The Providential Gardener

Do You Know Where the Gardens 'Used to Be'?

Find out where some of the farms and gardens used to be (and may still be!) in Providence, RI, at the new development website: www.wherethegardens.providentialgardener.com! The idea for this project came out of a planning meeting for Providence's 375th birthday celebration in 2011. However, there is a LOT of material and there's a LOT of research to do, so I think I've found how to keep myself occupied indefinitely! But this is also meant to be a collaborative project and I am looking for others who want to become contributors.

I will be adding more gardens soon and welcome stories and photos of these and other gardens. I'm going to be adding features and content types -- I also welcome suggestions of what kinds of information to include. Send email, or add comments to the pages.

Next month when 2012 arrives, this project that documents our local agricultural heritage will expand to all of Rhode Island. It already has been fun to find out about gardens on the Biltmore Hotel in the 1920s and peach orchards in Little Compton before the 1938 hurricane. Whenever I tell someone about Where the Gardens 'Used to Be' they return the favor by telling me what they know about a long-gone farm or garden. The latest was that TF Green airport was once farmland -- not surprising, really, when you think about it, but who among us remembers it back in that day?

We are so much more familiar with our state's machinery/industrial past than our sustenance/farming past. I hope Where the Gardens will contribute another dimension to Rhode Island's rich history and show us how more food can be grown again in the Ocean State.

Farmers' Market Catch 22

The Catch? We've got to show up at the markets (and buy!) if we want to have more Farmers' Markets.

Rhode Islanders are certainly developing a Farmers' Market habit that now reliably extends into the winter months -- at least on Saturdays. The Hope Artiste Village Hall and "Greenhouse" in Pawtucket is regularly packed Saturdays with vendors and shoppers, enabling more farmers to grow more late fall produce for our pleasure and health. But I'm also developing a Wednesday market habit and hope you will, too.

Why shop twice a week at the Farmers' Market? Well, so you are a bit rushed and distracted and maybe don't think you have the time to stop midweek. But here's a tip: until the market has more habitual customers, you can park almost in front of the door on Wednesdays and run in for those fresh items you're thinking about buying on Saturday and wish you had now! You are probably out and about anyway between 4pm and 7pm on Wednesdays, and the market is not far from I-95 exits -- it's on the way home for many of us (and this is Rhode Island so it's not far from most of us anyway!)

And if you are tired or feeling hungry on your way home, you can get ready-made snacks and even a meal!

Climate Change ~ Senator Sheldon Whitehouse's Speech, October 13, 2011

On Thursday, Oct. 13, 2011, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island spoke about the failure of the U.S. Senate to act on global warming pollution. In a 22-minute speech, he outlined the science, the history of polluter denial, and the moral necessity of action.

“As regards these laws of nature, because we can neither repeal nor influence them, we bear a duty, a duty of stewardship to see and respond to the facts that are before our faces according to nature’s laws,” Whitehouse concluded. “We are earning the scorn and condemnation of history.”

RI Food Day Events ~ October 24, 2011

The RI Food Policy Council released its first RI Food Assessment report this morning at the State House in a standing-room-only presentation. The assessment is the topic of a two-hour public discussion later this afternoon. Come to this presentation of a statewide food assessment and share your ideas for making RI's food system stronger, sustainable, and more equitable. Help launch the RI Food Policy Council and add your voice to the movement!

• Community Presentation on RI Food Assessment, URI Providence - 4:00pm

Also today:

• Film: Urban Roots, Johnson & Wales Harborside Campus Providence - 7:00pm

See What Grows On in RI for other discussions of local food security in Newport and North Kingstown later in the week.

The RI Food Policy Council will create partnerships, develop policies, and advocate for improvements to the local food system that increase and expand its capacity, viability, and sustainability. Working groups will be formed in 2012 to carry out its mission.

Time Banking Comes to Rhode Island

"A Time for Transformation: Banking on Families & Communities to be the Change" was the title of the 2011 TimeBanks USA conference held at Brown University this past weekend (August 4-7). More than 150 people attended from as far away as the UK and Spain for an information-packed program that featured the unveiling of their new mission statement* (see below, and it's also on the blackboard in the photo), a preview of the organization's new website, which is to go live in the next few days, and the brand-new, Drupal-built "Community Weaver 2.0" website that is a robust tool for handling unlimited numbers of new TimeBanks and streamlining the management of the more than 270 TimeBanks currently set up in the United States.

