Grid Magazine January 2021 [#140]

GREEN NEW DEAL PH IL LY ’S

JANUARY 2021 / ISSUE 140 / GRIDPHILLY.COM

T O W A R D A S U S TA I N A B L E P H I L A D E L P H I A

City Councilmember Kendra Brooks on building a community-led and community-driven movement PAG E 22

P LUS

An environmentalist hunts • Tallow soap • Living shorelines • The pesticide quandary

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1

EDI TO R ’S NOTES

by

alex mulcahy

publisher Alex Mulcahy managing editor Alexandra W. Jones associate editor & distribution Timothy Mulcahy tim@gridphilly.com copy editor David Jack Daniels art director Michael Wohlberg writers Bernard Brown Siobhan Gleason Alexandra Jones Randy LoBasso Meredith Nutting Kiki Volkert Lois Volta photographers Drew Dennis Milton Lindsay Rachael Warriner illustrators Sean Rynkewicz Lois Volta published by Red Flag Media 1032 Arch Street, 3rd Floor Philadelphia, PA 19107 215.625.9850 G R I D P H I L LY. C O M

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M

y dad used to say, “If you have a simple answer to a complicated question, you’re probably wrong.”

In my youth, I strongly disagreed with that sentiment, and, for the most part, still do. Some things are crystal clear, black and white, right or wrong. Saying an issue such as systemic racism or our dependence on fossil fuels is complex justifies the status quo and gives excuses for avoiding, or postponing, meaningful action.

That said, I have to side with my Dad’s perspective on the issue of using pesticides to preserve wildlife and biodiversity. Moral ambiguity and complexity abound.

Ninety-nine times out of 100 I would be in lockstep with a group like Toxic Free Philly. There is enough damning evidence that links the commonly-used weed killer Roundup to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma to believe that the world would be better off without it. That we expose our kids to toxins for a lush lawn is a crime.

However, according to a number of environmentalists interviewed for this issue, pesticides are a necessary tool to protect wildlife. The already daunting task of managing invasive species would be much harder without them. When the invasives prosper, they smother opportunities for native plants, which are far more likely to create habitat for more creatures.

The same goes for a forest overrun with deer. These shy yet majestic animals are devouring our forests, eating tree saplings from the understory that are the ecosystem’s future.

Animal rights activists believe that it is a moral abomination to kill an animal, that people have no right to do it and should leave nature alone.

The problem is that we have been interfering with ecosystems for centuries—for millennia. In the recent past, we have intro-

duced scores of invasive plants, intentionally and by accident, and we have hunted deer’s natural predators into oblivion.

These meek ruminants now sit atop the food chain, a place that ultimately is not good for them. Only humans are left to control their population. If we don’t intervene, forests will be lost.

One exciting development in the fight for biodiversity that has taken hold in Europe is the movement to “rewild,” which promotes reintroducing animals, often predators, that were eliminated by overhunting and habitat destruction. Bison, beavers and wolves have been employed to fill in voids present since their removal from the ecosystem.

Here in the United States, a famous example of rewilding is the reintroduction of wolves—which had been extirpated in 1926—to Yellowstone National Park. The impetus for this project, which began 25 years ago, was to address a skyrocketing elk population. That has been achieved, and the elk population is stable and no longer prone to boom-or-bust, which, in lean years resulted in starvation.

We have the unenviable task of being stewards of a stressed-out environment.

We need to look at what’s left and do what we can to save it. We have to protect the very bottom of the food chain, and we have to reinvigorate the top.

It’s going to require us to make some compromises that might make us feel uncomfortable, but we cannot afford to let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Wow—that sounds like something my Dad could have said.

ALEX MULCAHY Editor-in-Chief alex@gridphilly.com COV E R P HOTO G RAP H BY D RE W DENNI S

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3

by

lois volta

DEAR LOIS,

How do I channel the anger I feel into something productive?

I

n terms of domestic life, I think a lot about what angers me.

As a cleaning lady, I’ve had clients who’ve pitied me, and others who’ve barked orders at me while offering me their scraps. I’ve had those who’ve stiffed me. Those who’ve looked down their noses at me. And those people made me mad. In all cases, I was on my knees, cleaning their toilets, feeling shame for failing to keep up with the preprogrammed standards of how my life was supposed to look. I was supposed to be better and more successful than what I had become.

Initially, I responded to these rude clients by accepting that life is terrible and people are awful. I quickly learned that this mindset isn’t at all sustainable, and not everyone is bad.

I then began to focus on learning how to release myself from those who made me feel this way about humanity and connect myself with those who uplift and support me.

I was determined to be cheerful, thankful and rise above the anger that was making me dread work. I shifted my focus from how I was being treated to how I was going to respond. I found myself dropping each disrespectful client and consequently releasing myself from all of their negative, judgmental energy. I would wish them well.

This to me meant hoping they would lead a life where they became nicer people, so no one else would be subject to their disdain for themselves, projected onto those who they consider beneath them.

I was pleasantly surprised to gain two or 4

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three new good clients for every disrespectful client that I dropped. The more I respect myself and gain control of my response to my anger, the more freedom I find is available to enjoy the work at hand with people who I enjoy being around.

I built patience in myself to get the job done with my head held high. I also found that what was making me angry all along were things that were worthy of my anger. I loathe the spirit of condescension and belittlement.

There’s no room for it. We should honor each other, no matter what path we’re on.

Pity is different from grace, generosity

and compassion. Once you see the difference, it can’t make you “not mad.” My anger now takes on a new form; it is not self-sabotaging anger, it’s righteous anger. With this new lens, I examine what makes me upset in my own home.

Stereotypical women’s work and most forms of domesticity in the home have been deemed worthless (for lack of monetary exchange) and seemingly skill-less efforts for years upon years. Thus, some people scoff at the cost to get a proper professional cleaning, and others who value (and do) the work feel taken advantage of.

We might dread doing the dishes, maintaining the house and cleaning up after pets because it’s work we don’t get paid or recognized for. I get angry when it is socially acceptable to assume that women should embrace this relationship to domesticity over men. I’m okay with being angry about this and I’m even more okay with people disliking me because of it. It is their anger that fuels my belief that all people are created equal and have an equal responsibility

P O R T R A I T BY J A M E S B O Y L E

TH E VO LTA WAY

IL LUSTRATIO N BY LO I S VOLTA

With stores steps away from the Wissahickon trails,

to engage with the messy, banal, mundane aspects of life.

It is in the disengagement of the mundane where we miss how we could liberate and love the people in our own lives. We can empower by being supportive of the mission to dismantle unhealthy gender norms within the home.

But how can we break the chains of deeply rooted problems if we are not angry that we have been part of the problem? Am I not a woman in the home who has been conditioned by the culture to behave in certain ways? In my righteous anger, I place hope in myself, my family and my community, that we can reshape our culture one home at a time by lifting each other up.

How can things change around the house if we are secretly harboring resentment and hatred? Examine the areas of yourself that need their own type of mental and spiritual cleaning. Things only change around the house when we turn our hatred into compassion.

We can respond to oppression, disrespect and pity with eyes set on change. When we take the onus off others’ judgments and onto the power we have to evolve, the sky looks a bit bigger and sunnier. We can use our collective hope for change by using righteous anger to fuel our creativity. When we are creative, we inspire.

I am the cleaning lady and I honor where I’ve come from. I am exactly where I’m supposed to be. I’m also happy to be who I am, in the thick of the mess with my sleeves rolled up.

We need each other right now and no one is better or worse, so roll your sleeves up too. Do your dirty work, find your own liberation, then choose to aid in the liberation of all women within the home by being an example of what human equality should look like. Do it for your partner, mom, sister, daughter. And do it for yourself.

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lois volta is a home consultant, musician and founder of Volta Naturals. loisvolta.com.

Send questions to thevoltaway@gmail.com.

JAN UARY 20 21

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bike talk

On The Incline Bike shops saw big sales increases in 2020—will the momentum continue?

