Category Archives: Green Building

Vision for Housing Justice – DOWNTOWN!

You can see leaves of Sylvester Sycamore in the foreground-hiding the pavement that Portland Art Museum has chosen to pave all the way to the sidewalk that smothers some of Sylvester’s roots. We will seek to follow the example of the native tribes who came before us and see the tree as our ancestor with a garden nurturing it.. We hope that First Unitarian Church (that you can partly see to the west) will get its alternative housing project done first. .

“Where there is no vision, there is no hope”                                             

George Washington Carver

I have long railed against what I call Downtown Portland’s Treeless Asphalt Deserts. Besides their daily assault on the health and well-being of downtown residents, try walking past a series of them on SW 12th  Ave or SW Main Street when it’s 105 degrees and smoky. Encouraged by my Portland State University Site Design class instructor, I re-designed one of these deserts: 935 SW Main Street—the 25,000 square foot surface parking lot owned by Portland Art Museum for the last 30+ years.  I see this proposal as one exemplary step towards solving our housing crisis in a systemic way.


HERE’S OUR VISION (written as the developer) . . .

The mixed income Etta Cooperative will be in a multi-story, multi-level building owned by the residents as a limited equity cooperative. The land will be held in trust by a community land trust, a 50-year old model for a new system of land tenure that takes land off of the private, commodity, speculative market and puts it into trust. The CLT issues 99-year leases to buildings on that land—buildings that can be privately or cooperatively owned—or rented.

It is named after Henrietta (Etta) Eliot who supported her husband (first minister of First Unitarian Church, Thomas Lamb Eliot) in the many social causes he championed for the poor and disenfranchised. They raised eight children on this spot and their legacy still lives in the activist Church one can see from the site. The site’s rich history—including its Native American history—will be celebrated throughout.

The best residential site in Portland has been kept as a downtown surface parking lot by Portland Art Museum for 30+ years

Figure 2 The best residential site in Portland has been kept as a downtown surface parking lot by Portland Art Museum for 30+ years

Since the cost of the land will be separated from the cost of the housing, shares in the units can be purchased at a very reasonable price–all the more remarkable because the Etta will sit on what is arguably the best residential site in Portland with its cultural, educational, park and transportation amenities. We’ll reach out to the many people of color organizations we support to generate participation from those populations. Through impact investing sites and media, we’ll seek to reach wealthy and middle class folks who want to put their bodies where their hearts are—by living in a racially diverse mixed-income community that demonstrates climate justice.

The land will be purchased from the Art Museum by a Portland philanthropist—akin to Sam Gary who founded Denver’s Urban Land Conservancy with a multi-million dollar donation in 2003.  WE ARE NOW LOOKING FOR THAT PERSON.

GREEN FEATURES

Elm Row apartments at SW Market & Park has, as part of its open space, a plaza that is open to the public. It is just a few block from the Etta site. It also has an eatery (SW corner) and fountains at this level. The Park Ave level has additional retail.

All Etta Cooperative’s power needs will be supplied by the renewably sourced district energy/combined heat and power plant Apple [We have yet to approach them] will build as part of its development to the immediate west of the Etta. (Its’ precursor district energy plant sits atop Whole Foods—owned by Amazon—in the Pearl).  Since we won’t need our own boilers or chillers we’ll have more space for our common areas and community center.  [Some of the common area will be open to the neighborhood–similar to Elm Row, a few blocks away.] And we’ll have more money to use other resource-conserving technologies—e.g, triple-paned windows, superinsulation and a bioreactor to treat toilet and greywater for reuse.

Our green roofs will provide garden spaces for residents—who will be encouraged to garden there–and on their balconies too.  Native trees, shrubs, vines and wildflowers within the site will create a haven for humans and pollinators. Signage at those spaces will also help teach children about nature and add to the ambience of the Green Loop at our front door.

Our heritage tree, Sylvester Sycamore, will have its own rain garden around it–rather than a parking spot paved to the edge of the sidewalk as Portland Art Museum does now. Considering our site’s current use as a parking lot, our rain garden will demonstrate mycoremediation–the use of fungi to take up pollutants.

By being a highly visible model in downtown Portland, our vision for an Etta Cooperative will help to educate people—both Portlanders and visitors—that we are not stuck with the housing system we have. As we watch the current system leave more and more people on the street, a system that treats housing as a social good will inspire others to mimic it.  Contact us to schedule a slide show or otherwise help with Etta’s progress.

We are thrilled to be part of a new group emerging in 2021–Oregon Cooperative Housing Network .

Although our idea for the Etta first emerged in 2019, we are thrilled to be part of a new group emerging in 2021–Oregon Cooperative Housing Network . This network has people with the right skills to help us achieve the above vision: Planning, designing, permitting, financing, developing. We encourage you to join!
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Mary Vogel, through her WBE, PlanGreen, works on issues of climate justice, especially housing and green infrastructure. She has promoted the CLT model since 1978 and would love to live in one that encourages carless living by its location to amenities and transit.  She can be reached at mary(at)plangreen(.)net.

Slow Street to Downtown Greenway

June 11, 2020, first given as oral testimony May 28, 2020

This blog calls for equity for the low-income people on the front lines of air pollution in downtown Portland. It was written as a testimony for a May 28 hearing on the re-adoption of Portland’s Central City 2035 Plan,

Honorable Mayor and Commissioners:

I’m Mary Vogel, a climate resiliency/climate justice consultant based in downtown’s West End who has been involved in Central City 2035 since its inception. So much air-time was given to neighbors who wanted height limits in the West End to be limited to 100 feet, that those of us from SW 12th Avenue didn’t get sufficient consideration of our health, safety, air quality and other resiliency concerns.

Frontline for Worst Air Quality

Residents in the low-income buildings (both subsidized and market rate)  that populate much of SW 12th   Ave. are downtown’s buffer to the worst of the air and noise pollution from I-405. And that’s some of the worst in the nation—see Figure 1.

This Toxicity Index Covers airborne cancer risk, respiratory hazards and lead exposure. Adjacent Census Tracts have same rating. Source USEPA EJ Screen and Upstream Research.

 

Urban Greenway

So, I am asking you to consider a new design for SW 12th Ave from SW Montgomery to West Burnside—one that better fits the original proposal from Portland Bureau of Transportation. That proposal was to make SW 12th the Urban Greenway my neighbors and I deserve to better protect our health!

I was puzzled about what happened to that Urban Greenway–until investigative journalists Jonathan Maus of Bike Portland and Sarah Mirk of Portland Mercury explained how West End business owners and Portland Business Alliance got the project nixed.

  • Checking in on the SW 12th Avenue project  Maus explains how a letter from these scions of the Portland business community with property in the West End wrote a letter demanding a study:
      • John Underhill – Jake’s Restaurant
      • Jordan Menashe – Menashe Properties
      • Greg Goodman – City Center Parking
      • Christopher Robbins – McMenamin’s
      • Steve Roselli – Harsch Investment
      • Brian Wilson – Kalberer Companies
      • Don Singer – Singer Properties
      • Mark Edlen – Gerding Edlen
      • Alix Nathan – Mark Spencer Hotel Block
  • Businesses Protest Planned Downtown Bike Lane  “At the heart of this issue is how businesses view bikes in the central city” writes Mirk.

