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This is exactly what LA’s do and should be doing more of. It is a shame that our own industry lacks the reputation within it’s own practitioner’s to move forward and be the experts in this aspect of landscape architecture. If we once again cede an area of expertise to another dicipline, then we will still be “just the landscaper”

One problem in a lot of things, not only runoff, is that when a problem exists in certain situations that has a good solution applied to it, people then want to project that as a standard situation with a standard solution with the assumption that the affect has the same benefit or not applying it has the same consequences. Then we wind up doing…[Read more]

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2010/06/07/business/business-us-bp-o…

see article in NYT today, “BP sees need to ‘rationalize’ oil production in the face of declining demand” i.e., they are closing wells, to save for the future.. They are drilling shallow, they are drilling deep. Just because ANWR is off limits does not mean drilling sites are…[Read more]

BP constantly does exploratory drilling – it was an exploratory well, I am sure you know that, and they were in the process of closing it for future reference..This Sarah Palin garbage that ‘environmentalists are forcing riskier behavior” is just garbage – BP has thousands of leases in their pockets, everywhere, ready for drilling..In going after…[Read more]

Environmentalists? Government regulation?

I’m not sure about the science involved in fixing a leak in 300 feet of water versus 5000 feet, but logic tells me it would be easier. What do you think? What might be the implications of drilling in shallower water, ie I’m assuming closer to shore? NIMBYism?

Logic also tells me that given the same…[Read more]

hi i am Cliff, i agree… i am beginning to see parking lots that have very few parking spaces, due to all the deep rain garden swales between sidewalks, in the street easements, let alone ADA requirements to get around or over a swale. why build a parking lot if there is little room for cars? it’s surprising that common sense has no place here.…[Read more]

hi, I’m cliff… that pdf on designing rain gardens is awesome info thanks. a small retention pond basically, here out west, i have seen them popping up around small parking lots. they appear to be too deep, when small in width, especially in urban areas where they isn’t much room. interesting nonetheless.
there is one nearby at a new McDonald’s,…[Read more]

hi there, isn’t this something that an Environmental Engineer or even a Hydrologist would be better qualified to answer and show the research for you? not necessarily the scope of a land/arch.

how about trying the dept of environmental design and engineering at UC Berkeley.. they got tons of data. But one question: how contaminated is the water…[Read more]

Trace, that is probably the most graphic ‘Handle’ on this. The reason we are muted is we all know the extent of our own complicity. They wouldn’t be drilling there if we weren’t buying it as fast as they can suck it out of the ground. So OUTRAGE against the machine sounds so hollow and hypocritical. We all want it to quietly go away so we can get…[Read more]

Thank you so much for this information. I can’t tell you enough how much I appreciated your advices…!
Good luck for your future. I am sure you will have a great carrear.
Best regards,

If this spill keeps spilling until DECEMBER, it will be as much oil as america uses in TWO AND A HALF HOURS..
How do you feel filling up at the pump now..It made me sick to put $10 in the tank..The looming face of an oil covered gull hovered over the pumps like an apparition.

This oil spill is just the tip of the iceberg. We are truly #ucking up our oceans. There are huge areas of floating plastic debris from all our junk and dead zones from all the agricultural pollution that ends up in rivers. And, of course, we’re overfishing. Oil use is not the only thing we need to change.

Thanks for the video Rob.

I know I’m throwing stones.

I agree that we need to be discussing solutions moreso than ideaologies. The issue I have with our current economic organization is that the system is setup to serve the needs of multinational corporations with an unlimited supply of consumers.

My solution would be to make little changes we…[Read more]

Indeed, it is easier and more comfortable to argue ideology than to wrestle with what we have done (we cannot simply put this on BP or the government while driving our cars, running our computers, listening to our IPods, etc.) or what changes we need to make.

Let me propose a different starting point for common…[Read more]

Yeah, everyone knows that non-capatalist countries don’t use oil and are much better to the environment. How rediculous does that sound?

I agree. But alot of people think this is truly a free market for you and I, when we are serfs in an oligopoly (oligarchy). This should be so blatantly obvious at this point.

I don’t understand all the capitalist slander.
Privatizing profits while the public pays for the consequences is not free market capitalism. The gov’t needs to step up for the people that they represent. British Petroleum needs to be sued out of business.

The following attachments were given to me by a horticulture and toxicology professor at my university when I asked her about phytoremediation for a rain garden project.

The Phytoremediation paper by Elizabeth Pilon-Smits lists plant genus names within the discussion of each type of pollutant/remediation scenario. It also contains some really…[Read more]