This is another diary in the continuing “New Environmentalism” series. In this series, we’re going to be looking at ways to change the way we live and work – sometimes significantly – in order to live in harmony with our environment.
Goals of the New Environmentalism: devise a practical, realistic vision for a sustainable future and a plan for moving from our modern society to a sustainable society. In this society, we claim that the proper goal of economic activity is not growth but, rather, human happiness.
Egarwaen and I encourage you to contact either of us by email if you’d like to be a contributor to this series (post a diary / host a discussion).
Previous diaries have included an overview of the series and a discussion of short-range (local, personal) transportation issues. Long-range (cargo and personal) transport and avoidance of transportation will be addressed in future diaries. Since Egarwaen has some thesis responsibilities to take care of this week, he’s asked me to post – but rather than steal his thunder on the subject of transportation, I’d like to expand on a couple of points that came up in the previous discussions that seem to be unconnected, but (not surprisingly in an environmental series, I suppose) turn out to be linked as parts of the bigger picture.
Back in the first diary of this series, there was interest in more information on bioremediation, the practice of using microorganisms to clean up pollution. Thinking about how to pass along this information without the diary becoming a dry term paper led me to the insight that our interactions with the environment fall into one of three general types – we can use it without thought, typically resulting in pollution, resource depletion, spread of disease, and erosion of quality of life, even as we accumulate “stuff” (which, by our skewed system of keeping economic score, gives the appearance of progress). We can preserve the environment by setting land aside to avoid our corrupting influence (as deep greens would put it), via nature preserves and national parks. Or we can work with the environment thoughtfully, trying to get what we need but at the same time consciously handling the system with care so as to cause minimal disruption, and where possible repairing damage we have caused. It’s this third position I’d like to look at today.
Bioremediation falls into this grouping, but so do a whole raft of things we can each do in our daily lives to try and walk as gently as possible on the planet, even if we don’t have access to a laboratory and a government contract to clean up a Superfund site.
Here, forthwith, is a brief look at bioremediation for those who expressed an interest; I’ve included a number of links for you to explore on your own. If you’re in a hurry you can skip the text box if you choose and the discussion will pick up with the things you personally can do. Or you can come back and read the box separately. Or skip it altogether – go ahead, break my heart, I can take it.
Wikipedia gives as good a definition as any: “Bioremediation can be defined as any process that uses microorganisms or their enzymes to return the environment altered by contaminants to its original condition. Bioremediation may be employed in order to attack specific contaminants, such as chlorinated pesticides that are degraded by bacteria, or a more general approach may be taken, such as oil spills that are broken down by the use of multiple techniques including the addition of nitrate and sulfate fertilizer to facilitate the decomposition of crude oil by indigenous or exogenous bacteria.”
Or in layperson’s language, you get the bugs to eat the crud. Does this process always work? Not always, at least in the timeframe desired, or to the degree desired. Microorganisms have been found to be digesting the PCBs in the sediments of the Hudson River, for example, but some are concerned that the process will take too long. And there is a danger that the parties responsible for contamination will try and use “natural attenuation and degradation” as an excuse for not doing any cleanup at all. But when it’s done right – which involves isolating and culturing organisms capable of digesting the pollution, and returning them to the location of the contamination (along with fertilizer, if needed) – it’s cheaper, more energy-efficient, and less disruptive to the environment and the surrounding community than excavating tons of soil and shipping it in caravans of dump trucks to an incinerator, or “air-stripping” contaminated ground-water, which simply transfers the pollution to the air, diluting it as it’s carried on the four winds to new homes.
In-ground remediation is called “in-situ” remediation; “ex-situ” remediation, where contaminated groundwater or sediment is treated in tanks above ground can also be performed. This technology is similar to the use of microorganisms in treating sewage, which has been used at wastewater plants for over a generation, and in septic tanks and outhouses from time immemorial. 🙂
A similar approach is used in phytoremediation, where plants are used instead of bacteria. Certain plants accumulate toxic metals like zinc, chromium, selenium or arsenic (which typically are not removed by bacteria), and by simply growing these plants in contaminated soil and harvesting them over a period of years the metals can be removed from the soil through their uptake by the plants. One example of this was the use of sunflowers to remove uranium from soil after the Chernobyl incident.
This all shouldn’t come as too big a surprise; after all, one of the major “ecosystem services” provided by wetlands is wastewater treatment, which is essentially the natural version of the processes we’re talking about “domesticating” and speeding up here.
Bioremediation has become a big business, as environmental remediation firms and government agencies have adopted these procedures to allow cleanup of Superfund sites to continue despite decreasing funding in recent years. My Google search on bioremediation returned 1,860,000 hits!
An interesting aside may have occurred to any lawyers out there: How are the releases of organisms and/or treated wastes regulated? Are they unregulated on the grounds that they’re naturally occurring organisms that you’re just applying selective pressures to; in effect, speeding up evolution? But doesn’t that potentially involve the eruption of some new mutation onto the scene? Apparently it’s considered low enough risk to let it go? Here’s a link with EPA’s regulatory take on the matter, from December, 2000. In layperson’s language, it appears they’re saying, “Go for it!” On the other hand, if genetic engineering is involved, the process of approval becomes more involved – see discussions here and here.
