Toxins in coal-tar-based sealcoats in parking lots may be the culprit in contaminated house dust, according to a USGS study.
PAHs - or polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons
PAHs are large molecules found in oil, coal and tar deposits, and can have toxic effects. It's long been known that PAHs are often found in house dust; however, the specific sources of these PAHs are largely undetermined.
Researchers found that dust from indoor areas near parking lots with coal-tar-based sealcoat had substantially elevated concentrations of PAHs.
SOURCE: USGS at the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry
It can be done! One home at a time! Low impact family gardening makes a huge difference in our climate change strategy...and the health of our families:
Havana relies on 200 urban farms known as organoponicos
Cuba, on the brink of starvation when the Soviet Union collapsed 20 years ago, now produces 90% of its fruits and vegetable needs, using organic, low-tech inputs. The Cuban diet is healthier and uses 1/3 the energy to produce versus typical western food production.
Some of the plots are small - just a few rows of lettuces and radishes being grown in an old parking space.
Other
plots are much larger - the size of several football pitches. Usually
they have a stall next to them to sell the produce at relatively low
prices to local people.
Community development techniques -- both commercial and residential -- have a major impact on fresh water supplies and the surface and underground water system. Pavement is a big contributor to the problem. Now it can provide a solution.
Sustainable Solutions with Low Impact Development
L.I.D. is in. That's Low Impact Development, the standards by which the local ecosystem is minimally impacted by development, and water is preserved as a precious resource.
West coast microclimates are interesting. From rain soaked areas like San Anselmo, to rain starved areas like Bakersfield, each zone presents it own challenges for water issues. With each water challenge comes difficulties that municipalities, developers, and home-owners have to adapt to, and manage.
California Water Conservation Solutions
For example, water conservation is critical in California's central valley where each gallon of runoff can be a precious resource, if properly managed. Other areas of California offer surprising challenges -- such as Marin county, which is more like Portland, Oregon, which receives over 40 inches of rain a year.
LID offers workable solutions that developers and home-owners can implement to manage water issues whatever their situation -- dearth or deluge. Whether the issue is drought conditions or excessive runoff, sustainable water management is important to California.
Permeable Pavement allows water to rapidly pass through the pavement into a cistern or natural underground water supplies.
Modular Pavers Used in Hardscape Applications
Permeable pavement is a relatively new concept and product that reduces "impervious" surfaces from driveways, sidewalks and other hardscapes by allowing water to run through the pavement and back into the soil - not follow the hardscape to the street and eventually into our waterways. This solution retains more rainwater for our underground aquafers - but it also allows plants and the soil to filter pollutants out of the water naturally.
Permeable Pavers
One LID product that can provide solutions for water runoff and infiltration issues, large or small, is permeable pavers from Permapave Northwest.
Different from traditional concrete pavers, Permapave NW pavers have an actual flow-through rate of over 1 gallon of water per second. The pavers are manufactured from natural rock, with an acrylic polymer binder similar to the clear coat on your automobile. The finished product is a completely inert paver which returns water directly to the soil, or underground storage, without adding alkalinity, zinc or hydrocarbons to the runoff.
When permeable pavers are installed over properly prepared secondary filtration in the sub-grade, they will capture and filter 100% of gross pollutants and up to 70% phosphorus, 80% of heavy metals and 98% of hydrocarbons from the water that flows through them.
Residential Applications
Alleys, Driveways
Walkways
Patios
Camper Parking
High Traffic Grass Areas
Pools / Hot Tubs
Courtyard
Rooftops
Sidewalks / Pathways
Foundation Drainage
Commercial / Industrial Applications
Parking Areas
Pedestrian Walkway
Bike Path
Plaza / Entryway
Bioretention / Rain Garden
Rooftop
Tree Grates
Rooftops
Roadways / Median Strips
Large Public Spaces
Modular Permeable Pavers for Sustainable Landscaping
Modular pavers over an advantage over "poured" pervious pavement by allowing edges of permeable pavement to be installed in many locations - under downspouts, along sidewalks, along driveways, around trees, around rain gardens, and on or around patios.
Modular Pavers Used in Landscape Applications
Permapave NW pavers are available in a number of colors/aggregates to enhance building and landscaping aesthetics.
PermapaveNW's Permeable pavers come in a modular, 12x12x2" standard size, with widths up to 16" and thicknesses up to 4" for heavier vehicle loads.
The pavers, while extremely pervious, provide the hard surface needed for normal urban activities.
