Articles by Erik Hoffner

Coal ash on CounterSpin

FAIR's podcast CounterSpin has a great interview with Kristen Lombardi of the Center for Public Integrity. She's the author of an important new coal ash expose featured in the March 6 show. "Coal Ash: The Hidden Story," and its map of just the known slurry dumps -- not including all the ones coal companies won't tell anyone about -- are great.

Clustered housing and green space combine to good effect

Located just outside Austin, Plum Creek in Kyle, Tex. is this region's first traditional neighborhood development -- a community of 8,700 residential units, several hundred acres of green space, over 600 acres of commercial, employment, and mixed-use property, a 70-acre town center, and a commuter rail station, all built on the principles of "new urbanism."

View full stats and project history at Terrain.org, which has an absorbing file of such "UnSprawl Case Studies" (and other great literary and visual content on place, both natural and built) viewable in the dropdown in the top right corner. Plum Creek may not look like paradise to everyone, but it's an example of the way new developments can keep up with the times and the needs of a changing social and energy landscape.

Movement for metro pollinators spreading

Let loose the bees! Like the surging movement for backyard chickens, bees also have urban anthropic allies, and Denver is the newest metropolis to allow beehives in town. Led by the intrepid Denver Urban Gardens (DUG) crew, bees will now be invited to pollinate mile-high metro-veggies, just like in Seattle, Minneapolis, and San Francisco.

Enjoy the ordinance's entertaining rules on how hives are to be kept at DUG's site, but consider that native bees are also to be encouraged.

Check out this article on Sacramento's Urban Bee Project, which tries to bolster biodiversity and urban pollination through the planting of vegetation favored by native bees, such as the cantankerous 'headbonker.' Me, I'd plant any damn thing if I thought something by that name might come bumbling by.

Two projects uniting veterans and green jobs

Two grassroots projects recently came to my attention aimed at finding green employment for vets, too many of whom return to no jobs, many bills, and much debt, creating an awful lot of strain on them and their families. Veterans Green Jobs was conceived to create "solutions for three of the most urgent issues of our time: the rebuilding of a sustainable green economy, reversing deteriorating environmental conditions and climate change threats, and the need to reintegrate over a million military service veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars who are in need of healing and meaningful new careers."

And in San Diego, Archi's Acres Veterans Sustainable Agriculture Training program's three-month, 40 hour-per-week course offers returning vets both hands-on training and textbook learning in organic production, from seeds to sales. Started by ex-Marine Colin Archipley, a three-tour veteran of the Iraq war, it's making a big difference for its participants. Check this great story from a local TV network on its impact both in terms of new skills learned and the therapeutic effect of growing food:

Hats off to you, Colin.