem premature and presumptuous but I can’t stop my brain from coming up with crazy ideas, and I can hardly resist pushing forward to see if they’re possible. So for this post, I’m going to detail my ideas for how to move forward with this community gardening organization and what I’ve found out so far. Keep in mind: no matter how certain I seem in articulating these ideas here, I’m not wedded to any of them since I realize this needs to be a collective decision; all of this will depend on how much interest and support we find; most of these ideas would only be viable after we grow large enough; and I’m brainstorming, so I can’t be held responsible for how bad an idea might actually be.
Claire Uno, the director of Wasatch Community Gardens, pointed me toward this fantastic document on how to start a community garden. It is by far the best document of its kind that I’ve seen and I’d recommend it to anyone who wants a comprehensive guide to starting a community garden.
We’ll need to find a bunch of folks interested in formalizing the organization, setup a meeting, work out our ideas for the future, form a planning committee, set goals to meet before the next meeting, and schedule the next meeting.
The WCG document has some suggestions on who should be in the committee and it’s in line with what I was thinking. There is a Baptist church on 1000 North, closer to my end of Rose Park, that has a nice little plot of empty land next to the building. And it’s right across the street from Rose Park Elementary, so I was already thinking of getting someone from each of those organizations involved. Scott’s a member of the community council so we’ve got that covered. And WCG suggests a Master Gardener from the Salt Lake County Extension. Assuming we can get each of these folks involved, and counting me, that would make five of us, so we’d need about five more. I’d like to get some local business people involved, and a politician, maybe someone from the City Council. And maybe someone from the library or Tree Utah since Day Riverside Library has the Eco Garden ( managed by Tree Utah ) on site.
Then we’re going to need to divide into subcommittees: a steering committee, a fundraising committee, and a community outreach committee.
I like the current setup they’ve got right now. Basically, if you show up and volunteer, you can take home fresh veggies at the end of your shift. I’ll refer to this as the Collective Parcel. If we do expand, I would like to keep the Collective Parcel just as it is, though I’d like to institute a percentage of the yield going to the local Food Bank. The first parcel we arrange for expansion, if we decide to go that route now or eventually, should either be for rented plots only or a mixed collective plot and rented plots. Either way, let’s call this the Renters Parcel. I’m open to putting in a collective plot on the Renters Parcel so we can have it as the Children’s Garden. And if we do decide to expand, we’re going to have to do a little survey of vacant lots in the area. The parcel I was interested in at 900 North 900 West might be developed now and aside from that it may be contaminated with petroleum waste so we’ll need some more options.
For the rented plots, I’d like to incorporate a year-end discount upon renewal for renters who have contributed a percentage of their yield to the Food Bank donation, though I’m imagining a rather problematic tracking system so I’m not too sure. I want to encourage donation but it would be difficult if the tracking system is too complicated and unreliable. I’d also have to check into the numbers for operational costs to know if this would still work if a significant number of members donate large amounts.
I’d like to get some long term security for the Renters Parcel, just so we can always count on that as a revenue stream. If that can’t be arranged for the moment, we can always try to go with a shorter lease and set up a temporary garden with the same kind of rental arrangement. I prefer to assume we get the long term space first and the temporary space later. Mainly because by that point, I’d like to explore more innovative approaches to community gardening to contribute more services to the community, more to food security, and to create entrepreneurial opportunities for members who are interested.
As a radical adjunct to expansion, I would love to be able to offer soil remediation services to petroleum contaminated vacant lots in exchange for options on future leasing. Now, I know nothing about soil remediation but I saw this TED talk by Paul Stamets from 2008 and about half way through the video, he talks about the dramatic success of using mycelium to remediate soil contaminated with petroleum waste. More information can be found here. I also have no idea about regulations surrounding this kind of work. I’m sure there’s plenty but I have yet to look into it. It would be awesome if this method really works and I think it would be a great way to contribute lasting value to the entire community, also innovative enough to really excite donors. Then again, the others on the committee might think I’m nuts and kick me out. But hopefully in three to five years, my crazy ideas might seem more viable.