What is Time Banking? The short answer is: Time Bank members spend an hour or several hours doing something for another member, thereby earning "Time Dollars" that are recorded in their TimeBank on Community Weaver. they can in turn spend the hours they have banked when members do something for them. Members list what they would like to do for others, and search the services offered to spend their Time Dollars on what they need done. Everyone's time has equal value: one hour equals one hour. Time Dollars are an alternate currency, a complementary currency (but not a replacement) to money as we usually think of it, sorely needed as we watch the Dow and S&P plunge these days.

The basic idea is simple, but the practice of Time Banking would have profound and substantial benefits for Rhode Island if we could "get" this. It clearly can integrate into the existing programs of environmental and social service groups and reinvigorate our neighborhoods. It values EVERY Rhode Islander equally and has tremendous potential for positive societal change.

The TimeBanks website is the place to begin exploring. Check now, but also go back and check in a few days when the new website is sure to be live. They have immensely improved the training materials, resources, and support. In the more than 30 years since Edgar Cahn came up with the idea, they have worked out solutions to many of the problems that have sunk earlier time banking experiments and trials. Time Banking's time has come!

To get started, I highly recommend hearing an 8-minute interview with Edgar Cahn (pictured in the photo above) on NPR July 19, 2011, "Beyond Bartering: Banking On Community Connections." It will whet your appetite for reading his books, such as "No More Throw Away People." Talk about a recycling program!

There already is a Rhode Island TimeBanks Initiative currently under the auspices of the Parent Support Network of RI. Our local TimeBanks movement is poised to develop quickly as we catch on to this way of working together for the common good.  We are fortunate that the Executive Director of the RI TimeBanks, Lisa Conlan-Lewis, is also on the Board of Directors of TimeBanks USA and is developing member services. Rhode Island is already wired into the national movement and resources.

I will be writing about this in more detail on the Providential Gardener and sharing updates to ecoRI on Time Banking as I read up on this fascinating and practical approach to getting necessary work done. There is so much to say, and Rhode Island is the perfect place to make Time Banking take off big time.

*TimeBanks USA Mission Statement:

"To nurture and expand a movement that promotes equality and builds caring community economies through inclusive exchange of time and talent."

Where the Gardens Used to Be ~ Farms in Providence's Silver Lake Neighborhood

  In the Western part of Providence, on Plainfield Street and on Webster Avenue, two early 19th century farmhouses have survived, at least until the 1980s according to Providence, A Citywide Survey of Historic Resources. The Alverson farm house at 569 Plainfield Street, stands on what was a large farm extending north from Plainfield Street, and the Plain Farm at 108 Webster Avenue extended from Laurel Hill and Terrace Avenues and Hillwood, Whitehall and Plainfield Streets. King Farm was also located in Silver Lake -- the Neutaconkanut Hill Conservancy gives a little background on the King family's land holdings in the neighborhood.

The Silver Lake Neighborhood page in the City of Providence's website describes the area as rural

...with sparse agricultural development throughout the 18th century and much of the 19th century. In 1710, the Plainfield Road was laid from Silver Lake to Plainfield, Connecticut. Soon thereafter, in 1720, the area's first settlers established King Farm. By the end of the century, several more families established farms in the area, primarily along the highway.

While the Silver Lake settlement was part of Providence, its remote location allowed for very little involvement with the city. In fact, by the mid-1700s, a large portion of Silver Lake residents sought to secede from Providence. In 1759, the town of Johnston annexed Silver Lake, thus reinforcing its rural character for well into the next century. In fact, there is a now defunct dairy farm structure still standing on Lowell Avenue near Pocasset Avenue.

I expect there will be more relevant information at next week's presentation on The history of Neutaconkanut Hill and it’s original boundaries on Wednesday, June 22, 2011, at 6:30pm at the Mohr Library in Johnston

FYI, Neutaconkanut Hill is the actual northwest boundary of the original land granted to Roger Williams. 

I'll be doing some library and archival research in the coming weeks once the website is up, but for now I'm gathering preliminary information for this ongoing project that will document agricultural activity in Providence, RI, since its earliest English settlement 375 years ago in 1636. Gardens, farms, and greenhouses that "used to be" and that currently exist can be listed in a new website that I'm building. Providential Gardener is adding a brief description about a farm or garden with historical roots weekly here until the website is ready for prime time.

Do you know of an historical garden in Providence that should be included? Do you know of sources of information or photos and maps that depict agricultural land in Providence in years past? Please let me know at skorte@providentialgardener.com.