W

hen pennsylvania governor Tom Wolf shut down “all non-life-sustaining” businesses as a public safety precaution in March, Philadelphia created its own list of businesses it deemed essential, which included bike shops.

Such was the beginning of a national bike boom throughout the country. As many businesses, like gyms and fitness studios, were forced to shut their doors, either due to customers leery of getting sick or government restrictions, bike sales skyrocketed.

As March wore on and it became clear that COVID-19 was going to change our lives for a long while, the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia worked with partner bike shops 6 GRID P H IL LY.CO M JA NUA RY 2021

to get them deemed essential, then lobbied with BikePGH in Pittsburgh and shops around the commonwealth to get bicycle businesses exempted at the state level.

Although the pandemic had just begun, it had already resulted in a huge spike in bicycle riding, and the city had reacted quickly to that spike by closing Martin Luther King Jr. Drive to motor vehicles.

With more people than ever choosing a bicycle as a means to getting around their cities and towns, keeping bike shops open became necessary across the nation.

“In April, bikes sales grew 75% [compared to a year ago]; in June, 63%,” noted Jeff Tracy at Axios. “Those numbers were even greater in categories like inexpensive leisure bikes

by

randy lobasso

(203%) and mountain bikes (150%), as those represent the styles most used by those driving the boom.”

That was true in Philadelphia, too. Shops adjusted their schedules and implemented safety precautions to meet their new and existing customers’ needs.

Many shops I spoke with early on in the pandemic noted they were only doing repairs for customers who made appointments beforehand, and several were not allowing customers inside. Spots like Bicycle Therapy on South Street had a policy of spraying down all bicycles that came in and out of their store with sanitizer.

Michael McGettigan, owner of Trophy Bikes in Northern Liberties, noted in March IL LUSTRATIO N BY S EAN RY NKEWI CZ

2020 that his staff was asking customers to “leave bike outside the door and split,” at which point a “gloved staffer comes out and applies CDC-approved disinfectant, brings bike in, it sits overnight and gets worked on the next day.”

Renewed interest in bicycling as a means of travel and recreation continued throughout the spring, summer and fall. There was eventually a national shortage of bicycles, and manufacturers struggled to keep up with demand.

“Throughout the summer and fall, people were still asking about bikes, but as you know, they were impossible to get,” says Shelly S. Walker, owner of Fairmount Bikes and Brewerytown Bicycles. “We had a bike order that was due to arrive in October, and since pretty much every bike shop was in the same boat of not being able to get inventory, we were able to do presales for those bikes starting as early as June. People were paying in full for a bike they couldn’t even see for four months, let alone test ride.”

This was unusual, but perhaps more unusual was how, as Walker notes, demand

has continued into the winter.

“We’ll get emails now that say, ‘Hey, I know it’s impossible to find a bike right now, but do you have any?’ ” Walker says.

“So I think when bikes start rolling in, people are going to be more willing to purchase while shops have bikes rather than waiting for the spring.”

Her stores have also seen an influx of used bikes.

“Most of these are only on the sales floor for a few days before they’re sold,” Walker says. “I do have to say that it’s been incredible how flexible and patient our customers have been with us. I’m so grateful for everyone who has been so understanding about hours changing, closings, delays and new policies.”

In West Philadelphia, young bike shop The Velojawn has seen substantial growth.

So much so, owner Jerry Jacobs has decided to expand.

“Thankfully, our business is booming and we have exciting expansion plans at Velojawn,” says Jacobs. “We purchased the building next to our shop. We have

completely gutted the building and reconstruction is underway.”

When the project is set to be completed, in the spring of 2021, The Velojawn will have roughly doubled its retail space.

Since the pandemic hit, every business seemed to rethink its model, and The Velojawn was no different. Given the Phillycentricity of the shop’s name and logo.

“As customers seem to really like our unique community brand and logo, we have exciting plans to bring in a lot of merchandise that is both cycling specific and leisure wear,” continues Jacobs. “Most importantly, we are hopeful that we will be able to employ more staff on a full-time and part-time basis.”

While shops have plans to meet their customers’ bike-supply needs, perhaps most essential to keeping the bike boom going, says Lee Rogers, owner of Bicycle Therapy, is giving folks with bikes more places to ride.

“If this boom is going to sustain here in Philly, we need to have safe places for cyclists to ride,” says Rogers. “Closing MLK to vehicle traffic has been a huge asset, and we hope it stays closed for the foreseeable future.”

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JAN UARY 20 21 G R I DP HILLY.COM 7

urban naturalist

Balancing Act

A

t the start of December, Philadelphia City Council passed a bill to restrict the use of pesticides on public land.

Titled “Healthy Outdoor Public Spaces,” the legislation was originally introduced by Councilwoman Cindy Bass to include an all-out ban on synthetic herbicides. This was later walked back to be a restriction in response to criticism, including by environmentalists who spoke up about the need to use pesticides to control invasive plants. The restriction targets only public lands, as Pennsylvania law prevents the city 8 GR ID P H I L LY.CO M JA NUA RY 20 21

from regulating pesticides on private land.

The city will discontinue spraying pesticides within 50 feet of playground equipment, post notices of upcoming and recent pesticide applications, and implement a two-year pilot of organic control methods at selected test sites.

“The goal is that we’re protecting people who use our parks and lessen[ing] their exposure to synthetic herbicides containing chemicals that are toxic,” explains Sabrina Aponte, legislative aide to Councilwoman Bass.

Aponte says the bill was developed in

collaboration with Toxic Free Philly, a volunteer group dedicated to restricting the use of synthetic pesticides on city grounds.

“We went to City Hall and met with most of the councilmembers with a draft of the bill, and Cindy Bass was the first to take us up,” says Toxic Free Philly committee member Sadie E. Francis.

Toxic Free Philly was founded in 2018.

“A lot of us were independently very concerned about pesticide use on public land because [we] had witnessed it firsthand,” Francis says. The group’s campaign draws connections between pesticide use and

R AC H A E L WA R R I N E R

A City Council bill proposed banning all pesticide use on Philadelphia’s by bernard brown public land—until environmentalists spoke up

Left: Fairmount Park is overwhelmed by various invasive plant species.

C O U R T E S Y O F T H E O F F I C E O F C O U N C I LW O M A N C I N D Y B A S S

Right: Councilwoman Cindy Bass worked with Toxic Free Philly to bring the bill before City Council this fall.

increased rates of cancer, asthma and other illnesses in Philadelphia.

“We’ve always framed it as a public health crisis, because that’s what it is,” Francis says. Toxic Free Philly also describes the spraying of pesticides on public land as a case of environmental injustice. Francis cited a report from The Black Institute that stated that people of color in New York City live in communities where pesticides are often sprayed and stored, and that the workers who apply the pesticides are disproportionately people of color.

However, opponents of the bill when it was an all-out ban argued that limiting the city’s ability to maintain habitat will have an inequitable impact, as Matthew Halley, a PhD candidate in environmental science at Drexel University, said at an October Public Health and Human Services committee hearing.

“Environmental justice is not merely a matter of chemical exposure. It’s about reducing racial disparities in access to native ecosystems and native wildlife,” Halley said.

Others saw things from both sides.

Maura McCarthy, executive director of the Fairmount Park Conservancy, acknowledges that the bill, and the questions it pro-

The goal is that we’re protecting people who use our parks…”

— s abrina ap onte , legislative aide to Councilmember Cindy Bass

vokes, is shrouded in controversy.

“It’s a complicated issue ... people like a simple answer,” says McCarthy, noting that while Philadelphia is blessed with lots of natural lands, they’re riddled with invasive plants.

Bass’s amended version of the bill includes the establishment of a citizen advisory council and waiver process. The advisory council will review requests for synthetic herbicide applications for “an emergency that threatens the public health, safety, or welfare of persons” or “involves an invasive species that threatens the overall health of the ecosystem and is necessary after organic methods prove insufficient.”

McCarthy says her conservancy opposed the ban but corroborates that people have expressed concern in the past.

