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Going Green, Saving Green


A new state-of-the-art apartment complex called Via Verde boasts a series of terraced rooftop lawns and gardens, an outdoor amphitheater and stunning views of the Manhattan skyline. The building -- as its Spanish name suggests -- is also dedicated to the “green way,” meaning it meets the highest standards of environmentally-friendly, energy-efficient construction.

But unlike some other eco-conscious apartment buildings in New York City like the Solaire in Battery Park City, or the Tribeca Green in lower Manhattan, Via Verde is located in the South Bronx. And unlike these other luxury condos, it is built with middle-class New Yorkers in mind: Many of the 202 apartments in Via Verde are intended for families for four that earn less $56,700 a year. “We hope that [the Via Verde] proposal will serve as a prototype for future affordable housing developments built nationally and internationally,” said Department of Housing Preservation and Development Commissioner Shaun Donovan.

Via Verde is not alone. A smattering of low-cost environmentally friendly projects housing projects are being built across the country, according to a recent article in the Next American City. In Duluth, Minnesota, for example, a project for 70 formerly addicted or homeless people will be convenient to public transportation and boast such features as a high-efficiency steam heating and hot water system, energy-efficient lighting and controls, ceiling fans and landscaping that requires no irrigation.

If Mayor Michael Bloomberg gets his way, there will be more buildings using such technologies in New York City’s future. On April 22, as part of a plan to make New York more sustainable, the mayor called for a series of new projects and initiatives aimed at reducing harmful emissions and energy usage.

But accomplishing such changes in the city could be a major challenge, with high demand, a scarcity of land combining to create a critical shortage of low- and middle-income housing - let alone apartments that are energy efficient , environmentally friendly and still available to less affluent New Yorkers.

GREEN BUILDING AND OUR FUTURE

But some experts believe that New York City cannot afford to neglect the environment in its push to provide more moderately priced housing. They argue that constructing buildings that use less water and energy and contain fewer toxic substances is not just an innovative idea but also a necessity.

The city is expecting demand for electricity to outpace current capacity by 2012, and a major portion of that demand comes from buildings. New York City buildings emit 79 percent of the global warming gases in the city, which in turn, accounts for 1 percent of emissions nationwide, according to a recent study from the mayor’s office. New York City alone emits as much as these gases than all of Portugal or Ireland.

And unless something is done, the pollution is bound to increase. More than a million people are expected to move into the city by the year 2030, according to the Department of City Planning.

This will “pose challenges that – if left unmet – could be paralyzing,” Bloomberg said in a recent speech.

THE COSTOF GOING GREEN

Through a variety of techniques, such as energy saving appliances, improved ventilation, recycling rainwater, green buildings use less energy than conventional homes, emit less of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming, and often provide safer and more pleasant environments for residents who are not subject to harmful chemicals and compounds.

But one of the biggest obstacles is cost.

Estimates on the up-front costs of building green and the time it takes to recoup that investment vary. The city’s Department of Design and Construction has figured that green buildings cost 2 to 3 percent more to construct, and the U.S. Green Building Council, a coalition of building industry leaders, estimates that, on average, it can increase initial costs by between 2 and 7 percent.

Proponents point out that these costs can be recovered in lower operating costs over the life of the building – particularly reduced energy and water bills. And those expenses pose an increasing burden for many homeowners and rents.

The cost of energy in US cities increased on average 11 percent last year, accordingto the US Conference of Mayors._New York City is considering an increase of 11.5 percent in water rates, which would add an estimated $72 to the average water and sewer bill for a single-family home in the city._

Despite this, many developers are reluctant to put more money into upfront construction costs.

To help developers and builders defer the costs of building green, the state and city have offered a series of tax incentives and financing.

The state began offering the first tax credit for developers of green buildings in the country in 2000. It has distributed the total $25 million allocated to the program among seven projects. The New York State Energy Research and Development Agency also offers a variety of help with different aspects of green building.

Some money is also coming from the non-profit sector.

The Enterprise > Community Partners has invested $130 million dollars to finance the development of 1,800 homes in the city over the last two years.

Yet many say this is still not enough, and so government has begun to require, not just encourage, environmentally friendly construction.

The state mandates that the buildings housing many state government agencies improve their energy efficiency by between 10 and 35 percent, and that they purchase up to 20 percent of their energy from renewable sources, such as wind or solar.

