In brownfields’ first generation, regulatory agencies drove cleanup for cleanup’s sake, with no consideration for economic or community context. In the second generation, elements of proposed redevelopments crept in for cost savings: pathways or building foundations, for example, might form part of the cap on a contaminated site.

In the third generation, the most polluted sites have been dealt with, and most of the thousands of brownfields that remain will never rise to the top of the environmental priority list. What’s driving cleanup of these sites is their economic and community value. Often occupying desirable, in-town locations, blighted sites have the potential to contribute to their community’s green space, density, employment, tax base, morale, health, and perceived viability. “In the third generation of brownfield cleanup,” says Maul, “the development is the remedy.”

Key to this trend, which has been maturing in the Pacific Northwest over the last decade or so, is a reduced level of uncertainty around brownfield transactions and liabilities. Public sector leadership in both Washington and Oregon has generated a suite of tools to allow market forces to deal confidently with contaminated sites. Statewide programs provide funding for planning, market analysis, and community engagement so brownfield cleanup gets wrapped into a larger value proposition.

The landfill site before it was capped by an artificial-turf athletic complex.

“The reality is local government leaders don’t wake up in the morning and say, ‘How do I manage my environmental liability?’” says Jim Pendowski, manager of Washington’s Toxics Cleanup Program. “Their priority is making their community a better place to live.” An example of how Washington’s Department of Ecology (ECY) helps make the link between those two objectives clear is the Integrated Planning Grant, a small investment that enables a local government to explore what its brownfield cleanup would involve, and what benefits its community would gain. Just as importantly, the integrated planning process gives local leaders a positive experience of working with ECY, and builds relationships that facilitate change.

The cleanup of a 40-acre defunct wood treatment facility on Lake River in the Port of Ridgefield, Washington, helped pioneer the collaborative paradigm characteristic of third-generation projects. When the Pacific Wood Treating Corporation went bankrupt in 1993, it abandoned hundreds of thousands of gallons of wood-treating chemicals, thousands of tons of hazardous waste, severely contaminated soil and groundwater, and toxins migrating along the aquifer toward the Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge. With the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) gearing up to list the site for mandatory cleanup, the Port of Ridgefield found itself liable for the entire cost of remediation.

Facing the prospect of bankruptcy to achieve even a minimally cleaned site that would remain a fenced blight in the middle of town for years to come, the Port approached ECY. “For [ECY], it wasn’t just about cleanup,” says Maul, who helped the municipality strategize a solution, “it was also about maintaining the viability of the community.”

ECY negotiated a voluntary, but no less rigorous, cleanup that would keep the project out of the cumbersome federal system. And when the Port struggled to fund the work, ECY began to innovate to get the job done. It funded half the initial cleanup phase, for example, dependent on matching funds from the community. And when the Port could not immediately come up with its share, ECY agreed to front the money on the strength of the Port’s grant and appropriation prospects. “I can’t emphasize enough how innovative it was for a regulatory agency to do this,” says Maul. “It took a lot of courage for them to think outside the box like they did.”

Columbia Memorial Hospital’s new 18,000-sq-ft comprehensive cancer treatment center and specialty clinic. Rendering: Petersen Kolberg & Associates (PKA) Architects

Today, the wood treatment site has been cleaned to a higher standard than could have been achieved under the first-generation paradigm. The surface chemicals and contaminated structures have been removed, the soil cleaned, and some 30,000 gallons of recalcitrant chemicals extracted from the groundwater with an innovative steam-enhanced technology. The preserved wildlife refuge is one of two refuges nationwide piloting a new paradigm for what such places can be. And long-range planning decisions made in the context of the collaborative cleanup have helped make the Port of Ridgefield the fastest growing community in the state. “Ridgefield shaped our thinking,” says Pendowski. “It showed us how looking more broadly can pull our environmental agenda along.”

Across the river in Astoria, Oregon, the transformation of a leaching landfill into a new sports complex demonstrates how a public-private partnership can harness the momentum of multiple agendas. Over 30 years ago, Oregon’s Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) ordered the city of Astoria to prevent leachate flowing from its landfill into a nearby creek and wetland. Astoria closed the landfill, but capping it properly was more than the city could afford. The leaching landfill dragged on as an expense, liability, and risk.

