Author: Joyce Kryszak

Life Is Rough in the Median

  • Brian Dold works for the Olmsted Conservancy, he says Olmsted designed wide boulevards to be tree and plant friendly. (Photo courtesy of Joyce Kryszak)

Most modern city streets were designed only with traffic in mind. There was little or no attention given to green space. Over time, some cities revamped their streets adding landscaped medians to make them more attractive. But not all cities thought ahead to what it would take to keep those green areas growing. Joyce Kryszak reports, in one city the volunteers who maintain the plants in the medians – are pretty stressed out.

Transcript

Most modern city streets were designed only with traffic in mind. There was little or no attention given to green space. Over time, some cities revamped their streets adding landscaped medians to make them more attractive. But not all cities thought ahead to what it would take to keep those green areas growing. Joyce Kryszak reports, in one city the volunteers who maintain the plants in the medians – are pretty stressed out.

It’s about eight o’clock on a chilly morning. Linda Garwol is dodging two lanes of traffic to take care of the shrubs and trees planted in the City of Buffalo’s Main street medians. At least, what’s left of the greenery.

“Uh, two trees are left. Things have been replanted in some of them,” said Garwol. “It’s a nice project, but it wasn’t well-thought out, obviously.”

Gawrol says just a couple of years after the medians were planted more than 70 of the trees and shrubs have died.

The federal plan that called for the green medians in the street didn’t include money for maintenance or irrigation. The City of Buffalo says it doesn’t have the money to maintain the green strips. Garwol says that’s when she and other volunteers stepped in. But she says there simply aren’t enough of them to get the job done.

“It is tough work. It’s bending, it’s picking up garbage, it’s weeding. So, it’s not easy to get volunteers, especially at this time of the morning. This is the big problem. To avoid the traffic you have to be up early,” said Garwol.

But it turned out that weeding was the least of their problems. Late last summer, it stopped raining. And, the strips are too narrow, the dirt too poor to retain enough water. And… there’s no irrigation system. Unless you count Sister Jeremy Midura. The Catholic nun started braving the traffic to save the wilting landscape in front of her church. Every week day morning at dawn, she tugs five gallon buckets of water between the racing cars.

“They recognize me as the crazy median woman,” said Midura.

“How many of buckets of water do you have to take out there?” reporter. “Well, we use about 12-14 buckets on the larger median across from Catalician Center and our church. Then about ten buckets over by our school area,” said Midura.

But the traffic-dodging nun couldn’t carry enough water for all the two-mile stretch of thirsty plants. By fall, the city finally sent some tanker trucks to water the medians twice a week.

And still trees and shrubs died.

This appears to be a case of bad planning. Experts say anything planted in small medians need to be drought and salt resistant. They have to be planted in the right kind of soil. And irrigation systems should be part of the plan. Otherwise, experts say cities are just throwing away their investment. We wanted to ask the City of Buffalo about that, but the city did not return our calls.

“Right now, we’re walking along what was a Olmstedian bridle-path…”

Frederick Law Olmsted was a 19th century landscape architect. Brian Dold works for the Olmsted Conservancy. Dold says Olmsted designed the boulevard to be tree and plant friendly. It’s thirty feet wide. Two rows of elms arch over the broad, grassy lawn.

Dold says there’s more than enough soil for roots to spread wide and deep and survive droughts. He says, unfortunately, that’s not the case in many urban landscapes today.

“And that really creates an environment where you’re asking too much of a common plant to survive and do well in,” said Dold.

But cities such as Buffalo are learning from their mistakes. The medians now being added down the rest of Main Street will have irrigation systems. A special adaptive soil is being used. And… there’s a good chance the new plantings will survive in the green strip between the lanes of traffic.

For The Environment Report, I’m Joyce Kryszak.

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Recycling Trains

  • Although recycling train cars is good for the environment, Buffalo’s transit authority is also doing it to save some money. (Photo courtesy of the US Department of Transportation)

Some cities are trying to save some money by recycling trains. They’re renovating and re-using their old mass-transit rail cars. Joyce Kryszak went to find out just how you go about recycling a train:

Transcript

Some cities are trying to save some money by recycling trains. They’re renovating and re-using their old mass-transit rail cars. Joyce Kryszak went to find out just how you go about recycling a train.

It’s hard to say whether there are more roads or train tracks running through the small town of Hornell, New York– a couple of hours southeast of Buffalo. The acres and acres of tracks of the old Erie Railroad yards are here. And for more than 150 years, Hornell has repaired trains in its shops. But recently, it’s started completely rebuilding some passenger rail cars.

We crouch underneath one of the jacked-up 40 ton cars and Mike Bykowski shows us how.

“This is car 114, it’s the furthest along in the rebuild process, you want to step up and take a look inside?…Sure.”