Where the Gardens Used to Be ~ The Poor Farm (Neck Farm) at Dexter Field

ABOUT: Where the Gardens "Used to Be" is a new Providential Gardener project that will document where gardens, farms, and greenhouses have been, are, and might be in the future, within Providence, RI. While the dedicated website is under construction, The Providential Gardener is posting the first gatherings of information about long-gone gardens and farms on the Providential Gardener blog. The new website will have lots of maps and indexing and it will eventually be a comprehensive display and documentation of agriculture in Providence.

Since it will take some time just to gather the data, photos, maps, etc., Where the Gardens "Used to Be" will grow organically, which is certainly appropriate. This will be interesting and fun and I hope if you have any documents or information you will join in!

Comments and leads to additional resources are welcome, especially publishable photos! Please add comments to the posts or email The Providential Gardener.

*******

This week's garden that "used to be" was located at what is now 225-235 Hope Street, the Aldrich-Dexter field. Brown University's skating rink is at the Hope/Lloyd corner inside that fabulous stone fence that surrounded the "Poor Farm" at Dexter Asylum ~ This wall goes along Hope, Lloyd, Arlington and Angell.

View Neck Farm, Poor Farm, Dexter Field in a larger map

According to the printed (not web-based -- not everything is on the web !) Providence: A Citywide Survey of Historic Resources (RI Historical Preservation Commission, 1986, p. 188), this is

An L-plan tract of almost 39 acres surrounded by a thick, 8-foot-high granite wall. The parcel was given to the Town of Providence in 1824, a bequest of Ebenezer Knight Dexter ... for use as a poor farm.

[By the way, this is more land than is being freed up for development by the removal of the old I-195.]

The City of Providence website refers to this farm in the context of the Dexter Donation:

...The Neck Farm, on Providence’s east side, consisted of thirty-nine acres with some farm buildings. Ebenezer’s will stipulated that “Said town shall, within 20 years after my decease, erect all around upon the exterior lines of said farm, leaving, however [,] suitable passage ways into the same [,] a good permanent stone wall of at least three feet thick at the bottom and at least eight feet high, and to be placed upon a foundation made of small stones, and as thick as the bottom wall and sunk two feet into the ground. . . .” The rationale for this colossal wall wasn’t provided. Was it to protect the people outside from those within, or the reverse?

Ebenezer died in 1824 and the Town of Providence, then with a population under 12,000, had to finance some back-breaking labor. By the time the wall was completed eight years later, it was well over a mile long, and had consumed 7,840 cords of 4 ft. x 4 ft. x 8 ft stone, costing the town $12,700. (Fortunately, stone was plentiful in Rhode Island; it was claimed that in some fields the hay was said to be “harvested with scissors.”)...

[Another aside I can't resist: the wall finished in 1832 is still there, going strong, and the decrepit I-195 built around 1960 is worn out and mostly gone in June 2011.]

The Asylum Projects website adds the following:

Ebenezer Dexter's will of 1824 left a property known as Neck Farm to Providence to be used for "the accommodation and support of the poor of said town... and for no other use or purpose whatever." The bulk of his estate was left to the city (then town) for the construction and upkeep of the asylum and the care of the poor. Dexter's will further called for the town to erect a stone wall around the property, forbade the town to sell Neck Farm, and specified that a town meeting of no less than "forty freemen" should be required for any action concerning the property....

...Vegetable farming had been abandoned in the late 1920's, and while dairy farming continued through the '40's, farm revenues were not enough to make the asylum self-supporting. In 1947, the battle to break the will resumed. Lawyers and genealogists searched through old records, trying to determine who had owned "Neck Farm" before Ebenezer Dexter. Could the heirs of this previous owner determine the fate of the property? Could Dexter's heirs? If the asylum was demolished, what would take its place--a housing development, a park? In 1956, Brown University President Barnaby Keeney proposed that the city sell or lease the property to the university for a gym and athletic complex: "If and when the Courts permit the City to dispose of this land, it must honor its obligation to the Dexter Trust by obtaining the best possible income for the support of the poor... the University is in a position to help."

Excerpts mostly about the Asylum's farm, from an article, The East Side's Untold Story, published in the Brown Daily Herald on February 27, 2009:

At the height of its occupancy, the Asylum's 39 acres housed about 150 inhabitants who raised cows for their milk and farmed fruits and vegetables to sell.

"The place was essentially self-sustaining," said [Peter] Mackie ['59], a sports archivist at the John Hay Library. "It was a little city in there."

But residents could be forced to leave for violating the Asylum's rules, he said.

"Men and women couldn't fraternize," Mackie said. "They couldn't leave without permission."