Both of these articles focus mostly on the bike lane, rather than the Greenway. But the Greenway would address the needs of a far broader spectrum of people. It would also contribute far more to livability and urban biodiversity.

Re-Design for Climate Justice

I want you to consider adding to CC2035’s Transportation System Plan–and to subsequent street plans–an improved version of this crude version I did on Streetmix.

The three motor vehicle travel lanes would be necked down to a single “Sharrow” for motorized and non-motorized vehicles.  I keep parking lanes on both sides of the street  to help the churches and businesses losing parking when the surface parking lots that dominate the street are re-developed. Planting strips are my stand in for stormwater planter basins that will filter stormwater using native plants. Some, but not all, parklets could be “Street Seats” (a PBOT program) for restaurants. In any case, they would only take up part of each block. The rest of the space would be devoted to stormwater planters, bike corrals, and bike or scooter share facilities. New buildings would vary in height up to 15 stories+. Where a curb cut for a loading dock or garage or underground utilities take up a tree space, green walls will be required up the first 10 stories of the building. All of this would contribute to renewed health–for residents, for businesses and for the environment.

My plan assumes that you will keep the ecoroof requirement in CC 2035 that I myself and others worked so hard to get into that policy. One of my advocacy groups put out a distress call that you may be planning to eliminate it.

In the name of climate justice and equity, I’m asking you to put the SW 12th Avenue Urban Greenway back into CC 2035. Please bring it back to protect those of us on the frontline of pollution. THANK YOU!

Slow Street/Safe Street

We realize full design and implementation may take awhile.  So, please make SW 12th a Slow Street/Safe Street by necking it down to one lane throughout its length–along the lines of the image above. One lane has been done many times in the past six years for two-block segments due to construction. There has been little to no impact on motor vehicle traffic.  A SLOW STREET now will make a great Tactical Urbanism approach to ultimately achieving the URBAN GREENWAY that SW 12th Avenue residents deserve.

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Mary Vogel, CNU-A/PlanGreen consults on climate resiliency and climate justice and is co-founder of Portland, OR Small Developer Alliance, a group related to CNU and the Incremental Development Alliance. She welcomes your response to this blog.

End Treeless Asphalt Deserts Downtown

Central City 2035 Key Element

Last year, as part of its Comprehensive Plan update process, Portland City Council passed CC 2035, an updated plan for the central city. The Key Elements of this plan give interested residents strong footing to address the surface parking lots in downtown’s West End as the fourth key element is:  4. Redevelopment. Encourage new development on surface parking lots and vacant lots..

Surface parking lot owners have negatively impacted the health and well-being of  downtown residents for far too long. Besides the noise and air pollution that they bring to their neighbors these treeless asphalt deserts are more than 10 degrees hotter than surrounding areas. When it’s 105 degrees and smoky, walking by them for block after block is nearly unbearable–especially for the many downtown residents who use canes and walkers.  Take a look at what I’m talking about–bearing in mind that this is DOWNTOWN Portland. . .

SW 12th & Main looking north

Image 1 Treeless asphalt desert SW12th and Main looking north towards Salmon St. The tree on the right is a highly invasive Ailanthus that has since been removed.–leaving residents of the Pinecone Apartments with no shade from the southwest sun. Photo by PlanGreen.

SW 12th & Salmon looking southwest

Image2. Treeless asphalt desert SW12th and Salmon looking southwest with First Unitarian Church in background. Photo by PlanGreen.

SW 12th & Taylor looking northeast

Image 3. Treeless asphalt desert, SW12th and Taylor St. looking northeast to Morrison St where there are two food carts. Photo by PlanGreen.

Image 4. SW 12th and Washington St. is the only lot that has a development proposal, 11 West–submitted by the owners of the lot and their development partners. Photo by PlanGreen.

SW 11th and Main St looking west

Image 5. SW 11th and Main St looking west with First Unitarian Church in the background. The church occupies the whole block and has four historic Hawthorne trees in front of Eliot Chapel. Photo by PlanGreen.

SW Main St. and Park Ave. looking west

Image 6. SW Main St. and Park Ave. Three half block treeless asphalt deserts in a row looking west up SW Main. Photo by PlanGreen.

SW 10th and Main

Image 7. SW 10th and Main St. looking north. Note the Museum Parking sign, the only hint that this lot is owned by Portland Art Museum although the Early Bird sign makes one think its City Center Parking. Photo by PlanGreen.

You might believe that with current real estate values, they will all be developed soon. But throughout the central city building boom in Portland, this hasn’t happened. In fact, Portland Art Museum’s lot depicted in Images 6 and 7 has been a surface parking lot for 88 years!

In August of 2017, commercial real estate consultant, Brian Owendoff explained to a Portland State University Real Estate class his opinion on why there will be little movement:

1. Land Price too high: very tough to make an apartment or office tower economically viable @ $600 SF for land cost.
2. The Inclusionary Zoning requirement reduces net operating income by 10%, more or less, making apartment development not economically viable.
3. Construction costs are very high due in large part to labor shortages.
All three result in project returns below what is acceptable for institutional investment or third party construction debt.

Some Solutions 

Except for the fact that some of the owners of the lots (the Goodmans, the Schnitzers and Portland Art Museum) also have the capacity to develop them, Owendoff’s market-based explanation may help explain why we’ve seen no redevelopment of the treeless asphalt deserts during the building boom.. But we can change “the market”!!!  I have long suggested as a solution to this problem: the City of Portland should TAX LAND AT A HIGHER RATE THAN BUILDINGS.  By taxing land at or near its development potential, owners of land that is used at less than maximum productivity–e.g.,surface parking lots–would be paying a disproportionate amount in taxes in order to keep it that way. See Land Value Tax for Downtown Portland.

Meanwhile, we could require that surface parking lots, while they remain, take a page from Ecotrust parking lot. Owners must install trees and bioswales that manage ALL stormwater onsite. They could even become fun places to hold events.     

Ecotrust Parking Lot on NW 10th

Ecotrust parking lot is enclosed on two sides by trees and mostly native shrubs and wildflowers. The surface is porous pavers. Its a delightful place to hold events, Photo: Green Hammer 

Let’s demand more from downtown Portland’s surface parking lot owners. Tell City Council that it’s not fair to downtown residents and visitors that owners of surface parking lots help destroy our air and water quality–not to mention temperature and aesthetic quality–with such impunity. You can help end treeless asphalt deserts by developing a vision for what you’d like to see on one of them. Then get your vision out via mainstream and social media. Call the owner and present it to them too. Grab a space on City Council’s agenda and present your vision. And watch for my vision for the Portland Art Museum lot soon!

Published July 9, 2019. Adapted from CC2035 Testimony of Mary Vogel/PlanGreen Sept. 7, 2017

Sustainable Stormwater Management by Tom Liptan

Sustainable Stormwater Management – a Review

March 8, 2018

Sustainable Stormwater Management: A Landscape-Driven Approach to Planning and Design

Sustainable Stormwater Management: A Landscape Driven Approach to Planning and Design

Preview the book at Timer Press: http://www.timberpress.com/books/sustainable_stormwater_management/liptan/9781604694864

by Thomas Liptan, with writer David Santan, Jr

strikes an optimistic note about the future of our cities in an era of climate change:

Indeed, the cities of the future will be garden cities. Not for aesthetics, though beauty will follow as a by-product, but for the energy savings, water management, shelter from extreme heat and precipitation, noise buffers, and perhaps most importantly the habitat and urban wildlife these plants will support. Our cities will come alive with people, plants, and creatures thriving in interdependent coexistences” (p252)

Primary author, Tom Liptan, is hoping to change the nature of urban design itself.  As a sustainable cities advocate, such change is a vision that I share.

