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Ocean Arks International "Living Machine " http://www.chattanooga.net/sustain/ocean_arks_annals.html http://www.oceanarks.org/ "A ninety day experiment indicated that Living Machines could, indeed, meet this challenge. Overall, the bench test accomplished an eighty five per cent breakdown or removal of many of the poisons contained in the sediments of the creek. This was done without the use of chemicals or heavy machinery. The EPA is proceeding cautiously on this site, but we are hopeful that it will begin to embrace some creative solutions to this and similar pollution problems that punctuate this area." ======================================= Center for the Restoration of the Waters Ocean Arks, Intl. International Living Machine 1 Locust Street Falmouth MA 02540 (508) 540-6801. (508) 457-0609 fax http://www.oceanarks.org/ Drs. John and Nancy Todd's Living Machines Johnny Todd (son) ..... Works primarily through grants. ...... Chattanooga TN efforts are concentrating on industrial area needs. Corkscrew Swamp System has sewer treatment Living Machine unit.
======================================= OAI'S Southeast Center: Up and Running (Living Machine ) By Stephen O'Neill Ocean Arks International 176 Battery Street Burlington, VT 05401 USA 802-860-0011 Fax: 802-860-0022 http://www.oceanarks.org/ OAI'S Southeast Center [email protected] (615)267-0813 Fax: (615)267-0812 http://www.chattanooga.net/sustain/ocean_arks_annals.html The Southeast region of the United States is one of the best kept secrets in the country. It is a place of incredible biodiversity and great beauty. It is home to a majority of the aquatic fauna and plant life on the North American continent. The area is also blessed with an abundant supply of fresh water in running creeks, streams and rivers. The lower half of the Appalachian Mountain Range is truly one of the most magnificent areas of the nation. Rolling hills are covered with a lush, rich blanket of indigenous trees that can seem to stretch on forever. However, the southeast also has a disturbing history of environmental neglect. The textile, coal and paper industries of this region have left an imprint that is now becoming apparent. Fresh water fish and mollusks are disappearing faster than anywhere else in the United States. The impoundment of many of the great rivers has contributed to the rapid demise of various aquatic animals. It was an environmental catastrophe that brought the Center for the Restoration of Waters to Chattanooga, Tennessee. The calamity flowed through a poisoned watershed called the Chattanooga Creek. The area of Chattanooga through which the creek runs has had a hundred year history of heavy industry. Pollution has been caused by several factors including sewage wastes, coal tar derivatives (polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons), cyclopentadiens, pesticides, organic solvents, chlorinated solvents and metals.(1) The EPA recently explained the pollution at a public hearing, "Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons are a group of chemicals formed during the incomplete burning of coal, gas refuse or other organic substances. They are a widespread product of combustion from common sources such as motor vehicles and other gas burning engines, wood burning stoves, cigarette smoke, industrial soot and charcoal-broiled foods. Wood that has been treated with creosote also contains PAHs."(2) Also, due to poorly designed combined sewage overflow (CSO) stations in the area, stormwater mixed with sewage water continues to poison the creek during heavy rain falls. Although liability in this disaster has yet to be successfully litigated (and the list of potential contributors - including the US government - grows daily) some success has been achieved over the past decade. Companies that were recently in production on the site, including Southern Wood Piedmont Company, the Mead Corporation, and Veliscol Chemical Company are beginning to clean up their lots. Also the city is working on redesigning the CSOs in the area. The site was recently upgraded to the National Priority List (NPL) in the Superfund category in January, 1994. This means that the area is polluted to the extent that it causes a major health risk to the community. The site is now eligible for extensive, long term cleanup action under the Superfund program. In the Fall of 1991, with support from the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Lyndhurst Foundation, the city hired Ocean Arks International (OAI) to conduct a feasibility study, using Living Machines to break down the toxic compounds in the creek. The community was interested in pursuing an ecological solution to this dilemma, and although Living Machines had never been applied to toxic watersheds such as this, Ocean Arks decided to test the Living Machines' ability to clean the contaminated water. A ninety day experiment indicated that Living Machines could, indeed, meet this challenge. Overall, the bench test accomplished an eighty five per cent breakdown or removal of many of the poisons contained in the sediments of the creek. This was done without the use of chemicals or heavy machinery. The EPA is proceeding cautiously on this site, but we are hopeful that it will begin to embrace some creative solutions to this and similar pollution problems that punctuate this area. While work proceeds on this project, Ocean Arks, in partnership with the city and local foundations, has embarked on a unique program. We have concluded that education is an essential part of the creek remediation effort in Chattanooga. As a result, Chattanooga is the first city in the United States to use Living Machines as an environmental education tool. There are currently six Classroom Living Machines schools throughout the Chattanooga area. The program has been frequently cited in the media as an innovative technique for training Earth stewards of the twenty first century. Chattanooga is fast becoming a city with a focus on the environment. The community took on the heavy coal burning industries, pressuring them to clean up the air. At that time Chattanooga