Urban Alleys

I think we've talked about Chicago's green alleys before — especially when the stormwater flooding/Overton Park detention basin plan came to light — but USAToday has an interesting story about how cities across the country are beginning to see alleys in a new way:

"Rather than dismissing them as dark, dank and often dangerous spots used mainly for trash pickup and garage access, they're treating them as valuable real estate that can help the environment and improve city life.

Cities are getting rid of unsightly trash bins and creating things such as gardens and sidewalk cafes to attract people to these long-ignored spaces. In many cities, alleys are being resurfaced with porous materials that can absorb rainwater and reduce runoff."

In Los Angeles and Chicago, they're using alleys to reduce runoff; in Seattle, they banned dumpsters, recyling bins, and compost containers in the city center.

(Speaking of that, Memphis' Center City Commission took a similar step last fall as part of a pilot program and is actually modeled after Seattle's program. Read about that here.)

With Midtown's drainage issues, and its abundance of alleys, it might be worth looking at what Chicago's doing. I don't know what percentage of the alleys are paved and what percentage aren't, but with the storm water problems some neighborhoods experience, it would be better than nothing.

Reuse Round-Up

Some things to bide the time, if you're interested:

Slate has an piece by Michael Levi about the green jobs program's chance at saving the economy and how he thinks it would be better to focus on each piece individually. (I'm not convinced; without the economic component, quite frankly, I'm not sure the green component would be addressed at all.)

The NYTimes is asking about "The Economy's 'Green Shoots,' Real or Imagined" — and at least one of its experts uses the term "suckers' rallies" — as well as uses for abandoned malls. Not that we have any of those here or anything.

Empire Waste

Heard about this while I was sitting in DFW this morning: The Empire State Building is going green.

Like our own federal building, the once world's tallest building is getting a green renovation, one that is expected to cut the building's energy use by 38 percent a year, saving $4.4 million annually.

From the NYTimes:

"Although the retrofit was specifically designed for the iconic Art Deco office building at 34th Street and Fifth Avenue and its massive features — 102 stories, 2.6 million square feet, 6,500 windows and 73 elevators — the energy-efficiency improvements are meant to serve as a model for other office buildings around the world, said Anthony E. Malkin, president of Wien & Malkin, the building’s owners.

He said upfront costs are often a deterrent for retrofitting older buildings, but the energy savings for the building , built in 1931, are expected to pay back those costs in only about three years."

Also, and I love this:

“'People associate greening with expense and compromise,' Mr. Malkin said. 'We’re trying to prove: no compromise and payback.'"

The retrofit includes upgrades to the electrical and ventillation systems, since most of the energy costs at the building come from the light and HVAC systems.

The NYT says that 78 percent of the city's greenhouse gas emissions come from its buildings. I think nationally that number is smaller, but a significant chunk of the gases that cause global warming come from buildings.

Both New York mayor Micheal Bloomberg and former president Bill Clinton were at the press conference this morning to announce the building's green switch.

Greater Greenline

Earlier the week, the Shelby County Commission voted to allocate almost $600,000 to fund the Greater Memphis Greenline, a seven-mile section of former CSX rail line. Purchase of the property is coming from almost $5 million in grant funds from the Shelby Farms Park Conservancy and county money will go toward construction.

Eventually, Greater Memphis Greenline would like to develop 13 miles of abandoned railway that would stretch from Midtown to Cordova.

Before the commission vote, I talked to GMG head Bob Schreiber. Since then, I've received a Greater Memphis Greenline case statement done by a former Leadership Academy. The document cites increased property values, healthier lifestyles, decreased crime, better air quality, and attraction and retension of local employers as the benefits of greenlines.

"The National Park Service estimates that propertis on and around greenlines increase in value anywhere from 5 to 32 percent," reports the study. "To illustrate, the Nashville Greenway Commission noted an average $30,000 jump in the selling price for houses directly on their greenline."

The report goes onto say that greenlines might even reduce public expenditures by reducing the infrastructure costs associated with more developed areas. The study also talks about greenlines reduce sound pollution by at least 8 decibels and help area residents exercise more.

