Stephen Elbaz revealed mold behind the wall vinyl at a Brooklyn co-op.   Uli Seit for The New York Times

nytimes.com - by Mireya Navarro - May 1, 2013

Since the hurricane, thousands of homeowners have been startled to discover that co-ops are largely barred from federal disaster assistance. The rules have stirred growing criticism from members of Congress from the region, who contend that the system fails to take into account how people live in New York City, where co-ops have flourished.

The lawmakers are calling for the rules to be changed, saying that as severe weather becomes more common, the region will be increasingly shortchanged in disaster aid.

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The Rockaway Resilience Network has engaged a full set of actvities for 2014 to address the Rockaways' mission critical gaps and to move the community toward sustainability.  

For more information, go to:  http://rockaway.newyork.resiliencesystem.org

For those seeking to actively help the Rockaways improve its resilience and sustainability, please consider coming to one of the upcoming Rockaway Resilience Roundtable meetings, or help with the Rockaways' neighborhood resilience assessments.

Mike

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTC_X1gblRE

watch the full video here:http://permaculturenews.org/2014/01/0...

By Ecofilms

“That view behind me is not a painted backdrop!” said Geoff Lawton to the camera. But the view looked great from where I was standing. Brooklyn Grange is a rooftop farm with a magnificent view looking over the Manhattan skyline.

Sitting on a concrete roof, totaling 2.5 acres and producing more than 50,000 pounds of organically-grown vegetables each year, you need to walk its length to appreciate how vast this rooftop garden truly is in scale.

We had been given one hour to film this place. The sun was setting. We were in the “magic hour” to film and needed to hurry. There was a lot to do.

Geoff walked down the narrow lanes of planted vegetables. Four to six inches of dirt was all the plants were allowed to grow in—very well drained dirt that resembled sharp river sand. It didn’t look like a normal loamy soil to my untrained eye.