One of the dilemmas I, and I am sure others, face in the phony climate debate is how come the temperature does not just get hotter every year?  Why was 2005 the hottest year and not 2009.  I have been working on how to explain it, and I think I have something here that makes sense, and is probably not original, it has to be out in the web and ether somewhere, but I am writing it down and will pass along my hypothesis and how I arrived at it with the hope that it will eventually arrive on the desktop who is actually working on this issue and can explain to me what is really going on.

My hypothesis is pretty simple.  The Earth’s weather is strongly influenced by the interaction between a number of cyclic components.  One of the best known of these is El Nino, La Nina, but similar phenomena occur around the world.  These cycles are linked, but also display some independent traits. They all vary from year to year if not season to season.  You never get exactly the same monsoon as the year before.  The east flowing current along the equator in the Pacific Ocean varies in temperature and strength over time.  Sometimes these semi independent component cycles sort of cancel each other out, sometimes cycle A reinforces cycle B,  and sometimes cycle C influences both of them in the same direction.  Each year the mix is different.

But I am convinced that sometimes they line up in ways that produce a very hot year, and the analogy that pushes me in that direction is crashing of waves upon the shore.  I like to boogie board, but this is a lesson that surfers, sailors, and anyone else catching a wave learns.  Never in the ocean will you find identical waves crashing on the shore.  Each wave that crashes is of a different height than the one before.  There is an ever changing array of heights, crashing on the shore differently, but there are patterns and rhythms.  Sometimes they seems to come in series of sevens, with the seventh being the tallest, followed by a series of shorter waves until it builds back up.  Between the moon’s pull, the wind, the arrangement of the coast, the movement of the water in and out involves various motions that cancel each other out and reinforce each other differently on each wave and series of waves and when they line up right, that one wave is very tall.  The system to create a very short wave could also be looked upon positively, though not by a boogie boarder, but it is the same phenomena, with the cycles lining up in a way that cancels out rather than reinforcing height, with other waves a mix of canceling and reinforcing trends.

The weather seems to do the same thing. One year the wind shear in the western Atlantic chops up the potential hurricanes coming off the African coast, the next year wind shear is down, but fewer storms develop off of West Africa, and the next maybe there are lots of storms, little wind shear, and Cape Hatteras ends up with a new shape.   Temperatures, it appears,  do the same thing, this year the flow in the Equatorial Pacific keeps it cloudier and cooler, the next year it warms and there are sunny skies in the places it influences, but the Atlantic is cooler because of some local cycle. And then every 5, 7 or whatever number it is years several cycles line up and we get a heat spike, followed by several warm, but cooler than the record years.

The warm but cooler than the record years are significant. The science is very clear, more greenhouse gases like CO2 and CH4 in the atmosphere means more of the heat bouncing off the earth bounces back to earth rather than escaping into space.  With more CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the air each year, the expected result would be that each trough between record years would be warmer than the last trough, and that appears to be exactly what we are seeing.  Record temperatures every X number of years, with X being variable, but the warmest series of temperatures with each passing cycle.

Is this correct?  Does it match the data?  Is the driver a believable driver?  Is this already a factor in the discussion?  Should this idea be promulgated.  Join the discussion and help me be a better educator/story teller.

This past week there have been large schools of very small menhaden in the shallows at Swan Point.  The silver flashes when they turn sharply or jump through the air are very apparent, and we have even seen some of the little predators, barely bigger than the infant menhaden, darting among the schools.  There were 3 herons hunting one day, yesterday we saw an osprey carrying a fish, and cormorants have been common.

I spent much of the spring wondering about the fate of the tadpoles in the Bull Frog pond in the NBG as none could be seen.  There also seemed to be only 6 or so frogs along the western shore whereas in past years there had been many.  With what seems to be an increasing fish population I was wondering if it was affecting the frogs. Or maybe the pond was just murkier.  But in the last week I have seen many tadpoles jumping, more frogs along the shore, and an abundance of fish babies skittering in schools.

The little pond in the NBG is a breeding site for Gray Tree Frogs.  The first year I noticed them they were changing from tadpoles to frogs in July, while this year early June seems to have been the season, with tadpoles disappearing around July 1 as the pond seemed to get stagnant and algae filled with the hot dry weather.  Also this year I noticed a terrestrial frog away from the pond shortly after the frogs metamorphosed.  i have no idea what the difference in timing means, so I guess I have something to look for next year.

uestion 3.
The most active project of FOTM is the Collyer Field Forest Restoration project.  Beyond the baseball field lies the Moshassuck River and an upland of filled wetland that was entirely overgrown with Japanese Knotweed, and invasive species.  Along the River, here and at other places there was a riverine gallery forest, a line of trees, one or two trees deep at its largest, with relatively old trees, trees growing since the area had been first industrialized, coming up on the canal walls.  Under them was some serious shade, and lo and behold the knotweed stopped where the trees shaded the place all day.  In other words closed canopy forest suppresses knotweed.