The surface not only performs well for sidewalks, biking paths, parking lots, and driveways but also handles water efficiently in both drought and flood conditions.
The EPA has long noted the benefits of pervious pavers, highlighting them in their Best Management Practices: "depending on the design, pervious pavements (pavers), when used in combination with other techniques such as vegetated swales, or vegetated filter strips, may eliminate or reduce the need for land intensive BMPs, such as dry extended detention or wet retention ponds." (EPA Best Management Practices- porous pavements)
Both residential and commercial developers may find that the use of pervious pavers, which can range up to $8 per square foot, can actually make money for them, by eliminating detention ponds and increasing the amount of land that can be developed.
Home-owners can install the easy-to-use permeable pavers themselves, providing drainage areas for driveway or patios that may be puddling, or as a pervious cover for an underground water storage cistern.
The pavers can also be used as stepping stones, in pet areas, in gardens, along walkways, as parking areas for RVs -- the landscaping possibilities are endless.
Some municipalities are offering rebates for the purchase of LID products like Permapave. Check with your local city or county city and county governments, as well as water providers (ie: Metropolitan Water District) to find incentives and rebates to improve water quality, reduce runoff, or retain stormwater.
Sustainable Solutions to Stormwater Runoff
Retaining rain water for your landscape can be especially helpful during California's prolonged droughts. By protecting your landscape with adequate water supplies from a cistern, and from focusing the available rain into specific rain gardens, your plants will not suffer as much - and your water bill will thank you, too!
Sample permeable pavers by Permapave Northwest
CONTACT:
Permapave Northwest
Distributor for Western US
1-877-694-0141
815 NE 172nd Ave
Vancouver, WA 98684 www.permapavenw.com
Simply
speaking, a green roof is a living roof. While green roof design has
its roots in ancient civilizations (think hanging gardens of Babylon),
as American cities have become more concerned about managing quantities
of stormwater runoff, air quality, and building heat transfer, large
modern green roofs have been appearing on commercial properties across
the country. Now, FLOWER ot the PEOPLE, Inc. has green roof solutions
specifically designed for Southern California private residences. Here
the Beverly Hills green roof at Greystone Manor Estate is still growing
strong more than two years after its installation. Succulent-covered
roofs, like the one at Greystone and the green roofs pictured here,
even provide a fire-retarding alternative to traditional shake or stone
roofs.
A
living roof provides superior energy efficiency for any building
(saving on energy costs), extends the life of the roof membrane, is
beautiful to look at, provides the local environment with beneficial
air-cleaning, cooling and storm water reduction, and promotes greater
biodiversity.
Green Roof Section View
1 roof flashing
2 EPDM waterproof membrane
3 root barrier
4 drainage mat
5 "L" sheet metal edge
6 1/2" pea gravel
7 nonwoven separation fabric
8 planting media
9 plants
10 gutter (optional)
It's delightful to discover a thriving treasure-- whether it is a garden or a business! Flower to the People is such a treasure right in my own community! Visit their website for a delightful array of garden designs that bring nature and sustainable gardening solutions to the urban landscape. Their "Exterior Design Portfolio" in particular is expansive and a bloomin' delight!
FLOWER to the PEOPLE is a sustainable exterior design and outdoor
lifestyle firm. Their residential and commercial clients rely
on them to create unique environmentally-friendly exterior spaces that
suit their contemporary lifestyles.
Containers are...and aren't... natural growing mediums for plants. That's a puzzling way to look at containers, but in nature, you find small containers such as a tree growing in a little pouch of soil on the side of a cliff, and you find watersheds which are really huge containers snuggled into the subsurface rocks of the earth's very infrastructure.
So...let's talk containers on a human scale.
Pots on a porch are the simplest form of container gardening. Then come larger potted trees indoors. And porch boxes to decorate Mediterranean windows and railings. And even larger concrete pots that are lavish planters for corporate entryways and shopping centers. And indoor gardens infused with water gardens and even waterfalls.
Containers are practical ways to bring living plants up and close to where we spend our time. And I'm assuming you've already heard that Americans spend as much as 95% of their time indoors...
Customized Container Gardens
A new trend in landscaping is to plant customized containers in their final location. Add professional skills to create professional results -- and reduce the amount of transportation and injury to plants as they are moved from distant growers to retailers to final destination landscapes.
Just plant them in place. What a novel idea!
The novelty is really that local nurseries can grow these pre-designed pots in their well-tended facilities and then move them in one piece, with specialized lifting equipment, of course, to their home without any transplanting, trimming or damage from poor care.