Liptan adds yet another term to the sustainable stormwater management lexicon: landscape stormwater management. No American city has implemented more of these LSM approaches than Portland, Oregon (where they both live—as does this reviewer). Portland has roughly 7,000 green stormwater facilities in place—including a few in its downtown! They not only manage stormwater, they “conserve water and energy, reduce urban heat island effect and thermal gain in waterways, recharge groundwater supplies, create habitat and support biodiversity, buffer noise, and provide a healthier, more adaptive, more resilient infrastructure”(p18). I will add that they make a walk or bike ride more pleasant and interesting and they are cheaper and more effective than pipes as well!

Tabor 2 River Green Street

This Green Street planter at SE 41st & Clay is one of Portland’s 7,000 landscape stormwater facilities. The Tabor to the River project where this street lies https://www.portlandoregon.gov/bes/47591 saved the city $63M and added multiple benefits. Image by PlanGreen, taken Winter 2018.

I first met primary author, landscape architect, Tom Liptan, in the early 90’s when he gave a presentation for a local builders group on green roofs in Europe. He issued a call for us to start applying green roof technology in Portland. Ultimately, Liptan became the Ecoroof Technical Manager in the Sustainable Stormwater Division of the City’s Bureau of Environmental Services (BES). Today we participate together  in Portland’s Green Roof Info Thinktank (GRIT). He and I were early advocates for restoring Portland area streams—a movement that gave impetus to the practices in this book.

This book is not just about Portland and its 7,000 LSM facilities. It’s about a design philosophy that puts the water in the landscape rather than storm drains and pipes. And it uses examples of LSM design from all over the world. Although it has lots of information you’d find in a manual: site assessment, site design, construction, inspection, cost considerations, operations and maintenance—it’s style and unusual organization makes it far more interesting than most manuals or handbooks.

As a professional who has long-criticized gizmo green, I appreciate Liptan’s statement that “a good designer relies on principles of design rather than products.” He won my heart when he exhorts us to “look first to native materials and natural systems” and employ “Design with native plants first and foremost.” It’s not immediately apparent to me that many designers in Portland actually do that—so Liptan and I have a lot more exhorting to do. I’m hoping this book and my review will help.

Sustainable Stormwater Management is organized into two major sections: Landscape Stormwater Design: Water Management from a Landscape Architectural Perspective and Landscape Stormwater Management: Vegetative Approaches to Water Management. The four chapters of the first section cover guiding principles, economics, policy and politics and something of an exhortation to the landscape architecture profession that Liptan sees as the potential leaders of this movement.

It is true that landscape architects have a jealously-guarded stranglehold over specifying plants in commercial facilities in Oregon. As a streams and natural areas restoration volunteer and native plant/ecology focused tour leader, I throw up my hands about this stranglehold every time I examine a rain garden or stormwater planter facility in Portland and see mostly over-used, alien ornamental species—some of which are invasive elsewhere. And I’ve spent much time reporting deliberately planted INVASIVE species in the past.

I now advocate that only those trained (formally or informally) in ecological restoration be allowed to design Portland’s stormwater facilities. (Just like most architects get little training in urban design, most landscape architects get little training in plants before they get their credentials—though the latter seems to be a more tightly kept secret.) Liptan admits this later in the book: Addressing the engineering, architecture and landscape architecture disciplines: “Water, soil and plants as stormwater management elements are new territory and we all have a lot to learn”(p249). “Good designers are not born but educated. . .Better education for designers and city review staff can reduce the waste of money and space.” (p250) Portland would do well to reward and learn from those of us who agree with Liptan.

The far longer second section, Landscape Stormwater Management: Vegetative Approaches to Water Management, has most of the data, tables, rules of thumb and cautions that you might find in a manual. But, with its pleas for further research, rallying cries for creative approaches, page-after-page of captioned photos and its call to design with nature using native materials, this book goes beyond a manual.

Sandy Boulevard Rain Garden

Sandy Boulevard Green Street Rain Garden in Hollywood Neighborhood of Portland. Image by PlanGreen.

Chapter 5—Water-Accepting Landscapes—is the chapter that covers Rain Gardens and Stormwater Planters, Green Streets, and Rainwater Harvesting amongst other topics. Liptan barely uses the term bioswale conceding that it is like a long rain garden. Rather he distinguishes between rain gardens with their sloped sides and planters with their vertical structural sides. Besides that there are three types of either system: 1) infiltration landscapes, 2) partial infiltration landscapes, and 3) flow-through landscapes.

Although Liptan devotes only a half page of text under the heading “Green Street” he does have ten pages with captioned photos of green streets.   The reader can find more green street commentary in his discussions of Nashville’s Deaderick Street, Seattle’s SEA Street, Ballard (Seattle) Roadside Rain Garden Project, Portland’s Tabor to the River, Halsey Green Street and Headwaters at Tryon Creek projects. In fact much of the latter half of Chapter 5 on Site Design is devoted to making green streets work better—covering such areas as site assessment, sizing, directing flows, plantings and soils, construction, plumbing, cost considerations and operations and maintenance (O&M). (Although I understand “The intent is to focus on the outcome of the approach rather than a specific type of implementation. . .,” I found this organization a bit confusing.)

I’ve long been impressed by Tom Liptan’s minimalist approach: “The ideal LSM design should never need irrigation, pruning, or fertilization.” He cautions that O&M plans must state explicitly how plantings should be managed, otherwise most landscape contractors will default to their standard approach: “Spray it, soak it, mow it, blow it away.” Ninety percent of street planters in Portland are not irrigated—resulting in huge O&M savings. (However, as a Green Street Steward in downtown Portland, last summer I was begging nearby retailers to water the downtown planters I steward so that they wouldn’t lose any more plants.)

Most of Chapter 6—Vegetative (Living) Cover of Impervious Surfaces—is devoted to what Portland

Central Library Ecoroof in downtown Portland

Central Library Ecoroof in downtown Portland. Image courtesy of Timber Press.

calls ecoroofs, with Liptan using the more generalized term “vegetative roofs” to appeal to a wider audience. However he moves through vegetative walls, vegetative planters, trees, and vines before returning to research on vegetative roofs and then to their design.

He is again minimalist: Simpler vegetative roof designs found in Europe are “as good or better than most North American designs.” I would be disappointed if I didn’t see the Red Cinder Ecoroof design that Liptan developed in Portland. It’s comprised of a moisture mat, soil, and sedums planted in red cinder mulch. It’s low cost, low-maintenance, self-sustaining with no irrigation and adaptable to any roof or membrane system AND it protects the roof membrane, manages stormwater and creates habitat. “The sedums with the red cinder retard colonization by other plants for many years,” maintains Liptan.   Some additional recommendations he makes for vegetative roofs: 1) some kind of mineral mulch if not red cinder—for both moisture retention and shading the soil; 2) integrate solar panels on your roof so the plants can benefit from the shade; 3) manage solar reflections on vegetation where possible—one solution is to cover dead plants with a thin layer of rock to protect the soil and perhaps allow some plants to return.