The Collyer Field site, especially beyond right field, was a perfect place to attempt a forest restoration, but no one in New England seemed to have attempted such a thing.  I wanted a methodology that a small community group could do with a minimum of scarce volunteer time.  We have it.  It requires planting only a few large trees a year, and taking care of them for the first growing season, then they are on their own, and they flourish.  After 10 years you can really see a forest forming, and some evidence that the plan will eventually work once the forest canopy closes.

We are going to have a forest.  Tours available.  Some pictures http://www.themoshassuck.org/treeplanting.php

Happy to talk more.

Question 4

Friends of the Moshassuck has always had at the heart of its work two things.  The restoration of the river and the revitalization of the community through which it passes.  The Moshassuck is probably the most degraded river in RI, with a higher percentage of its watershed paved (over 50%), than any other.  The headquarters are in a Nature Conservancy preserve (Limerock above the quarry in Lincoln) but even the headwaters are being polluted by runoff from the development above the pond.  Serious bad erosion issues.  The lower half of the river has been industrial forever, with the first mill on the river being built in 1675.  It was the home of the cholera epidemic that forced Providence to build its first sewage treatment facility at Fields Point.

The lower river borders low income communities, immigrant communities, communities devastated economically since the textiles industry started heading south in the 1920’s.  Revitalization is critical.

What distinguishes FOTM is our insistence that economic revitalization will only come about via ecological healing.  Our watchwords are “You can not heal ecosystems without ending poverty, you can not end poverty without healing ecosystems.”

Based on my long agricultural experience in northern New England, the agricultural revitalization of the Moshassuck watershed has always been on the table.  I actually ran a barn shoveling service in Maine with payment in manure, so composting is deep in my soul, and I really understand and have experience with how it transforms soil.  I have therefore been an active member of the Greater Providence Urban Agriculture Task Force, with a variety of responsibilities including advocating at public hearings for changes in city documents to make the city more agriculturally friendly.

Some of my work on the task force has been funded by various grants.  Eventually a partnership was formed between Southside Community Land Trust (spiritual home of the Urban Ag Task Force (and where the grants go)) and my part time employer The Environment Council of Rhode Island Education Fund so that I could put even more effort into the Compost Project.  Recently I obtained another grant to fund even more of my time on the project.  If you want more information on the Compost Project check out    http://prosperityforri.org/ and look at the various compost files.  It is a project bent on transformation.

But to bring it back to FOTM, FOTM has no official role, but it is the work I do there, the philosophical underpinnings and ecological knowledge I obtain through that work and the contacts I began assembling there, that helps the Compost Project move forward.

I continue to focus on facilities, still assuming if facilities can be built, the rest of the system will fall in behind.  But i am starting to wonder if facilities can be built here.  The economics of trash in RI may make it much more difficult.  Only the numbers will tell, now to collect the numbers and analyze them.  June should be time to make strides on that.  Maybe have a report with some good numbers by fall?

In the mean time keep other aspects moving.  I have been talking about small scale machines for community gardens with Michael Bradley and Ecotope that could serve the restaurant market, while trying to figure out what pilots can get going. The Ohio University material provided a spark.  I wrote to Wright engineering, and need to follow up with a phone call.   Marty Grimes in Newport really wants to have Aquidneck Planning Commission take a serious gander at this based on the flyer from Linden Hills MN.  Newport also needs a demo of Michael’s inventions.   Going to call about that next week

The dance with a potential anaerobic digester/multidimensional facility company was ultimately unsuccessful, but very useful.  I was sorry that Larry’s guys had the wrong technology, but I learned much, including how better to prepare for future dances.  I sort of waited for them for a month while doing other things, but maintained momentum in other areas. I used the time to prepare most of a research plan, enough so that I can start collecting data, and start talking to towns and cities.  Enough to put more pressure on the hauling business to prepare.  I have made some calls in all of these sectors.   But as noted above, the low tip fees and electricity markets make it iffy.  I also need to figure out more how to lock up enough trash to make it feasible with long term contracts.