Container Gardening for Scale
A hanging basked just doesn't provide the scale necessary for today's larger buildings. Whether the third story loft apartment or the three story office building...or towering entryway to a MacMansion, larger plantings fit better.
Environmental Impact of Container Gardens
LARGER CONTAINTERS: A potential benefit of larger plantings is that larger, more mature plants also provide more greenhouse gas and clim ate change benefits. Mature trees provide more air filtration than saplings, so the larger the container and the longer-lived the trees and shrubs, the "greener" they can be.
Larger containers also hold moisture better than small containers. Less exposure to air reduces evaporation. Mulching containers with decorative rocks, bark or other natural materials can also reduce water use.
SPECIES SELECTION: Some species of plants provide more air filtation and less water use than others. And desert plants such as cacti also require less water use.
RECYCLED MATERIAL: The containers themselves can be manufactured with recycled content: crushed concrete, rubber tires, recycled glass, etc. can be mixed into the container materials to use some of the landfill materials that cause problems in the wider community.
Waste is the largest contributor to climate change -- be it wasted construction debris (C&D), used tires, wasted green materials that are put into landfills instead of composted back into the soil...or wasted water.
Many green solutions provide multiple benefits in this complex, interwoven world of ours. Recycled content is one of those multi-benefit solutions...and large container gardens are a perfect application to not only use recycled materials in a beautiful way, but use them to grow environmentally hard-working plants!
A recent discussion about composters on the GreenYes news group brought the following recommendations about composters.
In my experience, tumblers do not work as well as the manufacturer
would like you to think they do !
A couple of reasons, for composting
to really happen you need 4 basic needs; Brown (carbon), Green
(nitrogen), Water (40%- 60%) & Air. But you also need a strong back a
microorganisims. The tumblers is suspended in the air, with air flow
all around the bin - this tends to dry the compost out, you will need
to monitor and add water more often. I like the fact that a compost
pile directly on the ground is in contact with soil micro & macro
organisims, which play a huge role in the process of decomposition.
For composting to speed up or excellorate, you need enough material in
the mix (critical mass) to get the pile or microbs going (heat up -131
F- 150 F optimum). At those temperatures the organic material is broke
down very quickly, also plant pathogens and weed seed are distroyed in
the center of the pile. This heat is generated by the microbs
(thermophilic) that when comsume or break down a carbon molecule, it
releases that energy stored in that molecule. Along with heat they
respire water, which then dries the pile out further.
The other
problem that will be incountered is the dead weight. When you have 60
gallons of material in a drum, most of the weight will settle, this
tends to squeeze out air and all the weight is at the bottom. In order
to mix & aereate the pile or the bin, you have to tumble or get that
weight at the bottom of that pile, up to the top, several times to mix
thoroughly. This can weigh quite a bit and can be hard work. Not to
say turning a pile on the ground with a pitch fork is not hard, I just
find it difficult and more time consuming to monitor, maintain and a
rotate a tumbler.
...and opinion two:
Several years ago, when I worked for the County Extension Office, we established a
compost demonstration area with several types of home built and manufactured composting devices.
This included a tumbler.
As a general rule, the home built bins worked better and were easier to use than the manufactured
ones. We had more problems with the tumbler than any others.
Composting can be as simple as green manure in which you bury food scraps in the soil of a flower or veggie garden, or it can be a large, scientifically designed operation to handle leaves, hay and food scraps gathered from restaurants, etc.
Either way, a little experimenting helps. And asking questions at your local County Extension center can be enlightening. Many of these Department of Agriculture offices also offer instruction sheets and classes to help you get started. Just look up "agricultural extension agent" and your county on search engines to find your local office. They are located in every state (US), and in most counties. Large cities also have offices.
Southern
California Edison will install 250 megawatts of solar panels on 65
million square feet of roofs - that’s two square miles - of Southern
California commercial buildings at a cost of $875 million. That project
will be the nation’s largest solar cell installation.
Enough solar to
power 162,000 homes.
In the initial phase of the program, SoCal Edison
will lease 607,000 square feet of roof space at ProLogis’ Kaiser
Distribution Park in Fontana, California. The area will be used to
install and maintain solar panels with the potential to generate enough
electricity to power 1,426 households for one year.
At the conclusion of the start-up phase, which will include five to
10 additional installations and is expected to be completed by the end
of 2008, the utility will launch its full renewable energy project,
aiming to complete 50 megawatts of solar panel installations each year
for a total of 250 MW. Each individual installation is expected to
comprise one to two megawatts.