Bykowski is the director of engineering for the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority in Buffalo. And he’s in charge of overseeing the renovation of the Authority’s twenty seven light rail cars. Bykowski says after a quarter century of harsh Buffalo winters, the city’s rail cars were showing their age.

“The older cars that are out in the system right now, there’s a fair amount of rust along the bottom of the vehicles.”

“What we have done is when we replaced the frame we also replaced approximately 18 inches with stainless steel, which is a corrosion proof material.”

So, not everything on the old cars is reused. Workers at the Gray Manufacturing Industries shop are stripping down the first two cars to their shells. They’ll put in new sidewalls, new windows and seats. New electronic signage and audio systems also will be installed. But Bykowski says there’s a lot being recycled too.

“You’re saving all the steel, a lot of wiring that would have to be replaced. You’re saving copper. You’re reusing parts that are there.”

Bigger components are saved too.

The trucks and wheels are being patched, polished and eventually reattached to the cars.The motors will be rehabbed and go back into service too.

But, to be honest, Buffalo’s transit authority didn’t decide to recycle its rail cars because it’s good for the environment. It’s just trying to save some money. You see, rehabbing the cars costs about a million dollars each. That’s a third of what new cars cost.

Dave Gray is president of GMI, the company renovating the cars. Gray says they’re rebuilding cars for the Chicago and Philadelphia transit systems too.

“Most transit authorities try to rebuild vehicles. They always reach their mid-life, which is what the NFTA’s vehicles [have] done, and it’s very cost effective, so refurbishing makes a lot of sense.”

Not every city has had to be so frugal. Recently, some cities received federal stimulus money for their light rail systems. And a few of them, such as San Francisco, Washington D.C. and Miami, are simply going out and buying a brand new fleet. It is a whole lot easier and faster. It’s going to take three years to refurbish all of the rail cars in Buffalo’s fleet. Larry Meckler heads Buffalo’s transit authority. Meckler says he certainly doesn’t blame other cities for scrapping their fleet.

“If there’s other jurisdictions that can pull it off and get new cars, I’d say get the new cars because it’s a lot of effort, a lot more work, a lot more engineering – but they cost less. So, obviously, if we had the money and life was great and this was a utopian situation, every time a car hit [the end of] its usefulness, I’d just go out and buy another one.”

Still, being fiscally responsible is paying off. The authority saved taxpayers a lot of money. And in the end, Buffalo’s refurbished cars will look and work as every bit as good as new ones. Plus, even if it was unintended, the transit authority’s decision to reduce, reuse and recycle does let it claim the moral high ground.

For The Environment Report, I’m Joyce Kryszak.

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A House Made of Straw

  • After Carrie Zaenglein lost her home to a fire, she decided to build her dream home - made from straw. (Photo by Joyce Kryszak)

The big bad wolf gave straw houses a pretty bad reputation.

But it turns out straw bale houses are incredibly strong and

energy efficient. The century-old building material is making

a comeback as an eco-friendly choice for modern home

construction. And these homeowners aren’t afraid of a little

wind. One woman is even building a straw bale house in the

sometimes cold, blustery climate of the east. Joyce Kryszak

tells us her story:

Transcript

The big bad wolf gave straw houses a pretty bad reputation. But it turns out straw bale houses are incredibly strong and energy efficient. The century-old building material is making a comeback as an eco-friendly choice for modern home construction. And these homeowners aren’t afraid of a little wind. One woman is even building a straw bale house in the sometimes cold, blustery climate of the east. Joyce Kryszak tells us her story:

This does kind of start out like a fairy tale. On the edge of the industrial city of Buffalo, New York there’s an ordinary little village. It’s dotted with aging, modest houses.

Carrie Zaenglein used to live here. That is until she lost her village home to fire two years ago. But that didn’t frighten the quiet-spoken young woman away. Zainglein says it just gave her a chance to rebuild. Only this time she’s building her dream home out of straw.

“I’ve always been interested in green building and doing things the environmentally friendly way, so I figured while I had a chance to start over I would do it the way I wanted to do it,” said Zainglein.

But how to go about it? You see, straw bale houses are growing more popular in the southwest. But you won’t find straw house builders listed in the yellow pages of most eastern cities.

So, Zainglein did a little searching on the web and found Dave Lanfear. Turns out, he’s building a company devoted to straw bale house construction. And Lanfear doesn’t care how much he’s teased about it.

“Yeah, I hear the same kind of jokes, I think, the three little pigs… and the same type of questions, but I just have to laugh. Yeah, I hear them,”

Lanfear just digs right in and gets to work plastering Carrie’s two-story contemporary style house.

Lanfear says to do it right you have to get dirty. He fills the wood frame with tightly packed straw bales. Next, the walls are coated inside and out with layers of clay plaster. It’s made with clay dug right from the site. Lanfear says it’s very organic and sustainable. But he says it also withstands the test of time.

