This post was first published on the City Parks Blog – http://cityparksblog.org

One of the most well regarded world cities in terms of urban planning is Curitiba, Brazil — a place known for its efficient and innovative bus rapid transit system. But the city is also known for its parks, in particular using them to increase quality of life and act as green infrastructure to protect against floods.

Tanguá Park, Curitiba

The city has about 50 square meters of parkland per person (i.e. 12 acres per 1000), most of which were created in the last 30 years under the direction of forward-looking urban planner/former mayor Jaime Lerner. The protected land is complemented by compact housing, as the city of 1.5 million has a population density of 10,750 per square mile (which is around the same as Philadelphia or Washington, D.C.).

Ukranian Memorial - Tingui Park

Roughly 21 million square meters (5,190 acres) are linear parks along rivers and streams that act as buffers between flood-prone rivers and the city. Legislation set aside certain low-lying areas and river basins as special protection and management areas. The city also used a loan to purchase land at a number of critical sites around the city. Engineers built small damns and created new lakes that act as holding basins when flooding occurs.

Botanical Garden

In effect, these green spaces are giant stormwater facilities, with the lakes as central features. If rains are heavy, the lake rises over the surrounding parks. And Lerner and parks director Hitochi Nakamura made sure to connect places to one another (as mentioned in the below linked video). Together they helped create over 90 miles of new trails within the city, located in southern Brazil about 250 miles southwest of São Paulo.

Barigui Park

Much has been done to document what’s occurred in Curitiba. A nice 15-minute video (YouTube) by Journeyman Productions gives a good overview, and includes interviews with both Lerner and Nakamura. (The segment on parks starts just after the seven-minute mark.) Another good resource on all of the planning efforts and problems that persist in the city is the book, Urban Renewal, Municipal Revitalization: the Case of Curitiba Brazil.

Photo Credit: istockphoto/ericfoltz

On December 4th, Representatives Donna F. Edwards (D-MD), Russ Carnahan (D-MO), and Steve Driehaus (D-OH) introduced the Green Infrastructure for Clean Water Act of 2009 to Congress. The legislation is expected to be referred to the House Transportation and Infrastructure Water Resources & Environment Subcommittee, as well as the House Science and Technology Committee on which Edwards and Carnahan serve. The bill seeks to establish five research centers across the country. One of the centers will be designated as the national electronic clearinghouse that would develop, operate, and maintain an on-line resource for green infrastructure information. Each of center would be required to do the following (excerpt from bill):

(A) conduct research on green infrastructure that is relevant to the geographic region in which the center is located, including stormwater and sewer overflow reduction, other approaches to water resource enhancement, and other environmental, economic, and social benefits;

(B) develop manuals and set industry standards on best management practices relating to State, local, and commercial green infrastructure for use by State and local governments and the private sector;

(C) provide information about research conducted under subparagraph (A) and manuals produced under subparagraph (B) to the national electronic clearinghouse center for publication on the Web site created pursuant to subsection (C) to inform the Federal Government and State and local governments and the private sector about green infrastructure;

(D) provide technical assistance to State and local governments to assist with green infrastructure projects;

(E) collaborate with institutions of higher education and private and public organizations in the geographic region in which the center is located on green infrastructure research and technical assistance projects;

(F) assist institutions of higher education, secondary schools, and vocational schools to develop green infrastructure curricula;

(G) provide training about green infrastructure to institutions of higher education and professional schools;

(H) evaluate regulatory and policy issues about green infrastructure; and

(I) coordinate with the other centers to avoid duplication of efforts.

In addition, the bill would create a $300 million grant program that could be used for planning, development, and implementation. As much as $100 million could be given to selected planning and development initiatives and a total of $200 million would be designated for implementation projects. The cap for individual projects would be $200,000 for planning and development projects and $3 million for implementation.

As this bill progresses, we will keep you up-to-date.

-Brian Phelps

The website for ASLA (American Society of Landscape Architects) has a fairly new section devoted to resources for sustainable design and planning. If you haven’t wandered across it already you should take a minute to see what it has to offer. It is aimed at national and local policymakers, government agencies, design professionals, planners and students. Resources include hundreds of project case studies, research papers, organizations and other government resources on sustainable design.

The following description of the five resource categories is taken from an announcement by ASLA, they include:

• Green Infrastructure (www.asla.org/greeninfrastructure) covers park systems, wildlife habitat and corridors, urban forestry and green roofs.
• Sustainable Transportation (www.asla.org/sustainabletransport) covers sustainable transportation planning, siting sustainable transportation infrastructure, designing safe and visually appealing transportation infrastructure, green streets and reducing the urban heat island effect.
• Sustainable Urban Development (www.asla.org/sustainableurban) covers fighting sprawl, sustainable zoning, reusing brownfields, investing in downtowns, open spaces and sustainable urban design.
• Livable Communities (www.asla.org/livable) covers sustainable land use, place making, green schools, sustainable housing, sustainable employment growth and health, safety and security.
• Combating Climate Change with Landscape Architecture (www.asla.org/climatechange) covers site planning, open spaces, plant selection, stormwater management and other areas.

