Respond: A Residential Oil Spill in St. Bernard Parish

Katherine Foo (MLA/MS), Heather Gott (JD/MS), Meredith Haamen (MS), and Suzanne Perry (MS/MPH) won a 2007 ASLA Student Honor Award in Communications for their master's project, a handbook titled, "Respond: A residential oil spill in St. Bernard Parish, LA." This project, advised by School of Natural Resources professors Bunyan Bryant, Gregory Button, and Elaine Hockman, uses citizen science, community-based design and community organizing techniques to assist residents in making informed rebuilding decisions in the aftermath of a million gallon oil spill that occurred during Hurricane Katrina.

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita resurrected old pollution problems in the Gulf Coast, but they also added new pollution to the mix in the town of St. Bernard Parish by causing the Murphy Oil Spill, the biggest residential oil spill in U.S. history. Parish residents, who were dealing with more immediate concerns like housing and insurance, were worried about the contamination but had little energy to deal with its immediate effects. This student project surveyed over 200 Parish residents, asking how they receive information about contamination and which issues are of the greatest concern. It found that 43 percent of Parish residents felt that they had not received the information they needed to make informed decisions regarding health risks potentially caused by Hurricane Katrina.

While no one can tell residents with absolute certainty whether it is safe to return to their homes, this handbook was created in an attempt to assist Parish residents in making decisions about contamination issues. The handbook addresses the precautionary principle in risk assessment, fills informational gaps about health risks, and provides design and organizing tools intended to help the community move forward. Finally, the handbook serves as a model for responding to residential oil spills in other communities and assists residents in assessing and utilizing organizing tools for reducing environmental health risks.

 

 

For more information, see http://www.asla.org/awards/2007/studentawards/474.html. A full copy of the handbook is posted at http://sitemaker.umich.edu/respond.

 

 

Time and Space as Dynamic Elements in Sustainable Brownfield Landscape Planning and Design: A Case Study in Flint, Michigan.

Dave Laclergue (MLA), Jennifer Dowdell (MLA), Emily Marshall (MLA) and Rebekah VanWieren (MLA) won a 2007 IFLA (International Federation of Landscape Architects) Jury Award for an entry based on their master's project, "Low Impact Development in the Rust Belt: Stormwater Management on a Brownfield Site in Flint, Michigan." Advised by Professor Joan Nassauer, this project proposed alternative master plans that address social, economic, and ecological factors on a former automotive manufacturing site in downtown Flint, Michigan - once the center of the auto industry in the United States. Along the banks of the concrete channelized Flint River, 130 acres of contaminated vacant lots perpetuate a dead zone at the heart of a formerly vibrant city. Using a normative scenarios approach and a dialog with community stakeholders, two scenarios were developed for the site based on different assumptions about development pressures, site contamination, remediation strategies, ecological improvements, and circulation patterns. The dynamic elements of time and space are integral to this examination of design and development strategies, allowing for the consideration of long range planning and the application of unique solutions to treat contamination.

Each of the two scenarios led to two, phased alternative futures looking out to 2040. Scenario 1, Flint's Urban Riverfront, develops the site in ten years through a holistic remediation strategy to allow for quicker and more development of the site, in response to Flint's assumed growth, creating a revitalized urban corridor focused on an ecologically-improved riverfront. Scenario 2, Flint River State Park, utilizes phytoremediation to clean the site over a twenty-five year period of time, assuming Flint stabilizes, and later transitions into a State Park focused on ecological restoration and recreational amenity. These strategies integrate both current and future advances in science and technology with innovative landscape planning and design, in order to safeguard fragile natural systems for future generations.

The alternative futures in this project focus on ecological restoration of the Flint River, connecting open space and habitat nodes, brownfield remediation, sustainable stormwater management, and mixed-use redevelopment. They also serve as an effective study for international brownfield redevelopment as manufacturing sites begin to age and communities realize the need for redevelopment in rapidly growing urban areas around the globe. Brownfield redevelopment and remediation research is mostly focused on the post-industrial nations in the West, but as manufacturing and rapid economic development is fueled by expanded global markets, there are a growing number of potential sites in developing countries that are facing the challenge of urban land redevelopment and reuse. The landscape architecture profession is well situated to examine these issues and help to mitigate the impacts, applying new innovations to the expanding field of brownfield redevelopment in sustainable landscape planning and design.

Of 170 entries, the Flint Futures Masters Project Group was the only team from the Americas to win an award. The master's project recommendations, presentation and final paper are available at http://www-personal.umich.edu/~nassauer/UrbanDesign.html. The final community report presented to the Genesee County Land Bank is at http://www.thelandbank.org/Landuseconf/Reimagining_Chevy_in_the_Hole.pdf.