Meanwhile, Astoria’s Columbia Memorial Hospital needed to expand but could not. With the Columbia River on two sides of the city, and the Coast mountain range behind, developable land is scarce, and the hospital was landlocked—except for the high school’s football field right next door. So Columbia Memorial made a proposal: If the hospital provided most of the $8 million to close the landfill properly and redevelop it as a sports complex, could the hospital have the old sports field for its expansion?

Winner of a Phoenix Award for this innovative solution to a blighted site, the development has given the school district a new 17-acre sports facility capable of hosting regional and state athletic events, with the potential to generate revenue from rentals. The hospital has a site to expand its services, including a cancer diagnosis and treatment center so that patients will no longer face a 45- to 90-minute drive for treatments elsewhere. And, of course, the landfill no longer leaches.

“The redevelopment actually wound up enhancing the landfill closure,” notes Tim Spencer, DEQ’s project manager. The sports field, with a membrane liner beneath it, is a much more sophisticated cap over that portion of the landfill. The athletic building roofs reroute rainwater so it cannot absorb into old waste. And project details designed to monitor and vent methane gas generated in the landfill ensures the site’s ongoing safety.

“The idea that we could do more than simply stop polluting, that we could end up with something that is an asset to the community, is very clear at Astoria,” says Spencer. “We’re all learning from it.”

The land constraints that drove Astoria’s brownfield solution also play out on a larger scale in the city of Portland, Oregon. For Portland, as for Astoria, sprawl is not an option. “All our opportunities for growth already lie within the city limits,” says Lisa Abuaf, Central City Manager at the Portland Development Commission. “We can’t expand, so brownfields are the opportunities for achieving the city’s objectives.”

The first new building in the Zidell Yards redevelopment, the Emery apartments, is LEED Silver.

Some of the city’s most significant brownfield opportunities stretch along its riverfront, where former industrial lands are finding new life as contemporary urban developments on the leading edge of green. The first phase in the rehabilitation of Portland’s south waterfront, for example, has enabled Oregon Health Sciences University, one of Portland’s largest employers, to expand within the city, developing the first large medical building to achieve Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Platinum certification, and partnering with two other universities to develop the COTE Top Ten–winning LEED Platinum Collaborative Life Sciences Building, all part of the university’s larger commitment to environmental leadership.

Next up, on the south waterfront is Zidell Yards, a 33-acre former ship-wrecking site. After an award-winning remediation removed contamination hot spots, capped remaining residue, and created new habitat for salmon along the riverbanks, this site now constitutes the largest privately owned bare-land waterfront parcel in Portland. The City of Portland has reached a development agreement with the site’s owner—a family business with deep roots in the city—that will govern the site’s transformation into a projected 1.44-million-sq-ft mixed-use neighborhood. Prioritizing density, transit, district energy, green infrastructure, LEED certification of buildings, affordable housing, public open space, and a construction contract requirement for the inclusion of minority and women apprentices, the development agreement exemplifies the city’s approach to brownfield redevelopment as an opportunity for sustainable city building.

In addition to its city building priorities, Portland sees in brownfield redevelopment a chance to cultivate and market the expertise of the city’s green development practitioners. As economics drive more brownfield redevelopments, and as more jurisdictions adopt a collaborative paradigm, this exportable knowledge base can expect to find a wide market. In China, for example, the need for both arable land and urban growth is highlighting the redevelopment potential in contaminated urban sites. “Internationally and into the future,” says Maul, “brownfield redevelopment will drive the majority of cleanups.”

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Originally known as the Sonoma County Grape Growers association, SCW pushed for commission status in 2006. At that time, 1,800 growers voted to impose a self-assessment on the sale of their grapes, which meant that any vineyard in Sonoma County selling 25 tons or more would pay half of 1 percent to help fund SCW. “When the growers voted to do that, it became state legislation to create the commission, and growers vote every five years to continue the referendum,” says Karissa Kruse, SCW’s president, noting that the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) oversees the commission.

“From the very start, a lot of [SCW’s] marketing efforts and initiatives have revolved around the preservation of agriculture in Sonoma…. historically, this has been a farming community,” Kruse adds. Only in the last 60 to 70 years has the economic driver become viticulture, and many local growers have long family histories as farmers of prunes, dairy, apples, and other fruit trees. A major emphasis of the initiative is on continuing that legacy.