While the site is a little hard to navigate, (if you like what you see, I suggest you bookmark the above links to be able to find them again) this is a good resource that pulls a lot of varied information together into one area. It has potential to be not only helpful for designers, planners and people who speak the sustainability language, but also to be useful to vastly wider audience. I understand they are also always looking for new projects, research, case studies, etc. to highlight, if you want to contribute you can contact ASLA @ info@alsa.org

-Sara Putney

See here for the write-up of Dr. Yan Xiao’s bridge in the Hunan province. It is made of bamboo AND it is strong enough to withstand truck traffic. Here’s a write-up in Go!

Just in case you missed it last week among all of the other pressing news stories, the EPA released a report outlining technical guidelines for implementing the stormwater runoff requirements for federal projects under Section 438 of the Energy and Independence and Security Act (EISA). In effort to afford designers maximum flexibility, the guidance provided is performance-based. The Section 438 of the EISA established the following requirements:

“Storm water runoff requirements for federal development projects. The sponsor of any development or redevelopment project involving a Federal facility with a footprint that exceeds 5,000 square feet shall use site planning, design, construction, and maintenance strategies for the property to maintain or restore, to the maximum extent technically feasible, the predevelopment hydrology of the property with regard to the temperature, rate, volume, and duration of flow.”

On October 5th, the White House issued a Presidential Executive Order addressing this requirement. The Executive Order titled “Federal Leadership in Environmental, Energy, and Economic Performance.” It required the EPA in coordination with other agencies to develop guidelines for implementing Section 438 of the EISA within 60 days. The current publication meets these guidelines.

The guidelines establish two options for meeting Section 438. The first option is to retain 100% of a rainfall event on site that is less than or equal to a 95th percentile. A 95th percentile rainfall event is an event with a volume over a 24-hr period that is equal to or less than the volume of 95% of all rain events for a period of record (i.e. 20 to 30 years). The table from the report provided below shows the size of the 95th percentile events for various cities across the Country. The events range between 0.7 to 1.8 inches of rainfall. These events commonly known as a “first flush” event were identified because they often contain the highest level of pollutants. Option 2 allows designers to conduct their own hydrological analysis and determine the site specific pre-development hydrological conditions. This options states that “temperature of runoff should not exceed the pre-development rates and the predevelopment hydrology should be replicated.”

For both of these options, the guidelines encourage the use of green infrastructure stategies. The guidelines recognize that “runoff event frequency, volume and rate can be diminished or eliminated through the use of green infrastructure (GI)/Low Impact Design (LID) designs and practices, which infiltrate, evapotranspire and capture and use stormwater”. The guidelines provide a number of studies that illustrate how green infrastructure can meet the established criteria. It is exciting to see the continued momentum green infrastructure is experiencing. If your considering working on federal projects, you will need to take a serious look at green infrastructure as an integral part of your site strategy.

Source: Kansas City, Missouri Overflow Control Plan Overview Document

This year Kansas City embarked on a massive $2.3 billion stormwater overflow control plan to address sewer overflows throughout the city. Its inclusion of a major $28 million green infrastructure pilot project has gained a lot of attention. The project has been recognized as the largest green infrastructure project in the United States. The Marlborough Neighborhood Pilot Project, as it is called, is located in the Middle Blue River Basin, one of the four major watersheds addressed by the plan. The entire pilot project encompasses nearly 100 acres of primarily residential neighborhoods. This program is anticipated to be expanded over a larger 744 acre area that will eventually include over 25 acres of mixed green infrastructure strategies (i.e. rain gardens, bioswales, permeable pavement, and green roofs) that have the capacity to sequester 3.5 million gallons of water. The green infrastructure strategies employed are designed to replace two underground tanks of similar capacity. In total the pilot project and its expansion are budgeted to cost $68 million.

Video of compiled images from Mark O’Hara’s Greenbuild Presentation about the Kansas City Plan. The video shows various Green Infrastructure Strategies recommended in the plan. Video compiled by Hawkins Partners Images provided by BNIM (Click here to see it if  video is not present)

In addition to the Marlborough Neighborhood Pilot Project, the plan also recommends the enhancement of the area’s highly acclaimed 10,000 Rain Garden Program. Over the past two years, the initiative is reported to have installed several hundred rain gardens, bioswales, and rain barrels. The purpose of the expansion it to develop an incentive program to accelerate the program’s progress and complement the public investments being made.