And the city enacted Local Law 86 at the beginning of this year, which requires that most new, non-residential developments using at least $10 million of city financing reduce their energy costs by between 20 and 35 percent, among other environmental requirements. The law is estimated to affect $12 billion in construction.

BLOOMBERG’S GREEN DREAM

On Earth Day, Mayor Michael Bloomberg presented list of 127 proposals, called PlaNYC, aimed at making a “greener, greater New York.” Dozens of the ideas involve making new construction more environmentally friendly – and even helping New Yorkers upgrade their existing homes to be more energy efficient.

The city's Department of Environmental Protection has already allocated $34 million dollars toward a water conservation effort that aims at a 5 percent reduction in water use. The program would provide rebates to replace toilets, urinals and washing machines with more efficient models starting in 2008.

In an effort to make green building more affordable, the new building code - which is expected to be adopted this summer - will provide rebates for many environmentally friendly features such as improved ventilation and white roofs, which reflect heat rather than absorbing it and so reduce energy needed for air conditioning. In a similar vein, the city plans to offer a property tax abatement for solar installations.

To indicate that the features normally associated with green construction are not limited to the affluent, some of the 55,000 units fundedunder the mayor’s plan to create or preserve 165,000 homes by 2013 were built to meet sustainability standards.

And from now on, the Bloomberg administration says, all of the new apartments and houses will adhere to more stringent standards.

Still, it will take some radical new approaches to ensure that New York can be environmentally sustainable and affordable.

While the Via Verde apartment complex in the Bronx has been hailed as eco-conscious model for features like the ability to rainwater, spaces to grow vegetables and fruit, solar panels, and even a Christmas tree farm, it began with a substantial commitment from the city: the land, which was valued at more than $4.5 million, was donated free of charge.

 

Catching Up On Recycling


New York City is at a pivotal point in its recycling program, and fresh initiatives, lofty goals and new personnel could finally lead to a trifecta of reduced costs, more jobs and a minimized impact on the environment.

That is if all goes well - which has not always been the case with recycling in New York.

The city's 8.2 million residents disgorge a daily mountain of 12,500 tons of residential trash, and the recycling rate for all that detritus is stalled at around 16 percent. This year's target bumps the residential rate up to 25 percent. And by 2015, the city aims for a 70 percent reduction in its total waste stream, residential, commercial and otherwise.

The 70 percent is a stretch, but I'm optimistic: The city has appointed recycling coordinators for each of the five boroughs and has adopted a 20-year Comprehensive Solid Waste Management Plan. David Hurd, director of the newly created Office of Recycling Outreach and Education, is brimming with energy and ideas, and his staff, in the Council on the Environment for New York City, will have a close working relationship with the mayor's office. And the city recently has launched announced a pilot program for recycling in selected public places, including some parks.

LOST MONMENTUM

All this stands in contrast to the great leap backward that the city took in 2002 when it vastly scaled back its recycling program. The cutback occurred at the very time that recycling, mandatory in New York City since July 1989, had morphed into a way of life as well as a civic duty. For many of us, separating all that paper and plastic, metal and glass had become a part of household routine.

I knew that if New York backpedaled on recycling, even temporarily, we would lose momentum. And we did.

Just ask someone with first-hand knowledge: "Recycling has dropped," Harry Nespoli, president of the Uniformed Sanitationmen's Association Local 831 IBT, said at a recent public forum on Community Recycling. "What we noticed is that when it first started, there was a system out there. And people adjusted to the system."

And then they "de-adjusted." Who could blame them, given all the confusion: Pickups took place only every other week. For a while, the city stopped recycling plastics and glass. Then recycling of plastics resumed, but not glass. Finally recycling of plastics resumed too.

Who could keep track?

"It really took the heart out of the people of New York City," Nespoli said. "We're losing on recycling."

At the forum, Staten Island City Councilmember Michael E. McMahon, chairman of the Committee on Sanitation and Solid Waste Management, concurred with Nespoli's assessment: "We're kind of in a slump on recycling," McMahon said. "The numbers are down. They're not where they should be."

REDUCING GARBAGE

Not only can we do better, we have to: Projections call for New York's population to swell by 1 million by 2020, to more than 9 million. So the problem of dumping recyclables can only get worse, to the detriment of the environment and our quality of life.

Garbage affects the municipal pocketbook, too. Done right, recycling can be much less expensive than hauling the same stuff out as trash. Using recyclables in manufacturing is less energy-intensive than using raw materials. Less energy use translates into less production of greenhouse gases, ultimately reducing the city's contribution to global warming. Recycling also has the potential to create new jobs as industry innovates, finding novel ways to use recyclables.