But it will take having the numbers to attract a private business to invest.  I will continue to talk to those, feeling out what they need.  In fact I did one today, and knew the answers before I started the conversation.  Must be time to collect the numbers.

On a brighter note, the pond over by the maintenance buildings has many tadpoles, and the hawk is still using the nest I saw it build.

Compost Project activities for the year from June 2009 to May 2010.

Summer 2009

Continuing research into collection and processing of compostables and the diversity of solutions available in order to get the food scrap in Providence composted and returned to the soil.

Spent time cultivating Providence city government contacts seeking support for Compost Stakeholder Convening and working with the city on logistics.  Convening took place in January 2010.

Brought together facilities managers from RISD, Brown, JWU, and PC to share information and incite action as regards to composting the food scrap generated by campus dining facilities.  Maintain regular contact with all 4 schools, and support efforts on all 4 campuses for independent and joint action.  RISD bought compost machines, student organizations at Brown and JWU are asking their administrations for progress.

Viral marketing of the idea of compost everywhere.

Fall 2009

Provided logistical and political support for introduction of Providence Greenup program. Learned much about how to roll out a program like this.

Preparations for compost stakeholders convening including expanding network

Discussions with waste haulers about the need for them to invest in preparations for compost.  Discussions continue.

Conducted workshop on compost at Sustainable Living Festival

Continued research

Continued viral marketing

Winter 2010

Compost Stakeholders Convening in Providence January 15

More than 50 attendees including representatives form the RI legislature, City Councils, DEM, EPA, City DPWs, farmers, waste haulers, composters and recycling advocates.

Developed numerous partners with continuing relationships.

Received a variety of publicity including several articles in ECORI.org

Convened several committees that continue meeting based on conference attendees, with the most active being those focused on home composting and restaurant collection.

Began supporting work at Ecotope related to compost machines and collection systems.

Began exploring the entrepreneurial factors that might lead to faster development of compost facilities.

Began looking for technologies specifically related to anaerobic digestion/electricity production/composting facilities and for people who might be convinced to build and operate such a plant in Providence metro area.

Convened composters and food waste generators in several places around the state in effort to link folks for pilot projects

Spring 2010

Gave 4 talks in 6 weeks at various conferences on compost and the possibilities in the current time with an eye on developing a plan to convince communities to mandate source separation for organics.

Developed a full scale research plan to provide the data that would allow project to go to city halls and convince them.

Worked with EPA to find technical assistance for research.

Continued viral marketing and information gathering.

Home Composting committee working with RIRRC to develop materials to teach and encourage all of the ways of home composting while keeping in mind how it integrates into a larger scale  composting system.

Received grant from Anderson Rogers Foundation to support Compost Project staff time.

Keeping watch on bicycle cart collection of compostables in Providence

Compost files  4/4/10

I have started giving talks to groups about the Compost Project.  I spoke at the Science Cafe/Green Drinks and the Land and Waters Summit.  Several more gigs coming up including the Toxics Action conference and the Grow Smart conference.  I spoke to JWU students and will be speaking to Brown students.

Following the January stakeholder convening we(essentially Katherine and I discussing strategy)  tried the functional committees, pilots, feasibility, communications, etc. It was hard for folks to get their hands around things. My colleagues asked for a different approach.  We moved on to 4 sector committees.  Home composting, restaurants, institutions, and municipal.  Municipal currently has zero members.  The others all met this last week.

The home composting working group will be effective. There is an intersection between this work and their other work. RIRRC has a vested interest  in producing the right materials for the community.  Thank you Krystal, Ellie, and Nicole.

The other committees, especially the Institutions committee, are likely to evolve more into networks than committees.  Each of the schools in the current consortium has in the last few months stepped up their work on compost.  I like to think that the Compost Project talking to all of them independently and together has helped them speed up their work, but in all cases they are primarily responding to internal pressures.  (compost is an idea  who’s time has come.) Their students are very interested.  People working on these things at the various schools do not really need a committee to progress, but could use a network to share information and ideas and occasionally collaborate on gathering specific information. Together we can foster innovation,  we can help create the climate of compost, while the various institutions implement projects that dramatically reduce food waste being landfilled. We can convene when there is a good reason to.   This group is capable of finding solutions for themselves.   My goal is that the various campus solutions build to an even better whole that works for them as well as other institutions.

