CSO (Combined Sewer Overflow)

Build a Rainwater Harvesting System with us!

This Saturday, September 28, help us build a rainwater harvesting system for our Healing Herb Garden!

New York State Environmental Politics

For those of you who are interested in following New York State environmental politics, a great online resource is Environmental Advocates of New York. I also receive their email alerts, and was pleased to learn that my State Senator, Kevin Parker, supported all four Environmental […]

“Greening Flatbush”!

Rebecca’s container gardening demonstration Last Sunday’s event, “Greening Flatbush: Garden Where You Are” was a huge success! The Sustainable Flatbush Gardening Committee assembled a stellar program of speakers and demonstrations on topics including Container Gardening, Urban Composting, Street Trees, Permaculture and more.   Mela and […]

NYC to address CSO problem with Green Infrastructure

Lots of interesting local developments occurred during my two-week foray into the world of Carnaval in Brazil (still catching up!), and here’s one of my favorites: NYC is seeing the light on addressing the Combined Sewer Overflow problem – where even a minor rainfall can […]

Q&A with “The Garbage Expert”

NY Times’ City Room blog continues its Q&A series with experts on various urban planning issues (the first was with recently-appointed Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan). For the garbage/recycling geeks among us (I include myself here), this is a very interesting read. And if we are […]

Water Conservation forum this Wednesday

I attended this seminar two years ago, and it completely changed my thinking about water use. Hint: if you think you know how much water a leaky toilet wastes, think again! Water Conservation: Quench Your Thirst for Information What better way to jumpstart a sustainable […]

Message In A (Water) Bottle

This article in Fast Company magazine, “Message In A Bottle” by Charles Fishman, brings the bottled water discussion to another level. While I highly recommend reading the entire article, here are a few selected bits: • Bottled water is the food phenomenon of our times. […]

Thanks to All Who Attended Event #3!

We had a full house for Friday’s lecture by Wilton Duckworth and Joan Ewing of Green Phoenix Permaculture. Wilton provided some fascinating historical perspective on New York City’s infrastructure; I was particularly intrigued to learn of our transition from a city that was once able […]

More on the CSO problem and how to solve it

Riverkeeper has created a great report on CSO (Combined Sewer Overflow) which illustrates the extent of New York City’s sewer system overflow problem and outlines a number of very simple and affordable solutions. While none of the ideas presented are new to sustainability advocates, what […]

S.W.I.M. – StormWater Infrastructure Matters

After the torrential rains of last week, I received an email from an organization called SWIM (StormWater Infrastructure Matters). If you are not yet aware of the major problems New York City faces regarding stormwater runoff, read on.