This is why I strongly support the 70 percent total waste diversion rate that the Solid Waste Management Plan recommends. In plain language, this means that by 2015, there would be a 70 percent reduction in the amount of garbage that the city pays to ship to landfills.

WAYS TO REDUCE WASTE

Along with this, we need to make sure that the city moves ahead with its pledge to work with private firms to develop a state-of-the-art transportation and processing infrastructure that will create a trash-into-treasure partnership: Together, we must find better ways to collect recyclables and recast them as salable commodities.

The city also must quickly move forward with its private partner, Sims Hugo Neu, to develop the promised recycling processing plant at the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal. The waterfront location will let the city transport more recyclables by barge, cutting down on the number of trucks that pollute city air.

But for all this to work, the city will have to do a far better job of reaching out to residents to better educate them about recycling. In the late 1990s, as McMahon pointed out, such high-profile New Yorkers as the Yankees' Joe Torre made pro-recycling public service announcements. When is the last time you heard a celebrity - or anyone - make a let's-recycle pitch? We need smart, well-designed new promotions. We’re encouraged that Hurd, the new director of recycling outreach, is looking for ways to make this happen.

The city also needs to follow through on its commitments to expand the types of materials it recycles, such as electronics. And the Composting Facility Siting Task Force must quickly move to identify appropriate locations and technologies to make composting a reality here.

There are special challenges in New York City, given its density, diversity and sheer size, but it can no longer argue that composting is not a viable option for a big city. San Francisco composts, and so does Toronto.

Toronto, in fact, thinks outside the box when it comes to recycling, to excellent effect. In 2006, the city, with a population of 2.6 million, recycled or composted about 43 percent of the waste it managed.

The program is not inexpensive, Geoff Rathbone, acting general manager of Toronto's Solid Waste Management Services, told our forum. But Toronto offsets some of the costs by requiring industries whose products create the trash to share in the cost of recycling. That includes manufacturers of fast food, soft drinks, cat litter, newspapers and numerous others.

Toronto also makes composting "as easy and yuck-free," as Rathbone put it, as possible. Fruit and veggie peelings, used diapers, microwave popcorn bags, chicken bones, pet waste - it all goes in the same green bin.

Toronto and other cities have made great strides forward in the matter of recycling. There is no reason New York can't do the same. Or better. As the city embarks on its new 20-year plan, announced by the mayor on Sunday, residents should support it by doing their part. Recycling tips are at here.

New York may be the greatest city in the world, but recycling is one all-too-obvious way in which we can make it even greater. Let's do it.

Betsy Gotbaum is the city's public advocate

 

Protecting New York's Wetlands


Willow Lake, Queens

New York City arose in a marshy landscape amid a great tidal estuary. In 1800, there were 100 square miles of tidal wetlands in New York-New Jersey Harbor, an estuarine complex where more than half a dozen river systems meet the sea. If you're anywhere along the coast of New York City, there's a good chance you are standing on what was once wetlands.

Over the centuries, the city's marshy edges and freshwater swamps-considered no more than pestilent wastelands-were filled in and buried beneath the city's grid to make space for shipping, airports, landfills and new neighborhoods. Today, just a small fraction of the city's original wetlands, both tidal and freshwater, remain. Our last wetlands, even those preserved by the city, state, and federal governments, are under increasing threat from development, pollution, and rising sea levels due to global warming.

But renewed efforts are underway to save these vanishing ecosystems. A task force that inventoried the wetlands on city-owned land is expected to recommend transferring hundreds of acres of wetlands to the parks department. City Councilmember James Gennaro has intrduced legislation requiring the city to establish a comprehensive policy for protecting and managing the city's wetlands.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg's far-reaching plaNYC 2030 for a greener city, released on Sunday, includes a recommendation to assess the vulnerability of existing wetlands and identify additional policies to protect them, something environmental advocates say is long overdue. Recognizing the importance of wetlands in controlling flooding and pollution, the mayor also proposed expanding the city's bluebelt natural stormwater drainage system.

BENEFITS OF WETLANDS

There is no single definition for what constitutes a wetland. A wetland can be anything from a classic salt marsh to a small pool that fills only in the spring or a damp wood with tree and shrub species that like moist soil. Part of the difficulty of protecting wetlands is that many do not fit the criteria - which may include wetness, soil characteristics and vegetation, as well as size - for protection under state or federal regulations. "The vast majority of wetlands have not been officially delineated," said Bill Tai, director of the city parks department's Natural Resources Group. "But people just know a duck when they see a duck."