“I often had reports from park-goers who would walk through where active spraying was going on,” she says.

McCarthy notes a lack of public transparency about the city’s spraying of pesticide applications overall. “I’ve never seen a map of the city showing where these [sprayings] have been done [that’s] available to the public,” she says.

Maita Soukup, a Parks & Recreation spokesperson, says that the department maintains herbicide application records and “provides responsive documents to Rightto-Know requestors about this topic.”

According to Francis, however, Toxic Free Philly did not receive records of pesticide applications in response to Right-toKnow requests the group filed.

The bill will reform the city’s recordkeeping and reporting of pesticide use in addition to restricting the use of synthetic herbicides (those not approved for use in organic agriculture by the National Organics Standards Board). These herbicides will be banned over the course of three years after JAN UARY 20 21 G R I DP H ILLY.COM 9

10 GR ID P H IL LY.CO M JA NUA RY 2021

think investing in parks and jobs for people is a really good way to spend city money.”

Still, city land managers say that they already limit pesticide use to situations where other methods would be impractical.

“We’re using all the ways to manage [invasive plants] that are available. Herbicides are one of the most useful tools in our toolbox to do that,” says Tom Witmer, operations manager for Natural Lands Restoration at Parks & Recreation.

Jackson, the forest resources expert, further points out that by clearing invasive plants to make room for more native varieties, we are also making more room for other creatures up the food chain. “[On] native trees, you’ll see 100+ species

of caterpillars,” says Jackson. “Tree of heaven, two species [of caterpillars], and they’re not native. If our habitats are taken over by these invasive plants, the food web crashes.”

The Healthy Outdoor Public Spaces Bill restricts the use of all synthetic herbicides, but generalizing about the health risk of all such herbicides is misleading, according to Marilyn Howarth, a physician with the University of Pennsylvania’s environmental toxicology center.

“You can’t talk about the ‘risks of herbicides’ because the class of chemicals under ‘herbicides’ is huge, and it’s a series of very different kinds of chemicals with very different kinds of actions,” Howarth says.

Howarth points to how the World Health

When you have limited money, manpower and time— the chemical controls, they’re effective.”

— d avid jacks on, forest resources educator

Japanese honeysuckle, seen here in Fairmount Park, is a brutally invasive plant that can completely take over forest understory.

Opposite: Fairmount Park with the skyline in the distance.

R AC H A E L WA R R I N E R

the bill becomes law.

The second of which is a provision experts on ecological restoration and invasive species management think is particularly important.

David Jackson, forest resources educator for the Penn State Extension program, emphasizes that within our highly impacted urban landscape, cultural controls (such as cleaning equipment to avoid transporting seeds) have limited impact, and there are no proven biological controls (introducing organisms that eat or infect invasive plants) for most invasive plant species. He adds that mechanical means (like cutting and pulling) are important but have their limitations.

“Cutting is expensive. Sometimes it’s not even safe,” Jackson says. “Repeated cutting can alter a habitat. I’ve read things where you have to mow five to six times a year for several years to get root systems to be exhausted.

But you’re also mowing native plants.”

Jackson educates land managers on invasive plant control, including tree of heaven, an invasive tree that is also the primary host species for spotted lanternflies [full story in September 2020 issue]. “Many people just cut it down. So what did it do? It just sent up more sprouts,” he says.

Spotted lanternfly control has focused on killing trees of heaven to deprive the insects of their favorite food source. Without chemical herbicides, tree of heaven control, and thus spotted lanternfly control, becomes much more difficult.

“When you have limited money, manpower and time—the chemical controls, they’re effective,” Jackson says.

Arthur Gover, a specialist in invasive species with the Penn State Extension program agrees.

“There are just unique things that herbicides can do. They can move through a plant. You can put them on the leaves and they will kill the roots,” says Gover.

While Francis acknowledges that fighting weeds without synthetic herbicides would cost much more, she also says one reason her group pushed for the all-out ban is that this could be seen as a good change.

“We’re talking about a wholly different way of managing public lands,” Francis says.

Without pesticides, she says, the department would need more manpower.

“Another way to look at [this] is another reason Parks & Recreation should get more money and hire more people,” she says. “We

JEFF FUSCO FOR VISIT PHILADELPHIA®

Organization’s cancer research branch classifies substances and practices by how likely they are to cause cancer.

Known carcinogens are in one group— these include notorious substances like asbestos and benzene, as well as practices like consuming alcoholic beverages.

Another has two sublists, one of which lists “probable carcinogens,” like eating red meat, drinking very hot beverages and glyphosate.

“In other words, there is a lot of data [on probable carcinogens], some animal studies, some epidemiological studies, it seems likely, but it seems like we haven’t done enough science to be sure,” says Howarth.

Tracking people who work with pesticides, in some cases farmworkers who spray them, for instance, can be tricky. In those, it can be hard to tease out the effects of one chemical like glyphosate, since the same workers apply all sorts of chemicals.

Some studies show an increase in the rate of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a type of blood cancer, and some don’t.

The other sublist includes “possible carcinogens,” meaning there are, “some suggestive studies but nothing yet in hu-

mans,” says Howarth. These include 2,4-D Amine Weed Killer and glyphosate (the active ingredient in Roundup), both commonly used herbicides mentioned in the Healthy Outdoor Public Spaces Bill.

More than 250 million pounds of glyphosate are sprayed on agricultural crops in the United States every year, according to the United State Geological Survey.

“Glyphosate is an herbicide that has had a fair amount of research done on it,” Howarth says. “That research has shown some pretty significant ecological impacts in terms of other species. It is suggestive that it causes cancer in humans but it hasn’t been proven.”

The dose makes the poison, and several people I spoke with pointed out that glyphosate and other synthetic herbicides break down quickly in the environment, meaning any exposure risk to the public decreases soon after application, and that health impacts for staff and contractors depend on personal protective gear and safe handling of the chemicals. Howarth supports giving people enough information to make choices about their exposure to pesticides.

“When we do have the application of pes-

ticides on public property, people should have the ability to look it up,” she says.

“They should know if there has been a pesticide application in that park. They may decide, ‘Maybe I’ll go next week.’ ” McCarthy says the amendments made to the bill have resolved the Fairmount Park Conservancy’s concerns with the city’s application of herbicides.

According to Soukup, Parks & Recreation is committed to its proposed changes in how it applies pesticides as well as enhancing its public recordkeeping. However, the department still has some qualms.

Soukup noted that the proposed ordinance includes no additional funding for implementing the required changes, and that, “[t]he onerous waiver process is impractical to implement, and would render Parks & Recreation staff and turf contractors unable to carry out routine park maintenance.”

“While well intentioned,” wrote Soukup in an email after the bill passed, “this ordinance sets in place a dangerous set of parameters for managing the health and ecology of Philadelphia’s natural lands, and handicaps critical efforts to steward the rich and diverse park system of Philadelphia.”

JAN UARY 20 21 G R I DP HILLY.COM 1 1

local business

Scrappy Skin Care Former bakery owner makes soaps, candles and balms by siobhan gleason from food waste

B

efore melissa torre brainstorms new scents and ingredients for skin care products, she thinks about food.

Prior to founding Vellum St. Soap Company, in 2016, Torre spent about five years running her bakery, Cookie Confidential, as well as 10 years managing Tattooed Mom, on South Street.

She credits her experience as a chef with sparking her interest in food waste. Her unique soaps—which include honey basil, rosemary potato chamomile and lemon ginger oatmeal—all make use of excess ingredients from restaurants, bars and other businesses.

Torre began developing products after contacting local farmers and business owners.

“I started reaching out to some of my chef and farmer friends,” Torre says. “I asked, ‘What do you have that is a waste product from food?’ I would research if those items had value in skin care and build my recipe around that.”

These conversations led to her use of unusual foods in personal care products: potato peels, from East Pastyunk’s pie shop Stargazy; carrot skins, from Kensington deli Liberty Kitchen; and lemons, from Port Richmond-based Flatiron Spirits.