Tanner Springs Park

Tanner Springs Park doesn’t really daylight Tanner Creek, just replicates such daylighting. But the nearby nature it brings in is great for education. Image by PlanGreen.

Chapter 7 asks the reader to think about how much impervious surface we really need then moves on to discussing porous pavement, depaving and stream daylighting. Liptan sees a bright future for buried creeks to reappear in our cities proclaiming that “A daylighted stream can be the nexus for the dramatic green transformation of an entire neighborhood.” Both the daylighting and depaving movements have been led for many years by unpaid volunteers who have formed non-profits and enlisted more volunteers to get the work done. I’m glad to see Liptan exhorting design professionals to do more in this arena.

Liptan’s is a captivating vision for change in the way we design/re-design our cities. I hope more designers and advocates too will take to heart a fragment from the book that is going up on my bathroom mirror: “…the door to creativity stands open. Enter unencumbered by the boxes of conformity, and be amazed.”

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Mary Vogel is a CNU accredited planner and founder of PlanGreen, a Woman Business Enterprise in Portland, OR that has paddled upstream for years to bring ecosystem services to excellent urban design. After achieving on-the-ground restorations and some important policy accomplishments in several of Portland’s and the region’s long-range plans pro bono, she would like to get paid work—perhaps outside of Oregon where she can best use her skills.

Toward Implementation of Green Infrastructure in Japan

Jan. 22, 2018

In this presentation I review the paper “Toward Implementation of Green Infrastructure in Japan Through the Examination of the City of Portland’s Green Infrastructure Projects” by Takanori Fukuoka and Sadahisa Kato. I add to the authors’ three recommendations with three recommendations of my own based upon my knowledge of Portland’s green infrastructure. The paper was originally published in the Journal of the Japanese Institute of Landscape Architecture.

Dr. Vivek Shandas and I received an email from Sadahisa Kato that read: “Tak and I are in the center of the Japanese GI movement. We’ve been trying hard to connect academics, industry people (developers), and policy makers. We are seeing more and more public symposiums on GI. We’ve also published the first comprehensive GI book, filled with case studies– together with 40 authors.

Fukuoka and Kato first set the historical context by examining some of the federal and local events that led Portland to undertake such a wide-ranging green infrastructure program. The history included the federal Clean Water Act of 1972, the development of US Environmental Protection Agency’s Low Impact Development program in the 90’s, and EPA’s Innovative Wet Weather Grants in 2005. At the local level, the history included the Combined Sewer Overflow lawsuit in 1991, the creation of Bureau of Environmental Services Sustainable Stormwater Division in 2002, Water Quality Friendly Streets in 2003, the Watershed Management Plan in 2006 and the Grey to Green Initiative in 2008. They do not list the National Invasive Species Act of 1973 nor the listing of various species of salmon in 1998 that were further impetus for Portland’s program.

Their Case Study Research is based upon Interviews, Discussion, Site Visits, and Categorization. Their categorization is based upon project types, project information, managed stormwater areas, implemented stormwater tools and environmental benefits from the projects.

The ten sites Fukuoka and Kato categorized based upon the previously mentioned criteria are viewable in the above list.  This is a good mix of relatively old and new facilities of various types.

The green street benefits the authors chose to emphasize are viewable above.

This is one of three photos included in the paper: a flow-through planter at the west edge of the PSU campus. The plant in the foreground (lower left corner) is Nandina (aka Heavenly bamboo). When I first returned to Portland in 2007, the City had been planting it in nearly all GS facilities. I asked them over and over again to STOP this practice as the plant is invasive from Washington, DC to Florida—and possibly soon here. I haven’t seen any recent GS plantings of Nandina by the City, so someone may have listened.

This rain garden green street facility is set back from the street in a location that had empty space because of the street configuration. Rain gardens often add a park-like quality to these leftover spaces—in addition to filtering stormwater.

This photo shows one of Portland’s earliest green roofs—located on the Multnomah County Headquarters Building. Plant selection criteria included adaptability to roof conditions, ecological function, local availability, drought tolerance, seasonal interest, aesthetics, and maintenance requirements. I hope that habitat for native species and biological diversity are part of ecological function.  Ekorufu is the Japanese spelling for Ecoroof—a word popularized by the City of Portland.

Fukuoka and Kato Recommendation One for Japan: For each planning, design, construction and management phase:  1. Use multi-departmental teams AND 2. Stress flexibility and cooperation.

Fukuoka and Kato Recommendation Two: Plan and design for: A stormwater management manual defining criteria for sustainable stormwater management for new development and redevelopment, public and private AND A series of stormwater management manuals with a wealth of illustrations and examples from Portland, with a focus on: Architecture; Construction outside of the site; and References in urban scale

I was somewhat relieved that illustrations and examples from Portland did not include PLANTS although I would have liked to see more discussion of plants in the paper

Fukuoka and Kato Recommendation Three: Actively promote: Grants for pilot projects with a focus on public facilities AND An aggressive subsidies menu which also targets private business.

I first summarize my recommendations to Japan

  1. Focus on mimicking nature, not slick design
  2. Consider focus on NATIVE PLANTS to create biodiversity
  3. Consider using fungi to capture toxins

My Recommendation #1:  To focus on mimicking nature—not slick design, stress the need for designers—both municipality-employed and consultant—to have training in: ecological restoration; native plant horticulture and perhaps even a bonus for mycoremediation –using fungi to take up toxins…

Before today when most facilities are done in-house, Portland geared its Requests for Proposals to landscape architecture and civil engineering firms rather than ecological restoration firms when it sought consultants. The private sector still does.  The City’s in-house staff does not necessarily have such training either.

My Recommendation #2: Consider More Focus on Native Plants to Create Biodiversity

While the authors mention the creation of biodiversity as a function of Green Streets, they don’t address plant species—a vital part of creating biodiversity. In another paper, Sada says “These scattered green spaces, “bits of nature,” even if they are not connected, can increase the overall habitat quality of the urban matrix.”

YES! Green Streets CAN increase the overall habitat quality of the urban matrix, but only if they are designed to do so by professionals who know ecological restoration. I’ve been fighting for years to get Portland to use only NATIVE plant species. Native plants are the base of the food chain because the larvae of many native insects need native plants to develop. Insects are in turn the base of the food chain for birds and other native wildlife. This slide of a Green Street on East Burnside does show largely native plants.

Yellow flag iris was first planted in the stormwater planters on the opposite side of the plaza from what’s shown here at South Waterfront—a private passageway, but subsidized and approved by the City of Portland. After much effort on my part over a couple of years, they were finally removed, but not before much damage was done. I recently discovered that they have volunteered in this planter across the way, so it’s still there. The sunny area in the background of the first slide is the Willamette River. With the river so close by, you can see why Iris pseudacorus has now shown up at the mouth of tributary streams like Tryon and Stevens Creeks and tributary rivers like the Clackamas and Tualatin Rivers. There it degrades fish habitat and bird nesting and rearing sites.

Portland now has Iris pseudacorus on its invasive list, BUT it lists Iris ensata as an alternative—a plant ranked as an invasive by USDA so it is NOT an appropriate alternative, even if not yet invasive in Oregon. Multiple species of Cotoneaster are listed as invasive by the California Invasive Plant Council. It seems irresponsible to approve the planting of ANY species of Cotoneaster (the plant in the foreground of the photo on the right) on a major flyway like the Willamette River.