“I urge others to follow in their footsteps,” said Governor
Schwarzenegger. “If commercial buildings statewide partnered with
utilities to put this solar technology on their rooftops, it would set
off a huge wave of renewable energy growth.”
SCE hopes to have the first solar rooftops in service by August. The
company says it will install at the rate of one megawatt a week.
The program would give a big boost to California’s Million Solar
Roofs program and help SCE meet a state requirement to get 20 percent
of its energy from renewables by 2010.
Financing Solar Installations
Yesterday, Environmental Leader reported
that solar companies are becoming financial intermediaries, leading
companies to install solar power that wouldn’t otherwise be able to
afford it.
Using a “power-purchase agreement” model, many solar power companies
take on the cost of installing solar panels on customers’ roofs. In
return, customers pay the solar power company for the panels’ output,
generally at a lower rate than they would otherwise pay.
The power purchase model is also attracting bankers - Morgan
Stanley, G.E. Energy Financial Services, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo,
and MMA Renewable Ventures have all arranged financing for recent solar energy projects.
Besides the financing, state incentives and a federal investment tax
credit (worth up to 30 cents on the dollar) are also driving adoption.
Water sustains every community... from the most basic needs of its
citizens to the very lifeblood of the community's economic growth. In
both urban and rural areas across the U.S., water rights, allocation,
treatment, delivery, and supply issues are increasingly subject to
legislation and regulation. Frequently, measures are passed in reaction
to a crisis and without a comprehensive plan. As the focus on our water
resources increases, so does the need for equitable policy and
progressive water management practices.
The Irrigation Association® has developed Turf and Landscape Irrigation
Best Management Practices (BMPs) for policymakers and professionals who
must save and extend our water supply while protecting water quality.
Irrigation Best Practices
The five Turf and Landscape Irrigation Best Management Practices include:
Assure Overall Quality of the Irrigation System;
Distribution of Water;
Install the Irrigation System to Meet the Design Criteria;
Maintain the Irrigation System for Optimum Performance; and\
Manage the Irrigation System to Respond to the Changing
More than half of the world's people now live in cities, and in the UK around 90% of of the population are urbanites. People are quickly becoming an urban species.
Urban green spaces become more critical than ever -- both for quality
of human life and for the wildlife and habitat that are part of the
rich tapestry of nature's support system.
Urban Sprawl
Urban sprawl has created vast expanses of moderately dense "humanized"
habitat with a high ratio of concrete and a low diversity of plants.
The result of suburbanitis has been a dependence on cars to replace
personal locomotion.
High Density City Planning
Proponents of the compact city have captured the attention of community
leaders because a vertical city offers practical solutions for tough
issues such as pollution inherent to a rapidly growing population that
expects the energy-driven amenities to which we have become accustomed.
Benefits of Urban Open Spaces
Loss of green space. Green space is usually the first casualty of high
density urban development. Backyard gardens are vital fresh food
sources for many low-income and elderly residents...and they provide
respite and natural resources education for everyone involved.
Carbon Balance in Urban Landscapes
Clean air and an adequate water table are also affected by the amount
of land available to absorb rainfall. Salt water incursion is a growing
problem for the highly populated coastal areas. Creeping salt water
makes soil impossible to support plant life...and plant life is
necessary to replenish and filter our air quality.
Population Control's Role in Urban Planning
Leaders are remiss in focusing on building higher density cities without also focusing on the need for population control.
This editorial was localized and based on a BBC editorial by Dr Richard
Fuller, a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Sheffield, in
"The Green Room", a series of opinion pieces on the BBC News website.
Biological diversity in city parks and green spaces can have
psychological benefits for humans, according to a study from the
United Kingdom. Researchers found that visitors to city parks with a
greater diversity of birds, butterflies, plants, and other organisms
reported feeling better than visitors to less-diverse green spaces.
Such findings have important implications for urban planning and policy
as the human population becomes increasingly urbanized, the study
concludes.
“Public urban greenspaces provide one of the few avenues for direct
contact with the natural environment,” the researchers write, adding
that, “Such contact has measurable physical and psychological
benefits.”
Similar studies point to the same conclusion.
A nine-year
survey of U.S. gall bladder patients showed that patients recovered
faster and required less pain medication if their hospital windows
overlooked trees rather than brick walls.
Other research has indicated
that inner city residents who had some nearby nature outside their
apartments showed significantly lower levels of aggression and
violence.
Similarly, workers in buildings that contain plant life have
been found to have better concentration and less anxiety on average
than those working without plants.