The city's wetlands, official or not, provide essential habitat for its surprising diversity of wildlife. "People always think of New York City as the financial capital of the world. But it is also one of the richest ecosystems in the world," said Robert Pirani, director of environmental programs at the nonprofit Regional Plan Association and a co-chair of the city's Wetlands Transfer Task Force. The marshy islands and shore of western Staten Island, for example, support large breeding colonies of herons and other waterbirds. The Hudson River's striped bass fishery depends on wetlands in the harbor. Both tidal and freshwater wetlands all over the city harbor rare remnant populations of the plants and animals that once flourished in the region.

"All the small bits of wetland that are left are really precious," Pirani said. "That's what sustains the fisheries in the harbors and the great migration of waterfowl and other birds that passes through the city."

Wetlands are valuable for many other reasons. They capture rainwater and filter out pollutants, moderating flooding and assuring that clean water goes into rivers and harbors. Tidal wetlands help buffer the coast from storms. Moist landscapes also cool the overheated city. And not least, they offer breathing space, outdoor recreation and educational opportunities to inhabitants of the concrete jungle.

In the coming decades, functioning wetlands will be essential to meeting the city's needs for clean water, open space and coastal recreation. But the city must act now, environmentalists, planners and other experts believe, to save the city's last wetlands from the myriad threats that confront them.

HOLDING OFF THE BULLDOZERS

Although significant wetlands are preserved within the city parks system as well as on state and federal lands, many coastal and freshwater wetlands throughout the city are still in private hands or on land under the jurisdiction of other agencies, and remain at great risk of development or degradation.

The Department of Parks and Recreation has a major role in protecting the city's wetlands. Of its 11,000 acres of natural areas, about 4,500 are wetlands, according to Tai. The department's Forever Wild Preserves include many significant wetlands, from the salt marshes at Idlewild Park Preserve in Queens to the kettle ponds of Blue Heron Park Preserve on Staten Island. Tai said, "People are always amazed that there are not one or two but 50 of these natural areas in the city, where you can almost forget you're in the city."

Since the passage of the Clean Water Act in 1972, federal and state regulations have slowed the filling and draining of wetlands, but there remain many huge loopholes. A 2001 Supreme Court decision weakened the federal protection of isolated wetlands, and New York State does not regulate wetlands smaller than 12.4 acres.

Last spring, Gennaro, chair of the City Council Environmental Protection committee, spearheaded the passage of a law establishing the Wetlands Transfer Task Force to inventory all wetlands on city property and determine which should be moved to the parks department, affording them greater protection. Recently, he introduced legislation to require the city "to conserve, protect, enhance, restore and expand the wetlands of New York City and to standardize the city's approach regarding wetlands management," for wetlands on both public and private property.

Conservation groups in the city continue to work toward preserving key wetlands on private property still at risk of development. In its report, An Islanded Nature, published with the New York City Audubon Society, the Trust for Public Land, which helped to save hundreds of wet acres on Staten Island in recent years, has highlighted wetland habitats on the borough's western shore in need of protection.

New York State's Open Space Conservation Plan lists several dozen city wetlands as priorities for acquisition, but, as always, there is not enough funding to purchase all of them.

PRESERVED BUT NOT ALWAYS PROTECTED

Even protected wetlands face grave threats. Wastewater discharges from sewage treatment plants and overflows of raw sewage (known as combined sewage overflows or CSOs) carry pollutants, including high concentrations of nitrogen and phosphorus that upset the nutrient balance of salt marsh ecosystems. The development of uplands and other areas surrounding wetlands increases soil erosion and contaminated runoff and diverts the flow of water that is a wetland's lifeblood. "If you pave over the soil that feeds the wetlands, the wetland is dead," said Paul Mankiewicz, an ecological engineer who heads the nonprofit Gaia Institute.

The city's remaining tidal wetlands are particularly vulnerable to sea level rise from global warming.