“There are homes in Nebraska they didn’t even know that they were straw bale – they were actually hay bale. The walls got open, they were doing repairs and they discovered this hay in there and it actually looked fresh and they were a hundred years old.”

He says that’s because the plaster seals out the moisture but still allows the walls to breathe. That prevents mold and keeps the house sound. It also gets high marks for fire safety. And because the wheat straw is a just a bunch of hollow tubes it creates the air space that makes it a good insulator. Virtually everything about the house is eco-friendly.

The house also has solar heat and power. And it’s made mostly with reused materials. Even the trees cut down to make room for the house were brought inside and used for the framing. And Zaingline says rebuilding on her same small lot near the city means she’s not adding to urban sprawl. She likes to think straw bale houses could be a trend.

“The difference you can make, even though you’re only one person. I think it’s important for everyone to make these changes even if their small.”

Zaingline says her little straw bale house stands up just as well as any house made out of sticks or brick. It might just stand up to the bluster of critics too.

For The Environment Report, I’m Joyce Kryszak.

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Hiring Lambs as Landscapers

  • Louise Engel admits she and her husband were initially a little nervous about setting the lambs lose in their valuable vineyard. (Photo by Joyce Kryszak)

Wine makers are shaking things up in their vineyards. Some of them use natural and organic methods to control pests and weeds instead of using pesticides. Now, one winery has discovered a unique, natural way to prune their grape vines. Joyce Kryszak visited the winery to get a first hand look:

Transcript

Wine makers are shaking things up in their vineyards. Some of them use natural and organic methods to control pests and weeds instead of using pesticides. Now, one winery has discovered a unique, natural way to prune their grape vines. Joyce Kryszak visited the winery to get a first hand look:

At the Featherstone Winery in Southern Ontario there are 20 acres of perfectly manicured grape vines. They stretch out in neatly groomed rows across rolling green hills.

But no man or machine maintains this vineyard. There are 40 cute, little, wooly lambs on duty pruning the grape vines into tip-top shape.

David Johnson says he knows the idea of using lambs on his vineyard is a bit odd. Johnson thought so too when he first heard the idea. He found out about it visiting wineries in New Zealand.

“I didn’t believe them at the time. I thought they were having fun with a tourist and that this would be a big joke, some Canadian when he went back home, telling a story. So, yeah, I’ve taken a ribbing on the lamb thing, for sure.”

But Johnson ignored the jokes and decided to try it out.

His wife Louise Engel admits they were a little nervous at first setting the lambs lose in their valuable vineyard.

“We watched these lambs like hawks. I mean, all the staff were sitting out there and following them around – ‘did they eat any grapes, did they eat any grapes?’ But they didn’t. They’ve got very nimble little mouths and little teeths and little lips and they just eat around them.”

You see, pruning grape vines is delicate business. Only a targeted area of leaves is removed from the lower part of the vines to help the fruit grow better.

But Engel and Johnson say the lambs are perfectly designed to handle the job. The young, spring lambs aren’t tall enough and their necks can’t stretch up to reach the grapes. And, since they only weigh about 50 pounds, they don’t trample the soil. And, yes, their droppings do make excellent organic fertilizer.

(sound of lambs bleating)

Three years, and three flocks of sheep later, nobody’s laughing. Area vintners even have copied them; and for good reason. It would cost about $300 an acre to hire seasonal workers to come in for seven weeks in the summer to hand prune the vines. The lambs cost a fraction of that. And, when the pruning is done in August, off they go to the butcher.

Johnson says it turns out that free-range lambs fed a diet of grape leaves end up being pretty tasty.

“We sold them off last year to some caterers and some pretty nice restaurants, and they got back to us and said, ‘wow, these lambs are really special.’ They’re different; they’re almost veal-like in color and flavor and very, very lean. And they’re going to do lamb specials all month and pair it with our wines all month.”

But he admits there are some drawbacks.

They had a tough time finding enough lambs to do the job. There are about fifty million of them in New Zealand. But, it turns out, they’re kind of sparse in Ontario.

Johnson says there are some logistical problems, too. Even some organic pesticides are toxic to lambs. And, there’s all that fence building and moving around to limit the lambs’ access, so they don’t over-prune.

Still, they think it’s worth the hassle. Engel says the lambs fit in beautifully with their philosophy of sustainable farming and diversity in the vineyard.

“They’re lovely, tranquil, placid things, and there’s something almost biblical about having lambs roaming the place and wine here. And, it’s just, I don’t know, there’s just some itch that scratches that’s quite fulfilling.”

People visiting the vineyard enjoy watching the lambs too.

Customers enjoy lunch on the veranda as they look out on the pastoral scene. And, of course, they have a little wine. And one of the top selling wines is Black Sheep Reisling.

For The Environment Report, I’m Joyce Kryszak.

