Convenient truths
Why make communities more sustainable? We all experience air pollution in the South Coast Air Basin which affects public health. We are becoming aware of the consequences of global warming that is melting ice in Greenland and Antarctica and raising sea level. The warming of the Pacific Ocean and the Bering Sea is changing weather patterns in California which can result in less snow pack and more runoff from our local mountains. The cost of water rises as demand for limited supplies of potable water increases. Severe storms and draught affect both natural ecosystems and agriculture.
Factory-farm produce is picked prematurely, processed, packaged and trucked an average of 1,500 miles — all relying on fossil fuels. This food — grown with chemical fertilizer, pesticides and herbicides which are all poisons — has been found to have diminished nutrient quality, and increasingly results in obesity and degenerative diseases.
The cost of electricity, which is produced mostly with coal and natural gas, is increasing 8 percent this year. The cost of natural gas, used for cooking as well as heating homes, schools and offices, has gone up even more. Hurricanes, oil spills, terrorist attacks, and political unrest around the world trigger increases in what we pay for gasoline. The cost of fossil fuel will continue to rise as global demand increases and supplies peak and start to decline. Billions of dollars we spend on energy leaves our state economy to support energy traders, and foreign governments in oil producing countries linked to terrorism. Those who control oil are wealthy enough to lobby our government and purchase control over critical industries.
While we need to become more energy independent to protect our economy, we also need to develop and protect our information and transportation infrastructures. Sustainable communities are walkable and bicycle-friendly places — conducive to daily exercise which provides many health benefits. Being able to work locally and telecommute, or use public transit like the Metrolink has growing importance as freeways become more congested. Sustainable communities are well-connected to the web with wireless communication, as well as connected to public transit. Sustainable communities make use of local resources — such as solar energy to produce electricity, heat water and, with passive solar heating and natural ventilation, provide comfortable places to live and work. National, state, as well as local leadership should make sustainability a priority. We can integrate sustainability into local policy and planning.
How do we integrate sustainability? Graduate students of landscape architecture at Cal Poly Pomona in my “landscape design and natural processes” class found many ways to make communities more sustainable through regenerative design. They explored the possibilities of sustainable ideas through various roles landscape architects and others can implement. These endeavors were envisioned within the contexts of Claremont with its general plan updated to include sustainability, and in Santa Monica which already has a Sustainable City Plan. These projects demonstrate ways that communities can become more sustainable through support of local policies and plans that encourage these important endeavors. Here is how these graduate students envision more sustainable communities with clean air, healthier lifestyles, renewable energy, local water sources, fresh local organic food, sustainable development, innovative recycled products and public art.
CLEAN AIR, HEALTHIER LIFESTYLES AND RENEWABLE ENERGY Lifestyles Of Health and Sustainability, also known as the LOHAS movement, is growing around the world. Building upon this significant trend, Yarnie Chen and Debbie Enos worked as catalysts for change to encourage people to get beyond their car and consumptive lifestyles. Assuming the roles of advocates and writers, the landscape architecture students provided a vision for a walkable, bikeable, livable and workable Claremont. They see ways to enhance the Claremont Depot as the hub of our transit-oriented district by building commercial space integrated with a bridge over the railroad tracks. In addition to providing access to the train platforms, it would provide a better pedestrian connection between the north and south segments of the Claremont Village. Their Web site provides access to ideas developed in this graduate class and relevant links to sites on the Internet that show what other communities are doing. Their Web site, www.catalyst4change.org, is an open forum for members of the community to participate in and affect positive change.
Matthew West worked as if he were an energy coordinator for the city of Claremont. This regenerative studies student proposed a program designed to promote energy efficiency for Claremont households which would save homeowners money while reducing local air pollution and the production of global greenhouse gases. The program provides a variety of packaged options for people to integrate into their homes and lifestyles. Those options include ways to improve the energy efficiency of homes with better windows and insulation, ways to enhance the microclimate benefits of landscaping with shade trees; ways to use solar energy to provide electricity and hot water; and ways to reduce the consumption of gasoline by using plug-in hybrid cars, neighborhood electric vehicles, and folding bicycles that can be taken on buses and trains. This program could help Claremonters make use of incentive programs and financing to pay for the home improvements through savings in energy costs. By using money they now spend on energy to pay for the improvements, homeowners could not only reduce their impact on the environment, but also increase the value of their homes and protect themselves from raising energy costs in the long term.
LOCAL WATER Raphael Garcia provided innovative designs to clean water biologically. The administrative building at Rancho Santa Ana Botanical Garden is an ideal site to demonstrate the benefits for biological black water treatment for irrigation. Composting units and constructed wetlands with native plants can process water from toilets and sinks, leaving fertilizer and clean water for use in the garden. As well as being highly functional, it also can be aesthetically pleasing and educational to the public.