The restaurant committee may eventually evolve in the direction of a network as well.  it is small now and needs attention , but as more people in the industry start to ponder…..   The network would at least share information everyone could use in making decisions on where to send the food waste and what technologies to use in their own business, and might collaboratively develop local solutions. The restaurant committee gave themselves some research to do.

While we work on collection systems, it is still likely that ultimate success, the full scale removal of food waste from the waste stream in Rhode Island so that it is turned into compost, is going to rely upon the development of a compost facility/facilities.  Therefore my effort continues to drift towards facilities, and how we are going to develop the capacity to compost half a million pounds of food waste a day in Rhode Island.

I have been pondering about developing a fifth committee, the facilities committee.  Katherine and i did not discuss this one in our most recent rewrite, but I continued to think about and was beginning to think about assembling it. But recently things happened to change my approach.

All along it has been clear that Compost is an idea who’s time has come.  It has been clear since the start of the project 16 months ago.  As I began to talk it was clear that in the depths of the depression folks were looking for ways forward more appropriate to the times.  The Green economy has become not only hip, but relevant even for the laggards.  Compost fits all of that.  Waste clean up, carbon footprint, resilience, local jobs, good food, less chemicals, nicer neighborhoods.

Many communities have begun composting recently, with more starting daily.  This denotes that it presents an opportunity that is affordable for communities.  Much of the money needed to run the system is already in the system.

Because compost is an idea who’s time has come, moving forward in this project has been relatively easy.  Doors have opened, reception has been good, when i needed resources they would show up fairly expeditiously.

Facilities hold the biggest challenge.  They require more than a little investment.   There is a lot to do without  more scaled up composting facilities, but some parts of the system, and our ability to ultimately compost nearly all food waste, requires that we develop composting facilities in RI. What kind of facilities, depends on the specifics of a particular location.  The latitude of what is available is wide.

I have had some conversation with EPA and DEM about redeveloping a Brownfield in the city into an compost facility.  The conversation continues.

For all of these reasons a traditional facilities committee was not the way to go.  Therefore i held off developing the committee even while thinking about who to work with on this more closely. I started to ponder whether i needed to be an entrepreneur rather than an organizer for this phase of the project.  Having never done anything quite like that, I started preparing, in my thinking, and by seeking out conversations that would help me learn and swim at the same time. I specifically sought the advice of New Commons. Michelle and Speck sat with me for a hour discussing entrepreneurship as a useful tool for this project and finding partners.  Glad to say that I had already thought about much of what they said to me.

The next day I spoke at AS 220 for Science Cafe/Green Drinks.  At the end I talked to Larry Sprague about building compost facilities and what might be most interesting in Providence.  We continue the conversation, thinking about what kind of a team to assemble to build an inner city composting facility on a brownfield.  Since then I have continued other conversations about entrepreneurship as well and pondered where else to go.   Maybe this is how to better position efforts on behalf of facilities rather than forming a committee. See how it goes. Right now it is where i am putting most of my effort.

But even as facilities fill my brain in the eddies, parking  lots, and back burners I continue to ponder transportation, supermarkets, and waste haulers and how best to bring their presence and information to the discussion/evolution.  It is clear the garbage business is changing very fast.  Businesses are repositioning themselves for a RI throwing away a lot less trash.  Will the timing match that of Providence so that we can surf?  I am trying to keep in touch with various organizations working in these realms, but i need to step up my efforts.

The work Cleanscape/Ecotope and Michael are doing is very independent of what I am doing, and intimately linked.  Machines, recipes, restaurant pilots, browns.  Opportunities. Partner where we can, maybe quite a bit

I ought to at least briefly note before ending this the possibilities at URI and in Newport.  I continue to prod./stay involved, But this will happen on the schedules of those with food waste and composting capacity to bring together. The putting together of numbers by various parties, will help, and thankfully several volunteers have found the Compost Project  recently and are now putting these numbers into useful formats. The better our numbers over the next few months, the more likely things will work.

All in all, I am feeling very positive.  We are going to transform what RI does with food waste over the next few years.

The next day, February 25 I conducted a meeting in Newport expressly about beginning the process of developing something on Aquidneck Island.  27 people attended.  All had been invited because of their connection to some aspect of the business, recycling, government, farming, food waste production, composting.  Many signed up for research/follow up, but as in Providence, few seem to be following through.  Last week I was sick, but I have sent out several follow up notes, with meeting notes and a research plan.  Will see what the response is, and do appropriate follow up, with those I think will do research, and with those who may be important to connecting food waste to a composter.  We did make one good linkage, but they shall remain nameless here.  Let them  work at the appropriate speed without pressure.