Torre gives credit to the local businesses and farms she works with by listing all of her ingredient partners on the Vellum St. website, along with a description of the items they provide.

Before she partnered with these businesses, the leftover foods would not have had a second life.

The central ingredient in all of Torre’s products is a food-waste product commonly used in early soapmaking: tallow. Tallow is created by pulverizing and heating raw beef fat for several hours. While the fat is heated, the water evaporates and the proteins solidify. The solids are filtered out, leaving pure fat. Once it has been cooled, tallow can be cut into bars and kept at room 12 GR ID P H I L LY.CO M JA NUA RY 20 21

temperature. It is nonirritating, gentle to the skin and contains many of the same fatty acids as human skin.

“Soap was originally created from animal fat and lye ash. It wasn’t until the industrial revolution that plant oils were used in soap,” Torre says.

Torre sources her tallow from farms within 100 miles of Philadelphia. Butcher

shops Carnicopia Meats and Primal Supply Meats process the animal fat into tallow for use in her products.

The use of tallow at Vellum St. sets Torre’s business apart from other skin care companies, many of which use vegan products. Through honest conversations, Torre has reached out to customers who were initially skeptical about tallow-based skin

P H OTO C O U R T E S Y C R E D I T M E L I S S A TO R R E

care and favored vegan products. Torre has helped explain the low-carbon footprint of her product, as well as the importance of using animal fat that would have previously been discarded. Several customers, who are vegan for environmental reasons, have become loyal to Vellum St. because of Torre’s focus on reducing food waste.

“We’re helping local farms use as much of the animal as they can. There’s way less of a carbon footprint from one cow within a hundred miles than there would be for that same amount of coconut oil shipped from overseas,” Torre says.

According to Heather Marold Thomason, butcher and founder of Primal Supply Meats, if she had not partnered with Vellum St., much of the extra beef fat produced would not have been purchased.

Primal Supply purchases about five to six whole beef from local farms each week, which are delivered by a local slaughterhouse as primal cuts. Primal Supply butch-

ers process the beef into steaks, roasts, and other cuts. The raw fat that is produced, and cannot be sold on a cut, is turned into tallow. Though some of the tallow is sold to home cooks and restaurants for its use as a cooking fat, there is not enough interest from these customers.

“Sometimes it can be challenging for us to assure that the bones and fat aren’t wasted.

Even if we further process them into broth or tallow, the market demand needs to be there,” Thomason says. “Now we can render the tallow for Melissa so that she can make soap out of it.”

Torre’s partnership with Primal Supply has created an essential market for their tallow.

“Around the holiday season, when Melissa’s business is really busy, she’s buying around 50 pounds of rendered tallow at a time. We’ll save all of the fat from the five or six beef we cut each week and our chef will render that down into tallow,” Thomason

What I hope to be doing is helping people look at their trash differently.

— m elissa torre , founder of Vellum St. Soap Company

says. “We’re always hustling to get as close to zero waste as we possibly can.”

Since 2018, Torre has found another way to dramatically reduce the carbon footprint of Vellum St. products by partnering with Remark Glass. The glass company upcycles bottles and jars by heating them in a kiln and shaping them for new uses. Also a small business, Remark cleans, cuts and polishes all of Vellum St.’s glass packaging for candles, bath salts and body balms.

All of the glass is made from discarded bottles. Torre also gives a $2 credit toward a future Vellum St. purchase for any returned packaging.

“Consistency of supply can be varying. It might depend on people’s drinking habits,” Danielle Ruttenberg, cofounder of Remark Glass, says. “We love the glass quality [of Topo Chicos] and Melissa happens to drink them, so she brings them in as a supply.

There [is] a nice circular message to the fact that she [enjoys] them.”

The partnership between Remark Glass and Vellum St. has also served as a way for the glass company to experiment with different sizes of containers and resealable lids, which can be used for future products beyond skin care.

“Down the line, I envision giving people recycled container options for grains or nonperishables. It works well to prototype all of that through cosmetics and skin care,” Ruttenberg says.

These ongoing partnerships have helped to sustain Vellum St.’s goal to take waste and turn it into new products.

“There’s a real problem with greenwashing in the cosmetic industry,” Torre says.

“What I hope to be doing is helping people look at their trash differently. A lot of the things we are used to throwing away do have value.”

Left page: Soaps and candles from the Vellum St. Soap Company are packaged in Remark Glass jars.

Right page: Melissa Torre (left) founded the company in 2016 after working in the restaurant industry. Her company also makes balms (right).

JAN UARY 20 21 G R I DP HILLY.COM 13

water

Unnatural Habitat Stable shorelines give residents a way to connect with by bernard brown waterways and wildlife

T

wo beavers sat in the shallows of the Delaware River eating breakfast as I met Jim Fries, project manager at Riverfront North Partnership, for a tour of the living shoreline at Lardner’s Point Park in Northeast Philadelphia. True to their reputation, the large rodents busily stripped the bark off branches they had clipped from willows growing at the shore. We spooked them when we tried to get a better angle for photographs, but they soon swam back to continue eating the plants that Riverfront North had planted to 14 GRID P H IL LY.CO M JA NUA RY 2021

stabilize the shoreline.

A stable shoreline is not natural. An unrestrained river does not sit still. Flood waters scour the land, wielding tree trunks and other debris as battering rams. The currents carve away at the outside of curves and deposit sediment on the inside, so that rivers writhe across landscapes over the centuries.

Of course it is difficult to build permanent structures on land that the water seeks to steal. Roads, piers and buildings can all be washed out to sea. For centuries the standard response has been to artificially

harden the shoreline. Most of the Delaware and Schuylkill River shorelines are bulwarked by timber or concrete walls, or are otherwise stabilized with boulders, chunks of concrete and the rubble of demolished stone and brick buildings.

These reinforcements shield us from the water, for better and for worse.

“People have been taught forever the water is dirty,” says Josh Moody, restoration programs manager for the Partnership for the Delaware Estuary.

Until recently, cities like Philadelphia had grown away from the water, leaving the shorelines for shipping and industry.

For Moody, the question is now how cities can go from putting up fences to hide the water to reconnecting people with it.

Living shorelines, which utilize vegetation and animal populations to absorb the P HOTO G RAP HY BY M ILTO N LI NDSAY

Stephanie Phillips, the executive director of Riverfront North, stands beside a living shoreline along the Delaware River.

It was a desolate and transient space. Now it is a public park that has reintroduced native plantings...”

— stephanie phillips, executive director of Riverfront North force of the water and fight erosion, offer a welcoming alternative.

At Lardner’s Point, Riverfront North started by removing the concrete slabs and rubble. Some of this debris was rearranged to form a low barrier behind which the organization planted marsh vegetation. The work began in phases in 2012, and it took a few years to refine methods.

“This was probably the first living shoreline done in the tidal freshwater reaches of the Delaware River and possibly the entire Mid-Atlantic,” says Fries.

Living-shoreline methods that have been developed elsewhere didn’t work in Northeast Philadelphia. Downstream, in the tidal marshes along the Delaware Bay, the Partnership for the Delaware Estuary has developed living-shoreline techniques

using shellfish. Oysters build up reefs in the water, and a mix of marsh grasses and mussels stabilize the tidal zone.

As Fries points out, freshwater mussels, unlike their brackish-water cousins, tend to live buried in the bottom of the river. Methods of planting wetland vegetation along ponds or lakes didn’t work either. Light fences intended to keep geese from ripping out plantings were quickly smashed by branches and other debris swept in by the river. That debris also scoured away grasses and other vegetation planted close to the water.

Over the years, Riverfront North developed sturdier goose barriers and figured out which plants could survive the pounding of driftwood. For example, willows planted at the high-water mark send their shoots toward the water, and grow downward from

their secure position.

By 2018, some of those willows had grown into small trees about 12 feet tall.

Then they started losing branches. Fries says he initially thought local kids were playing around with gardening equipment, lopping a branch here and there.