Sarah Lopez and Dave McIntosh pursued an entrepreneurial role to find local sources of water and entities that can use them. Creating sustainable local water supplies can reduce the need to import water. This could be done by using storm water and high-nitrate wells for irrigation. Tapping into the storm drain in Indian Hill Boulevard can provide water for irrigation. Just north of the new 210 Freeway, Cal Trans has built a large storage reservoir linked to this storm drain that could capture and detain runoff to feed to biological treatment ponds constructed in Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden. This could provide water for irrigation systems in the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden, the Claremont Golf Course, Cuahella Park and the high school. Funds are available to help public entities, such as Cal Trans and communities, meet the mandate to clean up storm run-off. If recovery of storm water were made a part of the Claremont General Plan, Claremont has the potential to tap into and biologically clean storm water to also irrigate Oak Park Cemetery and parks throughout the community. Using run-off for irrigation could save the community considerable money.
FRESH ORGANIC FOOD Kim Wehinger and Elizabeth Swick carried out the role of advocates to establish TERRA Community Gardens. Because current practices related to the procurement of food entail a variety of actions that are detrimental to our physical, community, and environmental health, the students are advocating Teaching Environmental Responsibility and Respect through Agriculture (TERRA) to address the concern with a vision for a network of community gardens which link public schools, parks, community centers and residences. The gardens would provide local produce, community building activities and garden space, while reducing energy usage and costs associated with waste management and increasing health benefits from exercise and good nutrition. High-nitrate well water could be beneficially used to irrigate this community garden as well as Larkin Park and the Junior High School. The students have a wonderful vision for developing a community garden near the Joslyn Senior Center. They also show how the community garden concept could apply to other parks throughout the community.
C.C. LaGrange and Emily Briscoe aimed to increase the amount of fresh local organic produce available by creating a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm in Claremont. A multi-phased plan could begin with the establishment of the Claremont Backyard Fruit Exchange, which could generate interest in fresh local organic produce; and culminate in Bee’s Bliss Farm, a four-acre CSA farm producing fresh herbs and vegetables for members throughout the year. Farm design and daily operation could incorporate existing natural processes and utilize many of Claremont’s currently under-utilized resources, such as harvesting solar energy to produce electricity, storing storm drainage for irrigation, and building soil from recycled organic material to help ensure the long-term sustainability of Bee’s Bliss Farm.
ROOF GARDENS Sonya Reed and Eric Zentmyer worked as if they were researchers to provide a model for green roofs and rooftop agriculture in the City of Santa Monica. The roof gardens could recycle gray water from buildings or use rain-water stored in cisterns for irrigation instead of imported potable water.Widespread adoption of green roofscapes in cities across America has the potential to reduce the energy needed to heat and cool buildings. Because roofing under plantings lasts longer than roofing exposed to the sun, less waste roofing material would go to landfills. Roof gardens improve air quality by filtering particulates, absorbing carbon dioxide and producing oxygen, while reducing evaporation of volatile chemicals from asphalt roofing materials. Slowing and filtering run-off from roof surfaces also reduces storm drainage and improves the quality of water flowing into the ocean. Attractive green roofs that provide fresh local food are in harmony with Santa Monica’s Sustainable City Plan. Santa Monica could be first in Southern California to implement a citywide Green Roof Program.
RECYCLED PRODUCTS Ana Tabuena assumed the role of an entrepreneur who owns a landscape architecture and product design firm called anttSTUDIO. This student created an interlocking modular landscape product made from a recycled kit-of-parts that may be put together in a “Lego-like” manner for a variety of landscape applications. This product, called anttBUILT, could reduce slow-to-decompose trash Santa Monica sends to landfills, increase public awareness regarding issues of sustainability, create visibility for recycled products through their use in the landscape, and provide economic and social benefits to the city of Santa Monica.
PUBLIC ART Mario Benito, who assumed the role of an artist, visualized a “Baleen Bridge” for Santa Monica. The public art proposal consists of a bridge that filters storm drainage. The pedestrian bridge over the Pacific Coast Highway could link the Third Street Promenade Business District with the beach and coastal bike paths. By integrating solar electricity, wind and even micro-hydro turbines, it could produce electricity for lighting and pumping water for irrigation of landscape on the bridge. An important element of the bridge is to take run-off from the Wilshire Boulevard storm drain and filter out litter and other solids before they reach the ocean. The bridge would bring awareness to the issues of litter and its effect on the environment and water quality in Santa Monica Bay. Funding could come from a combination of grants for cleaning storm water, providing renewable energy, establishing safer bicycle access, and creating public art. Concessions on the bridge could provide activity and revenue — just as they do on the Santa Monica Pier.
Log on to www.catalyst4change.org for links to the projects. You are welcome to browse the graphic plans and images students have generated and comment on the blog the students have set up to gather community reaction. We will share this information with the city of Claremont Planning Department and the consultants working on the Claremont General Plan. We also will share the projects with the city of Santa Monica.We want to help Claremont, Santa Monica, and other communities become more sustainable. (Mark von Wodtke, FASLA is a professor emeritus of landscape architecture at Cal Poly Pomona, where he has taught for 36 years. He is a principal of the Claremont Environmental Design Group Inc., an architectural, landscape architectural, and planning firm.)
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 15, 2006. Read the original PDF.