Center for Neighborhood Technology

March 22 is the 15th Annual Celebration of World Water Day

Established in 1992 by the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, World Water Day aims to raise awareness of the importance of clean water to public health. According to the UN, an estimated 85 percent of global diseases can be attributed to unclean or unsafe water supplies; this disproportionately affects children in developing countries, 5,000 of whom die every day from such causes as parasites and diarrheal diseases that could be prevented by access to safe water.

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Green Blessings: From Pavement to Green Open Space

CNT continues to create natural open space in urban environments and raise awareness about the potential for community greening. The latest project is at the Saint Margaret Mary Church and School in Rogers Park, on Chicago’s north side. On October 18th, students and parishioners worked with Green Corps to plant almost 500 native Illinois prairie plants in the main parking lot of the church and school. The “green infrastructure” was blessed and officially dedicated by St Margaret Mary’s priest, Father Jim Barrett, on October 28th.

And as Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dr. Wangari Maathai declared, while speaking at the recent dedication of another CNT garden project at the Al Raby High School, “it is this type of activity that should be replicated a billion times throughout the world.”

The Green Infrastructure research and demonstration project, funded by the U.S. EPA, is a partnership with the City of Chicago to gather engineering and soil data on the performance of stormwater best management practices (BMPs) that use the power of plants to absorb and clean rainfall runoff. The gardens were built with Green Corps, a City-sponsored community landscaping and job training program. CNT will use these features to demonstrate how green infrastructure can fit into attractive neighborhoods and improve local drainage problems.

Bridging the Gap Between Chicago and Nairobi

Last Saturday afternoon, at an intimate gathering at the Al Raby School for Community and Environment, Dr. Wangari Maathai presided over the dedication of a native garden planted in her name. Students, teachers and community members listened as Dr. Maathai spoke of the essential role gardens like the Wangari Maathai Natural Garden play in promoting urban renewal, social and environmental activism and raising awareness—from the Al Raby School on Chicago’s West Side to the Green Belt Movement in Nairobi, Kenya.

At the dedication, Al Raby students spoke about their experiences planting the native garden at the entrance of their school. Back in May, with the help of CNT and other community members, the concrete was removed and students helped to install a garden that will serve as an interactive learning site not only for students but for the East Garfield Park community.

The students also reflected on the important lessons they learned from leveling and turning soil, planting seeds and laying mulch, to now maintaining and monitoring the garden—one of the most valuable being the teamwork it required. One student reflected on her initial surprise to find she would not just be observing the garden, but helping to create it from scratch. Later, Dr. Maathai responded by pointing out that to invoke progress you often must “get down on the ground” and plant a garden yourself.

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Nobel Peace Prize Laureate to Attend Garden Dedication

On Saturday, September 22 at the Al Raby School for Community and Environment, Dr. Wangari Maathai, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, will join students, teachers, and community members to preside over the dedication of the Wangari Maathai Natural Garden. The garden was designed and created as a collaborative process between the Al Raby High School students, school staff, community members, CNT, and the City of Chicago. Speaking will be Dr. Maathai, Steve Perkins, Janice Jackson—Principal of Al Raby High School, and a student representative. For more information on the event, you can download the invitation.

Earlier this year, CNT and the Al Raby High School began transforming the school’s physical environment into the optimal environmental leadership learning setting with the installation of a native woodland garden. Named after the 2004 Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai in honor of her distinguished environmental work, the garden will help to beautify the main entrance of the school, and help connect the students to a living ecology by providing a hands-on experience in landscape design, creation, and maintenance.

CNT is the founding civic partner of the Al Raby High School for Community and Environment. Founded in 2004 by CNT Senior Vice President Stephen Perkins, this small student-centered high school envisions a student body inspired to intellectual excellence and personal responsibility through community and environmental activism.

This project is made possible through a $15,000 grant from the Prince Charitable Trusts as well as donated materials and services from Bob Porter, Natural Areas Manager of the North Park Village Nature Center, F.H. Paschen/SNNielsen, Christy Webber Landscapes, and R&R Mulch and Soil. The event is co-sponsored by Al Raby High School, CNT, Garfield Park Conservatory Alliance, and Chicago Humanities Festival.