had some of the worst pollution in the country. Many companies installed state-of-the-art air filtration methods, others moved out of the city's vicinity. The success of this campaign can be seen clearly from any mountain top. Five years ago the city opened the country's largest fresh water aquarium. It is also home to the Tennessee Valley Authority's water quality laboratories. Since the southeast is also the fastest growing section of the economy, and since many of our programs are beginning to be applied here, OAI concluded that a regional office in Chattanooga could be an important component of its growing network. The Southeast Center for the Restoration of Waters has now been a part of the OAI team for over a year. The office here has helped facilitate communication, advocacy, and public awareness on water issues throughout the southeast. Our first year in Chattanooga has been an exciting one. The Southeast Center has raised its own funds to run and support this office. And while this in and of itself has been a challenge, it is second to the task of physically establishing a research / education / administrative office for Ocean Arks International. We have set up our operation on Tremont Street just off Frazier Avenue, a relatively busy commercial thoroughfare in North Chattanooga. We have recycled and rebuilt an old 1930 house into a modern commercial space, utilizing ecologically advanced technologies. 309 Tremont Street sits on approximately two acres of land - basically in the middle of the city - on which we plan to display assorted environmentally engineered systems from waste treatment to aquaculture. In the building itself there are three offices, a storage room, a conference room and a reception area. In the basement we have established a Living Machine system which will eventually treat our storm water and the building's wastes. Outside, we have managed our landscaping to trap and absorb the entire property's storm water (storm water continues to be the largest contributor to non-point water pollution in the nation). We continue to campaign for the use of Living Machines in the remediation of Chattanooga Creek. In the past year we made several trips to Washington to meet with the Chattanooga's national representatives on this issue. We spearheaded an effort to establish a National Fresh Water Center here in Chattanooga that would provide the city with funds to continue supporting creative solutions to water pollution problems. Through this initiative, we have established solid working relationships with other groups involved with this important issue. Among them are: the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Tennessee Aquarium, the Tennessee Department of Agriculture and Aquaculture, the National Parks and Recreation Association, the Chattanooga Storm Water Board and the Tennessee American Water Company. Our education program has been among the most exciting aspects of our work. This summer we held ten teacher training seminars on the Classroom Living Machine Program. These were attended by over fifty teachers in the five Tyner area schools. The seminars involved slides, videos, lectures and a hundred page workbook containing, among other things, over twenty five lesson plans and exercises for the teachers. The Southeast Center was featured in the 1994 June issue of Instructor's Magazine and on the Invention program produced by Turner Network Television. Since then, our office has been flooded with calls from around the country inquiring how schools could acquire Classroom Living Machines. In response, we have put together a brochure describing the process and the product. We have also been active in our community outreach programs. Over the past year our programs have reached hundreds of people. Through public events such as the Chattanooga Clean Water Expo and the Warner Park Zoo Festival we have been able to raise interest in Living Machines and ecological engineering by providing information booths and demonstrations. Additionally, we have given presentations at over a dozen community organizations, churches and ecological seminars. Response to these seminars continues to be very supportive. The Southeast Center's staff and infrastructure have facilitated the management for and provided technical assistance on several OAI projects throughout this region. We put many of our resources into our new facility in Frederick, Maryland, and the Corkscrew Swamp in Florida. These areas are both only a few hours away by small plane. This autumn the SE Center will begin work on a state-of-the-art educational environmental center in Brooklyn, New York. In collaboration with Scott Sargert, we have forged an effective team for design, engineering, management and construction. The Brooklyn Environmental Center will be the first advanced ecological wastewater treatment facility for sewage in New York. The system will display the process of natural water treatment through a beautifully designed Living Machine that will be situated in the middle of the entrance to the center. The Brooklyn Living Machine will treat ten thousand gallons of water a day. We will begin construction on the site sometime this winter. Through our presence in Chattanooga, we have been able to become an intricate part of the city's effort to become a major "green city". Recently, the President's Council on Sustainability selected Chattanooga as a model city for its innovative public/private partnerships and environmental track record. In keeping with this mission, the city recently sponsored a three day downtown design charrette which included Ocean Arks, and many other leading ecological designers including Peter Calthorpe, Amory Lovins and Bill McDonough. Through city, state, federal and private partnerships, the city has embarked on an ambitious plan to revitalize an old industrial section of the city. Through this initiative, the Southeast Center for the Restoration of Waters has been selected to design, engineer and construct a Living Machine for the downtown area. The facility will function as an educational center that will grow fish and produce, treat sewage, grey and storm water, and transform