Building A Resilient Region

Introduction

The Rockefeller Foundation Asks: How to build a resilient city? In order to build a resilient city, ultimately investing in the reinforcement of conscientiously working proactively to optimize our community and ecosystem before more devastation occurs.  

Currently, residents, and city officials of Long Beach NY, population of 35,000 inhabitants, have been rebuilding dwellings, infrastructure, businesses, and our city council has focused on building a new boardwalk.  My proposal is the “Bio-Dynamic Proposal,” and its goal is to stimulate integral business and educational organizations in relation to bio-ethical standards, and practices.

History

Long Beach resides on individual islands, marshes, and beaches, which were filled in the late 19th century before the Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1972.  Trains, barges, and horse and wagons transported industrial soil to fill the four mail islands as dredgers removed miles of marshland.  This massive development ultimately created the Atlantic Ocean abutting this barrier island with two inlets (west and south), a channel along the north (separating it from Long Island), and canal residential living areas on the north shore as well.  Dunes were only designed on the South shore's eastern and western sections.  No dunes were developed for the middle 2.2 miles of Long Beach's south shore, which faces the Atlantic Ocean.  

Oyster reefs and “Bio-Dynamic” ecosystems thrived above and below the marshes and beaches throughout our region before the 19th century.  Industrialization brought a massive scale of lead based boat bottom paints, and lead based anything you can think of polluting our waterways. Other devastating factors to our ecosystems were/are synthetic chemical fertilizers, pesticides, treated sewage, and other chemical water run offs.  These elements and factors are all responsible for having removed thousands of integral native species.  Once the oyster population was eliminated, because of haphazard to no regulation, the other inhabitants of our ecosystem diminished.

Finally, Nassau County built a crucial sewage system for the inhabitants of Long Island's main land in 1955 called Bay Park Sewage Treatment Facility Plant. Like Long Beach’s numerous sewage treatment plants outflow pipes flowing into Reynold’s Channel, Bay Park’s outflow pipe flowed across the Channel from Long Beach, on Reynold's Channel's north shore.  It has only been funded for minor upgrades. For a decade the plant has failed repeatedly causing health risks to all inhabitants. Fact, on more than one occasion, 60 million gallons of raw sewage have been leaked into our waterways.  

There are proposals of repairing Bay Park Sewage Treatment plant, and extending the outflow pipe out 15 miles into the Atlantic Ocean, instead of right in our channel. Neighboring municipal barrier islands moved their outflow pipes to 15 miles off the coast up to 10 years ago.  The neighboring barrier islands removed the sewage treatment nitrogen sources from their waterways without introducing shellfish to filter the water, and the result is an aquatic environment which is barren of life. These areas resulted in having aggressive red and brown algae blooms, which are lethal due to a dramatic lack of nitrogen in their water's habitats. The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation closes these beaches for weeks due to health risks. 

Ethical Plan for Bay Park Sewage Treatment Facility Plant to Promote Sustainability

As Long Beach, NY heads towards extending the outflow pipe 15 miles we must reinforce our currently dwindling ecosystems with more stable native organisms, such as oysters, clams, mussels, scallops. This is to be the first step in filtering and oxygenating waterways to stabilize all aquatic and terrestrial species currently living throughout our waterways.

It is imperative that we invest in hatcheries, and introduce the stability of organic biological life cycles to the waterways before removing the synthetic-chemical protein source of treated sewage. If we introduce a stable habitat to Reynold’s channel now, before we transfer the outflow, we can nip the lethal environmental hazards of first sewage, and second algae blooms, in the bud.

Economic and Environmental Impacts

While our oysters and other shellfish were removed from our waters, the city residents still purchased shellfish from other locations throughout the country, local industry failed, and our last shellfishery employer closed in 2011. Our city was confronted by the destructive Hurricane of the 1930's known as the "Long Island Express," Hurricane Donna in 1960, Hurricane Gloria in 1985, Hurricane Irene in 2011, and then Hurricane Sandy in 2012.  Up until now, sewage hadn’t made its way into our community’s homes, stores, schools, etc.  Having a stable eco-system is important for our city’s property values.

Long Beach has always had a railroad connecting itself to New York City, and the commute time is only 50 minutes. Our city by the shore’s economy is based on tourism. Our taxes are high all year round, but business only flourishes in the summer time.  There are snow bird residents (those who have a second residence in Florida and live there during the winter) and all year round residents.  A sub category of people living here all year round are people living on fixed income, whether it is social security, disability, and also unemployed welfare recipients. People living on fixed incomes continuously move to other locations with every increase in city, or school tax.  My “Bio-Dynamic” Proposal provides people of this socio-economic class with alternatives from feeling pressured to move away and, ultimately, hurting local businesses and the tax base. This group of people will be paid for a brief education on Bio-Dyamic cultivating, and harvesting, and then with those tools will be capable of starting a small business that can sustain our “People, Planet, and Profits.”  Investment in the Bio-Dynamic proposal will stimulate and encourage this pertinacious eco-sector.  

We need to act and invest in incubating organization (businesses, education programs, social justice) to stimulate conscientious candor and further influence sustainable practices.

Bio-Dynamic Proposal

Our community must consciously cut the red tape to enable the inclusion of social resources. For example shellfishing, raising chickens, farming/keeping bees are not practiced anywhere on this entire barrier island because of a lack of environmental insight, and/or lack of political and economic will.  The Bio-Dynamic Proposal incorporates chicken farming, for production of eggs. This is an untapped local asset for organic sources of nitrogen in compost tea, and also a nutritious food source for our community.