The stories of the men, women and children who lived in the Dexter Asylum remain shrouded in the past, obscured by gaps in the historical record.

The Asylum's records "had more information about their farm animals than the people there," said Kathryn Kulpa '86, who processed the Rhode Island Historical Society's materials on the Asylum as a student intern in 1991.

There were genealogies of cows, Kulpa said, but the records about the residents' medical care were "pretty spotty."

Many photographs of the Asylum left today only show its staff members. "They were trying to protect the privacy and the dignity of the people who live there," Emlen said.

While the purpose of the wall surrounding the Asylum's grounds is unknown, Emlen said there were two possible explanations.

"If you have a farm, you don't need an eight-feet tall wall," he said. "It's clear that the wall was a social barrier, a visual barrier."

According to Emlen, the wall may have been built "to protect the people from the outside from having to look at a bunch of wretched inmates."

Another possibility, he said, "is that it protected the people on the inside from having the indignity of having people stare at them."

"I think it's sort of a matter of how you view the poor farm," he said, "as a benefit or as a great embarrassment to the city of Providence."

Willing the Asylum's creation

Ebenezer Knight Dexter certainly intended the Asylum to benefit his native city. He donated the land, including his own Neck Farm, "to ameliorate the condition of the poor, and to contribute to their comfort and relief," he wrote in his will before he passed away in 1824....

Tales as tall as the wall itself sprouted over the years....

"Other persons recall the smells of Dexter Asylum: the pervading aroma of spring plowing and spring manure, and the later scent of celery," he wrote. "The pigs were fragrant, too, and many a child was taken in on a walk to see the piggery."

Within the aging walls

Even as the Asylum's legends accumulated and its stone wall endured, the institution itself became more and more outdated.

The idea of a working farm to support the poor was receding by the end of the 19th century, according to Emlen. "By the 1920s I don't know that anyone was doing their own farming there," he said.

While the land once produced tomatoes, cucumbers and milk, freight trains from the South "undercut the vegetable market," the Providence Sunday Journal reported in October of 1946.

"Thirty-nine acres of uncommonly valuable land on the residential East Side goes virtually unused at Dexter Asylum," said the caption of the photograph that accompanied the 1946 article.

There is surely lots more information out there on Neck Farm that became the Poor Farm. What information do you have? I'd especially love to add photos or drawings!

A Fowl Problem ~ Save the Bay Video

There are dozens more videos from Save the Bay on YouTube!

Where the Gardens Used to Be ~ Gardening in Providence, RI

"Where the Gardens Used to Be" is a new Providential Gardener project that documents agriculture in the City of Providence, RI, from the earliest times to the present. Any garden, farm, or greenhouse that has been or currently exists in the original territory that was the Providence Plantation, established in 1636, can be listed.

I'm creating a website that will display the collection of gardens, but meanwhile, anyone with information about historical gardens and farms in Providence can email details to The Providential Gardener for inclusion. This is part of Providence's 375th celebration that will go on for the remainder of 2011.

The Roger Williams National Memorial at North Main and Smith Streets has demonstration gardens that show native American farming techniques ...

...and the plants usually found in colonial kitchen gardens.

Happy Birthday Providence!

Today, June 1st, 2011, the special celebration of Providence's 375-year history (of European settlement) begins. At this morning's ceremony, it was also made clear that the observance recognizes the thousands of years that the Narragansett and other indigenous peoples lived in this place.

Providential Gardener is joining the festivities by organizing a new project,

Where the Gardens
Used to Be!

Why the title? WHERE [fill in the blank] USED TO BE is quientessential Rhode Islandese. Rhode Islanders are famous for giving directions in terms of long-gone landmarks. So why not give ourselves more vanished, or perhaps still existing but disguised landmarks that really are LANDmarks, where gardens, farms, and greenhouses have been and still are -- even where gardens could be again -- in the land that is the original Providence Plantation territory?

I'm building a website to collect and display all the information about where people have been growing things in Providence. The next few posts on The Providential Gardener will describe the project in more detail list some of the most well-documented and/or obvious gardens from the past and present. Meanwhile, anyone with information about any farm or garden that has been or is in Providence can email The Providential Gardener with locations and descriptions.

This is a work in progress, as are all gardens. Stay tuned!

RI Legislative Update ~ RI Transportation Investment & Debt Reduction Act of 2011

The Providential Gardener, a member of the Coalitiion for Transportation Choices, supports the passage of the Transportation Investment and Debt Reduction Act of 2011 and urges other Rhode Islanders to read up on this and join others who support this reasonable and necessary legislation.