Top: Many of these growers have long family histories as farmers of fruit trees. Only in the last 60 to 70 years has the economic driver in the region become viticulture. Middle: The vineyards use a drip irrigation system, which is more efficient than conventional watering. Bottom: Shone Farms’ vineyard in Sonoma County

According to Kruse, the SCW thinks of sustainability in three parts: leaving the land in better condition than it was when initially settled, which includes protecting rivers, wildlife, and biodiversity so that it can be farmed long term; treating employees and neighbors with respect; and making it a sustaining business venture. “We want to be good members of the community and we want to give back,” says Kruse. “[The initiative] takes a triple-bottom-line approach to sustainability.”

To start, they looked at applicable existing programs. “We didn’t feel that we needed to start our own program from scratch. The best thing to do is use programs that have been well vetted by experts and already have a lot of credibility,” explains Kruse. Ultimately, they chose the model used by California Sustainable Winegrowing Alliance (CSWA), which consists of 138 assessments (questions) or best practices that a grower must address. The program considers things like water conservation, soil and canopy management, protection and promotion of biodiversity, energy efficiency, employee benefits and training, and external communications, to name a few.

The initial phase of this effort focuses on helping grape growers ascertain and assess sustainable vineyard and business practices already in place. Then, a third-party auditor conducts a site visit to confirm they are doing what they claim to be doing. Those auditors are chosen by CSWA, and tend to be educated in fields like environmental science and biology. Once they approve a property—indicating it meets the sustainability criteria—the grower is certified as sustainable. To maintain certification, they must repeat the process every year. Of third-party participation, Kruse says: “It’s not enough for us to just say we are doing these practices. Instead we wanted to make sure there was an independent [auditor] who was reviewing what our growers were doing on their properties.” It confirms that what is happening on the vineyards is in keeping with the initiative’s goals.

Kruse stresses that transparency is critical to the initiative’s success, which will be accomplished through regular progress updates, an annual “sustainability report card,” and monitoring with a vineyard/winery real-time tracker on SCW’s website. The plan is to assess 15,000 vineyard acres per year for the next four years until every acre of planted vines is under assessment for sustainability status.

In two years’ time, approximately 60 percent of the vineyards have gone through the assessment process (it’s a five-year plan). In other words, Sonoma County’s vineyards have reached the halfway mark to becoming 100 percent sustainable by 2019. “We are way ahead of where we thought we would be at this point,” says Kruse. “Almost half of our vineyard acreage is certified sustainable. It’s pretty incredible.” She is quick to recognize the board and staff for their commitment to pushing the initiative through.

In general, Kruse says growers are very supportive. Any resistance is usually because they do not understand what is being asked of them. Typically, once things are made clear, they find they are already doing many of the things that qualify as sustainable. Other times, it is a lack of awareness or the fact that they may be less engaged in the grape-growing community, which requires greater outreach efforts on SCW’s part.

SCW sustainability efforts apply to both the vineyards and the wineries. “We took the lead on this from the start because if you want to have a sustainable wine, you have to start with the grapes…. That’s why there’s been such a strong push toward the vineyards,” explains Kruse. They have begun working with wineries, too, which have a different set of assessment questions based on energy efficiency, packaging, emissions standards, building materials, solar power, etc.

In terms of progress, SCW has been recognized globally for its efforts and has been invited to speak at some prestigious industry events including Wharton’s Initiative for Global Environmental Leadership’s Annual Conference. In time, Sonoma County labels will be synonymous with sustainably grown and made wines. “As a region, it has allowed us to become leaders in sustainable growing in the global wine industry,” says Kruse proudly. “We are really starting to be the example of how you commit to sustainability and make it happen.”

The weather station is located within Shone Farms’ vineyard in Sonoma County. The device monitors the rainfall totals, wind, humidity, temperature, and other aspects of weather conditions within the vineyard and sends the data to grape growers to help them make important sustainable farming decisions. 

