California’s Water

A sign protests the Congress-enacted reduction of water brought to farmland from the delta.

California is in the midst of it’s most severe water shortage in decades. Brought on by a perfect storm of nature, politics, and just plain bad luck the drought has brought the once-fertile central valley to it’s knees. The numbers are staggering, the California Department of Water Resources estimates that by the end of 2009*:

• Central Valley farm revenue loss is estimated to range between $325 million and $477 million.
• Total income losses to those directly involved in crop production
  and to those in businesses related to crop production is estimated
  to range between $440 and $644 million.
• The associated total employment loss is estimated to be between
  16,200 and 23,700 full-time equivalent jobs, with the majority of
  jobs lost in the lowest paying categories.
• Groundwater pumping cost increases are expected to range between $153 million and $165 million.

Two political issues have only exacerbated the crisis; one is the curtailing of water being pumped from the San Joaquin-Sacramento Delta due to the process of the input pipes sucking in the endangered local Delta Smelt, a small silver fish. Until the problem is solved, and a way is found to bypass the Delta as water travels from it’s Shasta Lake source to the agricultural capitol of the United States, the pumping will remain on hold. The other political hangup is an ongoing debate in the state senate over a proposed $12 billion dollar bond measure for infrastructure improvements such as new dams along the Delta. Additionally, the Republican Party recent capitalized on this struggle, impacting most seriously the immigrant population working in the Central Valley, by appealing to their anti-environmental sentiment. The registered Republican voter numbers have skyrocketed.

As of this writing the debate continues, and the central valley continues to dry.

*-Source: California Dept. Water Resources/Department of Food and Agriculture Report to the Governor, March 30 2009.

Sustainable, Environmentally Friendly Farming

Kevin Lunny in front of his harvest of Pacific Oysters

Victory for Kevin Lunny of Drake’s Bay Oyster Farm.  The National Park Service was  caught for using  bad science to support their assertion that  the oyster farm  was polluting the pristine Bay where Sir Francis Drake pulled into make ship repairs on the illustrious Magellan. Drake led this second expedition to sail around the world in a voyage lasting from 1577 to 1580 up to Vancouver Island.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) on June 26, 2009, attached a rider to a spending bill that would allow California’s largest commercial shellfish farm to continue operating in a Bay Area national park.

Drakes Bay Oyster Co. has been battling the National Park Service to extend its business operation beyond a 2012 federal deadline. The 1,100-acre farm property inside the Point Reyes National Seashore was slated to become protected wilderness in three years.

Feinstein’s bill would prolong oysterman Kevin Lunny’s lease for 10 years, even though an Interior Department attorney concluded that any extension of the operation would violate the federal Wilderness Act.

Lunny said he was thrilled at the prospect of the lease extension. “We feel fortunate to have an elected official who is really willing to dig down and understand these issues that we may see as small local issues,” Lunny said. Feinstein “understands how important this resource is to our community and to our region,” he added.

His family owned this business, as well as an organic beef business there in Point Reyes Peninsula, north of San Francisco Bay about fifty miles.  He is contemplating starting, with some students from Santa Cruz,   the first scallop farm.

Drake’s Bay is a member of the Marin Organic Cooperative.

The San Francisco Federal Building

 

 

 

San Francisco, CA 

 

Completed in 2007, the San Francisco Federal Building is, by most accounts, one of the most green buildings in America. This very dramatic structure,  a bit controversial with San Francisco residents, was designed by Thomas Mayne of Morphosis in Los Angeles, to be as energy efficient as possible. Not to the express pleasure of it’s civil service occupants, e.g., the elevator stops only every third floor. By  harnessing the natural outdoor elements,   the building controls the internal climate  know in the industry as  a ’smart building.’ The interior of the building is exclusively illuminated by sunlight during the day. The ventilation system, created by automatically adjusting  louvers, is primarily fed fresh air (the top 13 floors have no air conditioning at all).

 

This approach has proved successful, as the SF Federal Building consumes 45% the energy of a typical GSA building. But due to differing standards of the U.S. Green Building Council, it was not granted LEED certification.Perhaps with the release of the 3rd revision of the LEED standard last April the building will fit the code.

 

 

The south side of the building is covered with a perforated steel scrim that filters sunlight, keeping the interior and it's occupants from overheating. This facade incorporates automatically adjusting panels to fine-tune the interior environment.

Natural lighting on the lower floors is supplemented with sculptural lighting fixtures.

Bench and Bike Racks

A modern, outdoor child-care facility

Art’s Automotive

Art’s Automotive is a local, solar-powered, independent, Certified Green Business at the forefront of modern hybrid technologies and advanced Japanese auto repair, based in Berkeley, California.  Art has been recycling for many years, long before it became required and fashionable.

In the automotive repair industry there is a plethora of containers.  He has removed two-thirds of his use of aerosol cans by refilling from bulk chemicals and compressed air.  Unfortunately, they have no recycle value.  In 2008, he has saved over 4000 gallons of liquids from the universal waste system, which include tubes and batteries.  He allows neighbors to place these and liquids into his collection containers during business hours and he pays for the hauling.  He also has saved 1000 pounds of solids, and 385 cubic feet of compressed gases from waste. He can be contacted:

Mon-Thurs 8am – 6pm and Friday 8am – 5pm
2871 San Pablo Ave
Berkeley, CA 94702
Phone: 510.540.7093

My kudos to Art and his staff for this insightful approach to a difficult recycling area.