My Recommendation 3: Consider Using Fungi to Take Up Toxins and Improve Soil

Portland Green Streets currently need their top layer of soil removed and replaced periodically to stay permeable and also so that toxins they accumulate will not kill plants. Japan might consider some pilot projects in mycoremediation—as some mushroom and fungal species can both transform the toxins captured while keeping tilth in the soil. The photo shows fungal mycelia decomposing twine made of wood fibers. Those same mycelia can do a great job of decomposing polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and other toxins from motor vehicles as well—even heavy metals. I have written about mycoremediation research—including Washington County, Oregon’s Clean Water Services on my blog: PlanGreen.net/blog. Look for mycoremediation blogs from May 2015 to Aug 2015.

Portland has much that is great in its green infrastructure efforts. But many of its 1900+ Green Streets could do much better at increasing habitat and biodiversity through the use of native plants–and perhaps mycoremediation. It is my hope that Japan will show us how by putting biodiversity front and center in its GI program as both preserving biodiversity and installing/protecting green infrastructure are crucial to addressing climate change—and keeping snow on these two iconic peaks. I also hope that those students in Portland viewing this video will someday take over the bureaucracy and work to change the issues this presentation points out.

Toronto’s Regent Park Explored

October 20, 2015

For those of us on the Greater Portland Inc. Sept. 27-30 Best Management Practices tour choosing the Regent Park Revitalization, doubtless, the most animated and enthusiastic speaker we encountered on the trip was Mitchell Kosny.  Kosny is Associate Director of the Ryerson University School of Urban and Regional Planning and a former Chair of the Board of Directors at Toronto Community Housing Corporation during the ‘roll-out’ of Regent Park revitalization.  Unfortunately, Dr. Kosny may not have realized two things: 1) We had spent the earlier part of the day sitting in meetings and were ready for a tour; 2) We were from the Pacific Northwest and therefore comfortable with rain.  I knew Regent Park to be just a few blocks down the street from Ryerson.  So, after nearly an hour sitting in Dr. Kosny’s PowerPoint lecture when he expressed doubt about doing a tour in the rain, , , I set off on my own tour.

RegentParkLocationMap

Regent Park is directly east of Ryerson University and very close to the rest of downtown. Image courtesy of UoT student paper: http://www.torontohousing.ca/webfm_send/11574

Regent Park Twin Towers

Regent Park identical towers. One is market rate, one is subsidized. Photo by PlanGreen

Regent Park is being redeveloped in five phases with three of those phases currently underway. A key tenet of the revitalization is including both rent-geared-to-income and market rate units together in the same community. I could guess which was the market rate building because I was there at rush hour when a number of young people were coming home from work and others were leaving to walk their dogs.

When the Regent Park revitalization is completed over the next 10 to 15 years, 12,500 people will live in 5,115 units across 69 acres of the largest publicly funded community in Canada. The plan includes the replacement of the 2,083 existing social housing units in Regent Park with new, energy efficient, modern units and the introduction of approximately 3,000 market units for sale.

Regent Park Sign

Regent Park is both the name of a park and a neighborhood that is re-branding itself. The park is separate from the athletic fields, but does have a community garden at one edge and an aquatic center at another. Photo by PlanGreen

I was happy to see that Regent Park actually has a park!  It’s a large park that is separate from the athletic fields that are currently under construction.  There’s a separate dog park too!  A community garden at one edge of the park is the front yard of many people who live in high rise housing.

Regent Park Community Garden

A community garden at one edge of Regent Park is close to much high density housing. Photo by PlanGreen

The architecture of the new buildings is a departure from the red brick of social housing projects.  Although there are some townhouses too, I was a bit surprised by the focus on high-rise housing, considering the bad rep that got with Cabrini Green and Pruitt Igo iin the US. However, Toronto seems to have a long history of housing its poor in high rise housing,.  Another question I have about high rises has to do with resiliency.  Considering the era of increasing natural disasters we are in, most high rises will fare very poorly without power for even a week or two. With Toronto’s mandatory Green Roof Bylaw and its Green Standards policy, its new high rises may be in better shape than most to weather power outages.

The revitalization also reconnects Regent Park to Toronto’s grid of streets and avenues, and includes the creation of new commercial spaces and community facilities including a bank, grocery store, aquatic center, new community center, restaurant and an arts & cultural center.

Regent Park Aquatic Center

Regent Park Aquatic Center is a regional swim center that brings in folks from other neighborhoods too. Photo by PlanGreen

Regent Park Aquatic Center serves people from other neighborhoods as well. I spoke to a man from Leslieville neighborhood who was waiting in the park for his daughter who was using the swimming pool.

Daniels Spectrum Artspace

The Arts and Culture Centre with Paint Box condominiums atop it. is the center point of the cultural regeneration of the neighborhood. This 60,000 sf facility is home to seven arts and innovation non-profit organizations. Yes, intersections are often too wide to be truly comfortable to the pedestrian in Toronto. Photo by PlanGreen

The Arts and Culture Centre known officially  as Daniels Spectrum is seen as a center point of the neighborhood. (Daniels Corporation is the development company that partnered with Toronto Community Housing to build all five phases so they got naming rights to this key facility!)  This 60,000 square foot facility is home to seven arts and innovation non-profit organizations. As we have seen in the U.S., the arts can offer an exciting career path to children from all income classes so I see this center as vital to the revitalization efforts.  I saw lots of people coming and going during my brief observation.

RP Athletic Fields Administrative Office

The Phase 3 construction of athletic fields is underway, along with the construction of new streets. Photo by PlanGreen

Phase 3 is progressing with the development of the athletic fields and the addition of pedestrian-friendly streets connecting to other neighborhoods. Planners believed that because of its enclave-like street design, residents were cut off from the city, even though they lived a short streetcar ride from some of its most affluent neighbourhoods and greatest cultural attractions. More social and market housing  is also part of phase 3– with completion estimated to be 2018 .

RP The Bartholomew

A Daniels ad for The Bartholomew condominium community–a mix of high rise and row houses. Photo by PlanGreen

 

It bears repeating that a key tenet of the revitalization is including both subsidized and market rate units – together in the same community. Townhouse as well as high rise; rental as well as ownership opportunities are available.  This sign advertises suites from the $300.000s but I also saw from the $200,000s.

Another key tenet is access to employment.  Regent Park residents can get one-on-one help with job searching, local employment opportunities, career planning, education and training, and more.  The Regent Park Employment Plan has an ambitious agenda.

<img class="wp-image-990 size-full" src="http://plangreen.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/RP-Next-Phase-2.jpg" alt="RP – Next Phase" width="640" height="480" srcset="http://plangreen More about the author.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/RP-Next-Phase-2.jpg 640w, http://plangreen.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/RP-Next-Phase-2-300×225.jpg 300w, http://plangreen.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/RP-Next-Phase-2-624×468.jpg 624w” sizes=”(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px” />

These are typical units in the old social housing. Photo by PlanGreen

RP - No Loitering

This “No Loitering No Trespassing No Alcoholic Beverages sign hints at old problems the community is trying to overcome.  The sign also reminded me  that Regent Park had become synonymous with poverty, crime and unemployment. Photo by PlanGreen

Never one to avoid a challenge, I also spent some time exploring the older parts of Regent Park that have not yet been demolished.  I’m not sure during which phase this seemingly vacant building will come down–and with the rain, there was no one around to ask.  Any tenants who have to move because of construction get one year’s notice before demolition and five months’ notice before they have to move.

