John is increasingly coming to realize that the fate of atmospheric carbon, fresh water, agriculture, and human health and culture are all bound up with the fate of our soils.  Every time crops are harvested or soil is tilled, carbon is released into the air.

Human life on earth is sustained as much by soil as it is by water and air.  This is a fact made abundantly clear by Jim Richardson’s excellent photographs.

The story of China’s Loess plateau illustrates the deep implications of tending to our soils. Check out this excellent video here.

I see great potential for EcoMachines integrated into the Greenway. Properly plumbed and located, EcoMachines could act as the city’s kidneys,  intercepting and treating polluted stormwater runoff, before it reaches the Charles River, Fens, or Boston Harbour.  These systems would be not only contemplative public spaces but also productive spaces.  A series of EcoMachines could easily provide Boston’s markets with a year round supply of fresh cut flowers. Cleaned effluent could be used to irrigate a tree farm as proposed by Erin Kelly.

For mosquito control how about  a series of sculptural towers (modified streetlights?), designed to attract nesting swallows.

Swallows Nesting On Bridge Columns in Pheonix AZ

Jonathan dips a nitrate test strip at Omega

A few weeks ago Jonathan, myself, and the visiting Lauren Roth, left the pleasant sea-breezed Cape and traveled to the equally pleasant rolling hills of Rhinebeck, NY.  I had never before seen the eco-machine at Omega and was struck and excited by the health and vitality of the system.

Integral to the health of the system is the tinkering and attention of the operator.  At Omega, Chuck can tell simply by the surface foam and the look of the water how the system is operating.  He takes well-earned pride and satisfaction in the system’s smooth running.  For me, this is an often overlooked and unmentioned aspect of the EcoMachine.  In the ecological treatment of wastewater the human is not absent.  If anything when compared to conventional treatment, the human is more present.  In an EcoMachine the operator acts not simply as industrial laborer, opening valves and adding chemicals, but also as a gardener.  He is an ecologist observing the growth and change of the system over time, tending to it as it responds to the varying inputs of the seasons and of the facilities use.  In complex biological systems trained human intuition seems to be often as accurate as any test of TSS or nutrient content.  The systems aggregate health is not difficult to evaluate and for the most part need not be done in a lab.  Instead it is readily apparent in the growth of the new leaves, the movement of the water, and many other subtle clues.

Flower and Ground Cover at Omega

The system at Omega is healthy and well tended. In the Greenhouse the Calla Lilly and ground covers are growing vigorously.  In the constructed wetlands the Cattails have formed robust colonies. Scattered through-out the native shrubs and sedges, are huge Irises, and everywhere some strange thin plant has spread, competing even with the cattails for its place in the sun.  What is it what is its role? Is it a free loader in our treatment system out-competing other wetland species for space, or is it working, providing valuable filtration, uptaking nutrients, and contributing root mass surface area?

The mystery plant: Epilobium

Jonathan recognized the plant, thin leaved, closed purple flowers atop slender seed pods, as having hitchhiked in with the soft-stem bull rush.  He knew neither its name nor its function.  Pulling the plant carefully out of the gravel we compared its roots with those of the bulrush. The white roots of this volunteer were easily discernible from the red roots of the bulrush, they were extensive,  deep, thickly gripping the soil and gravel, a rich organic layer surrounded the root cluster.

Back in Woods Hole (thank you Roberta Clark and David Anderson)  we learned the name of this plant: Epilobium Coloratum.  Epilobium, also known as willow-herb is a common and widely distributed perennial wetland species.  Willow herb is a colonizer; it sends out many small airborne seeds and tends to be one of the first plants to grow in disturbed wetland environments.  At Omega the Epilobium will spread throughout the system. In its roots pockets of healthy soil microbiology will be established, as it dies and is replaced by hardier species, it will leave behind a source of readily accessible carbon which will be used in the fixing of nitrogen and the uptake of soluble phosphorous.

Sky Vegetables’ mission statement is “To improve the health and nutrition of city populations by providing fresh, safe, transparent, affordable produce; and to provide new jobs and educational opportunities through the development of urban, sustainable agricultural closed-cycle rooftop farms.”

Check back soon for more posts on this topic.