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It’s not just anyone who would drive by a bus depot parking lot in downtown San Jose, California, and think: I can build a garden there. But a “For Lease” sign had ecological designer Alrie Middlebrook thinking just that. In 2000, her musings gained momentum and ultimately led to the formation of the California Native Garden Foundation (CNGF), a public-benefit corporation of which Middlebrook is founder and president. In time, CNGF developed the site to support its Environmental Laboratory for Sustainability and Ecological Education (ELSEE) program. Indeed, that lowly parking lot made way for the Middlebrook Center—headquarters for both CNGF and Middlebrook Gardens, its namesake’s for-profit garden design/build business responsible for funding the educational programming.

TOP: The Middlebrook Center is headquarters for both CNGF and Middlebrook Gardens, a for-profit garden design/build business responsible for funding the educational programming. MIDDLE: Middlebrook is an outdoor classroom and has become a significant part of children’s learning. BOTTOM: The “Big Red,” is a play structure that grows food.

Nestled in the heart of Santa Clara Valley, the center is surrounded by the Santa Cruz Mountains and Diablo Range, and enjoys a subtropical Mediterranean climate. The focus of Middlebrook’s work is protecting air quality, improving the health of onsite soils, conserving and cleaning water, restoring local plant communities, and recycling materials. The SITES certification process (administered by Green Business Certification Inc.), she explains, is quite rigorous and includes over 200 benchmarks for sustainable urban land use. “We organized the gardens to meet that criteria and created program development throughout the garden.”

All those SITES initiatives have made Middlebrook Gardens, the second green business in Santa Clara Valley, very successful—so successful she was able to bankroll ELSEE, with some additional outside funding. ELSEE, a model for active outdoor learning, teaches environmental education, eco literacy, sustainability and science, technology, engineering, art, and math (STEAM) education to pre-K through eighth-grade students using Next Generation Science Standards. The programs are run primarily by college interns and volunteers, which keeps costs down, and demonstrates how schools can build a sustainable garden education program without the need for hefty financial backing.

As a visitor walking through the Middlebrook compound, one first encounters the entry gate above which “the tools of the gardener” (shovels, rakes, pots, etc.) have been arranged in a cheerful aerial configuration. Also at the entry stands “Elsee,” a female tule elk and their beloved mascot, who symbolizes, in part, Middlebrook’s idea that “if we are going to eat large mammals, we should probably be eating animals native to our local ecosystem.”

Native plants, edible crops, and species of other value are grown all over the property in myriad ways.

Take, for instance, “Big Red,” a play structure that “recycles itself and grows food.” Built with all found objects and recycled materials including old playground equipment, panels of recycled waste, and pallets, it supports multiple crops. Plants grow from the tower top, from “living walls” made with the pallets, and they trail in vines down the structure’s sides. It even features a solar-powered fountain made of tires. “It’s really mirroring how a plant recycles itself and stays in one place,” explains Middlebrook. “We thought, ‘Why can’t a building do the same thing a plant does?’”

In the Mariposa Meadow, students learn how it replicates the natural grasslands of the valley, as it is full of plant species that have grown in those environs for over 20 million years. It is now habitat for 16 types of butterflies, which are depicted on stepping stones located throughout the garden. As a teaching tool, the meadow exposes children to the concept of preserving local ecology, which is Middlebrook’s primary objective. In the middle of the meadow stand two food towers—9-foot tube slides turned on end—hosting 30 plants each (mostly native edibles or perennial food crops, which are harvested regularly). Like Big Red, they are there to demonstrate how food can be grown vertically and without tilling soil, which is ecologically damaging. “Some of the plants have been growing in there for six or seven years and produce food every day without fertilizer, except compost. That’s a very efficient way to produce a lot of food with minimal input,” says Middlebrow.

Collard greens, one of the top superfoods, and native quail bush are among the crops grown. The latter is a favorite bird habitat as well as an edible species most often used as “a salt substitute,” as it draws salts from the soil. CNGF’s Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) partner collects quite a lot of this plant’s leaves for its produce boxes. “I’m working on some projects that will demonstrate our methods for growing food [using] urban food technology,” says Middlebrook. “I think, in coming years, we will be able to grow more food on the site than people can eat.”

Left: The chicken coop traces a chicken’s ancestry back to the age of the dinosaurs. Middle/Right: Native plants, edible crops, and species of other value are grown all over the property in myriad ways.

The chicken coop, aka the “Dino Coop,” traces the everyday chicken’s ancestry back to the age of the dinosaurs. It was created by a group of elementary-aged art students, who studied the evolution of the chicken going back 260 million years. They created a timeline starting with the Jurassic Era and the plants that comprised that landscape. “We always say we are eating dinosaur eggs,” jokes Middlebrow.