The ideal plan for a community that is not sustaining itself physically, nutritionally, emotionally, or consciously is to invest in a multitude of elements that will factor a positive triple bottom line ("People, Planet, Profits"). Let us invest in Bio-Dynamic compost tea to fertilize, insulate, promote vigorous plants which repel pests through organic nutrients, organic micro nutrients, and beneficial organisms and micro organisms.  Plants can optimally be planted in newly invested community and rooftop gardens. These nutritious organic foods can be sold at local grocery stores, and the farmers market because all food are produced in facilities which are insured commercial kitchens, approved by the NYS. Department of Agriculture & Markets, Board of Health, and intended to incubate start up businesses.  Our local economy will benefit exponentially. The residents living on fixed incomes/wages will have opportunity to work in jobs that weren’t there before, and have an independent opportunity to grow food for their own consumption. It promotes recycling on a humble and fun level.  This proposal also lowers costs of food because of reduced transportation costs, and incomes can be conserved from being depreciated at fluid rates.

Pollution Mitigation

With Bio-Dynamic composting, and applications, no synthetic sources of nitrogen are put on the grounds, let alone washed into our waterways, where a vulnerably unsustainable ecosystem is inundated with nitrogen from golf course run offs and storm manicured lawn city street storm drains. Auditing the current status quo of sanitation, which hauls millions of tons of organic waste hundreds of miles with fossil fuels, is appalling because this behavior is supporting increased risk of enhancing global warming effects.  Bio-dynamic systems are a sophisticated and efficient method of cultivation, and sanitation by comparison.  With land and aquatic ecosystems in mind, bio-dynamic organizations are integral for land based organisms as well as sea based organisms. Our devastated aquatic ecosystems will need investment in regulating overfishing, but more importantly seeding shellfish ecosystems. Seeding shellfish literally grows ecosystems from the bottom up. Increasing the shellfish population increases filtration of water which increases oxygen levels in water, and increases native food resources simultaneously.  The seeding must be brought about by local hatcheries, which our city and county currently lacks.  Shellfish hatcheries can work interoperable with bio-dynamic cultivation organizations as a means of benefitting People Planets Profits in an optimally pragmatic way.   There are educated residents who would benefit from a salary working on hatchery management, data entry, and field studies. These individuals are people the city should strive to accommodate in these troubling environmental times, and not only tourists.

Hatcheries Bio-Dynamic Contributions

As Hatcheries are intended to farm fish, and shellfish, they ideally are also intended to farm native plants. The plants (Grasses (i.e. for Tilapia), and algae for shellfish sustainably feed each organism a nutritious and macro-biotic diet.  Organic fish excrement are to be incorporated into the composition of the bio-dynamic compost.

Agricultural and Horticultural Bio-Dynamic Contributions

Local farming will increase profits, nutrition, and regional relations as a result of a decrease dependence on sanitation. The Bio-Dynamic compost tea benefits Agricultural food cultivation, and additionally it benefits horticultural Dune Grass cultivation.  City Regulators should be employed to regulate good quality assurance of practices managed under this proposal.

Awaiting Progress for Bio-Dynamic Dune Cultivation Program

Our boardwalk is not complete. We are awaiting the Army Corp of Engineers work to commence, which won't be for a number of months, or perhaps years. Citizens in our city actually debate whether or not our barrier island was developed to act as a cushion for Manhattan when rising floods, and hurricanes confront our region.   We are staying and looking to not make the same mistakes that were made before.  When the dunes are incorporated on our beaches, we intend to propagate them with Bio-Dynamic Compost Tea. This ensures a proven increase of propagation success across the entire spectrum of plants.

Army Corp of Engineers Role

The Army Corp has proposed to completely bridge the dunes systems, and elevate the existing systems.  I'm the manager of our community's farmers’ market. I also have an associate’s degree in landscape architecture/horticulture, and a bachelor's degree in Sustainable Business Management. I am privileged to share my farmers’ market space with artists who sell work from reclaimed pieces of our old boardwalk (which ran from east to west). 

Boardwalk Bump-Out Necessity for City’s Cultural Resilience

I have proposed to the city that our new 2.2 mile long, and 60 foot wide boardwalk should have bump-out walk overs, also 60 ft. wide, with benches to finally enable pedestrians to view the fantastic sun rises to the east, and the sun sets to the west on these specific bump outs. These elements of our new boardwalk, which I proposed will increase tourism, as well as preserve the Bio-dynamic dunes systems. The bump-outs core role is to carry beach goers over the dunes without compromising the integrity of the Dunes systems which protect us. The Army Core has designed the dunes to be placed where our city has staged summer concerts. This space runs parallel to the boardwalk, and spectators had the best real estate on top of the boardwalk. The dunes will displace the concert stage, and distance boardwalk spectators from all concerts on the beach. The bump-out will also offer optimal space for spectators, and also allow local businesses to have vendor trucks selling refreshments and concessions, all without congesting the boardwalk traffic.  

I would like to amend my initial proposal, and add that posts should be dispersed so that they can accommodate hammocks along our beautiful boardwalk.  This will stimulate the bio-dynamic farmers to cultivate textiles which can be woven into functional and decorative hammocks, and also the local artists. 

Conclusion

We need to invest in elements to support our ecosystems' art, nutrition, and social and environmental justices.  With optimal investment we can strive to living well in a virtuous egalitarian society. Each Proposal provides an answer to the question of how to build a city more resiliently, and here is what I believe is the most possible, and beneficial decision.   I didn't go as far as suggesting that all citizens be required to use modern sophisticated Compost Toilets (which are sanitary, they do not smell either), because these systems bisect negative impulses with proven sustainable results of a bio-ethical nature.