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Tax Incentives Put Solar Within Reach

  • Eric Lindstrom, Vice President of Cannon Design, stands next to the building's 140 new solar panels (Photo by Joyce Kryszak)

Buying a solar system for your home still is not as simple or inexpensive as say picking up a new water heater. But solar energy advocates argue that the systems are affordable and obtainable for just about everyone – right now. Joyce Kryszak checked out that claim:

Transcript

Buying a solar system for your home still is not as simple or inexpensive as say picking up a new water heater. But solar energy advocates argue that the systems are affordable and obtainable for just about everyone – right now. Joyce Kryszak checked out that claim:

You might say that sunlight is a trade mark for Cannon Design. The Western New York based firm designs some of the most solar friendly buildings in the world. But only now is Cannon using the sun for its own building.

Eric Lindstrom is Vice President of the company. He says it’s what their environmentally savvy clients expect.

“You know there’s a huge P.R. factor here that we can bring our clients in and say, you know, this is what we’re recommending to you, but we’ve done it ourselves and it works. That we didn’t just read it in a magazine somewhere and say this is what you should be doing.”

Lindstrom takes us up on the roof of the company’s building to have a look at the new system.

Up here we find solar panels. 140 of them. They’re stretched out from edge to edge, soaking up the rays.

Lindstrom says they generate about 5% of the energy the building needs. But he says even at that small percentage the company will recoup the roughly $17,000 investment in about three years.

The system’s total price tag is actually about $170,000. But Cannon Design got corporate tax credits and incentives that covered roughly 90%. After the pay-back period, Linstrom says the company will actually pocket money.

Back in the building they can watch the savings add up on the inverter meters inside. That got Lindstrom thinking. He got a bid on a system for his home. He’s decided against it for now because the payback would take about eight years. You see, businesses get more tax breaks than homeowners.

But some people say the payback time can be less. And sometimes it just doesn’t’ matter to them.

Joan Bozer was at the American Solar Energy Society Conference held in Buffalo, New York. Bozer was showing off pictures of her home’s $30,000 solar system. It cost her half that after incentives. The payback will take a while—about eight years. But Bozer says that’s okay.

“Because it doesn’t make any difference to me if it’s five years or ten years what the payback period is. I want the solar panels, like people in their house they put on the roof they want, or they put on what they want and this is what we want – solar panels on the roof. That’s how we want to do it.”

But as green-minded as she is, Bozer admits that federal and state incentives gave her the final push.

While everybody can take advantage of recent federal tax credits, state incentives vary. Some are generous, and some offer homeowners nothing. Some local governments are offering low-interest loans on top of the federal and state incentives.

Neal Lurie is with the Solar Society. Lurie says incentives are creating demand and that’s driving down the cost of solar systems.
He says systems cost about 30% less than last year.

Lurie says with lower prices and tax incentives, some homeowners can have solar without much – or no – money out of pocket.

But how soon will solar catch on with the masses? Lurie predicts in less than six years.

“We’ll see solar technology a low-cost provider of electricity, even lower priced than fossil fuels without incentives. I think that when that happens we’re going to see it go from being something that people are looking at and starting to do to something that is truly common-place, much more than people may actually expect today.”

Others think solar will really take off in just three years. Solar installers are already gearing up. Some say they’ll double their workforce by the end of this year.

For The Environment Report – I’m Joyce Kryszak.

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Growing a Garden on Your Garage

  • David Lanfear recently ‘installed’ one on his own garage roof, so his neighbors could see the benefits (Photo by Joyce Kryszak)

When most people put a new roof on
their home they usually use standard asphalt
or tile roofing. But other people are going
for something more natural. They’re planting
grass and flowers on their houses. Joyce
Kryszak talked with one builder in
Western New York who planted a green roof on
his garage to show his neighbors how it works:

Transcript

When most people put a new roof on
their home they usually use standard asphalt
or tile roofing. But other people are going
for something more natural. They’re planting
grass and flowers on their houses. Joyce
Kryszak talked with one builder in
Western New York who planted a green roof on
his garage to show his neighbors how it works:

About 90% of all residential roofs are made out of manufactured
asphalt.

But builder David Lanfear knows that nothing tops mother nature.
He makes roofs out of gardens.

Lanfear recently ‘installed’ one on his own garage roof, so his
neighbors could see the benefits. There are beautiful flowering
plants visible over the edge of the flat roof. Lanfear says they’ve got
the whole birds and bees thing going on.

“We’ve noticed a big increase in insects, butterflies, birds all
sorts of new birds that I haven’t ever seen. They’re up there
eating something. Bugs? But its kind of nice to sit on the deck
and watch this nature in the city thing,” said Lanfear.

But the living roof isn’t a novelty. Lanfear says the roofs are more
eco-friendly. He says a living roof provides a whole cascade of
environmental benefits.