Wet retention basin projects have been identified as an appropriate strategy for treating stormwater downstream from six separated sewer system (SSS). The plan acknowledges that green infrastructure is beneficial and should be included where it is practical. The plan states:

“Every decision should be viewed as an opportunity to incorporate a green-solutions approach. The City has adopted an “every drop counts” philosophy, meaning it is important to reduce stormwater entering the system wherever practicable. This will be accomplished through changing the way the community develops and redevelops its sewer and stormwater infrastructure, educating citizens regarding steps they can take to reduce the amount of stormwater entering the sewer system, enabling citizens to take those steps, incorporating green infrastructure in the design of public infrastructure, and making targeted public investments in green infrastructure projects early in the Plan implementation.”

Areas identified that should be considered for green infrastructure projects include those meeting the following criteria:

Areas for which no or minimal conventional structural controls are proposed.

Areas in which widespread implementation of green solutions by the community at large offer the greatest opportunities for reducing the size and cost of conventional structural controls included in the Plan.

Areas for which it would be particularly desirable to further reduce the projected overflow
activation frequency following completion of recommended controls.

Areas in which sewer separation is proposed but where no Water Services Department (WSD) investment in treating the separate stormwater runoff has been included in the Plan.

The plan’s ambitious Marlborough Neighborhood Pilot Project is very encouraging, particularly as a stand alone project. It is very significant and the City should be commended for their efforts. However based on the $2.3 billion budget established by the plan, it is evident that green infrastructure will play a supporting role. The plan was developed during the recent significant shift in the way we address stormwater management across the country over the last few years. It is not surprise to see this. What is encouraging is the magnitude of the pilot project and the extensive monitoring that will be conducted.

The monitoring component will provide valuable data for the City and others across the country. In addition to understanding green infrastructure’s effectiveness to control Combined Sewer Overflows (CSOs) and improving water quality, monitoring it will provide insight into conflicts with local codes and ordinance, social-economic benefits, construction techniques, associated cost, and maintenance practices.

The plan stresses that it is an evolutionary document, referring to it as an “adaptive management” approach. The approach involves evaluation of the strategy throughout the life of the project based on their experiences and data gathered through the monitoring efforts. While green infrastructure may not be the predominant tool of choice at this point, the longer-term nature of the plan provides the opportunity to adjust its course as confidence increases in green infrastructure. The City’s plan can become more green overtime as it builds upon its successes.

Fairly or unfairly, like many pilot projects much rests on the success of the Marlborough Neighborhood Pilot Project. Many, both locally and nationally will be watching it with great interest. Failure of such a high profile project could significantly set back the growth of green infrastructure as the stormwater management tool of choice. Therefore, it is critical it is done to the highest standards possible. The project will serve as an example for those involved in stormwater planning and design to have full confidence and understanding of the complexities of utilizing natural systems. Natural processes are complex making them more difficult to quantify. A paper prepared in 2007 by the Center for Neighborhood Technology titled “Managing Urban Stormwater with Green Infrastructure: Case Studies of Five U.S. Local Governments”, identified the lack of performance data as a barrier to green infrastructure implementation. The more research we do and data we collect the better off we will all be.

I anticipate this will be a successful demonstration of green infrastructure. It is exciting to see another city embrace green infrastructure on such a large scale. We will all eagerly await the results and follow its realization. Construction is expected to start soon.

-Brian Phelps

The Pinnacle at Symphony Place, a 29-story office building in downtown Nashville, opened this month. The building includes 520,000sf of Class A office space. It is home to law offices of Bass Berry and Simms and the headquarters of Pinnacle Financial Partners. The building designed by the award winning architectural firm Pickard Chilton with Nashville architects EOA Architects is anticipated to receive LEED-Silver certification from the United States Green Building Council (USGBC). With the inclusion of a 28,000sf rooftop garden, the building contributes significantly to Nashville’s ever growing green infrastructure

The green roof, designed by our office, is located on the 7th floor above the parking garage and includes a series of spaces that can be enjoyed by the building’s tenants. The area is comprised of 9,400sf of pedestal pavers and 19,000sf of vegetated areas. One hundred percent (100%) of the pavers were selected to exceed the minimum solar reflectance standards established by the LEED rating system. The striping pattern continues the prominent vertical fins on the facade of the building into the rooftop garden area. The planting areas are a combination of extensive green roof (planting media depths ranging between 5-9”) and semi-intensive areas (planting media depths ranging between 18”-30”). The semi-intensive areas were planted to reflect a more traditional landscape around each of the gathering areas and provide areas for trees to shade and scale the spaces. In an effort to establish a more pedestrian scaled environment and additional interest a series of 12ft pyramidal trellis structures were incorporated in the extensive green roof areas.