All in all, there really doesn't seem to be a downside. I know that GMG have been working on this project for quite some time and I just want to thank them for sticking with it. This is a good thing, and it wouldn't have happened without them.

Old Building, New Leaf

I just heard that the federal building in Memphis will be getting a $3 million GREEN upgrade.

Under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, federal facilities around the country are getting more than $4 billion in energy efficient renovations and improvements.

I don't know exactly what's involved, but these types of projects are good for institutionalizing, literally, a new way of doing things. More deets as I get them.

One More Step

After four years in the works, the proposed CSX greenline trail is steps away from becoming a reality.

Monday afternoon, the County Commission is scheduled to vote on the purchase of 7 miles of the former CSX railway. Members of Greater Memphis Greenline are asking supporters to fill the chamber at 1 p.m.

Greater Memphis Greenline president Bob Schreiber says greenlines improve public health and cohesion, among other things.

"Greenways in general have been shown to improve property values 25 to 50 percent, depending on how close you," Schreiber says. "At worst, crime rates stay the same as the surrounding neighborhoods. ... Security is an issue some people around here are concerned about."

Plans for the greenline include motion sensors, lighting and, possibly, call boxes.

In many instances, crime on a greenline actually goes down because of the increased number of people using the area.

Schreiber hopes this $4.5 million project will be just a "small piece of the puzzle."

"We're hoping the day will come when all the rail will circumvent the city," Schreiber says. "When that day comes, all the railways will become open to some sort of better transportation, whether it be trails or lightrail or whatever."

Rails to Trails

A few years ago, the new "beachfront" property in Atlanta was along 22 miles of railway corridors that circled the city.

"Property values increased almost overnight," said Jim Langford, principal creator of Atlanta's Beltline initiative and president of MillionMile Greenway. "As soon as the Trust for Public Land announced where the new park were going to be, developers immediately began scouring locations around those parks.

"A market was created for property that previously had been old warehouses and abandoned lots. A lot of them were eyesores and had been on the market for 15 years," he said.

Langford was the featured speaker at ULI Memphis' Transformative Roles of Greenways event last night at CBU. Other panelists included Shelby Farms Conservancy's Laura Adams, the RDC's Benny Lendermon, and Kathleen Williams with Tennessee Parks and Greenways.

The Beltline project, which took abandoned railway corridors and transformed them into greenways and touches 47 neighborhoods, proves that green space adds economic value to a community. But that's not all.

"No matter what lens you look through," Langford said, "people see this as a success."

People who like green space were fans, people who wanted to use trails for walking and bicycling were fans, as were those interested in economic development and improving the quality of life for those in existing neighborhoods.

Langford hopes for a time when greenways are as ubiquitous as streets and are considered part of infrastructure, just like schools and sewers.

"At some point, you've tipped public expectations and a public ethic about parks and greenspace to the point where people say, this is a city of parks, and they're really happy," Langford said. "Then they very jealously guard the greenway and it's an integral part of what defines the city and the community."

And you never know what might happen if you put a large vision out there. When working on the initial plan for the Beltline project, they looked at the county-owned Bellwood Quarry. It was 400 acres of land, but the company using it had a lease that wasn't up until 2034.

Two weeks after the plan was announced, the company called and said that they actually wanted out of the lease. 18 months laster, the land was transferred to the city of Atlanta, which plans to spend $90 million on it over the next three years.

"That will be Atlanta's next big signature park," Langford said.

At the heart of Langford's message was people both need and expect greenspaces in their cities.

"You have to get control of parks and greenspaces before it's all gone," he says. "It's hard to retrofit those things. You need to find a way to preserve [land] while you're building."

MillonMile Greenway has four pilot projects underway, including a Coastal Georgia Greenway that links six counties.

Van Jones Not Green Jobs Czar ...

But not far off.

Green for All founder Van Jones sent out an email yesterday to dispel some of the rumors and introduce Green for All's new leader, Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins.

