Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘New York State’

Willow Biomass, Another Cool Local Project

Posted in Ag and Natural Resources, Green Infrastructure, New York State, SUNY-ESF, tagged , , , , , on June 13, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Like the SUNY-ESF research to cool Downtown Syracuse with water from Lake Ontario, the project discussed in the local newspaper, excerpted below, is another promising step on the route to a sustainable energy future, led by my own college.

Syracuse, NY — Farmers in Oswego County beginning next week will be able to sign up to grow willows as part of a renewable energy fuel project.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is providing $4.3 million to be paid to Central and Northern New York farmers to grow willow to burn to make electricity. The project is a collaboration of the State University College of Environmental Science and Forestry and the ReEnergy Co.

SUNY-ESF, which has been studying using willows as a renewable energy source since 1986, will offer an outreach program to educate local government officials, agricultural leaders, farmers and landowners about the opportunity to grow willow. ReEnergy operates plants that use biomass and waste residues to produce thermal and electric energy.

And, in another part of the article, Tim Volk describes the production and harvesting conditions for willow.

Volk said the willow will be grown on 3,500 acres of marginal farmland that is considered poor for other crops. He said willow grows well in wet soils and is pretty tolerant of adverse weather condition.

The first harvest of willow takes place four years after it is planted. It then is harvested again every three years, Volk said, adding it is an easy crop to grow and requires very little management.

Read Full Post »

Investing in Community

Posted in New York State, Recession Watch, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on November 13, 2011| Leave a Comment »

In December, we celebrate the 4th anniversary of the official start of the Great Recession or Lesser Depression. One silver lining that I see would be if communities (i.e., community residents) started to take matters into their own hands and began to create their own better futures. Recently there have been signs that some communities are doing just that. From today’s New York Times, the story of the new department store in Saranac Lake, NY, entirely financed by shares sold to community residents. After the town’s last department store closed, residents had to drive 50 miles to buy basic necessities, and they were considering an offer by Wal-Mart to develop a store. Not liking either alternative…

But rather than accept their fate, residents of Saranac Lake did something unusual: they decided to raise capital to open their own department store. Shares in the store, priced at $100 each, were marketed to local residents as a way to “take control of our future and help our community,” said Melinda Little, a Saranac Lake resident who has been involved in the effort from the start. “The idea was, this is an investment in the community as well as the store.”

And later in the article:

Think of it as the retail equivalent of the Green Bay Packers — a department store owned by its customers that will not pick up and leave when a better opportunity comes along or a corporate parent takes on too much debt.

Read Full Post »

Chronicle Slams Syracuse U for Public Engagement, Among Other Things

Posted in LA Education, Reflective Practice, SUNY-ESF, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on October 23, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Just as the notices reminding me of my expiring subscription to The Chronicle of Higher Education arrive in the mail, the top story in the local newspaper concerns a stinging article in the Chronicle from earlier this month. Robin Wilson’s article, titled “Syracuse’s Slide: As Chancellor Focuses on the ‘Public Good,’ Syracuse’s Reputation Slides,” is mostly hidden behind the subscription wall – unfortunate, especially, for readers of Syracuse Post Standard who attempt to follow the link to the article. The public does have access to the 43 letters to the editor written in response to Wilson’s article.

At issue are high profile initiatives by the university’s chancellor, Nancy Cantor, to actively link the university to the city surrounding it and to diversify the student population. Ms. Wilson’s article quotes several faculty members who voice concern that the university cannot afford these endeavors, that they divert the scholarly mission, that the quality of the students admitted is being compromised, and that a drop in rankings by U.S. News and World Report, from 40 to 62, is a sign that the ship is sinking. The comments section contains several rebuttals from faculty who say that they were interviewed by Ms. Wilson, but had their favorable comments excluded from the resulting article.

The issues raised regarding the role of public engagement in academia have application to praxis in landscape architecture and for landscape architecture academics whose scholarly focus is engagement. Therefore, I will focus on the public engagement side of the controversy and leave the rest of the debate to others (like this article on changing conceptions of university prestige). Here is how Chancellor Cantor’s initiative, Scholarship in Action, is described in the Wilson article.

Syracuse University, she says, “should have an impact on our democracy and do work that addresses pressing issues in the world.” She adds: “It’s not that you stop caring about the fundamentals or quality, you redefine what constitutes quality and exciting scholarly work.”

That’s exactly what Ms. Cantor has done through a campaign she calls Scholarship in Action. It involves moving students, professors, and research off the campus and into the community to work with local officials, nonprofit organizations, and businesses on projects designed to give students hands-on experience and help solve the problems of the city and its people.

How is this controversial? More after the break. (more…)

Read Full Post »

New York State of Mind

Posted in New York State, tagged , on June 6, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Should state & local government be committed to protecting long-term environmental values? Even in the midst of the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, NY State residents respond like this. I’m impressed. The survey was sponsored by CaRDI – Cornell’s Community and Regional Development Institute and conducted in Jan 2011.

Read Full Post »

State of Upstate New York

Posted in New York State, tagged , on June 5, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Wikimedia Commons image by Matt H.WadeI was asked to speak at a conference on the topic of “Land Use, Environment, and Natural Resources,” a very broad subject even if it is focused on Upstate New York. That would be “upstate” defined as everything north of the NYC metro area. In other words, what is the current status of land use, environment, and natural resources for almost the entire State of New York? In 20 minutes. I have taken on that challenge (?)  and will be making my presentation next Wednesday in Syracuse.

To prepare for this talk, I spoke with land use and environmental planners from various parts of the state over the last few weeks. What’s going on in your area? I thought I’d hear some frustration in the voices of those I called, given the state and local government budget challenges – but I did not. There is really a lot going on, and grant money is keeping the planning engine running for now at least. The only downside I detected is that there is too much work for too few people at many agencies and organizations. I have decided that the thrust of my talk will be “Innovation and Resourcefulness in a Time of Austerity.” I will post a few of the interesting examples of innovative land planning that I have found.

Read Full Post »