The summer Nature Camp, possibly the most popular program, includes lesson plans to go with the whole garden. Middlebrook drew a diagram of the grounds with a key that indicates 26 different educational elements. Among them is an aquaponics farm featuring a large tank whose finned tenants’ waste helps nourish the plant community, which in turn filters the water. Their CSA partner also collects edibles from this unique ecosystem to include in their weekly offerings. Middlebrook views it as a tool for teaching chemistry, physics, water management, conservation, and nutrition. “It provides lots of opportunities for children to learn STEAM education—that’s one of our goals. We want the outdoor classroom to be a significant part of children’s learning.”

Currently, 10 to 20 school groups benefit from the Middlebrook Center’s programming each academic year, though its founder intends to increase those numbers. She also dreams of transforming 10,000 California schoolyards into teaching gardens; this in response to how deficient current playgrounds are in terms of learning. For Middlebrook, a schoolyard should be a place where students learn about climate change, reduction in biodiversity, and nature deficit disorder—her major concerns as an ecological designer and educator. “We try to address all three of those things in every decision we make with respect to how urban land is being used.”

Native plants, edible crops, and species of other value are grown all over the property in myriad ways.

The ELSEE model is the result of work Middlebrook has been doing for the last 40 years. Her interest in native species led her down a path that started with her design/build business at age 30. Nurturing her love for native species, she spent 15 years hiking all over California to study its native plants kingdom. Today, she refers to herself as an amateur ecologist trained as an artist. “The more you see how nature organizes itself and how the cycles of our planet play out, the more you realize the elegance of [it all].” In her ultimate mission to steward the planet, she now designs to protect nature’s cycles. Until the universal model is one that disrupts nature as little as possible or, conversely, mimics it as much as possible, Middlebrook believes we fall short of true stewardship.

The ELSEE project team believes that any healthy land use model should also support profitable sustainable businesses. Unlike conventional businesses, “eco-businesses” value the protection and perpetuation of ecosystems. “I’m thinking this year we are going to get a lot of support from local developers,” says Middlebrook. “We really see development following these natural principles of an ecosystem.” Noting Santa Clara Valley’s rich agricultural past and its leading role in technological advances, Middlebrook talks of marrying the two to develop sustainable building practices that will have business-model appeal. Beyond that, she is also interested in teaching SITES benchmarks to the local service sector. “I’d like to generate income by helping other building and landscape professionals learn these ecological methods for construction and landscaping.” Given the gumption with which she tackles all of her project ideas, it will likely be another that comes to fruition before long.

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when key players from the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro), Parsons architects, and Kiewit Construction came together to look at what could be done, they decided LEED Silver certification was within reach—and then, much like the rail itself, they reached a little further.

In 2011, in the city of Monrovia, a 24-acre parcel of land—once home to a collection of 40- to 50-year-old light industrial buildings—was selected as the site on which to build what is now referred to as the Gold Line Operations Campus. Located just south of the I-210 freeway, the $265 million service facility was built to maintain Metro’s growing fleet of light rail vehicles; it houses up to 84 such vehicles and serves as a workplace for 200 employees—24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Foothill Gold Line Construction Authority CEO Habib F. Balian has been part of the project since phase one, which extended from Union Station to Pasadena, and he played a large hand in the environmental planning and construction of phase two—from Pasadena to Asuza. At its inception, the design-build contract addressed rail alignment, the I-210 bridge, and the parking facilities. “We had a very tight budget going into this and did not really consider there was potential opportunity for any kind of sustainability features,” notes Balian. Between the rail, the parking lots, and the stations, he explains, there didn’t seem to be a lot of options. But when it came to the maintenance facility and campus, “a light bulb went off” and they started thinking seriously about incorporating sustainable design elements.

Planting a variety of drought-tolerant plants reduces landscape water consumption at the campus by 50 percent. 

A 714-panel, 178.5-kw solar panel array generates enough electricity to meet one-third of power needs of the 132,000-sq-ft Main Shop Building. 