Jones is headed to Washington as a member of the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

"My job will be to help shape the administration's energy and climate policy, so that climate solutions produce jobs and justice for all Americans," he writes. "I am going to be the Special Advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise, and Innovation."

He goes on: "I am not going to be any kind of 'Czar.' If anyone were to be the 'Green Jobs Czar' (a position that does not exist), it would and should be Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis. She was an original sponsor of the Green Jobs Act of 2007. Obama appointed her as the first Latina — and first green leader — to head the Department of Labor. Can anyone say 'Green Jobs Czarina'?

Also, rumors that I will be handing out big piles of Recovery Act cash are utterly false. Unfortunately. :)"

But that's okay. Even though Jones will not be handing out the money, he notes that the green aspects of the recovery package will put billions of dollars toward the economy and restoring the environment and that his move to the White House constitutes a "dramatic" leap forward for the green economy.

Back to Detention

Kayaker Martha Kelly often paddles in the river and the harbor downtown.

"The storm drains downtown empty straight into the harbor," she says. "Trash, oil slicks, and lawn chemicals get picked up and it ends up being a foamy, oily, nasty smelling mess down in the harbor every time there's a hard rain."

So when she considers the possibility of a storm-water detention basin in the middle of Overton Park, she thinks it will be a health hazard for a number of reasons.

"I can only imagine that Midtown storm water will have the same mess," the Park Friends board member says. "It will be a big mud pit with trash and mosquitoes."

The city has a proposal to construct a large retention basin in the greensward area of Overton Park to help relieve flooding in Midtown. Park Friends, an advocacy group for Overton Park, was never consulted on the plan but is fiercely opposed to the idea.

"We think it's terrible," Kelly says. "[The greensward] is already very squishy for several days after a hard rain the elevation it is. If they drop it down the height of a two-story building, what do you think it will do?"

Park Friends is encouraging people to contact the City Council and the administration and tell them there shouldn't be a detention basin in Overton Park.

"Overton Park is Midtown's front yard," Kelly says. "It's next to one of our top tourist attractions. People from out of town will go to the zoo and get their first whiff of Memphis and it won't be pretty."

To read a previous post about the proposed detention basin, click here.

VECA will host a meeting Wednesday night that will address the proposal and flooding in the neighborhood.

Green Go To Guy

Looks like Green for All's Van Jones will be heading to Washington.

Jones has reportedly be tapped as the nation's green jobs czar.

A Mid-South native, Jones is a natural choice. The founder of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in Oakland, California, he advocates that green jobs can help solve two of the nation's pressing problems: the energy crisis and the economy.

If you're interested in learning more, his The Green Collar Economy came out last year. He also recently testified during government hearings on the national stimulus package.

And he was in Memphis for a conference last April.

The Power of Greenways

Here's an upcoming event that might interest some of you.

ULI Memphis will host "Exploring the Transformative Roles of Greenways," with Jim Langford, president of the Atlanta-based MillionMile Greenway.

The event is this Wednesday at Christian Brothers University. Registration is free and open to the public; you can either register online at memphis.uli.org or by calling 1-800-321-5011.

Panelists for the event include Laura Adams from the Shelby Farms Park Conservancy, Benny Lendermon, president of the RDC, which operates Mud Island, and Cindy Buchanan, director of the Memphis city parks division.

TERRA House Tour

So, I'd just like to mention that I'm a print journalist, first and foremost. And frankly, I've always considered myself better with the writing end of things than the reporting end of things.

That being said, the world is multi-media and we're trying to do our part over here at 460 Tennessee St.

Below you'll find a link to a virtual video tour of the University of Memphis' TERRA House project. DPC's Eric Criswell was nice enough to take me on a tour of the house last week to show me all its environmentally friendly features. And there are a ton so, especially if you can't get to one of the tours in March, you should check it out.

But before you watch it, I think I have to also say, in my defense, that:

1. I am something of a spaz.

2. I have not used any movie editing software before.

3. Next time I will try not to say as much, seeing as how my mouth was right next to the video camera (since I was holding it and all). And I might try to get a professional voice-over person/coach.