“Especially in a downtown when you get a hard rainfall the water
washes off all at once. There’s nothing to absorb it. If you had
a roof like this it absorbs the water and let’s it off slowly. So, it
not only slows the runoff, it cools the water and it starts to filter
the water. It filters some of the atmospheric crud out.
Otherwise, you get super heated water rushing off into the storm
sewer, and then out into the river or the lake and effecting the
environment there,” said Lanfear.

Once his neighbors understood the concept, they stopped thinking
Lanfear was crazy. A few even offered to give him a hand planting
his roof.

First the roof was reinforced with used lumber. Next are the
waterproof barriers – a rubber membrane, a root barrier made out of
old billboards and some old carpeting. Finally, recycled, crushed
concrete is shoveled on to be used as soil for the plants to grow in.

It’s all sustainable. And the native plants require very little water or
maintenance.

Neighbor Deborah Bach loves to garden. So, she was happy to
pitch in. Bach says the concrete soil needs to be doctored to enrich
it. But they have a reuse idea for that too.

“My son works at Starbucks and they give out free grounds for
gardens. So, we’re going to try doing that to try to balance this
out. You know, using recycled materials and things that have
already been used,” said Bach.

Another neighbor stopped by to help. Alex Sowyrda is a high school
technology teacher who’s interested in the science of green roofs.
He plans to share what he learns with his students.

“I try to bring it into my curriculum at school and, hopefully, the
kids graduating high school now take this knowledge with them
and are able to make responsible choices in the way they build
and the way they design in the future,” said Sowyrda.

The living roof builder David Lanfear says it’s a concept that can grow
on anyone. Even people who grew up with more traditional roofs. He
says to start small – with a garage roof – or maybe even smaller.

“We all have little expanses of roof in front of windows. And in
the summer you might notice that when the window is open the
hot air blows in, a lot of that heat comes from that little bit of
roof. If we could just put sections one square yard of living roof
outside of our windows on the porch roof, that would make a
drastic difference in cooling our house – simple,” said Lanfear.

And pretty cheap. Lanfear says the cost of materials is about the
same as an asphalt roof. But he says there’s savings in the long run
because the green roof can last three times as long.

And he says it’s a whole lot nicer to look at.

For The Environment Report, I’m Joyce Kryszak.

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Grand Bridge Scaled Back for Birds

  • A tern chick at Mille Lacs Wildlife Refuge in Minnesota (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)

There are few things as aggravating as getting stuck in a traffic jam. But for some drivers crossing a busy bridge from the U.S. to Canada there’s aggravation on top of aggravation. Joyce Kryszak reports that’s because a plan to build an additional bridge is being blocked by concern for a bird and a little fish that it eats:

Transcript

There are few things as aggravating as getting stuck in a traffic jam. But for some drivers crossing a busy bridge from the U.S. to Canada there’s aggravation on top of aggravation. Joyce Kryszak reports that’s because a plan to build an additional bridge is being blocked by concern for a bird and a little fish that it eats.

Every year, millions of people cross the mighty Niagara River on the Peace Bridge that connects Buffalo, New York to Canada. And many of them sit for hours in a traffic jam. The border crossing and passport checks slow things down. But there are just not enough lanes for all the traffic.

Ice delivery man Tim Holliday is one of those who is fed up with hours and hours of bridge delays.

“Like, I gotta go to the duty-free here, and when I’m coming out of here I have to go through customs and they always ask, what were you doing in Canada?” said Holliday. “I’m just sick of the hassles, you know?”

Transportation officials say a new bridge is needed. The traffic problems will only get worse. Because of increased trade, about eleven million additional travelers are expected to be using the Peace Bridge over the next decade.

And that’s a headache for Ron Rienas. He manages the busy international bridge crossing. He says building a new bridge would help with the traffic delays and help with national security.

“This is a border improvement project designed to address redundancy issues, security issues, traffic flow, all of those things, maintenance issues…all of those are impacted by not being able to proceed with the project,” said Rienas.

A second bridge has been designed. It’s a cable-stayed bridge with towers as high as the Washington monument.

Brian Higgins is Congressman for the area. He’s pushing for federal approval of the impressive cable design. He says the region needs an iconic symbol of progress.

“We are in the eleventh hour of a project that’s been going on for fifteen years. We need additional capacity at the Peace Bridge to promote the efficient, predictable flow of commerce between the United States and Canada – we need an iconic bridge, a signature bridge,” said Higgins.

But that signature bridge is exactly the kind of design that is dangerous to many birds.

And the Niagara River is a virtual highway for nearly three hundred kinds of birds. The cables can be invisible to the birds and they can fly into them and die.

Among those birds is the Common Tern. It’s an endgangered species.

Terry Yonker knows these and other birds better than most.

“We probably documented somewhere in the range of half a million birds, and there’s a common tern right there.”