It is estimated that the green roof can retain nearly 67% of the annual rainfall falling directly on it. In addition, it reduces the peak flows, is significantly cooler than neighboring conventional roofs, reduces thermal heat gains in the water that enters the stormwater system, and provides a beautiful space to look upon and enjoy.

We are honored to have been a part of such an exciting project and look forward to watching it grow. We have been pleasantly surprised by the significant growth the plant material has shown in a short time period. As it matures, we will keep you up to date on its progress.

-Brian Phelps

Olmsted's plan for Vandergrift.

A small town in Pennsylvania designed by Frederick Olmsted is trying to turn a corner after years of decline by building on its history as a city designed to be in tune with nature. The AP’s Ramit Plushnick-Masti writes how Olmsted designed Vandergrift, 35 miles northeast of Pittsburgh and its streets to follow the river. Street corners and the buildings on them were rounded. Parks dotted the hilly landscape, and the town was walkable. Today the town is not as pedestrian friendly, but there seems to be a new thinking afoot:

While many communities are embracing sustainable revitalization, Vandergrift’s strategy is all-encompassing: to create an energy independent, ecologically low-impact, economically viable town from the ashes of its postindustrial wasteland. It aims to renovate buildings with sustainable materials, from carpet textiles to solar roof panels. A farmers market has been expanded. Trees are being planted and green spaces recovered.

Perhaps the most ambitious is the river energy project. With Weiland’s guidance and a grant from the National Science Foundation, University of Pittsburgh students are seeking to exploit the hydrokinetic forces of the Kiski River to offset energy costs downtown, without building dams or coal-burning electrical facilities.

The city has gone from 6,800 residents in 1980 to about 5,000 today. We often concentrate on the efforts of big cities, but with many Americans still living in smaller cities and towns, and the fact that sprawl is common and energy used more in those places — the work in Vandergrift (and other places such as Greensburg, Kansas) is worth telling.

As part of its Green Infrastructure initiative, WMSA has worked to support collaborative efforts to develop alternative fuels and energy in West Michigan. One of those efforts is the development of wind turbines, which would be both a new business opportunity and a move toward greener energy.

However, such development takes time. As Greg Northrup points out in his comment in recent coverage, before placing wind turbines offshore  on Lake Michigan it is important to be certain that they will be productive in terms of energy supply for the region.

You can read more in the Capitol News Service report carried  in the Great Lakes Echo blog (the story was also carried in several newspapers from West Michigan, including the Traverse City Record Eagle.

Long term, alternative energy innovation must be balanced with preserving the unique and highly valued aesthetics of West Michigan’s natural environment, Northrup said. WMSA will continue to seek collaborative ideas in keeping with one of the organization’s original priorities: to ensure a sustainable environment.

Streetsblog San Francisco had a great post last week that reported on a recent tour of Portland’s Green Streets taken during the Congress for the New Urbanism’s Project for Transportation Reform Conference. The post includes a number of wonderful green street examples. The quality of the installations are impressive. A representative of Portland’s Bureau of Environmental Services (BES) was quoted as saying the green streets were necessitated as a result of the City’s need to comply with a Clean Water Act lawsuit. The cost of conventional stormwater infrastructure topped nearly $150 million. This cost encouraged the city to explore alternatives like green streets for reducing water volumes. David Elkin,the BES representative quoted in the post, estimates the solution saved the City $60 million dollars in stormwater pipe replacement. The post is worth checking out.

-Brian Phelps

We are seeking input from West Michigan farmers in an online survey. The survey is a continuation of the West Michigan agriculture study described in the previous post. The study was also heralded in a Grand Rapids Press editorial November 19 as a valuable tool to guide farm policy in Kent County and West Michigan.

Input from farmers will be useful to gain an even better understanding of agriculture in West Michigan and to inform policy decisions about farmland and agriculture practices. Please take the survey and encourage farmers in the region who you know to do the same.

Before and After of Green Infrastructure Improvements
(Source:“Green Cities Clean Waters” Plan)

In an earlier post titled “Making Green Infrastructure Common Place” we discussed the recent release of Philadelphia’s $1.6 billion dollar “Green Cities Clean Waters” Plan. Its thrust is to transform over 4,000 acres of impervious areas within the City’s Combined Sewer System to green space over the next 20 years through the use of green infrastructure strategies. This would involve converting over 34% of all existing impervious areas. Of this, the conversion will primarily be made on public property and right-of-ways. Green streets, the most widely used management tool, will comprise nearly 38% of these improvements (see graphic). The report claims this is “the largest green stormwater infrastructure program ever envisioned in this country”. While green infrastructure has been utilized and proven in many parts of the country, the sheer magnitude and commitment of the city is a radical departure from the conventional approach to stormwater management practices.