Background on this issue is available from the Coalition for Transportation Choices (CTC), created in 2009 with a vision "for a 21st century transportation system that enhances our economy and provides all Rhode Islanders with healthy transportation choices." The Coalition's 2011 legislative and policy agenda was updated on March 11 and gives a short summary of what this bill will accomplish.

Why this is important: Rhode Island has been funding maintenance of its roads by borrowing, and the debt service is now a significant and growing portion of the RIDOT budget, leaving less and less money to take care of existing roads and bridges as we all know too well. Maintenance obviously should be budgeted regularly, pay as you go. Rhode Island also currently funds RIDOT and RIPTA through the gasoline tax, but as cars become more fuel efficient and people drive less and take the bus more, that results in reduced funds for highway maintenance and public transportation. For further information see the CTC E-Brief about breaking Rhode Island's habit of borrowing for highways.

Background on Rhode Island Transportation: CTC has an informative website. See especially:

• Recent News
• CTC Goals
• CTC Working Group
• Join the CTC email list and/or become a partner
• Reports, Fact Sheets and Other Resources

This week, The Providential Gardener wrote a letter in support of this legislation:

March 18, 2011

The Providential Gardener supports and urges passage of the Transportation Investment and Debt Reduction Act of 2011 (S-148 and H-5789).

The Providential Gardener is an online aggregator and distributor of environmental information specific to Rhode Island. Our lead information service is What Grows On in Rhode Island, the state's most comprehensive environment-related calendar. We provide an essential overview of environmental issues and activities in Rhode Island, informing and empowering citizens so they can take better care of our natural resources.

Rhode Island needs to plan better to fund maintenance of its roads. Civil engineers can certainly tell us how frequently each road and bridge in the state will need repairs and when this maintenance will be due. [There is no excuse for the state if it doesn't have these data readily accessible.] They can project the anticipated cost of regular repairs, and these costs should not be part of the regular state budget. For years we have been borrowing for regular maintenance, and this bill will enable the state budget to be more realistic as to the funding of our road and bridge maintenance requirements, reducing the cost of future borrowing and allowing the state to retire expensive previous debt.

Susan Korté
The Providential Gardener
PO Box 2556
Providence, RI 02906

skorte@providentialgardener.com
401.273.6678

What Grows On in Rhode Island Calendar
http://www.WhatGrowsOnRI.com

Providential Gardener
http://www.ProvidentialGardener.com

RI Coverts Cooperator Class [Wildlife Habitat Preservation] ~ April 15-17, 2011

FOREST OWNERS NEEDED TO MANAGE FOR WILDLIFE HABIATAT

via providentialgardener.typepad.com

RI Wild Plant Society 2011 Native Plant Conference ~ April 9, 2011

RI Wild Plant Society 2011 Native Plant Conference ~ April 9, 2011

How about an Urban Agriculture/Recycling Education & Training Center for Providence?

Providence, RI ~ The Clarke Florist zoning issue is on tonight's agenda for the Summit Neighborhood Association Annual Meeting, and to save paper, I am posting, for reference by the neighborhood and anyone else interested, an email I sent in October to the Preserve Hope Street group describing a range of possible uses for the greenhouses and buildings.

I subsequently also did a little library and internet research and found in the 1945 Providence City Directory that there has been a florist business there since 1883 (McCarron's) and that (according to Florists' Review July 1912) some of the greenhouses may have been erected in 1912. The roof may leak in the shop area, and the buildings may require too much repair, and we all need to realize that whatever happens should make financial sense to the current owner. But I hope a use or uses may be found for the Hope Street property, in the middle of a pedestrian-friendly residential neighborhood, that are consistent with the historical use of the Clarke Florist location.

For background, see Preserve Hope Street.

Sue Korté

**********

From:     susan korte <skorte@providentialgardener.com>

    Subject:     RI - Providence - Proposal to use the Clarke Florist Shop on Hope St as an Urban Agriculture/Recycling Education & Training Center
    Date:     October 27, 2010 9:32:50 AM EDT
    To:     preservehopestreet@gmail.com [and others]
   
Good Morning,

This email is addressed to the ad hoc group Preserve Hope Street and copied to a number of potentially interested people -- political leaders, preservation leaders, educators, and leaders in urban agriculture and recycling education and training in Providence and Rhode Island. It concerns the future of an existing greenhouse at what has been the Clarke Florist Shop on Hope Street in Providence. I propose it be repurposed to be an Urban Agriculture/Recycling Education & Training Center for our city.