“I was really mad about the vandals, and then I finally figured out it was beavers. By the time they finished, they took down … about 80% of the branches in that buffer,” he says. He thought the trees were done for.

The willows survived, though. A year later they had grown back to 6 feet tall, showing that the living shoreline could survive the wildlife.

“Part of what you’re doing is creating habitat, and what’s a better measure?” Fries says.

Stephanie Phillips, executive director of Riverfront North, explained how the shoreline project fits into the restoration of Lardner’s Point. Once a base for ferries across the Delaware River, the site was abandoned after the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge opened in 1929.

“It was a desolate and transient space.

Now it is a public park that has reintroduced native plantings to attract wildlife like bees, migratory birds and beavers,” Phillips says.

Moody pointed to several other living-shoreline projects in the works around Philadelphia. At Bartram’s Garden, for example, a planned experiment will include galvanized steel cages full of recycled oyster shells, forming an artificial reef habitat below the waterline while buffering the riverbank from the force of the water.

A little upriver, the Fairmount Water Works plans to include a living shoreline as part of a floating classroom, according to Victoria Prizzia, founder of Habitheque, a firm involved with the project design.

There, the living shoreline will provide habitat for wildlife while teaching visitors about river ecology.

All of these projects strive to connect urbanites with the water while also protecting them from its force.

“The living shoreline can also be the community of people who live around it,” says Moody. “That’s a connection we have so much opportunity to make in an urban area.”

JAN UARY 20 21 G R I DP HI LLY.COM 1 5

GROUND WORK Nonprofit’s volunteers gleaned and distributed more than half a million pounds of produce in 2020

S

ally quigley is not a farmer. But today, at a food distribution event in the parking lot of CURE Insurance Arena in Trenton, she could fool anyone.

She looks down at a table heaping with butternut squash and recalls wistfully how she planted this squash and later got to harvest it. Today, she’s proud to hand it over to families that will eat it for dinner.

It is mid-October and Quigley is a regular volunteer with Rolling Harvest Food Rescue, a nonprofit organization that rescues produce that would otherwise go to waste and distributes it to food pantries and food-insecure people throughout Bucks, Montgomery, Chester, Hunterdon and Mercer counties.

Rolling Harvest’s food rescue operation is centered around gleaning—harvesting produce that farms aren’t able to sell, either because it’s surplus or because it doesn’t match customers’ aesthetic expectations.

It’s a concept at least as old as the Bible, 16 GR ID P H IL LY.CO M JA NUA RY 20 21

story by

KIKI VOLKERT photography by

MILTON LINDSAY

Bob Solly of Solly Brothers Farm in Warminster, Pennsylvania, hands a basket of gleaned peppers to Rolling Harvest volunteers. Volunteer Jan Walters organizes the produce to fit neatly in the bed of the truck.

JAN UARY 20 21 G R I DP HILLY.COM 17

where farmers are instructed to leave some of their crops unharvested for those in need.

Instead of plowing that extra produce under or throwing it out, farms alert Rolling Harvest to dispatch a team of volunteers to reap the crops. Volunteers’ shifts are usually only a couple of hours but can yield hundreds of pounds of produce—enough to fill dozens of boxes, baskets and bins.

After harvesting the produce, volunteers load it all in the back of a pickup truck or van—the “rolling” in Rolling Harvest—and do one of a few things with it.

Sometimes the harvest will go directly to a food distribution event, where food pantries and senior centers will take the produce to their own locations to be distributed to individuals. It also may be directly transported to a food pantry.

But most often the gleaned produce will go to Rolling Harvest’s storage facility. From there, pantries can come pick it up at their own convenience, or the produce will remain in storage until the next distribution event.

Since many food pantries are stocked with food that is shelf-stable, which in many cases is not ideal for nutrition and longterm health, Rolling Harvest’s mission lies in supplementing meals with items that are fresh and nutritious.

But since recipients are not always familiar with certain types of produce and how to prepare them, the organization also holds cooking classes. These classes have moved online due to COVID-19.

Rolling Harvest Founder and Executive Director Cathy Snyder says the ethos behind the classes is essentially: “Here’s how you prepare it. Take some ingredients.

Make it for yourself.”

“People would come back and share how excited they were to try new things,” she says.

Rolling Harvest started when Snyder

was volunteering with a food pantry in New Hope. She realized that the quality of the food that people were receiving wasn’t ideal; meanwhile, local farms had food going to waste.

She knew there had to be a way to get this food to people who needed it. After surveying farmers about the problem, Snyder began to bring her van to farms. They let her take what they knew they couldn’t sell.

Eventually, Rolling Harvest expanded enough to require volunteers to harvest crops on partnering farms and to help distribute those crops at food distribution events.

The October event was advertised as an “emergency free farm market,” since Rolling Harvest would be giving away 10,000 pounds of fresh produce, most of it organic. The market featured butternut squash, sweet potatoes, radishes, jalapeños, oyster mushrooms, green beans, cilantro, bibb lettuce, onions, carrots and apples.

Some of this produce was gleaned by Rolling Harvest volunteers; the rest was donated or purchased from farms and food distributors. All of it was hand-selected by Snyder to supplement the USDA Farmers to Families Food Boxes, which they’re also distributing to recipients. These boxes contain eggs, dairy, meat and other products from local farms and is part of a coronavirus assistance program that aims to simultaneously reduce food insecurity and to support farmers that have lost revenue.

It’s hard to underestimate the size and intricacy of the food distribution event in Trenton. The amount of food they have to distribute is difficult to fathom—42,000 pounds of food, 32,000 of it comprised of the Farmers to Families Box Program boxes.

There’s a few dozen volunteers, wearing disposable gloves and putting produce into bags. Cars start lining up at 10 a.m., even though flyers say the event doesn’t start until noon. But when it starts, it runs like

Philadelphia has the highest hunger rate out of any big city in the United States [and] the highest poverty rate of any big city in the United States.”

— j oel berg, CEO of Hunger Free America 18 GRID P H IL LY.CO M JA NUA RY 20 21

a well-oiled machine, or a dance, as Snyder describes it.

Recipients drive their cars up to tents, open their trunks and tell volunteers whether they need one or two boxes. (Rolling Harvest requires no registration or ID from recipients, while many food pantries and distribution events do.) It goes on like this for hours. By the end of the day, they’ve distributed food to 1,000 families, most of whom are from the Trenton area, but some have come from as far away as Philadelphia.

Joel Berg, CEO of Hunger Free America, a nonprofit group focused on implementing policies and programs to end hunger in the United States, notes that “Philadelphia has the highest hunger rate out of any big city in the United States [and] the highest poverty rate of any big city in the United States.”

The problem of hunger doesn’t stop at the city’s boundaries—the suburban and rural counties surrounding Philadelphia are home to thousands of families who aren’t sure what their next meal will be. This reality runs counter to common perceptions of some of

Above: Rolling Harvest program director Jamie McKnightsits in the driver’s seat, posing with founder Cathy Snyder.

Below: A food pantry volunteer picks up produce from Rolling Harvest.

these counties. For example, Bucks County, known for its idyllic suburban landscape, is projected to have an overall food insecurity rate of 11.4% for 2020, according to Feeding America, the largest hunger-relief organization in the United States— 61% higher in 2020 than it was in 2018.

Mass job loss and overall economic precarity resulting from the pandemic have made the hunger crisis worse. During 2020, Rolling Harvest had distributed more than 500,000 pounds of food by the start of October. In a normal year, the amount of produce they distribute doesn’t exceed 350,000 pounds.

The steep increase in food distributed is due to Rolling Harvest’s quick response to food insecurity caused by the job losses and economic strife resulting from COVID-19.

They began doing emergency pop-up distribution events like the one at the CURE Insurance Arena, with certain changes to ensure the safety of recipients and volunteers, such as social distancing, masks-wearing and the use of hand sanitizer. Instead of allowing recipients to select their own pieces of produce, it was handed to recipients in plastic bags. Their ability to pivot so quickly comes from their relationships with all involved.