To read more about the Wangari Maathai Natural Garden, download the project fact sheet.

CNT Helping to Relieve Flooding on the South Side of Chicago

Over one hundred years ago, Calumet was a wetland teeming with wildlife, but with an environment inhospitable to humans. Developers remedied this problem by dumping slag (a waste product of smelting ore) into the wetlands. While this created much solid area to build upon in South Chicago, the slag blocked natural drainage patterns. Subsequent construction of impermeable surfaces such as paved roads and parking lots contributed to the problem; today Calumet battles significant amounts of flooding during periods of high rainfall.

Our Lady Gate of Heaven (OLGH), a church in Calumet’s neighborhood of Jeffrey Manor, suffers from the kind of flooding seen all over Calumet: its parking has flooded with three to four feet of water after heavy rain. Not only was this an inconvenience to the church, OLGH rented out space to a Banner School. When CNT approached OLGH and offered to help, the offer was gladly accepted.

Very soon, OLGH’s problems will be greatly eased—CNT is constructing a vegetated swale that the water will naturally drain into. Additionally, A beautiful garden will stand where asphalt and rainwater used to burden students and parishioners.

Green Infrastructure Saves Money and Improves Greater Chicago’s Water Quality

On July 12, CNT was at the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago (MWRD) presenting recommendations for green best practices in stormwater management.

Back in May, CNT and the MWRD held a meeting, bringing together national and regional experts, to discuss and consider the application of Green Infrastructure (GI) stormwater best management practices in the MWRD’s recently adopted stormwater management program. Since then, CNT and MWRD have been collaborating, looking at previous research and demonstrations of other cities that were presented at the meeting, where experts from Milwaukee, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, and Seattle addressed the environmental and economic benefits of implementing green infrastructure on a broad scale.

“Practices like raingardens, disconnecting downspouts, rain barrels, and porous pavements are highly effective at reducing stormwater runoff and filtering the pollution stormwater otherwise carries into the rivers and lakes. Green infrastructure also saves money compared to conventional stormwater treatment and helps improve communities’ health and vitality,” said Wise. “We are pleased to work together with the MWRD to bring these benefits to our region.”

At the July 12 followup, CNT presented to the MWRD Board a set of recommendations to move forward with implementation in the district. Read the full conference report from May 31, complete with recommendations here.

Learn more about CNT’s work to promote Green Infrastructure, including the online calculator, Green Values, the do-it-yourself green solutions manual, “Water: From Trouble to Treasure”, and a series of fact sheets.

MWRD Green Stormwater Solutions Meeting Recap

On May, 31, 2007, members of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District (MWRD) of Greater Chicago, along with national and regional experts in stormwater management, got together to consider the application of Green Infrastructure (GI) stormwater best practices in the MWRD’s recently adopted stormwater management program. See the agenda here.

CNT Natural Resources Director, Steve Wise, began the conference with three information objectives from conference participants. The goal of the meeting was to address and answer the questions:

• How can we bring together all the good work being done to advance GI in order to overcome the remaining obstacles to implementation?
• How will the MWRD Stormwater Ordinance include BMPs?
• How can we use our knowledge of soils and geology, and our existing databases, to encourage BMP implementation at the lot-level?

The final discussion period raised questions ranging from the issue of handicap accessibility in green street design to the changing public perceptions of the aesthetic value of naturally landscaped areas. The session ended with some final considerations from CNT President, Scott Bernstein, including a repeated offer to MWRD to continue to partner on ways to incorporate GI into MWRDs new authority.

See the Powerpoints from the meeting here.

Read the bios of the participants here.

Start Thinking About Your Own Rain Garden

Sure, it’s 20 degrees in Chicago and from this vantage, spring is a mere fleck on the map, but what better time could there be to start dreaming about your future outdoor activities?! CNT has some new tools to assist with your green thumb fantasies!

At the December 5 meeting of the Illinois River Coordinating Council, CNT Senior Engineer Bill Eyring presented Lieutenant Governor Patrick Quinn with the ceremonial “first edition” of our new pocket guide to green stormwater solutions.