Looking to write a thesis? Here are some links to cases where bioremediation has been used successfully: from the UK, EPA discussing MTBE bioremediation, a site with many downloadable federal documents, chlorinated solvents in fractured bedrock, and a search of the EPA’s innovative technology database, with 1,633 hits. A review article from DOE is here.
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That’s all well and good, but what am I personally supposed to do for the environment?
Let’s start with your immediate habitat, your neighborhood.
In our discussion of the transportation system last week we touched a few times on the design of neighborhoods as a way to reduce the need for transportation, ideally allowing residents to walk to shopping, schools, family doctors, houses of worship, and access points for buses or trains to entertainment, sporting events, government offices, museums, or other needs typically found in a city’s core.
We also mentioned various ways to preserve nature in the city, which it was felt kept a city from feeling sterile and unnatural as a human habitat. Preservation of green space along streams was one, ideally with incorporation of bike and hiking trails. Here are some examples of greenways in various places:
Charlotte, NC, Broward Co. (Ft. Lauderdale), FL, the State of Delaware, Ann Arbor, MI, Boulder, CO and Knoxville, TN.
Check with your homeowners association (if a small tract is involved), or with the website of your local city or county to find out if the local planning commission has greenways included in their long-term development plans or zoning plans for your community. And if not, ask your elected officials why not. Not happy with the response? Discuss your ideas with like-minded neighbors and associates. Write letters to the newspaper. Form a group and hold a public meeting at a school or other meeting place. Network with larger groups like the Sierra Club that have been down this road before – they will have valuable advice and potentially resources you can tap into.
Areas along streams are often prone to flooding – it may be wiser / cheaper to keep them as green space rather than install flood prevention systems after the surrounding area is developed, increasing runoff and worsening the problem. Similarly, in hilly cities some land is too steep to be developed and can be kept as green space; often these include steep bluffs overlooking a river. (Examples that I’ve personally seen include parts of Knoxville, TN; Pittsburgh, PA; Wheeling, WV; Cincinnati, OH; and Kansas City, MO.) These places can be an asset to neighborhoods instead of places where trash is dumped down a slope.
Speaking of trash, a direct way that many people are becoming involved in preserving local habitat is through groups adopting roadways for litter pickup, and participating in local river, stream, or beach cleanup days.
“I live in an older, established neighborhood, and the streams here were buried in concrete tubes a century ago.”
Even burial of a stream does not need to be a permanent death sentence. The art and science of ecological restoration has progressed to the point that streams long-buried in pipes can be resurrected and restored. This process is called daylighting, and a Google search on “urban stream restoration daylighting” brought up 172,000 hits – the information is there, if concerned citizens wish to collect it, adapt it to local conditions, and work with local officials to bring about change where you live.
For most people, however, projects are more likely to involve encouraging cities to plant trees along streets, convert empty lots into green space: “vest pocket parks” where the oldest and youngest can gather, while experiencing nature, or community gardens.
Such local parks are more important than we realized to the community, both as a place to gather and for the mental health benefits provided by exposure to even a bit of nature itself; the concept of “biophilia” popularized by biologist E. O. Wilson almost 20 years ago:
Research on recreational activities has shown that people viewing savanna-like settings report feelings of tranquility, peacefulness, or relaxation. On psychometric testing, people viewing such settings show decreased fear and anger, enhanced positive affect, and improved mental alertness, attention, and cognitive performance. Reference [By the way, you can download the entire book – “Rebuilding the Unity of Health and the Environment: A New Vision of Environmental Health for the 21st Century” (2001) – that this quote is taken from, in PDF format, using the sign-in for free PDFs link. It’s your free reward for reading this far!]
As a part of this picture, community gardens provide a means for low-income residents to affordably improve their diets with fresh (ideally, organically-grown) produce. Such resources are available in many communities, as well as through churches or other private groups. Community gardens often spring up due to neighborhood efforts on abandoned urban lots (in New York, about 10% of the city’s 14,000 empty lots are used for community gardens – Reference), but such efforts require planning to succeed:
“We will need to be more than opportunistic in finding polices to establish community gardens. If a city is to be well-planned, compact and prosperous, community gardens located on underutilized privately-owned land will gradually be lost. So we must be strategic, and set about systematically adding dedicated community garden space to our neighborhoods. Whether as a planned part of new housing, or by acquisition and development in the city’s own capital improvement program, we must consider neighborhood parks and community gardens part of the necessary ‘green infrastructure’ of a healthy city.”
– Charlie Hales, City Commissioner of Parks, Portland, OR
While 1,400 community gardens sounds like a lot, the reference above points out that New York has fewer acres of green space per capita than any other major American city, mainly due to the rapidity with which it was laid out on a grid plan and developed in the early 1800s, before the need to retain green space for the mental (and, as is increasing being recognized, the physical) health of residents. Hence the increasing realization among urban planning professional like Charles Hales of the need to plan in advance for urban gardens and green space.