4. I was filming at — essentially — a construction site. Not only was there a lot of background noise, sometimes workpeople had to move past me to get where they were going. And it is hard to move your feet without moving your arm.

But as they say, it's a poor carpenter who blames his tools (or, alternately, my dad's favorite, "Excuses, excuses").

So, roll 'em. Don't say I didn't warn you.

It's a Miracle?

It's the type of claim you might see on a late-night infomercial or on the HSN.

A miracle cleaner that is powerful enough to kill anthrax spores, but doesn't harm people or the environment. And it's made from tap water and table salt.

I mean, who would believe that? But, apparently, it works.

From the LAT:

"Researchers have dubbed it electrolyzed water -- hardly as catchy as Mr. Clean. But at the Sheraton Delfina in Santa Monica, some hotel workers are calling it el liquido milagroso -- the miracle liquid. ...

Used as a sanitizer for decades in Russia and Japan, it's slowly winning acceptance in the United States. A New York poultry processor uses it to kill salmonella on chicken carcasses. Minnesota grocery clerks spray sticky conveyors in the checkout lanes. Michigan jailers mop with electrolyzed water to keep potentially lethal cleaners out of the hands of inmates."

When the liquid is zapped with low-voltage electricity, sodium ions are converted to sodium hydroxide, an alkaline liquid that cleans and degreases with the best of them. And it's inexpensive.

"It's big in Japan. People there spray it on sushi to kill bacteria and fill their swimming pools with it, eliminating the need for harsh chlorine. Doctors use it to sterilize equipment and treat foot fungus and bedsores. It's the secret weapon in Sanyo Electric Corp.'s "soap-less" washing machine."

Unfortunately, the liquid loses its potency fairly quickly. The machines can be pricey. Not all the claims made by some sellers of home ionizers are true, and there's a mentality in this country that if a cleaner doesn't smell, burn, or bubble, it's not doing its job.

But, no, I don't know where you can get some.

Sustainable Unsustainable?

The energy crisis may be more challenging than we think.

A friend of mine sent me a link to this piece from NewScientist, which says that renewable energy needs to come from more renewable resources.

Silicon, which is abundant, is not the most efficient material for solar cells. That would be indium, "which is far from abundant."

"There are fewer than 10 indium-containing minerals, and none present in significant deposits – in total the metal accounts for a paltry 0.25 parts per million of the Earth's crust.

Most of the rare and expensive element is used to manufacture LCD screens, an industry that has driven indium prices to $1000 per kilogram in recent years. Estimates that did not factor in an explosion in indium-containing solar panels reckon we have only a 10 year supply of it left."

Hydrogen energy needs platinum, which "makes indium appear super-abundant."

After reading the piece, I had a very Malthusian dystopia moment like, there are just too many people on this planet.

Then I thought, maybe we could just pay people to generate energy. It could be a job. There are certainly enough people unemployed and underemployed in this country — would it be feasible to set up an energy farm with stationary bicycles or something? Maybe not, but it seems we need to keep thinking on a solution.

Home Grown

I recently got an email about a new backyard market that sounds really cool.

Memphis Locally Grown is a member-based cooperative for locally grown or created products, including produce, bread, soap, whatever.

From the group's website:

"One of our main goals is to provide a no barrier entry point for new urban growers and local entrepreneur types. We want to provide small backyard or community garden growers, nonprofits that promote urban gardening such as GrowMemphis and BridesUSA, an opportunity to sell some of their efforts and ultimately build a stronger community around local products."

But it's not just a backyard initiative — it's based on the internet, too. Apparently, you sign up — for free — and become a member, which allows you to buy or sell things on the organization's website. The market gets 10 percent of the sales, which pays for site hosting and running the physical market.

After products are pre-ordered online, the market will meet weekly at a host location. Payment for the products will be collected then. And it means sellers know exactly what they need to bring to the market, or if they need to be there at all.

When they get enough members signed up, Memphis Locally Grown will let people start buying things online.

Green Fees

Justin Timberlake's Millington golf course is going to be a little greener than most.