What do You Think about What the 2010 Candidates for Governor Say about Rhode Island's Environment?

Let Your Voice Be Heard!

Comment on the Gubernatorial Candidates' Remarks about RI's Environment!

Rhode Island's environment is greatly impacted by political decisions and budget constraints, and of course with the economy in its present sluggish state and not enough revenue coming in, the priorities the next governor sets are of the utmost importance. Rhode Islanders who see that our environment is really at the heart of things ~ that responsibly attending to environmental matters is necessary for our continuing to live in this place and essential to our health and well being ~ will want to listen to the candidate's views and express their concerns as comments on the YouTube videos of the recent environmental debate.

We need a governor, legislative leadership, and local news media -- in fact the whole population of the state -- to grasp the systemic nature of the problems we face. We need to reframe our problems in order to develop viable long-term solutions. The central problem for human beings is not "the economy" which is an abstraction focused on money, but on flesh and blood, our lives. Our bodies are part of the environment, not separate from it. The beating heart of the matter for each of us is being alive, having a living,* living our full length of days, and living fully ~ not so many [millions of] dollar bills here or there. When we rearrange our thinking and make human life central rather than money, budgets, and deficits, the fog can lift and we can begin to see our way toward a vibrant society for all Rhode Islanders.

Rhode Island ~ The Denmark/Sweden of the Northeast?

Recently I spent about two weeks in Denmark and Sweden. It's inspiring to see what can be done differently regarding environmental policy implementation.

I think someone should arrange to send every Rhode Islander, and especially our political leaders, to Copenhagen or Stockholm or Malmo to live for a few days with residents and Danish/Swedish planners and civic leaders. We would learn a lot by discovering firsthand how they set up their infrastructures and provide public services. Visitors can't help noticing millions of bikes and wide, separate bike lanes raised a bit from the auto lanes; frequent on-time buses; no overhead wires! buried utility wires except for street lights; compact cities and farms everywhere else, it seems; cows grazing just outside the Copenhagen airport; wind turbines lined up along the Copenhagen shore and near the Oresund bridge....  Take a look at this fabulous Flickr image of the bridge and turbines. This is within sight of Copenhagen and Malmo, Sweden.

Click on photos to enlarge.

The first photo shows, from the left, a Copenhagen sidewalk, separate bike lane (atypically empty but there is a bike with front cart coming along), parked car lane and auto lanes, with minimal overhead wires needed only for street lights. The second photo, taken not far from the Little Mermaid's spot (she is at the World's Fair in China at the moment ~ Shanghai'd so to speak), shows the Copenhagen skyline toward the harbor with some wind turbines just offshore.

Denmark and Sweden are world leaders in environmental matters. Of course they have much smaller land areas and populations than the United States. However, they can be models for Rhode Island if we take a closer look at them. Both the Copenhagen and Stockholm urban areas have populations about the same or double that of Rhode Island, and like Rhode Island, they have significant waterfront and water features -- notably canals all over Copenhagen, and islands -- 24,000 of them -- in the Stockholm archipelago. It's worth exploring the similarities and differences between Rhode Island and Scandinavia as we work toward restoring Rhode Island's economy by incorporating environmental industries and sustainable ways of life.

Until this recent Great Recession, Denmark had extremely low unemployment and a robust economy. It still is one of the strongest economies in the European Union. Sweden has had a similarly strong economy but is experiencing more strain from the recession. I heard more than once that many young Swedes are going to work in Norway, where jobs are more plentiful and the pay is better.

Nevertheless, these nations were able to reach substantial internal consensus years ago on transportation and energy policy, recognizing the importance of self-sufficiency and the need to collaborate and cooperate for the public good. Why can't we learn some things from them? Once you see Copenhagen and Stockholm, you'll see it's obviously possible to implement sustainable environmental policies AND maintain a robust economy. Can't Rhode Islanders find the willpower to create our own sustainable and robust economy?

Tom Horton, Ecosystem Restoration, and the New Economy

Sigh.

We set goals, and then things happen. It always seems to take longer to achieve success than we can ever imagine.

That's what struck me as I reviewed my notes from the 7th Annual Land & Water Summit held on March 27, 2010, at URI. Tom Horton, the keynote speaker, has made the Chesapeake Bay's restoration his life's work. He described how the goal date for cleaning up the Chesapeake has slipped from 2010 to 2028. Voluntary compliance doesn't work well, he noted. Legislation with teeth, plus the money and will to enforce the law, are required for success. Adequate legislation and enforcement, in turn, rest on long-term monitoring and research. So restoring a large watershed like the Chesapeake (and our Rhode Island watersheds around the Narragansett Bay) takes a lot of time, money, and willpower.