Map of Green Street Locations
(Source:“Green Cities Clean Waters” Plan)

So why did Philadelphia decide to rely so heavily on green infrastructure as a means of reducing overflows in their CSO system? Quite simply it was cheaper, significantly cheaper. The plan estimates over the next 20 years the plan is to be implemented, the “triple bottom line” benefits (social, environments, economic) of the plan alone will add up to a present value of $2.2 billion dollars. The following is a breakdown of the benefits that comprise this figure.

• Heat Stress Mortality Reduction (35%)
• Recreation (22%)
• Property Value Added (18%)
• Water Quality and Habitat (14.5%)
• Air Quality (4.6%)
• Avoided Social Costs from Green Jobs (3.7%)
• Energy Savings (1.0%)
• Carbon Footprint Reduction (0.6%)
• Reduction in Construction- Related Disruptions (0.2%)

So instead of employing conventional underground infrastructure that is one-dimensional, and is estimated to cost $16 billion, the city has decided that implementing a multi-dimensional strategy with multiple benefits made more sense. But not only is it more desirable, it is politically easier to implement because it makes the city a more beautiful and healthy place. So if you are going to have to spend the money anyway, why not make it count.

The shortcomings of the conventional “tanks and tunnels” approach were not only that it exceeded the EPA’s affordability standard for stormwater management (2% of median household income), but it also did not address water quality issues and could require green infrastructure tools anyway to meet these requirements. In addition, the report points out that the conventional solution isn’t aligned with the EPA’s broader goals of sustainability, reduces streams baseflow thereby damaging the resources that is designed to protect, and doesn’t offer any secondary triple bottom line benefits. Furthermore, since the conventional solution is not delivered incrementally it is not flexible and does not offer any benefits immediately.

Green infrastructure on the other hand offered the city the opportunity to revitalize and restore the city’s streams and rivers, enhance the quality of the built environment throughout the city, improve air quality, reduce the heat island effect, and sequester carbon. While accumulating these benefits, the approach was more flexible, offered immediate benefits, and, most importantly, the cost of implementation was offset by the dollar value of the benefits. (see Volume 2: Triple Bottom Line Analysis of the plan for specifics)

While conventional infrastructure has its place, the combination of the two can play a significant role in addressing many of the issues facing our cities. It is critical that we continue to move toward making these strategies common place. By doing so we can make our cities healthier and more beautiful for all of us to enjoy, while at the same time responsibly managing our stormwater.

-Brian Phelps

I got the chance to spend a little bit of time last week with Chicago’s firecracker Commissioner of Environment, Suzanne Malec-McKenna while she was in Nashville for the Nashville Civic Design Centers annual Plan of Nashville event. Suzanne has been in the middle of an astonishing number of Chicago’s environmental bright spots, including the ambitious Chicago Climate Action Plan released in 2008, Chicago Trees Initiative and the very cool Chicago Offset Fund. But what has impressed me the most (and has for a long time) is Chicago’s tremendous growth in green roofs.

It all started in 2001 with the now well-known Chicago City Hall roof weighing in at a modest 20,000 s.f. In June 2008, a short seven years later, Chicago boasted 4,000,000 s.f. of green roof and today, they report that they have hit 7 million s.f. and they are still going. I wanted to find out more about how such an explosion occurs and one of the pieces and parts is related to the success of the green roofs is a Green Roof Grant Program begun in 2005 which has been continued and expanded. An interesting side note is that the popularity and volume of the green roofs across Chicago has also reduced the average installation price of extensive green roof in Chicago has dropped from $25/s.f. to $15/s.f.

As if the incentives of grant incentives aren’t enough, I also noticed that in August 2009, the Illinois Energy Plan provides ARRA funds toward cost-effective energy projects, including green roofs, which meet certain criteria. Illinois has recognized that green roofs provide economic development, carbon capture and energy and maintenance cost savings.

As I looked around at other cities, I found a few more that were engaged in similar incentive programs introduced within the last year: Portland, New York City and Washington DC (List of green roof incentive programs) . Through tax abatement or grants, each of these cities provide an incentive of about $5.00 per square foot through a green roof review process. Portland expects their Grey to Green Program to their current nine acres of green roofs on about 90 buildings to increase over the next five years by another 43 acres. Portland is committing $300,000 in grants in its first fiscal year of the program and is committed to keeping the program going for at least the next five years.