A Community of Organisms

In June 2008 The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation funded an innovative project to create a vertical habitat of underwater concrete “reefs” that would flourish in the San Francisco Bay, along the denuded shores of Marin Rod and Gun Club and Berkeley.

In total four reef balls, each two and a half feet in diameter, will be placed in each location by June 2010.  The expectation is that the native Olympia oyster will colonize them, as well as gobies, other small fish, rock crab, bay crab, and several species of bay shrimp. The “community of organisms” will create a food web for salmon, steelhead, sturgeon, and sharks.

Chinook salmon have been acoustically tagged to monitor their activity at the hatchery up the Sacramento River. Two of the salmon have already been spotted at the reef – bellying up to the bar.

 

*****

 

Inserting the center inflatable bladder in the reef ball mold.  This creates a hollow core in the reef ball for organisms that are seeking shelter.

 

Dr.Bud Abbott positions the green tether balls and small colored balls to create orifices in wall of the reef ball to allow for shelter for smaller fish and free movement of water through the reef ball.

 

Ice age oyster shells dredged from the bottom of San Francisco Bay, that are mixed with benthic sand to form Baycrete, a material made of at least 80% native ingredients.

 

Here the reef ball mold is filled with Baycrete and let to stand for a few days to cure before pulling off the mold. 

 

After being removed from the mold, the completed Reef Ball is transported to a boat  landing ramp via tow truck. From there bouys are attached and floated out to it’s final location.

EOA Designs Largest Green Wall Installation in North America

Elmslie Osler Architect, a New York City-based architecture firm, has designed the largest green wall installation in North America as the façade of the new Anthropologie store in Huntsville Alabama. The two walls, which together measure approximately 2000 square feet, create a lush, vertical landscape on the south and southeast façades of the building. The soil-based walls are constructed of 2’x2’x3” panels of a variety of sedum genus. The living walls will bloom in spring and stay green in colder months when they will provide extra insulation to reduce energy use. In summer, the walls will absorb UV rays, cooling the interior of the building.  EOA conceived the walls as an intuitive response to the rich landscape of the south.  As the living walls change through the seasons, the plant life will bring a natural textural element into the anonymity of the typical suburban shopping center. According to EOA principal Robin Elmslie Osler, who designed the installation, “Our goal in creating this installation was to help to support an awareness of the environment and establish a more enlightened typology for our stores.”  The store, to open this month, is the latest in a series of stores that EOA has designed for Anthropologie since 2005.  Located in various cities across the country, the stores reflect EOA’s interest in the innovative use of  materials. Another recently completed store in Burlingame, California has a screen of ipe wood and copper rods and stacked concrete with resin inserts.  Since its establishment in 1996, EOA/Elmslie Osler Architect, P.C. has developed a reputation for creative and elegant solutions to design problems

Wall Street Journal article illustrated with my photographs.

California Academy of Sciences

The California Academy of Science, now under construction in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, is designed by the renowned Pritzker Prize-winning architect, Renzo Piano. The innovative structure will be the highest rated LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environment Design) platinum level, joining only eight other buildings in the United States.

Here are some of highlights of this remarkable building:
1. 60,000 photo voltaic cells in the roof supplying almost 213,000 kWh
2. The planted roof will provide thermal insulation

3. Reverse osmosis humidification system will reduce energy consumption 95%
4. Living roof will reduce storm water runoff by 50%

5. Reclaimed water will reduce the potable wastewater by 90%
6. Saltwater for the aquariums will be piped from the Pacific Ocean

7. 90% of the occupied space will have access to daylight

8. Skylights in the dooms will draw cool air from below and feed rainforest
9. 100% of the demolition waste from old Academy was re-cycled
10. Recycled steel will be used in 100% of the building structure

11. Building walls are made from re-cycled blue jeans (85% post industrial)
12. All the concrete contains 30% fly ash (waste product of coal-fired plants)

The massive, living roof, which is being constructed now, is the most remarkable biosphere. About 1.7 million plants will thrive on the roof. Nine native species planted on the roof that will not require irrigation and will provide sustenance to many native species of birds and insects.

The issue of water is addressed on the ‘living roof.’ 90% of the gray water will be reclaimed from the roof run off.

Some of the remarkable presentation in the Academy will include the most biodiversity and interactive aquariums in the world. Home to 38,000 animals, the Coral Reef tank will be the second largest in the world, with animals including sharks, rays, sea turtles and 4,000 colorful reef fish.

The90 foot tall, glass dome roof will provide light and water to the four distinct rainforest environments: the Amazonian Flooded Forest; the Borneo Rainforest Floor; the Madagascar Rainforest Understory; and the Costa Rica Rainforest Canopy.

One of the world’s largest planetariums, New Morrison Dome, will be a part of the Academy as well.

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