Growing Food – Not Lawns

  • Aileen Eilert and her plastic wagon loaded with tomato and pepper starter plants, headed for the subdivision one block over to campaign (Photo by Ashley Gross)

Many environmentalists knock the suburbs. They don’t like how

dependent suburbs are on cars. They don’t like the sprawl, the large

houses and huge lawns. They think it’s a waste of land. Ashley Gross

reports… one woman is on a campaign to see some of those expansive

lawns turned into something a little more productive:

Transcript

Many environmentalists knock the suburbs. They don’t like how

dependent suburbs are on cars. They don’t like the sprawl, the large

houses and huge lawns. They think it’s a waste of land. Ashley Gross

reports… one woman is on a campaign to see some of those expansive

lawns turned into something a little more productive:

(sound of movie music)

Ever since soldiers returned from World War II, the suburbs have been portrayed as
the family-friendly ‘good life.’

“And so they joined the stream of family life in the suburbs. Soon to become part of
its familiar sights. Soon to absorb its familiar sounds.”

One of the most constant of those familiar sounds is a lawnmower.

(sound of lawnmower)

That noise just grates on Aileen Eilert’s nerves. Her goal is to live a more
environmentally-friendly life in the suburbs.

(sound of opening door and walking outside)

She does have a lawn. But she and her husband are converting much of it to
vegetable garden plots.

“So I have some snow peas growing here and here’s you know four tomato plants
and Bruce planted some peppers all the way down here.”

Eilert says gardening means she drives less often to the grocery store – and she’s
not buying produce shipped in from a different continent.

That’s important to her. Eilert says she decided to use less oil after her nephew was
killed in Iraq in 2005.

“You know, we’re fighting over there and it was about oil, and so I just thought I’ve
got to do something. I mean, it’s too late for me to do anything about my nephew,
and he was such a good kid. I’d like it to be where people – oh we don’t need to buy
oil from countries that may not be friendly to us or may not be stable.”

Eilert is not alone. People in the suburbs are beginning to think about their lifestyles
in a different way.

Evan McKenzie is a professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago He researches the
politics of suburbia.

“The stuff that was planned and put in place in the 60s and 70s and even the 80s, I
think in some cases is giving way to new ideas. I mean they’re selling and giving
away rain barrels in the suburbs so people collect rainwater to water their plants
with. I never heard of that before.”

Not everyone is onboard with the environmental movement in the suburbs yet. Last
year Americans spent almost 11 billion dollars on do-it-yourself lawn care just to
keep the grass green.

Aileen Eilert wants to change that. She calls her new campaign “Grow Food, Not
Lawns.”

Her approach is one-on-one. Today she’s pulling a plastic wagon loaded with
tomato and pepper starter plants. She’s headed for the subdivision one block over.

(sound of wagon)

Eilert approaches Tim Lakis as he mows his lawn. He gives him a pepper plant.
Then comes the pitch.

Eilert: “Lawns actually use a lot of chemicals if you put chemicals on your lawn and
that gets into the water system.”

Lakis: “Okay.”

Eilert: “And then also your lawn mower has way more emissions than a car would,
not that I’m saying that…”

Lakis: “Okay, I’ll look it over.”

Aside from some strange looks, that went pretty well.

But Eilert learns pretty quickly there’s way more gardening going on here in this
neighborhood she thought. She’d pegged it as a lawn-addicted wasteland. But this
subdivision’s residents are kinda green.

Eilert: “I assume you use a gas mower?”

Man: “No. Electric.”

Eilert: “Do you? Oh you are just the perfect person to talk to today.”

Woman: “I mean, every year I grow my tomatoes and peppers and zucchinis.”

Second Man: “Every year I try to get rid of more grass and put in more plants.”

Eilert even gets a recipe for cooking dandelions. She leaves the subdivision
encouraged.

“People were concerned and people did think it was a good idea to have gardens
and they’d be willing to make a little more of a sacrifice to make the earth a little bit
better.”

She’ll be visiting more subdivisions soon, trying to get more people to turn those
suburban lawns into gardens. And maybe get them thinking, just a little about other
things they could do.

For The Environment Report, I’m Ashley Gross.

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Defining Protected Wetlands Gets Mucky

Developers are feeling encouraged by last month’s US Supreme
Court ruling on wetlands. The High Court was deciding on which wetlands deserve protection under the Clean Water Act. Some say it’s more likely
they’ll get their building permits now. Defenders of the Clean Water Act
think those high hopes are premature. The GLRC’s Tracy Samilton takes
us to the wetland where the fight began:

Transcript

Developers are feeling encouraged by last month’s U.S. Supreme Court
ruling on which wetlands deserve protection from development under the
Clean Water Act. Some say it’s more likely they’ll get their building
permits now. Defenders of the Clean Water Act think those high hopes are
premature. The GLRC’s Tracy Samilton takes us to the wetland where the
fight began.


