Along the Mississippi: SDAT thing you do

A meeting of the minds in the Masterpiece on the Mississippi

Posted by Katharine Wroth at 4:53 PM on 22 Oct 2007

Read more about: placemaking | Iowa | Mississippi River

Mississippi blog from Dubuque IA There's no free lunch -- unless you happen to be a Grist reporter crashing a sustainability conference in Dubuque. I showed up, hungry, for a 12 p.m. presentation by City Manager Mike Van Milligen that was kicking off a three-day Sustainable Design Assessment Team visit. I was rewarded not only with more inspiring examples of this city's initiatives, but with a sandwich.

Let me back up a little. Dubuque -- which, as Sarah said, is turning out to be a more progressive place than either of us realized -- was chosen this year as one of six cities to receive technical assistance from the American Institute of Architects through their SDAT program. Basically, a bunch of smartypants architects, landscape architects, land-use planners, and climate types volunteer to come to your town to meet with officials and the public, and together you jaw your way through local challenges -- in this case, sprawl, bluff development, stormwater management, sustainable design, and neighborhood revitalization.

I ate my lunch in the company of the city's solid waste supervisor (a fan of Ask Umbra, as it turns out, especially the recent eco-litter column), two regional planning officials, a couple of soil and water conservation specialists, and a member of the city housing commission. If there were some sort of terrorist plot against Dubuque's infrastructure, this would be the gathering to hit.

After lunch, I had a chance to talk with Van Milligen, whom many credit with the incredible turnaround experienced by this self-proclaimed "Masterpiece on the Mississippi" -- but who modestly and Midwestily gave much of the credit to others. He noted especially the importance of community participation in projects including the restoration of the riverfront. "The saying was, 'The last person to leave Dubuque turn out the lights,'" he said, referring to the city's population hemorrhage in the 1980s. "The community ... has seen what bad is, and they don't want to see it again. And they've seen what good is, and they like it."

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Nice news (not much these days)

It is great to hear about the improvements to the Mississippi River, and not just because it is about 12 miles east of me.

I now no recent facts about the cleanup efforts except what you reported, and but offer the following historical perspective: about 16 years ago (give or take 2 or 3), Greenpeace came down the Mississippi protesting at company sites along the length of the river. Part of their action was to sabotage an industrial water treatment facility that resulted significant pollution being released to the river (as opposed to being cleaned up, which is what water treatment facilities do).

No mention was made of civil works like sewage treatment. That wouldn't have been good for fund raising.

However, by that time, companies had long since cleaned up their acts, and the major polluters of the river were the towns that refused to install good waste treatment facilities (refused as in the citizens wouldn't vote for them).

This highly cynical and false blame of industry left me, as an environmentally conscious scientist, with a very bad taste in my mouth.

I don't know how this breaks down now, but it is nice to hear of success stories with towns deciding to protect the environment. So, well done Dubuque et al. How many more towns do we need to see the light? Does anybody know? Are we there now?

Jim
http://greenchemistry.wordpress.com/

Jim Bashkin aka chemrat aka nearlynothingbutnovels http://greenchemistry.wordpress.com http://nearlynothingbutnovels.blogspot.com/

by chemrat at 10:36 PM on 22 Oct 2007

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