During our morning meeting today, Flyer editor Bruce VanWyngarden mentioned that the golf course was going to be ecologically friendly when it re-opens. The buildings, for instance, will meet the highest LEED standards.

From a PGA interview with the singer last September:

"We said why don't we refurbish it and make it even nicer for the community. Then I asked questions about what we could possibly do, and we found out we could actually make it a 'green course.' So when it's finished this summer it will be a Platinum LEED certified green course. The first in the United States of America, so that's pretty exciting that you could take all that land and make it eco-friendly."

Friday odds and ends

Below, firing up the economy, recycling as a liability, and the end of an era.

— The Boston Globe thinks the current age of iconic architecture may be ending, in part due to the recession, but also in part to a change in how people see architecture:

"Suddenly architecture was in. Every city, it seemed, wanted to be like Bilbao, [Spain,] wanted its own daring, avant-garde iconic building. Usually that building was an art museum or a skyscraper. Every few months, someone announced plans for the new tallest building in the world. (The current candidate is Burj Dubai, still under construction, which when complete will be approximately twice the height of the Empire State Building.) ...

"All that fever now feels passe. Architecture students, I'm told, are more interested in so-called 'green architecture,' work that responds to the global crisis of climate and resources, than they are in artistic shape-making. They're interested in urbanism, in the ways buildings gather to shape streets and neighborhoods and public spaces. They research new materials and methods of construction. Increasingly, they're collaborating with students in other fields, instead of hoping to produce a private ego trip."

— Writer Paul Loeb argues on CommonDreams.org that the way to kick-start the green economy is with highly efficient, American-made furnaces:

"I'm not saying high-efficiency furnaces solve all our economic or environmental challenges. Plugging building leaks, adding insulation and switching light bulbs give the maximum energy efficiency for the least expenditure of dollars. We need solutions that move us toward eliminating fossil fuel use altogether, like solar thermal, industrial-scale wind, advanced geothermal, ultra-efficient green buildings, and smart electrical grids. The 300,000-person Swedish city of Malmo already gets 40 percent of its residential heat (and 60 percent of its electricity) from a municipal incinerator plant and is steadily extending its district heating to the suburbs. We could do the same. But adding a high-efficiency furnace buys time — like scrapping a Hummer to drive a Ford Focus. It takes us part of the way — and if the furnaces are American-made, does so while keeping money in our domestic economy. If we could replace every furnace older than 10 years with a high-efficiency model, and mandate the same in new construction, we'd come out far ahead."

— The Christian Science Monitor has a story about something that's happening here (and that I wrote about recently for the Flyer): the global demand for recycled goods has decreased, leaving many cities on the hook for their recycling costs:

"Recyclables have long been a volatile commodity, but the speed of the collapse has shocked the industry and exposed just how reliant it has become on foreign buyers, especially China.

The prices of newspaper and corrugated cardboard have fallen nearly 80 percent since last summer, when both were trading at over $150 a ton, according to Recycling Resource Magazine and The Brown Sheet, an industry pricing newsletter. Today, cardboard trades at $32 a ton and newspaper at $28 a ton."

Last I heard, Memphis was working on a deal to not get paid for its recyclables, but not pay for them, either.

From the CSMonitor:

"Still, there's some optimism that the current crisis will be short-lived. Cities can expect less revenue from its recycling operations, but recycling won't simply disappear, says Jorge Santiesteban, solid resources manager for the city of Los Angeles.

In the short term, domestic recyclers can recoup some losses by charging higher collection fees – as Fountain Inn did. And most large cities negotiate long-term contracts with minimum prices to keep revenue flowing."

And if material is recycled, it at least keeps the city from paying to landfill it.

New Link

I've added a new link and, though I don't have time to get into a big thing right now, just wanted to point it out.

The Green Jobs Memphis blog. Enjoy! Or learn. Whatever.

More later.

Tower of Power

A friend of mine thinks this would be a good idea for Memphis: concentrated solar power towers.

From the Guardian:

"Concentrated solar power (CSP) technology, as it is known, is seen by many as a simpler, cheaper and more efficient way to harness the sun's energy than other methods such as photovoltaic (PV) panels. But CSP only works in places with clear skies and strong sunshine."