Wetlands are supposed to be wet, right? Certainly wetter than this mucky little forest in
a township in Southeast Michigan, surrounded by subdivisions and strip malls. Tim Stoepker
leads the way through battalions of attacking mosquitoes. He points at a big puddle:


“Basically, you have a forested wetland here, with no diversity of plant life because you have
such a thick canopy of trees and you don’t typically have all your wetland,
typical wetland plants on the interior here because of that and because there’s no standing
water, you don’t have any of your aquatic species.”


Stoepker’s business suit trousers are getting streaked with mud but he keeps going. Next stop
is a drainage ditch at the edge of the property. It’s pretty dry:


“Now, if we were to come out here in August or July, I mean, that ditch would even be, there
would be nothing in that ditch.”


Stoepker has represented landowner Keith Carabell since the mid-1980s. Carabell was denied a permit
to build senior condos on his property. He appealed it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Stoker thinks if the nine Supreme Court Justices had seen this ditch in person, last month’s
wetlands decision would have been different. A majority would have ruled that the test for
Clean Water Act protection is permanent surface water flowing into a navigable water. Even so,
he’s optimistic. Five Justices reaffirmed that the Clean Water Act pertains only to wetlands
with a “significant nexus,” or connection, to navigable waters. He says that’s not the case
here:


“It’s hydrologically isolated from receiving and sending waters.”


But the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers sees it differently. The Corps is the agency that decides
if a wetland falls under the Clean Water Act. If so, it then issues or denies building permits.
The Corps told field officers not to talk to reporters about this or any case pending guidance
from headquarters. But a source familiar with Corps regulations says water from this wetland
does flow into the ditch. From there, it empties into a drain, which dumps into a stream and
then leads to Lake St. Clair a mile away, one of the most polluted bodies of water in the Great
Lakes region. The source says the wetland also connects to the drain on another side of the
property, and it will meet the significant nexus test when the case goes back to the lower
court.


Environmentalists like Jim Murphy of the National Wildlife Federation hope that’s true.
Murphy says small wetlands like this one need to be protected, despite their lack of surface
water and showy aquatic species:


“I think we make a mistake when we just feel that the only thing we need to protect are
charismatic wetlands, for a number of reasons. For one, even wetlands that don’t necessarily look that pretty
that pretty are oftentimes performing enormous functions, whether it be habitat, flood control,
water filtration….”


All functions that Army Corps of Engineers mentioned when it denied a permit in this case.
Murphy says the looming question now is, how will the agency react to the ruling? If they pull
back, he thinks we will lose wetlands at a much quicker pace. Or the Corps could interpret
the ruling as broadly as possible:


“We feel that if the Corps is willing to stand firm and be aggressive, that they can still
maintain protection for a good number of waters.”


Murphy thinks even at best, the Supreme Court ruling will encourage even more developers like
Keith Carabell to challenge permit denials in court. That may be true, but Tom Stoepker, the
attorney for Keith Caraball, says all that most developers want are more thoughtful decisions
from the Corps, and they want the Corps to back off from places it ought not to be. He says
that includes this wetland where anyone can see the water in it isn’t going anywhere.


For the GLRC, I’m Tracy Samilton.

Related Links

Protecting Trees From Lawnmowers

It’s that time of year when the sound of lawnmowers and weed whackers fills the air. A tree expert says trees that are bumped by mowers or scraped by string trimmers can be seriously damaged or killed. The GLRC’s Fred Kight has the story:

Transcript

It’s that time of year when the sound of lawnmowers and weed whackers fills the air. A
tree expert says trees that are bumped by mowers or scraped by string trimmers can be
seriously damaged or killed. The GLRC’s Fred Kight has the story:


If your trees could talk, they might be saying “keep that lawnmower away from me!”
Trees that are wounded by lawn equipment become vulnerable to disease, decay and
insects. Urban Forester Ann Bonner says often just one swipe with the trimmer can slice
into a young tree’s thin bark, killing it in no time:


“Some easy ways to protect your trees would be plant shrubbery, or ground covers,
flowers around the base of your trees, or simply mulch them. Planting mulch around
your trees not only will keep the grass away, but it will also help moderate the moisture
and climate extremes that are pretty common.”


Another way to protect trees from lawnmowers and string trimmers is to place plastic
tubing around the base. For the GLRC, I’m Fred Kight.

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