Tag: Natural World

Community Building, Green Collar Economy, Infrastructure, Local Economy, Pathways to Thriving, Permaculture, Synergetic Genius, Systems Thinking, Turning Point Gratitude Project, Unique Genius

July 15 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Stormwater Analysis of Crowell Park

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Session 8 of the Turning Point Gratitude Project permaculture course will be a field trip to Crowell Lot in Brattleboro. This session will be free and open to the public.

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This heavily wooded park is very popular with neighbors. It borders on the Green Street School and has a playground. It has also been know to be camp for squatters. It was initially chosen as the site for the town skate board park, which will now be built in Memorial Park.

This park is located at the corner of Western Avenue and Union Street. It is owned by the school district, and slops towards the Whetstone Brook and Connecticut River. The “Whetstone Brook flows west to east from the hills of Marlboro across Brattleboro before emptying into the Connecticut River in downtown Brattleboro (Whetstone). The brook’s headwaters originate at over 1,500 feet above sea level at Hidden Lake. The brook cascades down from steep hills and follows Vermont Rte. 9 to the Connecticut River flatlands. The brook empties into the Connecticut River at 250 feet above sea level, dropping over 1,250 feet in just seven miles of stream length (Whetstone). Approximately 69% of the watershed resides in Brattleboro with 29% of the land in Marlboro and 2% of the land within Dummerston (Whetstone, 2008). The watershed contains nearly 20 miles of streams and a mix of rural, residential and urban land.” (Watershed description taken from a Vermont Environmental Conservation publication.)

During this session participants will analyze water flow, including how the site is being affected or affects its neighboring properties. The participants have learned a lot about water flow, how water and land interact, and how to retain this valuable resource on site for use in creating an edible landscape aligned with the existing ecosystem. They’ve learned the value of stacking functions, using and enhancing existing patterns, how forest layers interact, and how to use the permaculture principles and ethics to guide their designs.

Join us for what will be an interesting and informative session. This will be the final session before the students focus on the Turning Point edible forest garden design. If you have questions about the Turning Point Gratitude Project, the stormwater analysis of Crowell Lot, or want to talk about using ecological design to manage stormwater on your site, please contact me!

Community Building, Green Collar Economy, Infrastructure, Local Economy, Pathways to Thriving, Permaculture, Synergetic Genius, Systems Thinking, Turning Point Gratitude Project, Unique Genius

TPGP Makes the Airwaves with Green Mountain Mornings

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Many thanks to Chris Lenois of WKVT Radio’s Green Mountain Mornings. Chris invited us in to speak about the Turning Point Gratitude Project. Chris asked many really insightful questions about the benefits to the Turning Point of Windham County community. Take a listen!

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Community Building, Energy, Green Collar Economy, Infrastructure, Local Economy, Systems Thinking

How do we build sustainable infrastructure?

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Until now, there have been no common standards by which sustainable infrastructure projects could be measured. With the Envision™ Rating Tool, launched in 2012 through a collaboration between the Zofnass Program for Sustainable Infrastructure at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, and the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure, project design teams now have a way to evaluate infrastructure designs, and their suitability for a particular community.

Envision™ provides these teams with a framework for evaluating and rating the benefits and impacts of all types of infrastructure projects on the stakeholders, the natural resources and the local economy. As communities build projects to support the needs of their stakeholders, more and more are considering how to best use resources over the life cycle of a project.

If we consider the recent senior housing project at the Carroll County campus, we could ask how the building will be used when the senior population has declined. Can the building be dismantled and the resources used elsewhere? Can it easily be transformed into additional correctional space, or perhaps as dormitories for criminal justice students? The answers to these questions will help us rate whether this infrastructure project was planned to be truly sustainable.

Envision™ has sixty sustainability criteria, called credits, divided into five sections: Quality of Life, Leadership, Resource Allocation, Natural World, and Climate and Risk.

As the only credentialed Envision Sustainability Professional (ENV SP) in New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont, I can lead your infrastructure project teams through the process of developing sustainable projects by assessing, evaluating and grading sustainability indicators over the course of the project’s life cycle. What arises is a project design which truly includes input from all stakeholders that will best serve your community.

Envision™ can be used by infrastructure owners, design teams, community groups, environmental organizations, constructors, regulators, and policy makers to:
• Meet sustainability goals as defined by the stakeholders.
• Be publicly recognized for high levels of achievement in sustainability.
• Help communities and project teams to collaborate and discuss, “Are we doing the right project?” and, “Are we doing the project right?”
• Make decisions about the investment of scarce resources.
• Include community priorities in civil infrastructure projects.

The Envision™ tools help the project design team:
• Evaluate environmental resource origins and benefits as an integral part of the project
• Assess costs and benefits over the project lifecycle, considering what happens to the resources when the project function is no longer relevant or appropriate.
• Use outcome-based objectives based on these new considerations.
• Reach higher levels of sustainability achievement than is currently acceptable.

Together we can design your infrastructure project to be truly sustainable. I can guide you as we develop a stakeholder engagement model that ensures the project will serve the community. Please get in touch to discuss your project.