In Jamaica Bay, part of Gateway National Recreation Area, ecologically significant salt marshes have been mysteriously shrinking by about 40 acres a year. One of three major wetland complexes left in the New York-New Jersey Harbor, Jamaica Bay is a major stopover for birds migrating on the Atlantic Flyway and one of the best bird-watching areas in the Western Hemisphere, as well as a prime spot for fishing, boating, swimming and learning about nature. But if current trends continue, the bay's salt marsh islands will disappear within the next few decades

A task force, comprised of scientists, citizens and government agency representatives, has been working to understand the problems and propose solutions to the bay's problems. In March, the city Department of Environmental Protection released for comment its draft Jamaica Bay Watershed Protection Plan, which sets forth potential strategies, including land use changes, ecological restoration, and water quality improvement, for protecting and managing the bay's invaluable natural and recreational resources.

NATURAL STORMWATER CONTROL

Blue Heron Park, Staten Island

About 60 percent of the city's stormwater flows into sewers together with sewage and industrial wastewater, all of which is processed at the sewage treatment plants along the coast. The wastewater treatment system is already strained. So, when a large storm hits, such as the recent nor'easter, these combined sewage overflows end up in rivers and bays, increasing bacteria counts and pollutants that harm marine life and make the water unsafe for swimming. The overflows also carry trash washed from streets into the city's water bodies.

While such overflow poses a threat to the city's tidal marshes, wetlands upstream can help provide a solution to the problem.

Like great sponges, marshes and swamps soak up rainwater and release it slowly, preventing the flooding of land, roads and buildings downstream and filtering out many contaminants. In urban areas, wetlands are especially valuable for flood control because the city's hard surfaces send greater volumes of stormwater more quickly through the streets and sewers. Wetlands are considered particularly valuable in keeping the most highly contaminated "first flush" of runoff out of the waterways.

There is a growing interest in using wetlands, along with innovative environmentally friendly techniques like green roofs and porous pavements, to control flooding at the source and reduce the sewage overflows that could become increasingly frequent with the more severe storm surges predicted for the future.

The city Department of Environmental Protection is creating a natural stormwater control and filtering system called the Bluebelt in southeastern Staten Island. In 15 watersheds covering about a third of the island, the system preserves and enhances the natural drainage corridors of marshes, ponds and streams and integrates them with conventional storm sewers. According to the environment department's web site, the bluebelt costs tens of millions of dollars less than building conventional storm sewers for the same area. The program also helps to preserve the city's last freshwater wetlands and open space for Staten Island's growing population.

The Gaia Institute, which specializes in integrating natural systems and human communities, is experimenting with building new wetlands to capture and manage stormwater. In El Jardin del Paraiso, a community garden on the Lower East Side, the institute joined with the parks and environment departments to engineer a small wetland to capture rainwater. It is now working with the company Sims Hugo Neu to create a meadow and wetland system to hold and recycle rainwater at its metal recycling facility on the Bronx River.

Engineers at the Department of Environmental Preservation question whether the restoration and creation of wetlands and other natural infrastructure can make a measurable difference to the sewage overflow problem in densely developed areas of the city. But the department has publicly committed itself to coming up with pilot projects that look at the use of wetlands for stormwater management.

TASK FORCE RECOMMENDATIONS

The Wetlands Transfer Task Force looked at 2,000 wetland parcels on city owned land. About a thousand of these were already under the jurisdiction of the parks department. As for the rest, Pirani said that the panel will recommend that several hundred acres be transferred either to parks or the Department of Environmental Protection for its Bluebelt program.

These include a number of wetlands around Jamaica Bay, as well as areas elsewhere in the city that have value as wildlife habitat, for stormwater management or are in a part of the city with few other green spaces.

The release of the task force's final report has been delayed, however, pending a study by the Economic Development Corporation on economic issues around the wetland that led to the group's creation in the first place - Arlington Marsh on the northwestern shore of Staten Island.

The marsh is adjacent to the Howland Hook Marine Terminal, a large container port leased from the city by the Port Authority. The site in question, one of the last remnants of the salt marshes that once encircled Staten Island, has a rich variety of flora and fauna within a very small area. The city wants the land for possible future expansion of the port. The task force members representing planning and environmental groups say that the wetland should become a park because there are other sites for the terminal but only one marsh.

The panel also found that the issues affecting wetlands go beyond whether or not particular parcels should be protected as parks. A whole range of policies involving almost all city agencies could work to the benefit - or detriment - of wetlands. In addition, any strategy to protect these areas must also consider funding. Such an overall management strategy is essential, Pirani said, because "in a place as urbanized as New York City, if you ignore wetlands, they won't be there forever."

Anne Schwartz is the author of "Rescuing Wetlands Close to Home: Ten Stories of New England Landowners," published in September 2006 by the Trust for Public Land.

 



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