Yonker is a scientist and a former Ornithological Society president. He wrote an environmental study that recommended against the bridge’s cable design because it could kill hundreds of different kinds of birds, including the endangered tern.

Yonker says even if it avoided hitting the cables by flying over the bridge, the tern would be stressed by such a tall bridge design. That’s because it has to make eight trips over the bridge each day to feed its young. But he says it probably wouldn’t make that many trips if the new bridge is any higher than the Peace Bridge.

“You raise that structure and they’ll have to spend a lot of energy doing that. They’ll maybe make five or six trips a day and that means one or two chicks are going to get less food out there,” said Yonker.

The other concern is a food source for the tern.

Fishery experts say the enormous piers would change water currents, eventually killing off the Emerald Shiner. That’s the tiny fish the endangered bird feeds on.

So a new design is being recommended: A lower bridge with smaller piers to protect the tern and the emerald shiner.

Federal and state agencies are working to find a way to mitigate the threat to the birds and fish by altering the plans for the new bridge. But environmental experts say you can’t mitigate extinction.

Environmentalists and some biologists say the common tern is more than an endangered bird. They say it’s a warning, about what happens when sound science is ignored for the sake of progress.

But, try explaining that to the people stuck in traffic for hours because a second bridge is being blocked to save a small bird and a little fish.

For The Environment Report, I’m Joyce Kryszak.

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Home Deconstruction vs. Demolition

  • The deconstruction method can preserve many of a house's resources in order to decrease waste from demolition. (Photo courtesy of Buffalo ReUse)

Every year, cities across the country spend millions of dollars tearing down condemned
houses and hauling away tons of debris to landfills. But progressive engineers and
community activists have found a way to reverse that wasteful process. A demolition
method called “deconstruction” uses human power instead of the wrecking ball to
preserve and reuse everything from floor joists to the kitchen sink. Joyce Kryszak puts
on her hard hat and takes us to one deconstruction site:

Transcript

Every year, cities across the country spend millions of dollars tearing down condemned
houses and hauling away tons of debris to landfills. But progressive engineers and
community activists have found a way to reverse that wasteful process. A demolition
method called “deconstruction” uses human power instead of the wrecking ball to
preserve and reuse everything from floor joists to the kitchen sink. Joyce Kryszak puts
on her hard hat and takes us to one deconstruction site:



This is not your typical demolition site. There are no wrecking balls or back hoes carting
away splinters of this once grand two-story home. Instead there are walls, lying
everywhere, and workers are taking them apart. A neat stack of harvested hemlock
beams grows on the vacant lot next door. There are cabinets, doors, books, furniture,
and dishes scattered all around them. There’s even a pile of dusty wine bottles retrieved
from the cellar. Deconstruction technician John Markle is covered in the dirt and grime
of the 100-year-old colonial. That’s because he’s taking this house apart with his
bare hands:


“Yeah, you won’t see a wrecking ball on our job site, but you will see a telescopic
forklift…And as you can see right there, we cut the house literally into big pieces,
and just take it apart, piece by piece.”


Markle does have some help. A crew of seven is busy carefully lifting off walls, pulling
apart beams and setting aside the spoils of their painstaking work. With a standard
demolition, about fifteen tons of usable building materials and supplies would have gone
to a landfill. Instead the materials are resold to builders, and at a discount to low-income
families so they can make repairs to their own homes. Dave Bennink is a deconstruction
consultant from Seattle. He’s spent the last fourteen years teaching communities this
sustainable method. And Bennink loves his job:


“We’re creating jobs, we’re keeping things out of landfill, we’re saving energy,
saving resources and we’re helping lower-income families…I mean, how could you not
like it every day.”


And he says the idea is slowly catching on. Bennick has clients in 21 states. Some of
them are private developers. Some are local governments. Right now, he’s working in
Buffalo, New York. He says when city officials learn they can deconstruct a house for
about the same cost as a demolition, in about the same time, the idea sells itself:


“I think they’re looking to make responsible choices, but they’re still looking to
make good decisions with the taxpayers’ money. So, when I can offer them both, I
think that’s more and more appealing.”


But sometimes a good idea needs a push. Michael Gainer is a former teacher and
community activist who needed little convincing. He sought out Bennink to help his city
get a deconstruction not-for profit business started.


Gainer is pretty young and strong, but he was still struggling to open the huge overhead door
that’s slipped off its tracks. This warehouse is where they keep all their salvage and then later sell it . And there’s plenty to choose from:


“We have a pretty big selection of doors, sinks, clawfoot tubs…”


And all of that from only a few months in the deconstruction business. The not-for profit
has already salvaged several houses on private contracts and has contracts with the city to
deconstruct about a dozen houses that were slated for demolition. And all with little to
no start-up money. Gainer says they’ve gotten a few grants, but so far they haven’t seen a
dime. They keep going with contracts and proceeds from sales. He pauses from telling
story to pull back a hair that’s strayed from his pony tail. His bandaged fingers leave a
smudge of dirt on his face. Gainer says the work isn’t easy, but he was eager to dig in:


“You know you gotta get out there and do it though. You gotta do the work. You
know, we talked about this for a year and I was about going bonkers, because I said,
I’m tired of talking about stuff. Let’s just go to work and get it done.”


