Sustainable City Series: Urban Gardening
Participation for this presentation was over 300, which is the highest number so far. Attendees were invited to an upcoming event on July 8, 2009 at 6pm called "Get Your Hands Dirty". Thirty raised beds are being built at 732 East Market.
Lauren Eberle, a professor at U of L who runs the Environmental Finance Center, introduced the speakers and briefly discussed the Brownfields Redevelopment in the Park Hill Corridor that has boundaries of 7th St, 22nd St, Broadway and Algonquin Parkway. She stressed that safe urban agriculture is especially important in that area which was once heavily industrial.
The first speaker was Wayne Long, Jefferson County Agricultural Agent and Office Coordinator. He gave a brief introduction to the extension offices, including some statistics. The Jefferson County Extension Office has the largest staff at 29.
In 2007, the Extension office took over the management and administrative duties of Community Gardens from Brightside. Some of the gardens now managed include the 7th Street Community Garden, which has 70 gardeners and 200 plots. Blackacre has 165 gardeners with 296 plots.
The Extension Office offers many services: 1. education, research, and outreach, 2. lab analysis, 3. basic soil analysis (the extension ofice cannot handle heavy metals, but several private firms can), 4. leaf tissue assays in plants, 5. and storm and ground water analysis.
The involvement of the Extension office is increasing. The local food economy in Louisville is tremendous. In fact, the available land for plots in community gardens has run out and the waiting list to get a plot is 2 years.
Sarah Fritschner, the Board President of Breaking New Grounds (BNG), showed a video about BNG. The organization began when Gary Heine wanted to use the coffee grounds Heine Bros was producing as a resource rather than a waste. He had been experimenting with vermiculture on his own so he tried feeding the worms the coffee grounds. They ate is, but it was a very slow process. After he introduced fruit and vegetable matter, they consumed it much more quickly.
He and others attended workshops in Milwaukee from Growing Power and "saw that their vision was possible." They started with a bin outside a Heine Bros store. Then the Earth & Spirit Center in the Highlands let them use a plot of land to build more bins.In April 2009 they moved the entire operation to 22nd and Woodlawn where they could compost as well as build garden plots.
Fritschner stressed that they have had the soil tested by the Extension Office and outside agencies and it is "almost pristine".
Mike O'Leary with the Clifton Community Council discussed the creation of a Community Garden in Clifton. The garden is on 1 out of 4 acres on Sacred Heart Village property. The neighborhood council had to convince the private property owners to allow them to place a garden at that location. Eventually they got approval, but they have to carry a 2 million liability policy.
The first structure built on the site was a "hoop house", or green house, then they built several raised pine beds. They asked for dirt from a neighborhood resident who was excavating to build a garage. They ended up with more dirt than they knew what to do with - not only the dirt they'd asked for, but several illegally dumped piles. Sacret Heart Village told them to fix it so they spread it over a nearby gravel lot. The downside is that you apparently cannot do that due to erosion and runoff regulations - they got in trouble with MSD. They were honest with MSD about the situation and ended up not being fined as long as they put in a "silk fence" and seeded the area, which they did. After all that work, construction workers building a new structure at Sacred Heart Village bulldozed the newly planted area so they could use it as a parking lot for their construction equipment.
They now have 22 active gardeners on the site. Each garden is 4 feet by 8 feet. They partnered with Youth Build Louisville to build the pine beds. They also have 3 active beehives, from which 25 pounds of honey was recently extracted.
Ann Carroll, from the US EPA Office of Brownfield & Land Revitalization, made it to the presentation at the last possible moment. Her first flight had been cancelled, so she arrived directly from the airport. At an audience member request, she first gave a definition of a Brownfield. She explained that it is defined more by what it isn't than what it is - basically it is a site that is not contaminated enough to fall under the Superfund.
There can be many contaminants at a Brownfield site, the most common are petroleum, lead, PAH & VOC, PCBs, and controlled substances like meth. Between 20%-30% of brownfields assessed have no contamination or below levels requiring cleanup. Public health impact of brownfields are cummulative due to delinquent activity, dumping, and pests.
She discussed lead contaminants in particular. Lead was used for many years in a lot of things like gas, paint, and pipes. Lead deposits near roads are generally higher than those further away from the roads. Children are more susceptible to lead exposure due to their smaller size, underdeveloped systems, and risky behavior like putting objects into their mouths.
She said that turning brownfields into community gardens is good for the community as long as the tests are run on the soil. An alternative to testing is to build on top of the soil in raised beds. Locally grown foods and urban agriculture minimizes cost, maximizes food safety, provides use for vacant lots, increases social benefits, and minimizes environmental impacts.
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