Building strong relationships with farmers is at the core of the nonprofit’s mission.

Their relationships with some farms is such that a farmer can text Rolling Harvest and have volunteers show up within a few days’ notice. These relationships have evolved to the point where farms ask Rolling Harvest what they can grow specifically for them.

Solly Brothers Farm, in Warminster, began planting broccoli, cauliflower, sweet potatoes, cabbage, peppers and tomatoes just for Rolling Harvest’s purposes. Trauger’s Farm Market, in Kintnersville, has planted 10,000 onions. Gravity Hill Farm, in Titusville, New Jersey, has given over three of their seven acres to Rolling Harvest, where they’re able to grow culturally appropriate foods: beets for Russian and Eastern European communities and jalapeños and tomatoes for Latinx communities.

“The farmers do all the work and we JAN UARY 20 21 G R I DP HI LLY.COM 1 9

get all the hugs. One of the most important things we can do is to let the farmers know the impact,” notes Snyder. “They started asking, ‘What would you like us to grow for you?’ And we came up with our wishlist.”

Rolling Harvest’s origins lie in recognizing and bridging the chasm that lies between farms and the food insecure people in those farmers’ own communities. The number of people who volunteer with them is in the hundreds. Many use the Rolling Harvest app, which makes it easy to pick shifts.

Volunteer Bridgitte Perry reminisces on harvesting corn during a gleaning shift this

summer: “The farmer said, ‘Before you go, make sure you eat a piece of corn. There’s nothing like fresh corn on the cob.’ I said, ‘Alright, I have to do it.’ It was delicious. I had juice running down my face.”

In some ways, gleaning benefits everyone involved: farmers reduce waste, food insecure families get nutritious food and volunteers have a chance to learn about agriculture. But according to Berg, as beneficial as gleaning is, it should not be seen as a serious solution to hunger.

“We need far more systematic, widespread, comprehensive solutions … ,” he

One of the most important things we can do is let the farmers know the impact.”

— cathy snyder, founder of Rolling Harvest

Rolling Harvest volunteers assemble boxes for pickup at the October food distribution event in Trenton.

20 GR ID P H I L LY.CO M JA NUA RY 2021

says. “The top thing we need to do is get people jobs that pay a living wage, and then after that, we have to make sure there’s a sufficient government safety net.”

He points out that government programs like SNAP provide 15 times the dollar amount of food distributed by every charity in America. Nonprofit gleaning organizations do meaningful work but still only put a small dent in America’s hunger crisis, even though the program itself is underutilized.

But that might be changing.

Snyder realizes that as painful as COVID-19 is for families, it does have a silver lining: The stigma associated with seeking help with food insecurity is dissolving— families in need are more comfortable using the resources available to them, including food distribution nonprofits like hers.

Reducing stigma around using available resources and demanding a living wage are things we can all do to eliminate food insecurity in the future.

You don’t have to be a farmer to do it.

Photo: Nicholas A. Tonelli

JAN UARY 20 21 G R I DP HI LLY.COM 21

22 GRID P H IL LY.CO M JA NUA RY 2021

We’ve already laid the foundation for a Green New Deal in Philadelphia.

We just need the will— and the cash—to make it happen.

DEAL US IN P H OTO G R A P H Y F R O M U N S P L A S H .C O M

STORY BY ALEXANDRA JONES

W

hen jerome shabazz started Overbrook Environmental Education Center (OEEC) in 2002, he set about transforming a former EPA brownfield site into a community space where the neighborhood could connect with nature. Today, it’s a verdant oasis on Lancaster Avenue’s commercial corridor.

“It’s the intersection of environment, public health and community,” Shabazz says.

But OEEC doesn’t just provide green space. It features an orchard and high tunnel to grow produce.

Installed on the grounds are green stormwater innovations like porous pavement, flow-through planters and a bioretention basin to capture rainwater. Through its environmental monitoring work, the center is tracking the health impacts of air quality, water quality and climate in the neighborhood, too.

“When we talk about the issue, we ask ourselves, ‘Why should you care?’ And, most importantly, ‘What can you do about it?’ ” he says. “Somebody has to deal with this. These environmental conditions have this pesky way of sticking JAN UARY 20 21 G R I DP HI LLY.COM 23

24 GRID P H IL LY.CO M JA NUA RY 2021

stakeholder organizations developing recommendations around air quality, energy, the green economy, green space, transportation, waste and water.

OEEC is one of those stakeholders.

“When this commission starts to bring in regular people … I think that’s going to be really, really exciting,” Shabazz says, “because there’s a lot of experiential learning that gets overlooked in a process like this.”

Shabazz believes that getting everyday citizens—not just experts—on the advisory committee is what will help City Council shape an environmental policy that will improve the lives of the most vulnerable Philadelphians.

Brooks agrees.

“We’re going to the different entities and figur[ing] out, ‘What does it look like?’ And, ‘How can we [include] people who are traditionally underrepresented, that should have a voice?’ ” she explains. “We’re learning, we’re strategizing and we’re moving toward something.”

Brooks, along with Pennsylvania State Senator-elect Nikil Saval and a crew of organizers, headed to Baltimore in August to tour community gardens, land trusts, composting facilities and a food co-op that’s part of the Black Yield Institute, a Black-led food sovereignty initiative.

“Going to Baltimore gave me some hope, and following up with our local folks [at the Sustainable Business Network] gave me some hope,” the councilmember says. “I realized that people are siloed in this work, so we definitely need to find ways to bring it all together.”

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What would a Green New Deal look like for Philly?

Although it would take a lot of work, advocates have been pushing for years to make the Green New Deal a reality through policy change and increased funding. Rather than a sweeping resolution, progress around climate and environment on a local level in Philadelphia would happen piece by piece, as the city’s legislative process involves changes and updates to specific city codes.

Some of the reforms they’ve been pushing for include:

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Expanding SEPTA service in predominantly working-class Black and Brown neighborhoods and making Regional Rail more affordable.

Ensuring that our public schools are clean, safe places for students, teachers and staff.

Community composting—an idea that’s already being piloted by the city’s Office of Sustainability and Parks & Recreation—to get food scraps out of the waste stream and build healthy soils in urban farms and gardens.

Reinvesting in the kind of sanitation

P H OTO G R A P H Y C O U R T E S Y O F J E R O M E S H A B A Z Z

around, and, so, if we don’t deal with [them] today, we’re only leaving for another generation to have to manage.”

The environmental center is a microcosm of what a Philadelphia with well-funded environmental initiatives could be—a vision of innovation, abundance and resilience grounded in community. And right now, city lawmakers, advocates and activists are working to create a future where that’s the reality.

The Green New Deal is a sweeping set of regulations designed to improve environmental health and drastically reduce carbon emissions through renewable energy investment while providing economic support for the training and jobs to make it happen.

The nationwide initiative is championed by legislators like Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) as the country’s last, best hope for avoiding environmental and economic collapse, but generally lacks bipartisan support in Congress. While they wait for federal legislation, some cities and states across the U.S. have taken the initiative to develop their own plans for stimulating the economy, addressing societal inequities, cutting carbon emissions and improving the environment.

New York City, for example, has funded a job-creation initiative to retrofit inefficient buildings, the city’s largest source of pollution, while Los Angeles recently updated its Sustainable City pLAn to include creating union jobs in clean energy and taking steps to improve air quality. In Baltimore, lawmakers instituted a mandate that would make half of the city’s energy come from renewable sources by 2030.

Looking to cities that have instituted their own municipal-level Green New Deal initiatives for inspiration, Philly politicians hope to put plans into place soon.

“We are building the structure to create a Green New Deal that’s community-led and community-driven, not something that’s top-down,” says Philadelphia City Councilmember Kendra Brooks.

One way City Council is involving neighbors and advocates is by convening the Civilian Advisory Environmental Committee.

What started as an Earth Day 2020 virtual roundtable with members of the Committee on the Environment has turned into a seven-subcommittee body with 60

Left: Jerome Shabazz of the Overbrook Environmental Education Center.