Another example of the problem is happening right now in Los Angeles:
For the low-income urban farmers of South Central Los Angeles, creating a 14-acre community garden has been a life changing opportunity.
Over the last 10 years, it’s allowed many of them to earn a living and create their own access to fresh produce. The garden has been a vibrant green space where families can grow traditional ethnic foods and expose their children to a gang-free environment.
So when their 14-acre community garden was sold out from under them, they decided to occupy, refusing to leave despite legal challenges and intimidation tactics. On January 13th 2006, a court decision will decide whether the 300+ South Central Farmers can be forcibly removed. Reference
A brief overview of the thinking behind the roles of urban parks in the US for the last century and a half can be found here. All the viewpoints developed over time are still operative to some degree, but with new needs and recognitions of new opportunities arising with the passage of time and the evolution of cities.
And new opportunities for conversion to green space continue to present themselves. A more recent example than empty urban lots is that of abandoned railroad rights-of-way. These can be landscaped and converted into hiking and bicycle trails providing level, straight access into the heart of a city as an alternative to bike paths on the medians of highways (where biking commuters have to contend with exhaust fumes and splashed rainwater and slush).
The Rails-to-Trails Coalition is the leading organization supporting such conversions in the US; their website includes resources useful to anyone interested in such a project in their own area.
Thinking about the kinds of plants one typically sees in abandoned lots and along railway rights-of-way brings to mind another point (everything is connected) – invasive species. When I lived in Philly, these spaces were typically full of ailanthus (tree of heaven) and mimosa, both invasive species from Asia. Down here in Knoxville, those are also still found, but we also have our trademark invasive species, kudzu. And everyplace I’ve ever lived or visited east of the Rockies there’s English ivy, vinca, and honeysuckle run wild, if you just look. But controlling invasive species and restoring native ones in your community is certainly possible, with a focused effort.
An inspiring example of how a community can come together to work with local officials and restore native plants to severely degraded habitat (in Chicago) is reported in Stephanie Mills’ book “In Service of the Wild: Restoring and Reinhabiting Damaged Land” (1996). Rather than prattle on at length, I’ll just say if you’re interested in this field, or just want to read about an environmental and community success story, Mills’ book is an excellent place to start.
Habitat restoration might be an excellent project for a scout troop to take on, or a church group with undeveloped property they’re holding for potential future expansion. Schools are often situated on larger lots than are actually used, and the exploration and restoration of such local habitat can be an excellent educational tool for science classes, while learning the ropes of any government interactions needed can feed into social studies or civics lessons.
Restoration of habitat will often encourage resurgence in native animal species that were barely hanging on as well, especially more mobile species like birds. However, endangered native animals often also need help in restoring them. And if this is an area of interest for you, there are many ways that you can get involved with others as well. Native wildlife rehabilitators work with wild creatures that have come out on the short end in an encounter with a car or one of the other modern interlopers in their habitat; your local yellow pages or the internet will provide you with contacts, or your local animal shelter or veterinarian.
There are also more sophisticated efforts and efforts aimed at specific species (or groups of species) as well. An example is the Native Fish Conservancy, “dedicated to the conservation, study and preservation of our native fishes and the watersheds they inhabit.” In a related vein, here in Knoxville we have Conservation Fisheries, Inc. These folks are doing for endangered species of Southeastern freshwater fish what was done for the California condor – captive breeding of endangered species, followed by reintroduction into nature and monitoring the success of the reintroduced species. Their website has lots of interesting information and great pictures of the various fish species.
CFI stated out with a couple of guys with masters degrees in zoology from UT, and a dream. Many years and some grants later, they have a 5,200 sq. ft. facility with 300+ tanks housing 20 species of fish. US Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth presented them with a Collaborative Aquatic Resource Stewardship Award in June 2005 for their work. There’s no reason you and some associates couldn’t do the same for some endangered species in your area, given enough time and passion.
Or you may not be up to a multi-year commitment; that’s OK. You can contribute your little bit to the restoration of natural habitat and native species even in your own back yard – or even just a deck or window of your apartment. Bird houses and window boxes are possibilities for apartment dwellers, and for those with even a small back yard, the National Wildlife Federation has a website on “Backyard Wildlife Habitat” with many suggestions on how you can make the piece of habitat you’ve assumed responsibility for friendly to the local species we share our planet with.
There are thousands of other things you can do if you’re interested; I’ve not even touched on how our purchasing choices can help the planet and people not megacorporations. But that’s more than enough material for another diary. For now, I’d be interested in hearing about any success stories – or challenges you’re facing where this community might help – in repairing the bonds between people and their local habitat.
For while federal regulations and global actions are necessary on some issues, it is the local, individual restoration of the bond between the person or the community and nature which is the wellspring of the political will to protect and restore the environment.
Whether it’s microbes digesting pollutants, restoring our government to its intended form and function, or citizens restoring habitat for endangered species, all lasting change for the better percolates from the bottom up.