In our neighbor to the north, Toronto started the green roof incentives in 2006 starting with a $10 per square meter subsidy, then raised the subsidy amount to $50 per square meter in order to be more effective. Reports are that funding of $2.4 million dollars for green roof subsidies have been approved for the first five years of the program.

So hats off, Chicago! You are serving as a great example for the rest of North America – in fact, Chicago topped the Green Roofs for Healthy Cities list of top ten cities for both the United States and North America for the past five years.

-Kim Hawkins

1700 Charlotte in Nashville
Combines Porous Concrete & Bioswales

Traditional asphalt parking lots may seem to be the most cost efficient, but underlying costs such as increased pollution and water load on our sewer systems need to be considered as well. In an attempt to measure those underlying costs the EPA has replaced nearly 43,000 SF of their traditional asphalt parking with 3 different types of permeable pavement systems and several raingardens with different planted vegetation. At their Edison, NJ facility they will conduct a decade long study to evaluate and document the performances of these permeable systems on the basis of removing pollutants and filtering capabilities. Having these systems all in the same location will likely result in more balanced testing of each material.

This study comes at an ideal time as many cities are beginning to re-evaluate old paving methods in order to reduce the load on existing sewer systems or just to reduce the amount of toxin runoff from paved surfaces to our nearby rivers and lakes. Traditional asphalt parking lots collect oil, grease and other debris over time, after a heavy rain or snowstorm these toxins are washed from the parking surface to the nearest storm drain or permeable surface. Replacing this impervious surface with a permeable pavement or raingarden will allow plants and soils to naturally filter the pollutants, while re-charging the ground water table.

Porous Concrete

-Will Marth

Tennessee River, Chattanooga. (Photo: Bill Weeks for TPL)

Cities undertaking waterfront planning and development will be interested in an EPA publication released this past September on coastal and waterfront smart growth. Waterfronts are natural locations for parks and public spaces, for environmental, economic and social reasons. This book is a great guide as to how this and other issues such as walkability, historic preservation and the like all fit together.  The guide includes ten elements to success: 1. Mix land uses; 2. Take advantage of compact design; 3. Provide a range of housing choices; 4. Create compact communities; 5. Foster distinctive, attractive communities; 6. Preserve open space & critical environmental areas; 7. Direct development towards existing communities; 8. Provide a variety of transportation options; 9. Make development decisions predictable and fair;  and 10. Encourage community collaboration.

One success story mentioned is that of Chattanooga, Tenn., which:

…Recognized the opportunity that existed in its neglected waterfront along the Tennessee River and made it a centerpiece of its revitalization efforts. Faced with extensive air pollution and a weakening economy, Chattanooga initiated a public visioning process in 1984 and created a plan to turn the city around. The plan helped Chattanooga transform its riverfront into a focal point for residents and tourists through the addition of an aquarium, art museum, public art, picnic areas, natural greenways to protect creek corridors leading to the river, and pedestrian bridges to facilitate access. The result is evident not only in Chattanooga’s reclaimed relationship with the river, but also in the revitalization of the broader community that these waterfront efforts inspired.

There are many other case studies in the report, but we mention Chattanooga because it shows how cities big and small can invest in sound planning and implementation of those plans and see real results. For so many cities with waterfronts, the EPA has done a great service through this report.

Getting more for less is an approach almost everyone can appreciate. Why wouldn’t you want to get the most out of your investments? Appropriately applying green infrastructure in ways that effectively addresses critical stormwater issues while creating a more beautiful and economically vibrant community is common sense. Unfortunately, it isn’t common place. As the use of the available sustainable site tools and technologies continues to grow, it may not be long before green infrastructure is the conventional approach to stormwater management.

With the Release of their “Green Cities Clean Waters Plan”, Philadelphia joins a handful of cities across the Country that have committed to green infrastructure and seek to institutionalizing it throughout the city. Philadelphia’s plan published last September sets forth a bold plan to invest $1.6 billion. Of this total 62% ($1 billion) of it will allocated directly to green stormwater infrastructure. Another 18% ($290M) will directed to stream corridor restoration and preservation and 20%($320M) will address wet weather treatment plant upgrades.

Over the next few weeks we will take a closer look at Philadelphia’s plan. At over 3,000 pages, there is a lot of information to sift through. In addition, we will also look at Pennsylvania Environmental Council released a report titled “Implementing Green Infrastructure: Developing a Winning Strategy to Fund Philadelphia’s Ambitious Plan” that looks at the economic benefits of the plan and how other cities across the country are funding their stormwater initiatives. Together they are an impressive step forward for the City of Philadelphia and the Nation.