(photo above is Illinois Lt. Governor Pat Quinn with CNT’s Steve Wise, Bill Eyring and Julia Kennedy)

The booklet, Water: From Trouble to Treasure, is a field guide to understanding and advancing green stormwater management, a critical component of a sustainable future. The guide gives community groups, homeowners, and others practical ways to capture raindrops where they fall that are simple, affordable and can replace more costly conventional stormwater approaches.

The guide lays out a vision of restoring the natural ability of landscapes to manage stormwater. It offers immediate steps for groups to get started without extensive funding, expertise, or fear of adverse consequences. Green solutions manage stormwater through simple approaches that restore or mimic natural systems. These include rain gardens, native vegetation, tree planting, rain barrels, and permeable pavement. Green infrastructure can save homeowners, developers and municipalities money while protecting water quality, recharging ground water supplies and creating more enjoyable landscapes in the process.

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Natural Resources Portfolio News

CNT’s Natural Resources work gains a new tool and a new face this week. We introduced our Green Solutions pocket guide, “Water: From Trouble to Treasure”, yesterday at the Illinois River Coordinating Council meeting. Visit our website later in the week to learn more about this guide to affordable and accomplishable “green” infrastructure solutions.

We are also excited to welcome Steve Wise to CNT as our new Natural Resources Portfolio Manager.

Steve comes to Chicago from Portland, Oregon and brings with him more than 15 years of expertise in environmental research and advocacy with a particular focus on watersheds and water quality. Prior to joining CNT, Steve served as Development Director and Interim Executive Director of the Opal Creek Ancient Forest Center, leading hands-on education, and restoration and research programs in the heart of a protected old growth forest. He has worked within an impressive range of mediums, bringing to his advocacy work the perspective and knowledge of a consultant to Lewis and Clark College’s Northwest Water Law & Policy Project; an adjunct professor of Environmental Studies at the University of Oregon; and an economic policy advisor for the River Network and Save Our Wild Salmon Coalition. Steve has also has worked since the early 1990s creating online tools and resources to assess environmental impacts and improve environmental decision-making.

His work in green building, wastewater system improvements, and restoration education programs will enable CNT to continue to develop new and innovative tools for evaluating and measuring green infrastructure while also strengthen our existing toolkit.

Greenmapping.org Interactive Map Launched

If you’ve had the chance to explore CNT’s and Openlands’ Natural Connections website, you’d find yourself in a map-lover’s mecca. In 2002, CNT and Openlands partnered to compile data for 14 counties throughout the Chicago region and mapped out 20 layers of green infrastructure data. The maps are still available to download and print from the site.

Now, CNT and Openlands took the data sets and made the maps interactive. You can search through 19 counties in the Chicago region, including Wisconsin and Indiana, and compile layer upon layer of useful and valuable information. The map is highly customizable, so you can choose an area by zip code, municipality, county, state or even watershed. Then you are able to choose what layers of data you want to see about that particular area, including floodplains, soils types, conservation easements, streets, wetlands, trails, and greenways.

A map of this breadth has not been developed to date and has taken over 100 organizations‘ efforts to compile data, with funding by The Boeing Company, Illinois EPA, The Joyce Foundation, and Chicago Wilderness. Take some time and explore the new site at http://www.greenmapping.org/map.

Help Beautify a Chicago Neighborhood

If you’ve recently visited the neighborhood of Logan Square and gotten off at the Logan Square CTA stop, you’ve probably noticed something seemingly uncommon amongst the hardness of the Chicago backdrop: a lush native prairie garden.

In 2005 Logan Square Walks, which CNT helped start, chose an abandoned site located adjacent to the Logan Square el stop to design a garden of prairie plants, grasses and shrubs. The result is a natural oasis for pedestrians, cyclists, public transit users and residents alike.

The next step is to add a seating area for visitors to relax and enjoy the garden. They are currently accepting secure, online donations to enable these plans.

The last Wednesday of every month, Logan Square Walks meets at the Paseo Garden for a “Wednesday Stroll”, in which they explore on foot the hidden, not-so-hidden and simply overlooked corners of their community. For more information, email Ben Helphand at ben@cnt.org.

To check out the Paseo Prairie Garden, take the blue line to the Logan Square stop. It’s at the west end of Logan Boulevard, within sight of the Illinois Centennial Monument. Take a stroll through the garden and enjoy the serenity that some dedicated individuals are working to make more common throughout our city!