While Toronto’s version of the U.S. Hope VI program is impressive, like its counterpart in Portland, New Columbia, it has not solved all its problems.  There had been three fatal shootings in the neighborhood in 2010 that left even Regent Park’s supporters in doubt. TCHC maintains that by incorporating crime prevention best practices into the design of the buildings and public areas and by linking tenants to jobs and training opportunities, it is improving community safety.

In his talk, Dr. Kosny spoke about the green that is not seen.  One of those unseen aspects seems to be what Margaret Wente in The Globe and Mail calls “the most successful “normalization” project ever launched in Regent Park”:

. . . an all-encompassing program called Pathways to Education, which mentors and coaches secondary-school kids through graduation and beyond, and guarantees them a bursary if they graduate. (A big advantage, in my view, is that Regent Park has no secondary school, so the kids have no choice but to venture outside the ’hood.) Pathways connects them with the world and shows them how to navigate it.

Regent Park Is Greener

Regent Park Is Growing Greener Every Day reads this sign near the community garden. Photo by PlanGreen

Toronto-based journalist, Doug Saunders, in his book, The Arrival City, points to three things that are crucial for integrating immigrants into the middle class:  education, transportation and access to jobs.  Time will tell if Regent Park is doing all three well.  At the end of 2015, it appears to be headed in the right direction.

Where is Toronto’s Green Waterfront in 2015?

October 10, 2015  

Native plants at Don's Edge

All I could think when I looked down at the Don River mouth was “well, they are native plants at least!” Photo by PlanGreen

In 2007 when I wrote Greening Waterfront Development: Toronto, I was highly impressed with official plans for greening Toronto’s waterfront.  Our two day tour with Greater Portland Inc, had Waterfront Revitalization on the agenda, but we didn’t get to the area that I wanted to see–the re-naturalizing of the mouth of the Don River.

So after our debriefing on Sept. 30, I rented a bike at HI Toronto  and headed towards the Waterfront Trail then east towards the Don River. I wanted to document the progress Toronto had made in their plans to transform the mouth of this highly channelized river that I had written about in my 2007 article. I soon ran out of separated bike trail and plush new development and came to a channel with a short bridge over it.  With a bit of incredulity in my voice, I asked “Is THIS the mouth of the Don River?” of the fellow who turned out to be the drawbridge operator.

Don River Mouth and Drawbridge

I had already crossed this drawbridge when it opened for a barge carrying dredge materials. Photo by PlanGreen.

He assured me that it was. Then I asked “What about the re-naturalization they were going to be doing?”  He told me that volunteers had been doing some planting in the park down the way so I headed into the  industrial area along Villers Street making a first stop at a small public pier to capture the drawbridge opening. I was crestfallen to see the mouth of the river was still in its concrete channel and brown from sediment. Active dredging was still taking place.  In fact, the drawbridge was opening for a barge carrying dredge material upriver in what is called the Keating Channel.

I'm passionate about community ecological restoration efforts, but what I saw was not at the scale that needs to happen. Photo by PlanGreen

I’m passionate about community ecological restoration efforts, but what I saw was not at the scale that needs to happen. Photo by PlanGreen

I did find some native species and a sign corroborating what the drawbridge operator had told me. But the scale of the ecological restoration that needs to be done there came nowhere close to the scale of the earth moving and skyscraper building that is taking place nearby. In fact, it seemed to be the proverbial drop in the bucket.

I found it disappointing that any city with 180 towering cranes in its core area alone was not making equally fast progress with the ecological restoration of one of its major rivers. It leads me to ask what kind of public benefit is the City extracting from each of these developments?

Barging Dredge up the Don

I certainly hope that the planned restoration includes removal of this ramp along the Don River too. Photo by PlanGreen

Recommendations to re-naturalize the mouth of the Don River have been in existence since 1991.  According to a Wikipedia article on the Don: In 2007, the Toronto Waterfront Development Corporation (now WaterfrontToronto) held a design competition that looked at four different configurations for the mouth of the Don. The winning bid was made by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates.[16] The environmental assessment is expected to be complete in 2008 and construction is scheduled to begin in 2010.[17]  That Environmental Assessment was only passed by the province January 26, 2015–a 7 year lag!  This was not because of the economic “recession.”  We were told that did not phase Toronto.

MVVA Plan for Re-Naturalizing Mouth of the Don

This 2007 award-winning plan by Michael Van Valkenburg associates can be found here http://www.mvvainc.com/project.php?id=60–along with many other tantalizing images.

When I reviewed the plans by Michael Van Valkenburg Associates, I was reminded that Instead of creating naturalized banks along the straight course of the existing channel connecting the Don River with the lake, as was originally suggested in the project brief, MVVA’s design keeps the Keating Channel as an urban artifact and neighborhood amenity and creates a new mouth for the river that flows logically from the upstream source, bypassing the abrupt right turn created by the channel. A large new meandering riverfront park becomes the centerpiece of a new mixed-use neighborhood.

October 12, 2015

An interesting explanation for the delay of the re-naturalization of the Don River that I was expecting to see can be found in Planning Nature and the City: Toronto’s Lower Don River and Port Lands  by Gene Desfor and Jennifer Bonnell:

. . . in the fall of 2011 Mayor Rob Ford, his brother Councillor Doug Ford, their right-wing allies, and competing development agencies, attempted to hijack current waterfront planning processes and radically alter plans for the Port Lands. Those sympathetic to Mayor Ford’s vision see these lands primarily as a way to ease budget woes by selling prime waterfront property to international developers. As the Toronto Star editorialized, “The Fords’ ludicrous vision for the future – complete with a megamall, monorail and giant Ferris wheel – was so abysmal that a tide of Torontonians rose up in protest. Most city councillors broke with the mayor’s program and quashed the takeover [of Waterfront Toronto].”31 At the time of writing [no date provided], a political solution is being sought in which Waterfront Toronto, the City, and various special purpose government organizations are working to design a compromise between Ford’s “ludicrous vision” and the plan based on the MVVA proposal.

Don Lands Map

There are three distinct plans for revitalization around the Don River:: West Don Lands (pale plum), Lower Don Lands (lime green) and Portl Lands (turquoise blue and light turquoise). Map courtesy of Waterfront Toronto

According to Waterfront Toronto website, construction of the Lower Don Lands Plan and the Port Lands Plan is yet to come.  There is no mention of the above controversy on their site.

A Waterfront Toronto newsroom article announced that on July 14, 2015 it, along with federal, provincial and city government partners, came up with $5M to take the next steps on the proposal to naturalize the Don River:

The due diligence work being primarily undertaken by Waterfront Toronto will provide governments with additional assurance on the estimated $975 million cost of this project, which includes rerouting the Don River to the middle of the Port Lands between the Ship Channel and the Keating Channel, remediating the area’s contaminated soil, creating new parks, wetlands and resilient urban infrastructure that will remove the flooding risk, unlock a vast area for revitalization and development – including the creation of a new community called Villiers Island – and create billions of dollars of economic development opportunities.