-Brian Phelps

A brush clearing goat. cc: the Sun

Revitalization starts with goats, or so it goes for Baltimore’s Druid Hill Park. The city’s Parks and People Foundation is undertaking a $10 million renovation of a decrepit mansion on the edge of the historic 745-acre park that will house an environmental learning center, the group’s main offices and trail connections to the rest of the park. With the mansion property in need of severe brush clearing, the group weighed the options and found the most reasonable to be hiring a goat herd.

The Baltimore Sun covered the herd of 40 urban brush chewers and reported the following:

“They’ll eat just about anything, except the stuff that’s poisonous,” Knox said…….. The Boar and Spanish species of goats in their second day on the job had been eating much of the vegetation and left a lot of twigs and bare trees. They can reach up to 6 feet off the ground. Goats have been used around the region before to clear parks, residential properties and the shoulders of highways.

The foundation had to gain permission from animal control and health department officials to bring in the goats, which are considered exotic animals in Baltimore. There is some interest in having a resident goat to help maintain the property, but that’s still against the law in Baltimore – unless you’re the zoo. Interestingly, sheep were once used to tend to the lawns of the park, possibly through World War Two.

More than 70 people attended this morning’ release of a new report called West Michigan Agriculture: The Status and Conditions. Those in attendance came from local and county government, foundations, nonprofit organizations, and of course farms and agricultural businesses. The report is a study of agriculture data in West Michigan as a region and in each of its eight counties and shows that agriculture is a $1.6 billion business in the region. The report is the work of the Land Policy Institute (LPI) at Michigan State University in collaboration with the West Michigan Strategic Alliance.

After some brief introductions from President Greg Northrup about the report and its connections to WMSA’s Green Infrastructure Initiative, LPI’s Melissa Gibson gave a presentation and  overview of the report. Comments and questions from those in attendance ranged from getting township level data, social justice concerns for farm workers, and the growing importance of smaller farms and urban markets.

You can read a news release summary and the full report on WMSA’s Web site.

The report is considered a baseline. WMSA and LPI hope to get more input to talk about next steps to plan in order to ensure that agriculture remains a viable business in West Michigan. To help with that, please spread the word about an online survey of West Michigan farmers.

Look for updates here and on the WMSA Web site

Melissa Gibson of LPI presents the West Michigan Agriculture report..

The Tennessee Urban Forestry conference was in town recently and asked Hawkins Partners to give a guided tour of the Nashville Public Square and Deaderick Street. This marked our first “official” tour of Deaderick Street to discuss all of the exciting new aspects of the green street.

The recent transformation of Deaderick Street recalls the historic importance of the street and enhance the corridor’s prominence as an important civic axis. Prior to the renovations, the street had become most widely known as the central transfer point for the Metro bus system. In the Fall of 2008 the bus system’s hub was relocated one block over to the ambitious Music City Central, presenting an opportunity to re-envision the street itself

The renovations to the street primarily focused on addressing stormwater issues and urban trees. The existing streetscape was home to an assortment of unhealthy trees ranging in sizes from 2” caliper up to 24”+. Each and every one of them were shoehorned into a 4’x4’ planting zone and struggling to adapt to urban conditions. The renovations included removing those trees and providing larger and deeper planting areas that would not only give a larger volume of soil for the tree roots, but also provide many areas in which the stormwater could travel to, thus reducing the loads into the storm system. Bioretention zones were implemented in pedestrian bulbs at the intersections and in relation to the existing catch basins. These planting areas were also excavated to a depth that would accept enough engineered soils to allow infiltration and planted with plants that can adapt to the extremes of wet and dry conditions. Pervious area within the corridor was increased by over 700%.

Many other elements of sustainability were included, such as:

• Crushed and recycled concrete used for the pavement subbase,
• Fly ash utilized in the concrete mix,
• Porous concrete,
• LED light fixtures,
• Native and drought tolerant plant materials,
• Solar powered parking meters,
• Water efficient irrigation system,
• Many local vendors and fabricators,
• The addition of bike racks to help encourage a healthier way to travel, and
• The addition of recycling receptacles along the street.

We’re hoping that in the near future, permanent retail kiosks that were proposed in the master plan will be added to the street, further enlivening the corridor. Those kiosks are proposed to have an extensive greenroof on each. In addition, the master plan identified areas for future free standing retail buildings and liner buildings that could be added on the blank facades.

- Laura Schroeder

Green. These days that one word has many different meanings. Growing up, I could count on “green” being one of the eight colors in a Crayola package, but today, this one word has many more connotations. Being landscape architects, we plan to use this blog as a way to explore “green” in terms of site sustainability issues, with a focus on green infrastructure. So maybe we start with the first question: What SHOULD be green about our city’s infrastructure?