Right: City Councilmember Kendra Brooks sits at a SEPTA bus stop. Expanding public transportation would be key in Philly’s Green New Deal.

We are building the structure to create a Green New Deal that’s locally-led and community-driven, not something that’s top-down.”

— kendra brooks, Philadelphia City Councilmember

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equipment and labor the city needs to keep the city clean and sort recycling appropriately.

Affordable housing initiatives that would build and update public housing for unhoused and lowincome people and help homeowners pay for much-needed repairs to the city’s existing stock.

A community land bank that functions to turn the city’s empty lots into community-controlled green spaces to increase access to fresh food, support public safety, improve residents’ mental and physical health and capture stormwater runoff.

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Changes to the city’s zoning code that would make it difficult to site industrial operations in the city’s historically marginalized neighborhoods.

Since the 2019 election brought in a crew of progressive councilmembers, City Councilmember Katherine Gilmore Richardson has led the Committee on the Environment.

It includes members of the body’s progressive wing, like public-schools champion Helen Gym, as well as Brooks and Jamie Gauthier.

“It’s important to recognize how all this got started,” says Gilmore Richardson. She

P HOTO GRA P H Y O F K END RA BRO O KS BY D R E W D E N N I S

worked on environmental issues for former Councilmember Blondell Reynolds Brown, who spent eight years chairing the environment committee.

Gilmore Richardson notes that the city has made significant strides in greening, including Mayor Jim Kenney’s creation of the Committee on the Environment when he was a councilmember.

The city currently requires energy benchmarking for building projects; has instituted a solar rebate program (currently on hold due to pandemic-related budget cuts); launched the first solar career and technical education program at Frankford High School in 2020; and runs the Green City, Clean Waters program, which aims to create healthy waterways and beautify neighborhoods via stormwater management and increased green space.

Philly also has the Office of Sustainability at its disposal—established by former Mayor Michael Nutter in 2008. It’s charged with carrying out Greenworks Philadelphia, the city’s comprehensive sustainability plan, which shares many priorities with a cityscale Green New Deal.

The city isn’t starting from scratch, but there’s still a long way to go—and the time to prepare for extreme climate events is running out.

“Now that we have all of these things in place,” Gilmore Richardson says, “what do we do moving forward, and what is our overarching goal and vision to get some of this stuff done?”

Environmental justice is part of the deal For Philadelphia, the Green New Deal is not just about creating a greener Philadelphia with a stronger economy to improve our present and save our future.

The work must be centered around environmental justice—doing as much as possible to remedy decades of discrimination, marginalization and inequity that has made residents of the city’s historically Black and Brown neighborhoods the most vulnerable.

Advocates and activists also emphasize JAN UARY 20 21 G R I DP HI LLY.COM 25

COVID-19 presents challenges while underscoring the need for a greener city Passing Green New Deal legislation piece by piece and getting the support needed to implement positive change would be the challenge of a career even under normal circumstances. Even with Joe Biden’s upcoming presidency—as we shift away from a White House that says climate change isn’t real and an EPA that rolls back regulations on air and water quality—the work will still be challenging with a Republican-controlled Pennsylvania General Assembly.

Throw the COVID-19 pandemic into the mix, and all the problems get amplified— defunded, unprotected sanitation crews struggle to handle an increase in residential waste; powerful storms submerge

When we talk about lack of funding, it’s not that there’s a lack of funding. It’s just a mismanaged priority.”

— L ena Smith, PennFuture campaign manager

Eastwick, a neighborhood already living with the consequences of a long history of environmental racism; and summer temperatures reaching 20 degrees Fahrenheit higher in the city’s poorest neighborhoods than in wealthier ones.

Despite this dire outlook, it’s possible to shift priorities with the budget we have, not the budget we want, legislators and activists say. Before the pandemic, there was money in state and city budgets—it just wasn’t going toward environmental initiatives. And what gets funded in Philly often depends on what trickles down from state and federal coffers.

“We just gave out a $1.6 billion subsidy to the petrochemical industry at the state level,” says Lena Smith, campaign manager for clean water advocacy in the Philadelphia office of PennFuture, an environmental advocacy organization. “Where are we investing that shows what our values are?

When we talk about lack of funding, it’s not that there’s a lack of funding. It’s just a mismanaged priority.”

In the time of COVID-19, budgets that prioritize industry over environment and law enforcement over public health mean

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Senator Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts (right) announce the Green New Deal resolution in February 2019.

26 GR ID P H I L LY.CO M JA NUA RY 20 21

F L I C K R / S E N AT E D E M O C R AT S U S E D V I A C R E AT I V E C O M M O N S

that in order for this legislation to be pushed through—and to have the maximum positive effect if and when it is—citizens need a better understanding of how environmental problems can be solved, whether at the block, neighborhood or citywide level.

That comes from education and outreach—something Brooks made a point to include in her campaign.

“I’m coming from being an organizer, so I’m always thinking about the political education that it takes for people to be not just engaged, but engaged and informed,” Brooks explains. “Because that’s how we change policy. That’s how I got here. I was activated by an issue, then I was engaged because I was committed to not allowing that issue to overtake my community.”

City Councilmember Katherine Gilmore Richardson, pictured here with an Indego bike, leads City Council’s Committee on the Environment.

“[COVID-19] has taught a lot of people how big of an issue environmental injustice is, and how it’s having such a tremendous impact on communities of color, particularly Black communities, where people are dying at alarming rates,” Griffin says. “Because we’re in the middle of COVID, and the response [to that] has to be so big, it doesn’t leave a lot of money to focus on the things that are causing the underlying health issues in the first place.”

Since so many factors—the effects of future lockdowns due to a winter s urge in cases, lower-than-usual tax revenues—are up in the air, Griffin says, advocates and lawmakers are planning for a range of possibilities.

C O U R T E S Y O F T H E O F F I C E O F K AT H E R I N E G I L M O R E R I C H A R D S O N

our governments are less prepared than they could be to act quickly in the public’s interest. And the city’s most vulnerable residents—those living in the places with the poorest air quality and least access to affordable healthcare—are the ones suffering the greatest hardships and losses due to the pandemic.

Securing the funds for Green New Deal initiatives in a pandemic whose impact on underserved communities has been exacerbated by the long-term effects of environmental racism is a bitterly ironic challenge, says Ebony Griffin, a lawyer with the Public Interest Law Center, who works on environmental justice issues.

“I think we have a two-pronged approach. Perfect world–type legislation that probably costs a whole lot of money to implement, that we’re probably not going to get, but at least we have something to look toward,” she says.

“And then, what would make some change for the least amount of money?”

She adds that she is excited to see what progressive Philadelphia leadership can make possible in conjunction with a Biden presidency, while acknowledging that national Democratic leadership is not a cure-all.

“I think that those who understand and appreciate the magnitude of climate change understand that any successful response to it needs to happen on a global scale. So while Biden’s presidency is important as we move toward clean energy, that alone is not enough to stop the wave,” Griffin says, although she is hopeful Biden will make science-based policy decisions.

Brooks, meanwhile, points out that neglecting climate change problems in the short term while every year brings hotter summers, weirder winters and stronger storms will cost more overall than if we choose to deal with these problems.

“The argument is always, ‘Is it cost effective?’ But if we think about the long-term savings of investing in a Green New Deal, that’ll take that off the table,” says Brooks.

“It still boils down to who has the will to try something new, to push up against the status quo for the good of the next generation.

And that’s what this is about.”

JAN UARY 20 21 G R I DP HI LLY.COM 27

An environmentalist partakes in John Heinz’s annual deer hunt and considers its ecological benefits story by meredith nutting

T

he sun is barely above the horizon when we creep between the trees and quietly enter the blind. I load the arrow into the crossbow, looking eagerly out of the mesh window.

It’s the first day of my first hunt. I’ve never killed anything and I’m not sure that I can.