Gainer is even more eager about the impact on the community. They’ve trained and hired
five, full time employees, a few part-timers, and are paying them all a living wage. They
get full medical coverage too, including the volunteers who pitch in. Gainer says it’s
possible because they’re not just throwing away resources:


“I was looking at wasteful expenditure of a hundred to two hundred million dollars
in a city to throw things in a landfill, and I’m like, this doesn’t make any sense. My
goal is to divert money from wasteful demolition and put young people to work,
improving their community.”


But Gainer says he’d really prefer not to take apart houses. His crew spruces up and
boards up abandoned houses that could still be saved. And he says if someone comes
along who has the vision to rehab it, they’ll help with that too.


For the Environment Report, I’m Joyce Kryszak.

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Saving Historic City Parks

  • In October 2006, a surprise snow storm did considerable damage to the trees in the Olmsted Park System. (Photo by Joyce Kryszak)

At one time, cities were little more than stone and brick. But in the mid-1800’s
Frederick Law Olmsted began changing all that. The landscape architect
designed some of the most important park systems in the country. But decades
of neglect and nature’s wrath are threatening Olmsted’s largest park system.
Joyce Kryszak has the story of plans to restore it:

Transcript

At one time, cities were little more than stone and brick. But in the mid-1800’s
Frederick Law Olmsted began changing all that. The landscape architect
designed some of the most important park systems in the country. But decades
of neglect and nature’s wrath are threatening Olmsted’s largest park system.
Joyce Kryszak has the story of plans to restore it:


You’ve no doubt heard of, and maybe even taken a stroll through New York’s
Central Park. It was Olmsted who created that 800 plus acres of sprawling urban
backyard. But Olmsted didn’t just carve out a magnificent green space. He also
carved out a reputation for himself, and a demand for his designs for parks all
over the country. Olmsted’s green thumb-print can be found all the way from
Boston’s Emerald Necklace to Yosemite National Park. Brian Dold is a
landscape architect from Buffalo, New York. He says even his profession is an Olmsted
creation.


“[He] came up with the term landscape architecture and really brought it to a
scale where he could do these major projects. So, he sort of grew
from getting work and the profession sort of took off from there.”


And Dold has plenty of work to do in Buffalo, New York. There, he is
maintaining Olmsted’s first, and one of his largest, integrated park systems.


Last October, a surprise snow storm dumped two feet of heavy snow on the still
leaf-covered boughs of Olmsted’s majestic trees. Many of them splintered under the
weight, leaving an amputated landscape. Ninety percent of the trees were
damaged and hundreds were lost. But devoted park lovers are volunteering to help
the non-profit conservancy plant new trees throughout the six parks and
parkway.


“Woo, that’s a lot of work. All right, you got it.”


John Penfold even climbs up on top of the shoulders of other volunteers to unlash the
branches of a newly planted maple. Penfold says they’re willing to do whatever it
takes to save the parks.


“When the storm hit, kind of saw all the trees fall, so, I think it brought the
community together to realize, we have these trees and we need ’em.”


Before the storm hit, the park system was already in crisis. American Elm
disease swept through, killing the stately trees. Then the city cut money for
maintenance. But now, the non-profit conservancy has come up with a twenty-
year master plan to restore the Olmsted park system. Executive Director
Johnathon Holifield says they have their work cut out for them:


“This system, at one time, was home to about 40,000 trees – 40,000. We’re
down to about 12,000,” said Holifield. “So, we have a long way to go to
truly recapture the Olmstedian glory.”


The sense of urgency is helping the conservancy raise the money and muscle
needs to fully restore Olmsted’s vision. The vision part is where landscape
architect Brian Dold comes in. Dold poured over Olmsted’s plans and he consulted
with other conservancies. It’s his job to make sure that the system returns to the
naturalistic setting Olmsted intended.


“He really tried to make it look like it had naturally occurred. He used like
large open meadows, and dense woodland and pathways through there,
sort of meandering through, sort of creating that Olmstedian landscape
that looks like it could have been there from the beginning of time.”


But Olmsted’s plan will get tweaked a bit. Dold says had some experiments that
didn’t work out so well. Over time, the Norway maples and the Common Buckthorn
trees pretty much took over. Dold says they won’t repeat the mistake:


“We’re not planting any of those trees that aren’t zone hardy and trees that
are put on invasive species lists. Those are pretty much eliminated from
anything we would ever do in these parks. And we are actually
physically removing many of them.”