Much of his talk reflected the substance of his book, Turning the Tide: Saving the Chesapeake Bay (first published in 1991 and updated in 2003). To get a sense of what you missed if you weren't there Saturday, you can skim some of the book's pages on Amazon and read a review of this book in the U. Richmond Law Review and a review of another of his books, Bay Country (review published in 1987 in The New York Times). You'll also find in an Amazon search a few other books on the Chesapeake that he has written or coauthored. 

For Horton, Chesapeake Bay, like Narragansett Bay, is a magnificent ecosystem coping with pollution and the overharvesting of its fish and crustacean resources, yet still resilient despite increasing human activity in and around it. He quoted Aldo Leopold ~ that "the oldest task in human history [is] to live on a piece of land without spoiling it." He stressed that grow-or-die economic models are simply unsustainable. It's all well and good for each of us individually to reduce our carbon footprint. But if the population around the Chesapeake is growing at the rate of 2 million per decade, how can enough people offset their carbon footprints enough to offset this population growth? Think about that for a moment.

We need to convince people there are viable alternatives to the never-ending-growth model, that the options are multifaceted and not either/or ~ either overeat or starve to death. Our own Greg Gerritt, who writes extensively on this topic in Prosperity for Rhode Island, could be seen nodding his head in agreement every time Horton drove this point home.

As I continue to digest all the fascinating ideas from the Summit, I've found the link to the Chafee Memorial Lecture in Washington DC in January 2010 that Horton stressed repeatedly. This lecture, "A New American Environmentalism and the New Economy," was given by James Gustave Speth, dean emeritus, Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. The session was videotaped and posted on the web, so we can view it when we want. [FYI, It took a long time to download on my high-speed internet connection, and there's a bit of an introduction before he starts speaking, but hang in!] Horton urged the 325 Rhode Island conservationists present at the Summit to see environmental issues in a larger, systemic context, to ally with others working for political reform and for social justice projects,... and to CONTINUALLY QUESTION "GROW OR DIE" ASSUMPTIONS.

A quote of a quote from the Chafee lecture: "Anyone who thinks that exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist." ~ Kenneth Boulding 

Here's a shorter interview with James Gustave Speth, The Environment and Economy in Conflict to whet your appetite for the Chafee lecture:


I began this post with a sigh, but I'll end with a story that illustrates our state's motto, Hope, which Horton describes as not being able "to see your way through the tall grass." He told of a short-legged dog that actually learned to jump up high enough to get his bearings when lost in the tall grass. Encountering Tom Horton's thought is to learn to leap up for a better view.

P.S.: In light of all this rain we've endured since the weekend, here's another idea from his talk we can implement: Let's pass impervious surface tax legislation in Rhode Island.

For other reports on the 2010 Land and Water Summit, see ecoRI and search for "Conservation Summit Focuses on Land and Water Issues"

Rhode Island Floods ~ March 2010

We Rhode Islanders are experiencing the worst flooding in memory this week, with record rainfalls of 8-9 inches in two days and many of our rivers not only at flood stage but at record levels that have broken records set barely two weeks ago. And we're painfully experiencing what "WATERSHED" can mean when too much water has to drain in too little time.

A watershed is essentially a natural, intricate system for draining water from the land. The EPA describes watersheds this way:

"We all live in a watershed -- the area that drains to a common waterway, such as a stream, lake, estuary, wetland, aquifer, or even the ocean -- and our individual actions can directly affect it. Working together using a watershed approach will help protect our nation's water resources."

"John Wesley Powell, scientist geographer, put it best when he said that a watershed is:

'that area of land, a bounded hydrologic system, within which all living things are inextricably linked by their common water course and where, as humans settled, simple logic demanded that they become part of a community.'"

Source: EPA Watershed Website

The Providence Journal published a good description of How a river floods: Rainfall just the beginning, (by C. Eugene Emery Jr., Journal Staff Writer on March 30, 2010. I think I'd reword the title, though, to be "How a river floods: An extraordinary rainfall can be the last straw." The article highlights that even though the rainfall has ended, the flooding will still increase for a while before subsiding. But how we work and plan together to manage our local watersheds BEFORE the rainy days can make things better or worse than they might have been.

