In regard to CCA treated timber, there has been a lot of research with CCA treated logs and vegetables.  Slow leaching of metals does occur and impacts the soil in contact with the logs (50 mm).  Little uptake does occur to the vegetables but the same issue occurs with roots crops in close proximity to the logs as it does for lead.  The root vegetables should be washed before eating.  People though do worry about it and this worry is where the greatest hazard is on the short term.  Prolonged contact with soil and impact on vegetation has been evaluated in the grapes of Marlborough district in NZ and in the Hawkes Bay horticulture industry.  There is clear evidence that arsenic levels accumulate with time in the soil, but bioavailability remains low.  If people continue to worry lining with plastic or marine ply, or waste plywood from someones thrown out wardrobe would be OK but would have to be replaced every 2 to 3 years as it would probably be decayed by then.

www.environmentalearthsciences.com…

So that’s a yes, but doing so creates some avoidable burdens.

They’re not insurmountable and human health is not at serious risk.

M

Michael, A sign for Arbolito, Beth, Beth's hat, Andres

Close up of sign

Arbolito, ‘The little tree”, has signed up and is fully ‘out there’.

We put a sign up made of a used plastic drink bottle;  we laminated an A4 sign, used duct tape to affix it to the bottle, then placed the bottle over the stake for the tree and . . . voila, a sign.

Andres who planted and named it left Oz on Friday for Taiwan on his way back to Ecuador.

He has set up a facebook page for Arbolito so he may watch it grow, people may become fans of the little tree and anyone can see what’s going on there; web link to come.

May the signs remain quirky,

Michael

Pine St raingarden newly planted

Remember the terrific work done by the chefs and Rachel, John, Helen and others to make the bed for the Pine St raingarden?  To find it click on ‘raingardens’ in the Tags, or it’s here:  http://archive.sustainablehouse.com.au/wp-admin/post.php?post=608&action=edit

Helen and Don have planted it out and finished it just in time for the good rain we’ve had these last few days.  Notice the cracks between the bricks which mean the rain from the footpath can run in there and be picked up through the gravel and carried by the ag pipe then dispersed below the bed to the roots of the plants.

Thanks, chefs n all, enjoy, M

This is a view of the rain gardens in Pyrmont.

The gardens have been constructed between 224 to 308 Harris Street by Sydney City Council to address issues on:

• stormwater runoff management eg to address both water quantity and quality issues from the roofs and footpaths
• keeping the runoff near where it falls, thereby roughly restoring the natural water cycle
• using gravity to store and hold water, mainly for irrigation of the trees and vegetation

Good on you Council, the more the merrier,

Michael

‘What is it now?”, you ask?

The circular through my door today, announces “Night works in Abercrombie Street from Irving to Broadway”.

For the next six months + – yes, ’ 6 – 7’ – the diggers, trucks, sludge, shouts, groans and tra la la-ing will happen seven night a week there.  It’s about 100 metres of Abercrombie that’s to be dug up for this super drain.

The explanation makes me curious:  ”The installation of this stormwater pipe is an essential part of the construction works for the public park at the centre of the future ‘Central Park’ precinct.”

That sounds unbelievable because:

• that’s a hell of a pipe to take away stormwater
• such a pipe would carry more than the water to fall on and be wasted from the little park to be created in the project
• the amount of stormwater to be wasted through such a large pipe that will take six months to dig for a length of about 100 meters – or 20 metres a month to dig it on average - must be a very large amount of water
• trumpets, international architects, slideshows, Ministerial proclamations, dancing girls, marching bands, green gurus, web pages and wizards – all these and more said this Broadway project was to be a sustainable project where rainwater would be harvested and reused on the greenest precinct Sydney would have.

Could it be that what all the hullaballoo amounts to is the usual greenwash hocus pocus?

Could it be that rainwater is in fact to be mostly wasted and treated as a waste product here?

Who to ask in this leaderless town where all in authority spend most of their time and money on spin?

Let’s just ask ourselves, use our eyes, ears and cameras over the six months period of open heart surgery to be conducted on yet another part of Chippo that’s to be dug up for drains to waste precious water.

No doubt we’ll be blessed with telephone calls after it all to ask how much fun it was and what problems we may have.  With all responses fed into the spin doctors kitchen whence it will come back at us with press releases, spin and life will go on as usual, drain after drain.

Did you see this week the announcement by the wise government in Brazil, which is presiding over the collapse of flows of the mighty Amazon river, diverting so much water to industry and so much rainforest (which once generated rain for the river) to farming, will now build a dam to make electricity?

Could be worse; we could live there, I guess, where they’re about to flood the folks and critters who live where the dam waters will go.

Or, we could live as a fish in the waters of Blackwattle Bay which are copping all the silt streaming out of our ‘raingardens’ and off the site entries to the Frasers site.  The fish must be chuffed these last few days; check out the tonnes of silt running out of the Frasers site – you know, the sustainable one on Broadway.

May the raindrops stay where they fall,

Michael