New Precinct Map

These new precincts are estimated to bring $3.6 billion in value, 7,672 person years of employment and $346 million in tax revenues. First partners must reroute the Don River, remediate the area’s contaminated soil, and create new parks, wetlands and resilient urban infrastructure that will remove the flooding risk. Image courtesy of Waterfront Toronto

The first phase of this due diligence work is scheduled to be completed by November of this year [2015],  and “will enable government funding of the project by providing confirmation of the cost of the project, strategies to mitigate the risks associated with the project, and an implementation strategy.”

The project would be ready to start by 2017 and take approximately seven years to complete.  An independent study by PwC done for Waterfront Toronto in 2014 estimates that “the project will generate $3.6 billion in value to the Canadian economy, 7,672 person years of employment and $346 million in tax revenues to all levels of government.”

So, to answer the question my title asks, “Where is Toronto’s Green Waterfront in 2015?”–LOOK FOR IT IN 2024!  That estimate, of course, will depend upon continued economic progress–progress that seems a bit uncertain right now.

Mycoremediation: Testing Results In The Field

 

Jordan Weiss

Jordan Weiss demonstrating the mixing of myceliated Oyster mushroom straw at Dharma Rain Zen Center–photo by PlanGreen

August 6, 2015

When Jordan Weiss set out to use mushrooms to help clean up the soils and filter the water at the former landfill/brownfield site purchased by the Dharma Rain Zen Center (DRZC), he did so based upon the mycoremediation research of others such as Paul Stamets and his team at Fungi Perfecti.  He didn’t set up the effort as a research project.  He didn’t have funders to answer to as he volunteered his time and even many of the materials. He taught workshops that brought in the  volunteer labor from the Zen Center, the Oregon Mycological  Society and neighbors and friends.

Now, to take the project to the next level as a mycoremediation model for the Portland area, Jordan and others involved with the project, like myself, would like funding.  Funders always want  data–not just university lab data or even other people’s field data, but data from the project they are asked to fund.  I’m working with Jordan to figure out what baseline data is out there re: water quality and soils and what more data we need to collect to prove that mushrooms are removing toxins on this site and can do so throughout the Portland area.

DRZCSitePlanMap

This plan shows the rain garden (9) to the west of the meditation hall and the food garden (3) to the south–from Planting Zen, DRZC

 

Clean Soil to Garden Boxes

Soil testing revealed high levels of PAHs in the underlying soil so clean soil is being delivered for garden boxes–photo by PlanGreen

The Phase I Environmental Site Assessment for the DRZC site is of little help with regard to pollutants in water or stormwater. Essentially, its conclusion was: No analytical testing of shallow groundwater has been reported to ODEQ.  In the Phase II ESA, eight soil samples were tested in the area where the food garden is now.  High levels of PAHs were found in this soil, causing DRZC to build boxes and import clean soil for vegetable gardening.  The area where the raingarden is does not seem to have been tested.

Garden w/Berms

There are large berms (barely visible in the photo) at the north end of the garden where mycobags were placed on July 1, 2015–photo by PlanGreen

The best place to do future myco-remediation installations may be in the food garden area at the edges of the boxes since that soil had already been tested prior to any mycoremediation efforts, . After the mushrooms get established, DRZC and its partners could continue to test  the underlying soils for levels of PAHs.  The hypothesis is that the mushrooms and their mycelia will reduce or eliminate the PAHs.

PAHs (such as acenaphthylene’s, anthracene, benzo(g,h,i)perylene, fluorine, phenanthrene and pyrene) are listed by the EPA as possible carcinogens and maximum allowable standards are set for them.

BES Water Quality Chart

BES Water Quality Chart from Appendix A of 2008 Stormwater Management Facility Monitoring Report

We will want to do stormwater testing too.  The Portland Bureau of Environmental Services (BES) Stormwater Management Facility Monitoring Reports for both 2008 and 2010 tell us what water quality data BES monitors for in its stormwater facilities. From the chart in the Appendix of the 2008 report, we see that they monitor for oil,  grease, E. coli, metals, total phosphorous and orthophosphate phosphorous, ammonia-nitrogen and nitrate nitrogen in water.

Here’s what they test in the sediments:

BES Sediment Testing Chart

HCID/TPH is a screen to determine the presence and type of petroleum products in the soil

That HCID/TPH is a way to screen for PAHs and other petroleum products in the soil.  We do know that BES also does separate soil sampling. Some of the latest soil sampling data¹ shows that E-coli and heavy oil levels were higher than the background soil sample sites located nearby–but outside of the stormwater facilities. Metal and PAH levels found in stormwater facilities were generally similar to those found in background sample soils.  While these results show that soils in green street stormwater facilities (bioswales, raingardens) are likely taking up E-coli and heavy oil from runoff that would otherwise go down a storm drain, we hope to show that with the use of mushrooms, soil results could be cleaner than the background samples in all categories tested: E-coli, heavy oil, metals and PAHs.

Raingarden Work Party

Since toxins in surface water was not found t be a problem, the largest source of future pollutants may be from runoff from the parking area in the background of this photo–by PlanGreen

 

Since the only water sampling that revealed toxins at DRZC was the seep in the northeast corner of the site², our approach for monitoring the raingarden could start with the first rains of Fall 2015.  We would largely be monitoring for pollutants from the parking area west of the raingarden. Parking lots are well-known for contaminating stormwater with PAHs when it rains.

Jared Kinnear

Jared Kinnear, Recycled Water Program Manager at Clean Water Services–photo by PlanGreen

The Portland area is fortunate to have a second mycoremediation project underway in our region. In July 2015, I set up a meeting with Clean Water Services  Jared Kinnear and Pacific University toxicology professor Deke Gunderson to learn from their project to test mushrooms for cleaning street sweepings.  They hope to get the street sweepings–what appears to be the compost I buy in bags at Ace Hardware– to the point that it is judged safe for farmers’ fields.  They set up their project in conjunction with Fungi Perfecti which provided both the protocols and the mycelium inoculated wood chips for the research.

The project has evolved from what was originally conceived.  Because of time and labor constraints and the preliminary results, the project was modified from the original one that would have tested five species of fungi to just testing Stropharia rugoso annulata (King stropharia) and Pleurotus ostreatus (Oyster mushroom).  Then it was narrowed down again when the researchers found that the oyster mycelium stayed on the wood chips rather than spreading throughout the mixture of wood chips and street sweepings.

King Stropharia with a small portion of its mycelium

King Stropharia with a small portion of its mycelium growing at DRZC–photo by PlanGreen

So they are now testing the ability of King stropharia mycelium to eliminate polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) or at least reduce them to a level that they are safe to spread on farm fields.  The levels of PAHs are tested on a chromatograph at Pacific University. Since once the inoculated wood chips were added to the street sweepings, the levels of PAHs were so low that they were difficult to fully measure, the team decided to spike the experimental samples with PAHs in order to measure the effectiveness of the mushrooms.

Hailey Jongeward and Prof. Deke Gunderson

Hailey Jongeward and Professor Deke Gunderson in discussion over a box of street sweeping material–photo by PlanGreen

The EPA has recognized 7 PAHs as priority chemicals due to their persistence in the environment.³ The most common way to be exposed is by breathing contaminated air but exposure can also come from  eating contaminated food. While we were there we met one of Dr. Gunderson’s students ,Hailey Jongeward, who has since shared with me her PowerPoint report on the project.