When we think about stormwater infrastructure, it is generally conceived of as the complex system that accepts, stores, manages and treats our stormwater. In the conventional designs of the past several decades, this has been done through drains, pipes, curb and gutter and a whole host of devices to hold or detain the water from our bigger storms. With green infrastructure, we look at the potentials of natural systems to deal with those same issues: more interception of stormwater allowing it to evapo-transpire, infiltrate and be held and used for others purposes (like irrigation or flushing water for toilets). This reduces the load on our aging storm pipe system, allowing it to function longer AND it often allows a more cost-efficient solution for the life of the project.

Specifically here at Green Infrastructure Digest we’ll discuss green infrastructure as it relates to four primary areas:

• buildings and structures/ green roofs and green walls
• hardscape / pervious pavements and overflow inlets
• landscape / bio-swales, raingardens, green streets
• water capture and reuse / rainwater harvesting, greywater harvesting, passive irrigation
• related site sustainability issues

Over the past 23 years at our firm, Hawkins Partners, Inc. landscape architects, we have had the opportunity to put this talk into practice having now designed over 500,000 s.f. of green roof, being involved in the first three LEED projects in the State of Tennessee (and many more since then) and incorporating many of these sustainable practices effectively in a number of different projects. We find that our clients like the idea of getting back to natural systems and putting dollars into aesthetically pleasing solutions that also deliver an environmentally sound and cost-conscious solution.

Reed bed water treatment systems can benefit people in emergency or temporary “communities” such as disaster zones and refugee camps. This thought struck me when reading about Shigeru Ban using paper tubes to build emergency shelters.

The question that struck me was; “Could the reed bed biomass (plant stalks, branches, leaves, bark) be made into paper tubes and used for construction?” The Shigeru Ban website claims that the paper tubes can be made on site cheaply with simple machinery. What was the raw material used?

Reed beds can produce a large amount of biomass. This depends on the amount of water and climate. The following image shows the amount of biomass produced in only 3 months. This site is in the United Arab Emirates. See earlier post.

Cultivating the reeds

Besides producing biomass for paper tubes (if this is possible) reed beds have many other practical uses to that could help displaced communities. Reed bed water treatment systems:

1. Transform waste water – remove the hazard of waste water.
2. Create treated water – create a resource (need to assess time required for treatment cycle).
3. Are made from simple and natural materials which can be locally sourced. Drainage medium can be made from local materials if available. Pipe network (light weight easy to transport). Rubber liners, optional in order to harvest water, otherwise can percolate into ground (risk of contamination to be assessed).
4. Are low tech systems and so are robust, meaning they are less likely to fail in difficult conditions.
5. Do not need electricity if then can be gravity fed. Or if a pump is required this could be wind or solar powered.
6. Do not (necessarily) have mechanical components which can break down.
7. Can be made with low skilled labour.
8. Provide immediate purposeful “employment” of people on the ground. If there are many able bodied people this can help create a sense of empowerment.
9. Produce biomass – a resource for many other uses such as shelter construction, shade provision, animal fodder, light weight fencing, wind shelters,  fuel.

There are of course many issues to think about when considering reed bed systems for emergency and temporary communities. It’s just not possible to cover them all here but would be worthwhile to investigate the possibilities which could bring some relief to to people in distressing situations.

WMSA was happy to read the recent editorial in the Grand Rapids Press about the dune property in Saugatuck where the Kalamazoo River flows into Lake Michigan. The property is currently privately owned. When it changed hands a few years ago, area citizens began trying to acquire at least a portion of this land to be preserved as public land. 

Recently, as the editorial points out, there is a new chance for a deal between advocates of public land and the current owner. But the Michigan Natural Resources Trust Fund is being asked to provide $12.6 million of the $20 million needed to purchase 171 acres for public ownership.

WMSA agrees with the Press that this is a “once-in-a-generation opportunity.” We would add that it is more than a Saugatuck issue. WMSA maintains on this and many issues that thinking as a region benefits us all. We stressed this a year ago in a letter of support to David Swan of the Saugatuck Dunes Coastal Alliance:

“The environmental assets in our region are inextricably linked to our quality of life and economic prosperity, yet rapid population growth and fragmented decision making can jeopardize this natural order. We believe it is essential from a regional perspective, to approach opportunities such as the protection of the former Denison property. This is not simply a Saugatuck area issue, nor a Lakeshore issue – this is a critical issue that impacts all the residents who call West Michigan home.”

Seizing this opportunity will go a long way toward WMSA efforts at both regional collaboration and maintaining our green infrastructure. We encourage the Michigan Natural Resources Trust Fund to recognize this opportunity.