In a Spanish project that's on the verge of completion, more than 1,000 mirrors are positioned to reflect sunlight at a central, 160-meter tower. Water in the tower is heated to 260 degrees Celsius, which produces steam that turns an electricity generating turbine.

Once it's completed, the CSP project near Seville will power 11,000 homes.

"John Loughhead, executive director of the UK Energy Research Council, said that [Spanish Energy company] Abenoga's tower approach at the new plant was relatively efficient 'because what you're doing is concentrating a very large area of sunlight on top of a very small area so you can get very high temperatures.'"

The EU plans to generate 20 percent of its energy from renewables by 2020.

My friend thinks it would be a good idea for Memphis to build a similar tower here, as well as a factory to manufacture the mirrors (which could then be sold to other cities). Memphis could then become a center for clean energy production.

The tower costs about $100 million, but as my friend points out, we spent $250 million on the FedExForum. And what kind of economic return are we getting on that right about now?

Bin There, Doing That?

The City Council's park and environment committee discussed (sort of) two ideas to make Memphis a greener city this week.

The first was to put recycling bins around the city, much like public garbage cans.

The second was to ban plastic bags at events on public property — festivals, 5Ks, and parades — that require council approval. That proposed ordinance would also require the host groups to provide recycling bins.

I wrote about the first proposal — which I think is a great idea — in this week's Flyer, but only touched on the second because the committee did not have a full discussion on it this week.

Parks and environment committee chair Jim Strickland proposed the second initiative.

"Why do we want to reduce the use of plastic bags? I think they cause a lot of blight in certain areas of the city," Strickland told me in a phone interview. "You get them flying through the air and they get caught up against fences.

"I'm not fooling myself that it will have a huge effect, but I hope it would do some good."

I asked if Strickland, who doesn't consider himself "super-green," had any plans to for a wider plastic bag ban. He said he didn't know if the council had authority to do something like that.

"I'd like to see how it works on a small basis," he said. "That would be such a major change for the stores. It would require a huge amount of research and an effort to get people to buy into it, and I don't think we're there yet."

Strickland confessed that he was actually more excited about the second part of his proposal: having recycling bins at festivals. (The public event plastic bag ban was actually proposed a few years ago by former councilman Dedrick Brittenum.)

"You go to an event, you have a can of Coke or a bottle of water, and they're just thrown in the garbage," he said. "If you offer people the opportunity to recycle, I think a good percentage will."

But after the general discussion about recycling bins in public places, Strickland held his proposed ordinance.

Public works director Dwan Gilliom, along with Andy Ashford, head of the city's recycling program, were concerned about contamination in public recycling bins.

"If you put a dumpster out, it looks like it's for trash," Ashford said. "Even if it says it's for recycling, people are going to put their trash in it."

Gilliom said that while he was in Denver (one of the cities that pushed Barbara Swearengen Ware to propose having recycling containers in public places) he saw volunteers manning recycling bins and making sure no one contaminated them with regular trash. And that host organizations for festivals and 5Ks might need to have volunteers doing that to make the recyling bins work.

Personally, I think this is an educating-the-people thing. Two years ago, I went to the Germantown Festival — where I witnessed the awesome Grand Weenie Race — and they had special recycling containers for water and soda bottles.

They didn't have any volunteers manning them, but they were clear plastic bags hanging off a metal base and were clearly marked "plastic recycling."

I didn't take a scientific inventory or anything, but if memory serves, they were filled with plastic drink bottles and not food or other trash. I think it helped that the mouth of the bin was just big enough for a drink bottle, but my point is, this can be done. It's not rocket science.

And, really, so what if some of the bins get contaminated? Then I guess that load of trash will have to be thrown away, just like it would be if there were no recycling bins at all.

As long as most of the bins don't get contaminated, the city (and the environment) benefits.

The only way people are going to learn about public recycling bins is to expose them to public recycling bins.

"This is something Memphis may be a little behind some cities on and I think it's time to catch up," Strickland said.