The tarp shade snaps and flutters in the breeze above the harvest volunteers. The CSA is bountiful this spring — crunchy lettuce, sweet strawberries, and even some cherries from the new windbreak. Stores around here sell produce this tasty, organic, and local for a fortune, but our volunteers feed families on it for just an hour of work a week and some dirty fingernails. The model is spreading. Vacant lots and brownfield sites all over the city have started sprouting biodigesters and sunflower fields, compost vessels and prairie plantings, communities of care: the phytoremediating foot soldiers of food sovereignty in recovery.
— a drabble by Looking Forward reader Betsy Ruckman
The spotlightThere are more than 450,000 brownfield sites across the U.S. — previously developed parcels of land that have been left abandoned, with some form of contamination. They may be former industrial facilities, gas stations, mines, landfills, dumping sites. And before they can be reused, they need to be cleaned, or remediated.
So, what does that mean exactly? It’s not as if a bunch of volunteers... Read more