This rainfall is so extraordinary that no matter how well we had prepared, Rhode Island would be in an emergency. Many Rhode Islanders work hard to manage our watersheds year in and year out, among them The Friends of the Pawtuxet. I'm sure that a lot of folks don't think the Pawtuxet is their friend today as the river's waters flood their homes and streets, destroying their belongings. But our rivers will continue to need all of us to be Friends, to speak up in public meetings and reasonably deal with the issues involved in development and water management.

The worst flooding is along the Pawtuxet River. Here is the Pawtuxet River Watershed Authority description of this watershed comprised of 64 ponds, 93 brooks, 7 tributary rivers, and 18 dams:

"The Pawtuxet River watershed, located in central-western Rhode Island, is the largest watershed in the state. The river flows generally from west to east. Its headwaters are in the hills of western Rhode Island. Its mouth is in historic Pawtuxet Village between the cities of Warwick and Cranston, the state's second and third largest cities. The watershed encompasses all or portions of the following communities: Coventry, Cranston, East Greenwich, Exeter, Foster, Glocester, Johnston, Providence, Scituate, Warwick, West Greenwich, and West Warwick. The Pawtuxet River watershed comprises the Scituate Reservoir and its tributaries, the North Branch of the Pawtuxet, the Pocasset River, the Big River and its tributaries, the Flat River Reservoir and its tributaries. the South Branch of the Pawtuxet, and the main stem of the Pawtuxet."

Gene Emery's article in the Projo points out some of the factors involved in the buildup of the rivers' waters. I've elaborated a little more on the March 29 PREFLOOD factors:

• A complex river system with several large tributaries and ponds. The Pawtuxet takes the natural runoff from all the smaller streams and rivers listed above that drain into it.
• Land use practices that prevent water from soaking into the ground.
• Development that does not incorporate systems for preventing runoff from roofs and parking lots, such as green roofs, water barrels, rain gardens, catchment basins. 
• Urban sprawl that increases the paved surfaces on our land, and often along our rivers. 
• Pressure to develop wetlands that would absorb extreme amounts of water. 
• Impervious pavement (water can't go through it, so it runs off from paved surface to paved surface eventually going directly into the storm drains). Parking lots can be paved with materials that let the water through, and perhaps damaged pavements could be replaced with this kind of material.
• Weak dams that we have not repaired, maintained well enough, or removed because of cost-cutting, pressures to fund other projects, the economy.... Ongoing proper management of the dams in Rhode Island is critically important on March 31, 2010, although most days it does not seem so. The care of dams requires ongoing voter support for enough DEM staff (which has been seriously cut in the last few years) and for funds for these projects, among other things.
• Acquisition of development rights to land in flood zones to control flooding when it occurs. Rhode Islanders have been champion supporters of open space acquisition bonds. We must continue to support the funding of floodplain projects also.
• Previously saturated ground from earlier rains. The ground was still coping with the record rains of two weeks ago when this latest storm came through March 29-30, 2010. We weren't sitting ducks, but rather we were floating ducks on March 29.

What can we do now? We just got the Perfect Storm. The rivers are doing what they do ~ drain the land ~ and they will subside eventually. But meanwhile....., and then in the coming months and years, what makes sense to do?

This video is from March 8 (!), WEEKS BEFORE BOTH record-breaking storms we've suffered since mid-March, about buying up development rights to land along the Pocasset and Pawtuxet Rivers to help control flooding.

This video was from March 15, so you can imagine how saturated the land is by March 29:

This video is also from March 15 on Perkins Ave in Cranston. An evacuated homeowner says in it, "...we're going to lose everything again, it's the second time in five years. ... They should just condemn this street and let the river take it. Get rid of all the houses because everyone's in jeopardy."

This is truly an extraordinary situation. We can't do anything about how much rain falls in a day. There will always be flooding now and then. But there are some sensible long-term responses we can make. Anyone can explore YouTube for videos of the latest flood pictures, and local news programs such as the Rhode Show have collections of photos and videos that may raise other issues and give us ideas for future action.

Our watersheds bring Rhode Islanders into a community, and we need to help out our neighbors who have been flooded in the short term. In the long term, we can also learn more about a "watershed approach" and work together to minimize the effects of future floods.

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Providential Gardener Environment Guides

At the recent 2010 RI Spring Flower & Garden Show, The Providential Gardener launched a new logo for What Grows On in Rhode Island, and a new series of Environment Guides. The Guides will cover different aspects of Rhode Island's environment and how to be in the Know about local green happenings. The first Guide also features the partners who joined us at the Show.

• Guide No. 1 ~ Our Common Good & Our Ecosystem