The Necessiity of Composting Human Waste in the Bio-visioning of Sustainable Coastlines

Submitted by Michael D. McDonald, Dr.P.H.

Gary and colleagues,

I am catching up after another round of meetings in the disaster areas of New York and in NYC and State-related meetings. 

I am very excited to see the direction that the University of Maryland is going with its agri-food systems discussions.  They have applicability to our Resilience System work in New York, New Jersey, South Florida, Haiti, Turks and Caicos, San Francisco, Vietnam, Hawaii, and elsewhere.  As we saw from the daily dumping of 60 million gallons of raw, untreated human waste into the Long Island Sound after the impact of T.S. Sandy, our approach to the management of human waste is broken and has to go through a socio-technical revolution.  This revolution is health-critical to the hundreds of thousands in Haiti alone, who made ill by easily prevented gastro-intestinal infections that occur there due to poor sanitation practices. 

All the sessions listed below look good,  The February 26 session on " Completing the Circle: Where does human waste fit into Sustainable Ag?" looks particularly good.  Perhaps,we can talk more about this in the upcoming 10 AM NYRS Coordinating Committee conference call on February 13.

It would be good to have an update on the Futuring and Resilience working groups, in which the EcoVillage scenario for  Rockaways Resilience Network will be discussed.  One question is about whether it would be practical to process composted human waste in an area in the secondary dune system used as a storm barrier in the Rockaways, with the fully composted waste then spread on the dunes -- in a manner similar to how soil and biome was build in Golden Gate Park's dune systems to help stabilize the dunes with trees and grasses.  The idea would be for an EcoVillage experiment to be started during the summer of 2013 in the Rockaways with composting toilets, as well as local production of food and energy.  Soft infrastructure housing and non-petrochemical energy and transportation would be used.

Any thoughts?

Mike

Michael D. McDonald, Dr.P.H.

Executive Director
Health Initiatives Foundation, Inc.

Coordinator
New York Resilience System

Submitted by Ellen Polishuk, then Gary Vroegindewey

Subject: [AGNR-FYI] Sustainable Tuesdays at the IAA Here is the current schedule for the Sustainable Tuesday Lectures being held at the IAA this semester. Check the website for updates. http://iaa.umd.edu/news/iaa-hosts-sustainable-tuesdays-lecture-series  Tuesdays 6:00 – 7:50PM  1123 Jull Hall  Home of the Institute of Applied AgricultureYou are welcome to join our class for these fascinating presentations!  February 5 - Managed  Pollinators:  the keystone in modern agri-food systems.Led by: Dennis vanEngelsdorp, Research Scientist, UMD Dept of Entomology.Dennis is a dynamic speaker and passionate advocate for bees! February 26 – Completing the Circle: Where does human waste fit into Sustainable Ag?As global supplies of nutrients decrease (e.g. phosphorus), or become more expensive to produce (e.g. nitrogen), we will have to find ways to maximize the efficiency of our farming systems. Utilizing human "waste" back on farms is one way to do this, but there are several issues of concern. What is the best way to utilize human excrement both in industrialized nations where we have extensive sewer systems and in parts of the world that have little infrastructure in place for dealing with human waste? Led by: Natalie Lounsbury, graduate student in the Department of Environmental Science and Technology at the University of Maryland. Her research focuses on the use of cover crops for no-till organic vegetable production.     March 5  – How cities can use urban agriculture projects to engage citizens in addressing food securities: using food growing as a tool to promote healthy eating in marginalized communities.Led by: Abbie Steiner, Healthy Eating Educator at the Capital Area Food Bank, capitalareafoodbank.org   Date TBA – The Chesapeake Bay TMDL: Potential Implications for Agriculture, The enduring plight of the health of the Chesapeake Bay, a coastal estuary of both local and national importance, and the ongoing commitment of significant public and private resources to address nutrient and sediment pollution concerns, has resulted in documentable improvements in water quality and environmental habitat. Despite these positive actions, the Bay continues to be the downstream recipient of impairing levels of nitrogen, phosphorus and suspended sediments on an annual basis, which prompted the establishment of the Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) requirements by the U.S. EPA on December 29, 2010. This lecture will discuss the actions leading up to the release of this historic document, and what the potential future implications are for agriculture within the watershed and across the nation.          Led by Mark P. DubinAgricultural Technical Coordinator, University of Maryland Extension, USDA-NIFA Mid-Atlantic Water Program