For community outreach and for our compost needs, we can offer to take any grass clippings or dead leaves off residents’ hands, if we don’t already. Maybe work with Rose Park restaurants (actually it might be singular) to take their compostable waste, though I’d have to think about the logistics of that a little more. It would be nice if we could offer free lawn care services to disabled and senior residents, but here, too, the logistics might be pretty intimidating if I had a clearer picture of potential need, demand, and volunteer support. In a similar vein, I’d also like to offer free gardening assistance to any Rose Park resident, though the assistance would likely depend on a waiting list, so, again, not too sure. I’m really hoping that in three to five years, we can drum up a lot of new support.
I would definitely want to have educational workshops. And not just on gardening. Cooking also comes to mind. Food preservation and storage, too. And despite being associated with botany, no gardening organizations I’ve encountered so far in Salt Lake know much about fungi, so aside from potentially using it for remediation, I’d like to incorporate fungi into our gardens and teach courses on it, too.
One thing about workshops: I don’t like them. I’ve seen all kinds of workshops in my day and I’ve found them all lacking. They’re either too short so the presentation is too broad or too breezy, or they’re too long so the presentation is overwhelming. Worst of all, there is no follow up, which I believe is critical to good educating. So I’d actually like to try ongoing classes on a few topics that have broad interest, like mushrooms, organic gardening, drip irrigation, permaculture and xeriscaping, and whatever else the community requests; something like a class every other week, or once a month.
I’d like to stay active in the winter months with Thanksgiving and Christmas services for the poor or the downtown shelter, that sort of thing. And back to the expansion aspirations as it relates to staying active year round, I really want a greenhouse.
Okay, that’s about all I’ve got for the general direction and community outreach. The last thing is fundraising.
This is where the imperative to form a 501(c)(3) comes in. I’d like to get Whole Foods and IHC as sponsors but they both only give to 501(c)(3)s. I was also thinking of Smith’s ( Kroger’s ) but I couldn’t find anything on their site other than the community programs they currently participate in, which is why I went looking at Whole Foods. There’s a Smith’s in the neighborhood so they definitely would be more appropriate but what can you do?
By integrating these various programs, I think we could have a good chance at a Community Food Projects Competitive Grant. If we can emphasize the value of workshops on organic gardening, urban ecology, permaculture, and the like, we could have a chance at an EPA grant. And, of course, there’s the CDBG.
Now for the entrepreneurial opportunities. This might sound a little strange, too. And I wish I knew someone who could really give me a critical take on the idea. I’d like to develop a Rose Park Community Gardens retail brand. Members would be able to contribute a portion of their yield into the collective pot of produce, probably specific kinds in order to get large enough quantities. We package them up under the Rose Park Community Gardens label, and distribute them through outlets like Whole Foods and the farmers market. Obviously this would have to be a much larger operation at this point, but at the same time the outlets would hopefully understand and accept our limitations, though I’d prefer to have the capacity to meet demand. If we were really hopping, I’d even want to sell directly to a couple of local restaurants. The proceeds would first be split down the middle with RPCG getting half. The other half would be dividing among contributing members. And “half” in this scenario actually stands for whatever reasonable split is decided upon in committee.
I definitely would want to limit this to whole foods at first. I kinda like the idea of allowing members to contribute prepared foods, preferrably with food from the gardens as a primary ingredient, but that might be too much of a regulatory nightmare for a small ( no matter how large we get ) nonprofit. Or the organization can centralize the preparations and then treat it just like whole foods and split revenue according to contributions. I’m thinking if we can produce huge surpluses of compost, we could package it and sell that, too.
One final thing: I’d like to look into some kind of community garden co-op network sort of thing ( tall enough hedge for you? ) so all the community garden organizations can pool purchases and share resources ( though not funds ), but I have no idea how the other community gardens in the valley would respond.
Okay, that’s a good overview of most of my crazy ideas for this thing, and I haven’t even touched on my ideas for social networking and the internet. It should be obvious that I am overly ambitious. I realize this. But I’ve always figured myself to be an idea guy. I can work the implementation end well enough but, really, anybody can do that. Not everybody can come up with streams of crazy ideas, or at least aren’t willing to make an ass of themselves suggesting them, so I always try to provide that fertilizer, so to speak. I’m not afraid of going big, either. It’s ultimatly what I want. I want to have a community garden that can really make a broad impact on our community as a whole.