The full-service, state-of-the-art facility will house up to 84 light rail vehicles and nearly 200 employees over several shifts a day. Water-reduction measures in the Main Shop Building (such as high-efficiency fixtures and infrared sensor faucets) were employed to help achieve a 35 percent water reduction level.

Balian credits major developments in the solar industry as playing a large role in changing their way of looking at the design. They adopted the attitude that sustainable features were indeed possible. “If there’s a chance to retrofit something in without slowing our schedule or making major modifications to the design, then we should do that,” says Balian.

Enter Roland Genick, chief architect (with Parsons) of Rail and Transit Systems. “It became clear…that with some additional efforts, LEED Gold was actually within reach,” recalls Genick. “With Parsons as the designer and Kiewit as the builder, we huddled together to identify additional opportunities.”

First, they found ways to capture rainwater using filtration systems to collect, clean, and direct water down into the ground. Drought-tolerant landscaping with state-of-the-art smart irrigation systems were added; solar-powered skylights were introduced; energy-saving sensory detectors were placed throughout the facility; and the building was physically configured to monitor power usage. Ultimately, given their large canopy, they even brought in a solar array. “These were things we never thought we would be able to do,” says Balian. “Once it became clear these things were feasible, we found we could spend a little more time and additional dollars to make upgrades that were good for the environment and made sense. We thought being sustainable was something that was very good for Metro long term.”

With regard to the stormwater treatment system, its designer, Jennifer Hall, says, “The intent was to utilize as much space underground as we possibly could [so as] not to impact what they wanted to build out.” Toward that end, they employed a CDS unit to filter oils and sediments from water being directed into the storage system, which will ultimately infiltrate the clean water into the ground. By doing so, they are “renewing the resource daily.” The underground storage chamber’s footprint is all “gravel,” sized for water-quality flow. Any water that ends up in the storm drain is contaminant free. Given the complex and extensive conduit system on site, the infiltration system was divided in two—one part sits under the parking area, the other is in the southwest corner.

In the end, they managed to take six acres of previously impervious conditions and turn them into an area capable of absorbing water. They did, however, need to tie into an existing (and already taxed) city storm drain system, but being able to absorb water elsewhere assuaged additional pressure on that system during flooding. “This changed how long it would take for the water to get from the northeast corner of the campus to southeast corner. If you were to follow the raindrop, we significantly increased the amount of time it [takes.] We helped to alleviate any downstream constraints.”

Carmen Cham, a senior architect with Parsons, points out how unique the railyard site is: “So much of the underground infrastructure has not only to do with the utilities but also the electrification of the trains.” The space was, therefore, very limited when it came to stormwater storage. On the other hand, it was loaded with ballast, which helped a great deal with infiltration of rainwater and its introduction into the ground.

Given the Operations Campus is located in the heart of Monrovia and, therefore, surrounded by a residential community, the Construction Authority strove to find ways to promote sustainability throughout the campus to help mitigate the impact of such a large facility on the neighborhood. They did everything they could to weave the campus into the environment and make it aesthetically pleasing from its two visible sides,

including the planting of citrus trees and a drought-tolerant landscape, the installation of benches and picnic tables, and the construction of “linear parks.” They even made a deal with the community to turn a triangle-shaped piece of property on the northwest corner into an open-to-the-public viewing portal overlooking the railyard. “We knew people were always going to be interested in knowing what was going on,” says Genick.

In terms of attaining LEED Gold certification, Genick says: “It’s important to note, from an approach standpoint, that as you are going through the [USGBC] scorecard…[it] wasn’t written with a maintenance facility in mind. Understandably so, there aren’t that many.” Without a model to follow, the team tried to stay true to the certification’s criteria, but they made necessary adjustments to accommodate the building’s highly particular function. They also wanted to be smart about how they were evaluating all the mechanical systems. “There isn’t necessarily a standard value for energy and water consumption as there would be for a traditional office building,” notes Genick. So they carefully considered the building’s primary purpose: to support the construction and maintenance of trains. “We were building this for an agency that is going to be in this building for the next 100 years,” notes Cham. Daylighting was important, particularly in the shop area, where a number of skylights were introduced to minimize the need for artificial lighting. Throughout the facility light sensors dim based on occupancy; others detect the amount of existing natural light and dim accordingly. The HVAC system was designed to be as efficient as possible, and they used all white roofs to avoid heat island effect. Furthermore, recycled steel and concrete were used throughout the project. (For the shop’s construction they even reused rail line.) “We were almost at the end of the design when the Authority approached us about getting additional credits,” says Cham. “That’s when a [solar] array system was introduced onto the site.”