Instead, Dold says they’ll plant native species. Lots of sugar and red maples,
service berries, eastern redbud and others. 28,000 trees over the next 20 years.
Executive Director Johnathan Holifield believes the new plan would meet
Olmsted’s approval:


“He would be pretty happy and particularly when you look out there and
you see the diversity of use in the park, the volunteer element that we
have. That’s what Olmsted was about – democratic,
egalitarian use and that certainly is represented today.”


So, if you happen to be in a Buffalo Olmsted park this summer, be sure to bring a
picnic basket and blanket, or maybe a shovel and some tree stakes.


For the Environment Report, I’m Joyce Kryszak.

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Raw Pet Food Junkies

  • Some vets claim commercial pet food has never been good for pets like Woody (pictured), even before the tainted food scare. (Photo by Alexandra Murphy)

Reports of contaminated pet foods,
causing illness and even death, have pet owners
scurrying for safe alternatives to feed their
animals. Joyce Kryszak reports that’s opening
a door of opportunity for advocates of holistic
pet feeding:

Transcript

Reports of contaminated pet foods,
causing illness and even death, have pet owners
scurrying for safe alternatives to feed their
animals. Joyce Kryszak reports that’s opening
a door of opportunity for advocates of holistic
pet feeding:


“This is Woody.”


You’d never guess that Woody is 11 to look at her. The mid-sized
mixed breed is as spry as a puppy. And as hungry as one, too, since we
rudely showed up at her dinner time. But Woody’s owner, Alexandra
Murphy says this is a good time to get a peek at Woody’s menu.


“Today, for breakfast she got two chicken wings, and she got a couple
of chicken gizzards. She’s going to have that for dinner and before she goes to bed tonight she’s going to have two
to three ounces of ground up veggies.”


Murphy says she’s a “raw feeder.” That means her dog Woody and 11-year-old cat, TJ, only eat raw meat and veggies. No kibble food from a
bag for these guys:


“Okay, I start with vegetables that I like. I like broccoli a lot because
nutritionally, it’s a very dense food.”


Murphy says she began feeding raw about seven
years ago after a doing a lot of research. And after getting a lot of
flack from fellow pet owners and skeptical veterinarians:


“I’m looking to give them something that is as close to what their species would get in nature.
I know my dog’s not a wolf. But I also know that pet food has only been made for the last fifty years. They
didn’t go through such a drastic change, that all of a sudden all of
this real food is going to make them sick.”


(Sound of prepping food and Murphy explaining)


Murphy is certainly not alone in her passion for holistic feeding.
There’s almost a cult following of pet owners who spend hours grinding
or cooking their own pet food. And there are some vets out there who
whole-heartily support them.


Cynthia Lankenau is a holistic veterinarian. Lankenau says commercial
foods have never been good for pets – even before the tainted food
scare. She says dogs and cats simply can’t digest grain very well.
But grain is the main ingredient in most commercial pet foods. So, why
do most vets still promote them? For starters, Lankenau says it was a
major pet food-maker that taught nutrition at her vet school:


“Yeah, just about any vet that graduates is truly, honestly, strongly
believing that that’s the best nutrition that’s available. But we were
brainwashed.”


But some vets are breaking free of traditional training. Jim Albert is
a small animal veterinarian and a vet for the Buffalo, New York zoo.
Albert’s still not sure how he feels about raw meat diets for pets. But
Albert admits that the nutritional requirements are quite similar, no
matter the size of the canine or the cat.


“Small animals have small canine teeth for a reason, dogs and
cats. And those were typically used to apprehend and hold prey, so I
guess you could make the argument that meat should certainly constitute
a percentage of their diet.”


Albert concedes there are plenty of good options out there. And
there’s good reason for people to be exploring those options. Albert
says he’s treated half a dozen pets that became very sick from tainted
commercial foods. And he says that has even some of his busiest
clients are trading in their processed food and making their own in
food processors.


“It certainly wasn’t feasible for a lot of our clients in the past, but
I think they’re taking these kind of matters into their own hands.”


Back in Alexandra Murphy’s kitchen it’s pretty obvious how much work
homemade pet food can be. Murphy says her pets are worth it. But she
admits making homemade pet food isn’t for everyone:


“Although I love doing this, I would say to someone, if you’re the
kind of person who says, ‘Oh, I really don’t want to have to do this,
can I cut this corner, can I cut that corner,’ you may not be cut out
for it. Because if you can’t do it right, you shouldn’t be doing it at
all.”


She says one of the best ways to find out is to find a good mentor.
And they are out there. You can find them by calling a local holistic
vet. Or, go online and you’ll find packs of natural feeders who love
to share their philosophies… and their recipes.


For the Environment Report, I’m Joyce Kryszak.

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