On the other hand, we may end up starting small. We still happen to have plenty of space right now, and we could use a new fence, after all.
Saturday, 16 May 2009
The People’s Portable Garden
900 South 200 West
I spent the morning, volunteering through Wasatch Community Gardens, helping put together the final pieces to the brand new People’s Portable Garden on the northeast corner of 900 South 200 West. This small, Central Community parcel is owned by the Redevelopment Agency of Salt Lake City. It’s zoned for General Commercial ( CG ) but has no plans for development yet, so two urban planning students from the University of Utah, Marianne Becnel and Lauren Brown, working together with Wasatch Community Gardens and the RDA worked out a lease to allow for a temporary community garden on the land. It’s setup with thirty-six 1.22 meter by 4.88 meter raised beds to hold the rented plots. The startup costs were about $12,000.
The lot will get plenty of sun despite the two small billboards on the east end. It’s right next to a Trax line so it will get plenty of local exposure, too. To the south, across a wide and busy 900 South, are two more vacant lots. Immediately to the north of the lot is a one story commercial building that spans the length of the parcel. Its south wall is a large, forrest green field of corrugated metal, empty except for a sign on the east side that reads “SIGNS” and a banner on the west side that reads “BANNERS.” It’s too bad they can’t put a mural up there instead. Even with the garden, the intersection still looks like a rather bleak, low-rent commercial corridor (which is what it is, really). It could use all the help it can get. Then again, any flagrantly blank wall in the city will always make me think of putting a mural on it.
There is no better use [for a city owned vacant lot] than to put it into local agriculture.
Mayor Ralph Becker
There was a good sized crowd of volunteers, from youth programs, a variety of volunteer programs like AmeriCorps, and a number of the people in the neighborhood who will be renting plots. I helped out with the build team who cranked out more than half of the beds before noon while the rest of the volunteers were levelling the land, placing the beds, filling them with soil, covering the ground with wood chips, and doing some minor landscaping on the periphery of the property. The mayor came by ( on his bicycle ) at the lunch break to participate in the first planting ceremony. He said some nice things about supporting urban agriculture which were nice to hear.
Lunch was much appreciated after our morning toil and we were entertained by a nice bluegrass band that included Wasatch Community Gardens’ volunteer coordinator, Brit Merrill. The organizers also gave out free t-shirts, seeds, and tomato plants to all the volunteers.
I didn’t hang out for too long after lunch but I did manage to talk with Marianne, Claire Uno, director of WCG, and Ashley from the RDA about what it took to make this project a reality, as well as what advice they might have for a similar project in Rose Park, where the empty lots are owned privately and the RDA isn’t involved in the area. They were very helpful and inspiring, though they all acknowledged, including the mayor, that funding is the biggest challenge.
Nonetheless, I’m even more excited now about my ideas for the vacant lot on 900 North 900 West than I was before. So Monday I’m going to try to get in touch with Scott Steenblik from the Rose Park Community Garden and see if they have a waiting list for plots and what kind of outreach they’ve been doing. Depending on his answers, I might talk with the Quality Quik Stop owner to see how open he might be to a guaranteed three year lease. And depending on his answer, I’d then want to print up some fliers to see if I can drum up some interested neighbors.
From there, it would be about funding. I was thinking of some local sponsors. There’s a Smith’s grocery store nearby and an IHC clinic, too. I can’t be too sure how interested these businesses would be but this uncertainty wouldn’t stop me if I can get to this point.
CDBG also comes to mind but I have no clue how viable this kind of grant propsal might be since it’s rather small-scale, so who knows. I would love to try to integrate this into a year-round farmers market for the area and leverage that into further economic development if possible so that might be a good angle to approach it but it’s too difficult to know just now. Ashley did mention that they did a study on the viability of a year-round farmers market and it did appear to be viable, though I imagine that study was based on a year-round market instead of the seasonal one rather than on top of it. And honestly, I don’t know if Rose Park would be the best place for it. I just think the Rose Park/Fairpark areas are good neighborhoods that deserve more attention and economic development, especially as gentrification keeps pushing slowly westward.
All in all, the portable community garden concept has great potential to broaden interest in community gardening by making more unused land available without threatening long term commercial interests. And it’s the perfect model for what I’ve been hoping to accomplish in my neighborhood.