Because the Construction Authority was only responsible for the planning, design, and construction of the project, while Metro owns and manages all operational elements, including the Operations Campus and the six-station light rail system, the team worked with Metro’s sustainability coordinator to be sure no features were implemented that could not be sustained over time. From the start, Metro was aware of what they would be responsible for, and they committed to maintaining both the operation and its certification. “They knew what they were getting and they are invested,” says Cham.

Today, the Gold Line Operations Campus comprises a main shop building; a car wash facility; a maintenance-of-way equipment storage canopy (the structural support for the campus’s solar power array, which produces nearly 22,000 Kilowatt-hours of electricity per month); a car cleaning platform; a materials storage building; storage tracks, where light rail vehicles are kept when not in use; and a 600,000-gallon fire reserve water tank and attendant pump/hydrant system.

Compared to other Metro facilities, this is a much improved work environment for employees. “We approached it in a very different way. We call it a campus instead of a maintenance or railyard,” explains Balian, noting that the initial design proposal looked more like a prison, which, given its location in the middle of a community, didn’t seem like a good idea. “The biggest challenge was getting the community’s buy-in,” he says. “We wanted to be generous to the community and do nice things for it. I think we did a whole lot to create a nice environment for the people who are going to be working there.” Beyond that, they enhanced the neighborhood with upgraded intersections and better street lighting. “That’s the great thing about these projects,” says Balian, “they are catalysts for improvements in the neighborhoods, and that’s what this did.”

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Appleton Farms preserves cultural and historical landscapes while practicing sustainability.

Walking down a pristine gravel road past the fields of grazing Jersey cows, meandering stone walls, and historic dairy barns, a pastoral landscape unfolds. Appleton Farms in Hamilton and Ipswich, Massachusetts, is one of the oldest and largest (with more than a thousand acres) continuously operating farms in the United States. Established in 1638 by a land grant to Samuel Appleton, the farm today preserves a bucolic landscape, agricultural traditions, and historic farm buildings that are disappearing in the eastern part of the state.

The working farm is just one of 114 properties located on more than 25,000 acres across the state under the auspices of The Trustees of Reservations, a nonprofit organization in Massachusetts that not only preserves land and historic buildings but also works in ways to support the vitality and sustainability of the communities in which they exist. The Trustees was founded by landscape architect Charles Eliot in 1891. The properties are open to the public with a vision toward creating more healthy, active, and green communities across the Commonwealth. Acquired by the Trustees in 2000, Appleton Farms has the ambitious goal to become carbon-neutral in its near future. “This is no small feat,” says Jim Younger, director of structural resources for the Trustees. Because farming can be incredibly damaging to the environment—fertilizer, livestock production, and food distribution all create greenhouse gases—farming has become a leading contributor to climate change.

Organic Growers

To move toward this goal, The Trustees began to farm the land sustainably. “All the vegetables are grown in an environmentally sustaining manner,” says Ryan Wood, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program manager on the property. Practices are guided by the National Organic Standards, which means synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, or herbicides are not used. Instead, the farmers employ aged animal manure compost and organic fertilizers. Legume cover crops are planted to regulate nitrogen, build soil organic matter, and prevent erosion. Seeds are organic when available and include heirloom and open pollinated varieties. Wood controls pests through the use of crop rotations, biological insecticides, and cultural practices such as the use of row covers. “Some bugs we’ll just tolerate,” he notes. “We grow about 200 different vegetable, fruit, and flower crops on the farm.”

Left: Appleton Farms resident cheese maker, Anna Cantelmo, uses the Jersey cows’ rich butterfat milk to make divine cheese, which is sold through Appleton Farms’ dairy store. Appleton Farms is open to the public and holds educational events during the year on the importance of local, sustainable food production.

Appleton has become a dynamic resource for the community. Its CSA program established in 2002 offers shares to CSA members to receive fresh produce, flowers, and other farm products. The 100 shares available in the first year sold out in two weeks. Today 650 families have shares in the CSA. Once a week, they head to the farm to pick up a bag of up to 15 different varieties of produce. Wood, who turned to organic agriculture in 2008, keeps a weekly blog for CSA members sharing the joys and wows of farming at Appleton.