chicken wastes from a nearby processing plant into animal feed. This will be located in a thirty thousand square foot building in the middle of downtown Chattanooga. The site also includes twelve acres on which we plan to incorporate a wetland. A significant space has been appropriated for OAI to design what could be the largest Living Machine to date. John and Nancy Todd, along with Scott Sargert, Stan Serfling, were in Chattanooga in December to begin the long process of designing and engineering this system. The Southeast Center also sponsored an Ecological Design Arts Forum on December 3rd to celebrate the coming of age of ecological design in our metropolitan centers. Over the next year, the Southeast Center will be working on many other programs, including the writing and design of an entire Classroom Living Machine curriculum and program. The recently printed brochure and working curriculum will enable us to communicate about the product, and we are anticipating a boost in sales of this program. We are working with Scott Sargert in putting together a hard cover text which will include lesson plans, exercises, activities and others. We also plan to start an inter-school newsletter which will communicate ideas on new exercises and experiments. In addition, we plan to create a database of information and experiments with the Living Machine communicated through Internet. We hope to develop a partnership with the Macintosh Corp. on this idea. In the coming year, we will build a Farm in the Forest with the Tennessee River Gorge Trust. An economically viable farm in the forest will fundamentally change the way forest management techniques are viewed throughout this nation and the world. We propose to bring together some of the leading minds in forest conservation and management as well as state of the art techniques for hydroponics and aquaculture to create an economically sustainable agricultural harvest under the forest canopy. We will attempt, through this program, not only to be stewards of the forest, but also to benefit from the immense biological diversity and knowledge that the forest has to offer. By acting in concert with the dynamics of the forest, and by not eradicating this host of genetic knowledge from our region, we will learn how to benefit from this precious resource. The Farm in the Forest will culture fish, food and herbs without heavy equipment and machinery. Additionally, the forest will be enhanced by small volumes of fertilizer rich fish water. The prototype culture facility will be built along gently sloping contour lines that will enhance the esthetics of the farm. The project will employ people in the woods in ecologically responsible ways that will enhance rather than degrade our forests. The Southeast Center will also propose to the city phase one of the larger downtown facility. This will involve a ten thousand square foot Living Machine for advanced tertiary water quality effluent from the city's Moccasin Bend wastewater treatment facility. Ocean Arks is installing a similar demonstration for the city of San Francisco. We will begin work on this late next year. In conclusion, the year has been an exciting one for Ocean Arks International in Chattanooga, Tennessee. We have assembled a solid working team and established a dynamic facility from which to operate. We look forward to a long and fruitful relationship with this city and this region. ======== Over the past seven years the work of OAI has focused on developing, researching and using Living Machines. As their name suggests, Living Machines are structures comprised largely of living organisms brought together to perform a particular type of work. They are engineered with the same design principals that nature uses to build and regulate its great ecologies in forests, lakes, prairies and estuaries. Living Machines can take many forms depending on their function and location, but they are always comprised of aquatic and/ or terrestrial ecosystems in variously configured, ecologically engineered environments. Living Machines are powered primarily by sunlight and achieve treatment through the combined action of living food chains, many of which are microscopic. As conceptualized by OAI President, Dr. John Todd, Living Machines can be used to produce food and fuels, treat wastes, purify air and regulate climates within buildings. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Dr. John Todd, Proposal to EPA (March 27, 1992), 1. Phylicia Barnett, Head of District 4, Superfund Task Force (Atlanta, GA). ........................................................................................ ........................................................................................ TARGET DIOXIN AS THE BENCHMARK TOXIC TO CLEANUP Cleanup of toxic waste sites, should target dioxin as the key toxic chemical to remove......If we remove dioxin down to less than 1 part per trillion contamination, then we have also removed most of the worst of the 3,700 Toxic "Porphyrinogenic Substances" (Cynthia Wilson 1996) http://www.ciin.org/ Cynthia's Porphyrinogenic Substances list includes toxic chemicals that aggravate/cause diabetes, liver problems (eg. porphyria-liver spots and much worse symptoms like heart conditions), ADD/ADHD, thyroid conditions and cancers. For more details on Dioxin and Porphyrinogenic Substances, see links at bottom of page.
Main Pages: | Endocrine Disruption Briefing Book | | Attachment List, ED Briefing Book | Attachment Pages: | ADD/ADHD | | Children-Developmental Damage | | Symptoms, Physical-Cognitive | | Diabetes | | Porphyria-LiverSpots | | Porphyria-Suppressed Detox | | Thyroid Disruptions | | Cancer, et al | | Cancer, et al | | Bethune School Dioxin | | Whitehouse School Scandal | | Belgium Govt. Topples | | 314 Toxic Chemicals | | 3700 Porphyrinogenic Chemicals | | Professional Dioxin Reports | | Industry View Dioxin | | Dust Carries Toxics-Dioxin | Cost Estimates, For Medical & Social Problems: | 5 most costly dioxin diseases Overview | Additional Overview Info: | PCB Toxicity by CDC | | 48% Graduation Rate Jax FL | | EDSTAC | Send questions to: | [email protected] | | [email protected] | |