“Of the 7 priority chemicals we found traces of all 7 in the starting material, increasing the importance of this project” she wrote.  Those chemicals are: acenaphthylene’s, anthracene, benzo(g,h,i)perylene, fluorine, phenanthrene and pyrene.

Street Sweepings box

This box of street sweepings is being colonized by mycelia that were added as spores on wood chips–photo by Hailey Jongeward

Street Sweeping Box 2

This box has greater colonization of mycelium throughout–photo by Hailey Jongeward

Hailey also shared the photos of the subject material to the right.  Boxes get different ratios of wood chips to spores so that may account for the difference in the two boxes.  Both show that the mycelium is spreading, but the lower one more than the upper one.  Hailey also told me she is working in partnership with fellow Pacific University students Jake Prevou and Natalie Kimura.

I believe that the monitoring of the Dharma Rain Zen Center project needs to take on some similar elements as the Clean Water Services project and monitor soils for reduction of PAHs.  It would also be useful to test the water flowing into and back out of the raingarden, but that may prove more difficult because it was not designed for doing such testing.  Our best bet may be one identified in the Phase II ESA: “a location south of the seep had water discharge from piping, which was traced to a stormwater surface drainage feature.”

It is exciting to be part of the initiation of a technology–or rather a protocol for utilizing an ecosystem service from the seen and unseen mysteries of the natural world.  As we enter an era of climate change, such services will become more and more critical for adapting to changes, mitigating the impacts and healing our past wounds to the earth.  I want my business, PlanGreen, to be at the forefront of utilizing the services that nature provides for free.

Please see my previous four posts on mycoremediation on http://plangreen.net/blog/.  You may want to FOLLOW this site for the latest news. And do post your comments and questions below.

UPDATE, Sept. 21, 2015 

Dharma Rain Zen Center started an Indiiegogo campaign http://igg.me/at/PlantingZen/x on Sept. 21, 2015 that allows you to contribute to their restoration and community building work.  Your dollars will be matched dollar for dollar.  I hope you will help if you can!

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¹Bureau of Environmental Services • City of Portland 2010 Stormwater Management Facility Monitoring Report

²Levels of arsenic slightly higher than allowed for drinking water standards was found in the northeast corner seep.

³See fact sheet on PAHs from the EPA Office of Solid Waste at http://www.epa.gov/osw/hazard/wastemin/minimize/factshts/pahs.pdf

Mycoremediation with “Spongy Parking Lots”

Aug 2, 2015

Portland’s Old Town China Town neighborhood has an abundance of surface parking lots.  In fact, it has far too many to be a vibrant neighborhood much less an expression of the eco-city that Portland purports to be.  I’ve joined with five other professional women to try to change that.  If we can’t see these central city lots immediately redeveloped to higher and better uses that house people and businesses, we at least want to see them become better parking lots–SPONGY PARKING LOTS.

Spongy Parking Lots Video image

Image borrowed from PDX Downtowner You Tube site.

My friend, Ruth Ann Barrett coined that term and even made a video about Spongy Parking Lots to share with her neighbors in Old Town/Chinatown.  She has friends who visit from California and she’s embarrassed to show them how much we waste water here in Portland.  When it rains, the water from those parking lots heats up and captures whatever pollutants vehicles leave behind on its way to the nearest storm sewer.  The surface parking lots are paved in asphalt and are major contributors to the urban heat island effect that raises the temperature as much as 10° over areas with open land and vegetation.  In turn, the extra heat increases the energy needed to cool interior spaces, and puts an extra strain on the grid by exacerbating peak energy loads and hence carbon footprint/climate change. It also contributes to smog formation adding even more public health impacts resulting from excessive outdoor temperature.

Spongy trail in an old growth forest. Photo by PlanGreen

Spongy trail in an old growth forest. Photo by PlanGreen

We’ll return to all that in a moment, but I first want you to remember walking on a trail in the woods where your feet just seemed to bounce on the earth beneath them.  That’s because that soil was kept porous and, yes, spongy, by the mycelium forming a thick mat that was turning wood to soil under your feet.  Those mycelium have fruiting bodies that we call mushrooms–which may or may not be visible during your walk.

Mycelium on log

The white stuff in this photo is mycelium. It will spread throughout the log and ultimately decompose it–creating spongy soil. Photo by PlanGreen.

That mycelium looks a bit like a very dense spider web criss-crossing to create quite a network.   It gets its nutrition by decomposing the cellulose in the log.  The ability of mycelium of mushrooms in the category of “white rot fungi”  to decompose cellulose is related to their ability to decompose numerous other substances as well: bacterial toxins such as e-coli and fecal coliform as well as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons(PAHs).  Research also shows their ability to transform  bunker fuel oil, explosives, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and organochlorine pesticides–substances we hope we won’t find in OTCT parking lots.

Ecotrust Parking Lot

Built in 2001, the parking lot at Ecotrust is an outstanding model of a “Spongy Parking Lot”. It probably even has a few mushrooms by now. Photo by PlanGreen

We do have models for Spongy Parking Lots nearby.  My favorite is at the Jean Vollum Natural Capital Center (aka Ecotrust) in the adjacent Pearl District neighborhood.  Often on a summer day, the cars are kicked out of this pleasant parking lot for an array of fairs, festivals and farmers’ markets.  If you enlarge this photo, you will see that the lot is paved with light colored porous pavers and that those trees are planted in bioswales that also hold an array of mostly native plants.  You will see that  the parking spaces drain into those bioswales. which are about 2.5 feet deep.  Not only do the soils and plants in  the bioswales infiltrate the water from the parking lot within 24 hours, they also cool the water and filter the pollutants that come from our vehicles and pets.

BES Sediment Testing Chart

HCID-TPH is a screen to determine the presence and type of petroleum products that may exist in water or soil. Table from BES 2010 Stormwater Monitoring Report referenced below.

What could be better?  Well, Portland monitors the effectiveness of its bioswales and some of the latest soil sampling data¹ shows that E-coli and heavy oil results were variable, but levels were higher than the background soil sample sites located nearby but outside of the stormwater facilities. Metal and PAH levels found in stormwater facilities were generally similar to those found in background sample soils.  While these results show that soils in bioswales are likely taking up E-coli and heavy oil from runoff that would otherwise go down a storm drain, soil results could be CLEANER THAN THE BACKGROUND SAMPLES in all categories tested: E-coli, heavy oil, metals and PAHs.  If mycelium running through the bioswale made the soil spongier and more absorbent and if those same mycelium could help the plants thrive by “eating” more of the pollutants, then I maintain we would have an even spongier parking lot.  A spongier parking lot could better utilize and clean the water running off it into bioswales.  As its trees and plants grow better with less pollutants in its soil, the spongier parking lot will decrease the urban heat island effect even more and become an important strategy for both mitigating and adapting to climate change.

I hope you will read my previous three short blogs on mycoremediation/mycofiltration (http://plangreen.net/blog) to better understand the technology I am proposing.  I plan one more mycoremediation blog on monitoring.

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¹Bureau of Environmental Services • City of Portland 2010 Stormwater Management Facility Monitoring Report