“I like this spot,” says my mentor, Derek Stoner, a hunter outreach coordinator with the Pennsylvania Game Commission. “A big buck was killed here last year.”

As an environmentalist, I’ve traveled the world filming with researchers working to protect animals. I’ve always considered hunting in the name of conservation to be a 28 GRID P H I L LY.CO M JA NUA RY 20 21

ruse made up by gun-loving sportsmen. Fifteen years ago I never would have guessed I’d swap a camera for a crossbow, but over the years I’ve learned that environmentalism is full of contradictions when you look at the big picture.

It is the weekend of November 21, during the second annual mentored deer hunt at John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge. Bowhunting provides a safe and effective means of hunting and a partnership with the game commission (there are far fewer traumatic shooting accidents with crossbows when compared to firearms). Just a few miles from the Philadelphia International Airport, the

P H OTO G R A P H Y C O U R T E S Y O F M E R E D I T H N U T T I N G

LIVE AND LET DIE

993 acres of marsh and forest provide a popular place for birdwatchers, but it’s also home to a lot of deer.

A balanced ecosystem can sustain 8-10 deer per square mile, but the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that the Philadelphia area has a population closer to 30-40 deer per square mile. Numbers this high pose safety risks for people. In 2017-2018 Pennsylvania had 141,777 deer-related vehicular accidents, the highest in the country—over 50,000 more than the next state on the list.

In past deer-count surveys, the population at John Heinz was higher than the forest could support and needed to be managed.

Last year the refuge used this to further its mission to educate residents about conservation through outdoor recreation by starting the mentored bow hunting program.

Although most environmentalists might prefer that nature be left alone, Pennsylvania’s deer population has been long affected by people. Severe overhunting obliterated the deer population, and, in 1895, the game commission introduced new herds

Left: The author poised behind the crossbow during the hunt.

Right, from top: A state game commission officer inspects one of the two deer shot that weekend; the moon over Tinicum Marsh.

The only way you’re going to reduce the population is if you kill the females, not the males.”

— g arrett white , biological science technician at

John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge at Tinicum

relocated from the Midwest. While predators were also wiped out, they were not reintroduced. Mountain lions and wolves are thought to have been extirpated in the late 1800s. Coyotes, native to Western North America, have spread into Pennsylvania, exploiting the wolves’ absence, but they do not kill enough deer to control their population. Without hunting by humans, a deer population can quickly outgrow its patch of forest, like it has at John Heinz.

Three hours in the blind and it would be cold enough to see our breath, if not for our COVID-19 masks. “I’m going to try some calling,” Stoner says, pulling out a ribbed tube.

Baiting deer with corn or salt licks isn’t permitted at John Heinz but using calls is allowed. Stoner trumpets into the tube mimicking the sound of a male deer to draw it to us. In order to legally shoot a deer, it has to be the right one. I have a deer tag for one buck with three points on its antler. John Heinz has also supplied me with two doe tags, which are more regulated because the females control the herd population.

“The only way you’re going to reduce the population is if you kill the females, not the males,” says Garrett White, biological science technician at John Heinz. “The male won’t produce any more offspring, but the females will produce two a year after a couple of years. So that’s where your population control comes in.”

To ethically shoot a deer, my aim has to be spot-on, killing the deer quickly with a shot to the heart. To do that, I need the deer to come within a 30-yard range—an area the size of my rowhome backyard—directly in front of my bow, no longer moving and without obstacles in the way.

The sound of Stoner’s calls puts me on edge and sends my adrenaline rushing. I sit silently and alert, twitching at the sound of every falling leaf, crashing to the forest floor. I am sure that any second now a buck is going to wander in, perfectly situated in the opening between the wall of feathery phragmites and my crossbow. I imagine the target right behind his shoulders and how easy it is to pull the trigger sending the arrow into his heart.

Then I picture every deer I’ve encountered JAN UARY 20 21 G R I DP HI LLY.COM 29

on hikes, startled and still, staring at me with their big eyes. I feel ready to switch the safety to fire and take the shot but I worry I might freeze, like the stereotypical deer in headlights, unable to kill such a peaceful animal.

Outside the refuge gates are protesters’ signs. They say the refuge should be a safe place for all wildlife. I don’t disagree, but I know after years of working in conservation as a filmmaker that this is short-sighted. A single deer eats about 5 pounds of plant matter a day. Too many deer can decimate a lot of undergrowth in the form of young saplings and native herbaceous species.

Forests cannot regenerate without saplings that eventually grow into strong, old trees, and clearing out native plants gives introduced species a leg up.

“At some point all trees die,” says White.

“So, you do need something else growing up behind that to sustain a habitat. A high deer population will eat all the trees that will be replacing the ones that we currently have there.”

Letting nature take its course with the deer also leaves other wildlife at a disadvantage. Ground-nesting birds have no chance of hiding their young without the cover of undergrowth. With deer eating all the flowers, there’s little left for native pollinators to forage. Eventually, without new saplings to take the place of dying trees, the forest can die completely. Whether it’s a novice deer hunter or sharpshooter team from Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, to manage pockets of forests, deer have to be managed.

On top of maintaining the health of the forest, wild game is one of the most sustainable protein options people have. Commercial livestock production accounts for 18% of global greenhouse gas emissions and is a big polluter of our waterways and air. In some places, particularly the Amazon rainforest, it’s driving 80% of deforestation—that impacts the native species there, causing extinction. Processing the billions of pounds of meat annually in the U.S. is also a public health issue.

For those who choose to eat meat, doing so sustainably and humanely can be expensive. During my filming career—whether it was defending South African rhinos from poachers or mapping migration routes of Amazonian jaguars—all of the conservation projects I worked on focused on finding the 30 GRID P H IL LY.CO M JA NUA RY 2021

A state game commission officer weighs a deer after field dressing it.

middle ground between protecting animal populations and meeting the needs of locals living in poverty. The deer-hunting program at John Heinz checks this box.

One large deer can pack your freezer with up to 153 pounds of meat, according to the game commission, which is well over a year’s worth using the World Cancer Research Fund’s guidelines of around a pound of red meat a week. Based on the deer I’ve seen around the refuge, I’m only expecting to take home 30-40 pounds on my hunt, still enough for much of the year.

Scanning the woods, a doe silently appears.

“There’s a deer,” I whisper excitedly. “But she’s too far.”

Stoner and I watch her walk on, probably heading to water after feeding. In three days, from predawn to evening, I saw a total of nine deer, three of which were in front of the blind but not within shooting range. I’m still unsure if I have it in me to look a deer in the eyes and pull the trigger, but I know that if I do, my gratitude for the life I take to feed myself will be immense.

Until then, I discover that sitting quietly listening to the forest for hours isn’t wasted time, a sentiment I share with White.

“The stress relief for me that comes from sitting in the woods and listening to nature—that’s ... priceless for my overall health,” White says. “And who cares if I didn’t get a deer?”

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Powering up a career in energy management A Penn alumna charts her course toward a sustainability career “Energy plays an important role in almost everything we do in our lives. It affects every single activity,” explains Samanvitha Danda (Master of Environmental Studies ’20). Her interest in sustainability and energy management led her to Penn’s Master of Environmental Studies program to explore the possibilities of the field.

“What I really liked about this program was the fact that it didn’t have one set curriculum,” says Samanvitha. “That is just what I was looking for. I was able to tailor my degree to exactly what I wanted,” Samanvitha reflects. She took courses in transferable skills such as life cycle assessment and data management, and put them into practice during her internships and capstone research.

Samanvitha Danda

Analyst

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Now an analyst for a sustainability consulting firm, Samanvitha draws on her tailored curriculum to do greenhouse gas emission calculations and life cycle assessments for clients trying to set and reach science-based sustainable energy goals. “I understand the technical terms and different reporting frameworks and everything I need to jump into it,” she says. “At the moment, this is exactly the type of job that I want to be doing.”

To learn more about Samanvitha’s sustainability studies and how she managed a successful job search after graduating during the pandemic, visit:

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