The old dairy barn has been restored at Appleton Farms. Today 22 dairy cows live at Appleton and all the milk is processed onsite.

This Old House

Another sustainable move that The Trustees made was to renovate the original farmhouse at Appleton Farms. In 2010, work began to convert the property’s 1794 farmhouse into the Appleton Farms Visitor Center. Today a net-positive energy building, the farmhouse serves as a demonstration model for sustainable restoration for other Trustees properties. The renovation was made possible by an outpouring of support from donors. Approximately $1.75 million has gone into the restoration, including endowment funds. The Trustees hired the local firm Allsopp Design in Hamilton for the planning, engineering, demolition, structural repairs, and exterior renovation of the house.

“More than 85 percent of the demolition and construction waste was recycled or reused in the process,” notes Younger. Salvaged lumber became shelving to hold educational materials, and unpainted plaster from the house was composted, which was a great lime source for the soil. “Deep energy retrofits—spray foam insulation, air handlers, dual flush toilets, cisterns to capture rainwater, and solar array panels were placed on the property,” notes Younger. “The facility serves as a home base for all of the farm’s programs,” says Younger. While the farm is heading toward a carbon neutral goal, having cut its carbon footprint from 380 metric tons to 184 over the course of five years, the house is a net positive energy producer—producing more energy than it uses. Appleton Farms also secured the funding to incorporate a solar water heater for the dairy barn and an electric ATV for getting around on the farm. There was also an ingenious system put in place that collects and reuses heat from the farm’s dairy cows.

Sustainable Farming

Fresh eggs are collected daily from the farm’s hen house and free-range grass-fed beef cows graze in the Great Pasture. During the haying season, the farm produces thousands of bales of hay to feed the livestock, and all farm waste is composted and turned out on the fields. Hundreds of families visit the farm during the growing season to pick their own vegetables as a part of the CSA.

Dairy farmer Scott Rowe makes his way before daybreak each morning to milk the Jersey cows, which have an integral history on the farm. In the 1800s, the Appletons brought Jersey cows to this country for the first time for their high butter fat content. Today 22 Jersey cows roam the property. The milk is processed onsite to make cheese and yogurt. Rowe does not use antibiotics on the cows, which he says have “low stress and are well cared for.” He does not push for the most milk production but rather provides more targeted care. “The old ways of farming are simply not working. What The Trustees are doing is the future of the New England Farm—creating a local sustainable model is going to be the driver,” he says.

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Far left: Glynn Lloyd is the founder and CEO of City Fresh Foods, City Growers, and the Urban Farming Institute. Photo: Melody Ko. Middle: Shawn and Connie Cooney started Cornstalk, a freight farming operation in the city of Boston. Right: Kesiah Bascom at the Roxbury Food Project greenhouse. Photos: Eric Roth

BRA continues to have a finger on the pulse of Article 89. They work with new farms gearing up to take advantage of the legislation. “I’m still in love with this project,” says Mercurio, who helps people interpret the article and conducts Comprehensive Farm Reviews—a design review process that ensures the farm in question will be a good neighbor to abutting property owners. A farm’s layout, the activities it will support, the height of its structures, its signage, etc., are among the considerations. “We are looking at all of these factors so hopefully they won’t create any nuisances,” says Mercurio. The city also mails letters to property owners within a 300-foot radius of a proposed farm so its development doesn’t come as a surprise.

The inquiries fielded by BRA run the gamut. “It’s not just the farms,” notes Mercurio. People ask about permitting for things like growing micro greens, erecting a new shed, or building a hydroponic facility. “I help them determine the zoning for any type of urban agriculture activity they want to do.”

The passing of the mayor’s torch to Marty Walsh ensures Article 89’s continued success. A strong proponent of local food production and the programs that support it, Mayor Walsh furthers the work initiated during Menino’s time in office. It is clear the new administration values the ways in which Article 89 weaves urban agriculture into the fabric of the city and ties people together on multiple fronts. “This was something so many facets of a diverse community got behind,” notes Read. “It was something that appealed to many groups on many levels—food access, food justice, and the ‘cool factor’—everyone got excited about it.”

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