Here is the research plan I sent out.  Pretty much the same issues as everywhere except I did not single out municipal collection.

The first issue to look into is the demand for compost.
This might be broken out in several different ways:
Demand for landscape quality compost
Demand for high nutrient compost for growing food
Demand for organic high nutrient compost for organic gardeners/farmers
Demand for compost if agriculture become larger in RI/in the local area.
Demand for compost at different price points

I am not sure how to figure the demand for compost, so would appreciate any suggestions on what to look for to base calculations on.

Another issue is how much material is available to be composted:
Again, several components to the question:
In compost lingo there is a differentiation between Greens (high nitrogen materials) (food waste, grass clippings, seaweed) and Browns (high carbon materials) (leaves)
How much Green/high nitrogen material is available?   300,000 tons per year in RI??
can it be easily separated from various waste streams, and at what cost (monetary. Labor)
Several different streams.  Municipal pick up, restaurants, institutions, supermarkets/produce stores
How much is in each stream, and what is the ease of separation in each stream?
How much Brown material is available (anecdotal evidence says some composters have a brown material shortage compared to the amount of food waste they might be able to gain access to)
How much compost could be created in addition to current production based on the materials available?

Separation, storage, pick up, transportation issues
Can the producers of large amounts of food and other Green compostable waste (supermarkets?) reasonably separate out the compostables?
Are there segments of this waste stream that are easier to gather than others?  ( I had some of this discussion with URI food service recently)
Can this compostable stream be safely and cleanly and odor free stored for pickup?
What kind of containers would be needed, how often would they need to be picked up, what costs are involved (both capital and continuing)

What are the current costs of disposal for this waste stream?  Transport/tipping
How much can be saved by diverting it/ what new costs come into play
an extra pickup?  Less trucking? Changes in tipping costs

Some people are already writing back about what numbers they can provide, but most of it I will need to be more diligent on, and possibly collect on my own.

Following the cold that laid me down for a few days I went to URI to begin the process of helping them divert food waste to a composter.  Sejal from URI Master Composters program was there as was a person from the URI Dining Service and Richmond Sand and Gravel.  We need to collect much of the same information noted above in order to help them get started.  I think that is what I need to focus on the next few weeks, knowing only a limited amount of data will come from elsewhere, though I have a few reliable colleagues for that part.

Instead of blogging I have been sending out grant proposals, all seeking $3900 to fund 3 hours a week of this project.  Sent out 4 of them, we shall see.  Big money is going to  come from elsewhere like EPA or USDA, for on the ground work.  But that I will get more help with I hope.

I was going to return to the Providence meeting and where that goes.

One thing is that the data is important, same data as we want for Newport and URI.  But it also seems useful to reorient the research in Providence looking at the 4 waste streams separately.  The streams we shall be looking at are home composting, municipal collection of food waste to be composted, restaurants, and institutions.

This is the draft research plan for Providence that I have only circulated to a very limited number of people for comment.  Snce no one actually reads this blog, it is safe here until refined and sent out.

Focusing strictly on Providence, though readily transferable to other communities research would focus on

Home composting
Municipal collection of food waste from all households/compost at a facility
Restaurants
Institutions

In each case develop a full action plan with costs.

Home composting
Develop materials and outreach program to educate households about composting and what resources  ( bins, education) are available while  working with URI, RIRRC to make sure capacity is up to snuff.
Suggest pilot projects to test various aspects

Municipal
Examine what other cities such as SF are doing and how they did it.
Policies needed  (no food waste in trash?, timing of collections, etc)
enforcement?
Costs for set up
bins, modifications for collection systems on trucks
contracts with waste hauler
facilities and capital costs
potential savings
Education and roll out of program
how to do
what it would cost
Returning the compost to local gardens
cost, investments
Sources of Browns to mix with Greens
Potential Pilot projects

Restaurants
Source separation issues ( 3 sectors production waste , cooking waste,  post consumer waste)
Storage/collection (what type of storage technology, how often to pick up)
Where to compost/how
Costs versus present systems
Tonnage
Sources of Browns to mix with Greens
Locations
Potential pilots

Institutions
Need all the same information as restaurants

Next step is to do the research in conjunction with those who are also digging in.

One other wild thing:  Started talking about a project in Providence, one college and a site we need to develop. So far just a gleam in the eye, but the same research needed for all of this applies here as well.

Enough for Today.  Greg Gerritt