Mí¢â‚¬â„¢Lis Bartlett interned with The Council on the Environment of NYC.  2007 internship

SUMMARY ABSTRACT
This summer I spent two months as the Rainwater Harvesting Intern at the Council on the Environmentí¢â‚¬â„¢s Office of Open Space and Greening.  Throughout that time I helped in the construction of  two new water harvesting systems, worked with the NYC Water Resources Group creating a maintenance pamphlet for city wide distribution and assisted with other community garden implementation projects.  The internship gave me hands-on construction experience and an opportunity to apply principals learned in the classroom.  Additionally, it was an excellent networking experience and opportunity to explore my interest in public space, community engagement and sustainability projects.

DESCRIPTION
The Council on the Environment is a NYC not-for-profit is a privately funded citizens' organization in the Office of the Mayor whose mission is to promote environmental awareness and solutions to environmental problems in NYC.  The Open Space and Green Department í¢â‚¬Å“empowers people in neighborhoods to create, manage and sustain community gardens and park/playgrounds.í¢â‚¬   They have been an integral part of community garden movement in NYC since its inception in the early 1970í¢â‚¬â„¢s with the creation of the Liz Christy garden on the Lower Eastside of Manhattan.  Currently they directly support over 40 community gardens and over the years have been instrumental in the creation of many other green spaces including from community gardens, school agriculture programs and play lots.  Additionally, they assist with street tree planting projects, teaching elementary school children about gardening and how to identify and map trees in their neighbors.  For the past five years they have been working with other greening organizations and local gardeners to create rainwater harvesting units.

Watering oneí¢â‚¬â„¢s garden is an on-going challenge for NYC gardeners.  They rely on access to city fire hydrants or the good nature of a building landlord.  In recent access to this water has been limited.  Rainwater harvesting is one way to help ease reliance on the cityí¢â‚¬â„¢s water system and to assist the city in keeping storm water run off out of the sewer system.  NYCí¢â‚¬â„¢s water treatment facilities are regularly strained by large amounts of storm water off of the built environment and which can not be absorbed by the limited city greenscape. Capturing rainwater plays a small role in keeping excess water out of the sewage system. 
In my role as the Rainwater Harvesting Intern I was able to both assist in the physical creation of two new rainwater harvesting systems, including the implementation of a rain garden.  Additionally, I worked with the Rainwater Harvesting Group, an ad hoc group of NYC greening organizations dedicated to water preservation issues in and around NYC, to design a much needed maintenance and safety manual for the new systems.  The first garden I worked on was located in Harlem, next store to a Baptist Church.  I learned how to tap the buildings gutter system, design a piping system to capture the dirty run off from the first part of a rainfall.  This water is referred to as the í¢â‚¬Å“first flushí¢â‚¬  and generally carries a fair amount of contaminants, from air borne particulate matter, to lead and other building materials, bird feces and other organic matter like decaying leaves.  It is important that this material not enter the holding tank to keep the water as clean as possible for watering plants.  This first flush is piped out to an overflow at the low end of the garden, into a rain garden.  With technical assistance from the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens Green Bridge program I dug out the rain garden site, layered gravel, soil and planted native plants able to handle both flooded roots and dry spells.  At the Bergen Street Garden, in Brooklyn, I played a larger role in the initial construction, working closely with neighborhood volunteers, a group of young people ages 8-14 as well as the group of men required to do community service in gardens for petty crime.  Here we worked together to remove the trunk of a dead willow, created and laid the outlet pipe for the overflow and created the basin for the rain garden. 

CENYCí¢â‚¬â„¢s Open Space and Greening Department is part of an ad hoc group of greening organizations interested in water conservation across the city.  As the Rainwater Harvesting Intern I worked with The Water Resources Groupí¢â‚¬â„¢s sub committee on water health and safety.  The group was concerned that water stored in the tanks was safe for watering plants.  Their goal was to have the stored water maintained to drinking water standards.  The group had some initial data that showed trace amounts of contaminants that made the water safe for watering but not for drinking.  Drawing on research from Hawaii, the Caribbean, and India, I was able to make recommendations to handle these containments and subsequently wrote a rainwater harvesting system maintenance manual.  I was able to have this pamphlet translated into Spanish and Chinese by some of my former students.  (Copies are attached.)
As the work on these projects is not always straightforwardí¢â‚¬ ¦one waits for deliveries that doní¢â‚¬â„¢t come, you forgot the solvent that allows you to mix the glue to keep the pipes from leaking, ití¢â‚¬â„¢s pouring rainí¢â‚¬ ¦etc.,etcí¢â‚¬ ¦I was included in other work that was very useful to me as well.  I had the opportunity to help install a new garden in East Harlem where I planted trees, learned to lay both a crushed stone walk way for universal accessibility and to lay patio bricks.  The staff generously took me along on some of their other projects that included a day teaching elementary school children in Staten Island how to use GPS to map street tree health, as well as to work with in a garden created by pregnant teenagers.  Additionally, I spent a couple afternoons on general garden maintenance.  On several occasions I was invited to come to design meetings for potential rainwater harvesting projects and was given a wonderful tour of gardens using the systems created by Council and other organizations.  Finally, I was asked to write a short piece for the Councilí¢â‚¬â„¢s newsletter. 

PROFESSIONAL and PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT
I am not sure in relating the day to day activities, which were both instructive and fun, I captured in the smallest way, the impact of this experience.  It was so exciting to see the practical implications of ideas learned in site engineering, or the ecology study put to work in the field.  Prior to returning to school I was the Director of an environmental education not for profit in NYC. I was familiar with the Councilí¢â‚¬â„¢s work and long respected their impact on the city.  (In addition to the gardens they are responsible for an extensive network of farmers markets.)  Working day to day with this group of people only deepened my respect for their work and my understanding of the organizationí¢â‚¬â„¢s importance to individual community members and to the city as a whole.  I learned much and felt that I was able to bring old connections and resources to them as well.  (The translations were completed by former students of mine from the High School for Environmental Studies; surprisingly I knew some of the Rainwater Harvesting groups members from other environmental work in the City, which helped facilitate communication, and expedite the research work I was completing.)

The Open Space staff, on average, had worked for 15-20 years in the community garden movement.  They shared a tremendous amount of history related to the garden movement.  They were generous with their time and their hearts.  They gave me opportunities for hands-on work as well as research studies.  They took they time to show and explain old and new projects, even ones with which I was not directly involved.  Gerard Lordhal, the units Director is the former head of the Community Garden Association.  He gave me time to visit the NY Botanical Societyí¢â‚¬â„¢s library and offered to assist me with an internship next summer in Bosnia.  My work at the Council helped solidify my choice to both return to school and my interest in community gardens.  I have begun to explore the relationship of gardening work in particularly degraded areas as places not only for environmental health, but emotional healing.  The potential internship in Bosnia would be to work in community gardens for Jewish and Muslim women affected by war.  I needed to get my hands dirty this summer, and I did.  Thanks for the opportunity to work, learn, and try to make a difference.

Internship Details