urban dwellings and relief housing. In our community in West Oakland, the site of our pilot project, studies show residents are five times more susceptible to cancer from diesel particulate matter than residents in the rest of California. Air pollution in urban centers around the world is creating a health crisis whose casualties are reaching the number of those killed in the AIDS epidemic. Inner-city youth and children living in slums stand to benefit the most from improved air quality. Urban Bamboo Biofilters will be strategically planted along transportation routes and downwind of stationary pollution sources on marginalized and contaminated land. Bamboo greenbelts are highly effective windscreens and have a great capacity to sequester carbon, produce oxygen, remove particulates, mitigate noise pollution and provide visual relief from the highways and industry. At the EBMUD treatment facility in West Oakland 70-million gallons of wastewater are processed and released into the Bay every day. This wastewater will be redirected to bamboo plantations, which can consume vast quantities of nitrogen and outperform row crops in effluent uptake. While CARB and Port of Oakland are working hard to improve emissions standards, these reductions and alternative vehicle plans are long-term and costly solutions, and the impact won't be felt for 20-30 years. Bamboo Biofilters are the first-responders to an ecological emergency. Unlike trees, which take 25 years or longer to achieve maximum pollution filtration, within three months bamboo reaches full height and matures in three years. Urban Bamboo Biofilters can provide long-term solutions, or can be used as an intermediary step, remediating degraded soil in preparation for agriculture or restoration.

Describe the critical need your solution addresses.

While still vetting proposals for ways to reduce emissions, the Marine Air Quality Improvement Plan, finished just days ago, suggests the Port of Oakland charge a fee on all incoming containers in an effort to improve the health of the community. The Port’s Environmental Planning Department has already voiced interest in our project; quantifiable data collected at a Bamboo Biofilter test site in West Oakland could provide the catalyst for a large-scale municipally funded project.

Attending community meetings we have become familiar with air quality policy activism and have gained support from the community, local government and NGO’s. Recently appointed to Bay Area Air Quality Management District’s West Oakland task force, we are working with them to identify locations for five new air quality monitoring stations. With assistance from Eco-City Builders and USGS specialists, we are developing maps triangulating 1) air pollution sources, 2) communities most at risk, and 3) proximity to reclaimed wastewater sources. We are discussing potential test-site locations with private land owners and Cal-Trans.

Funding would enable:
-Research: developing simulation models of bamboo air purification rates, local airshed modeling data analysis to quantify ideal geographical placement and size of Bamboo Biofilters.
-Design and engineering: creating the infrastructure of the test site including: planting, root barriers, irrigation, security, harvesting access and monitoring equipment.
-Planning: building a coalition between the Port, EBMUD and NGO’s. Collaborating with NGO’s like ReLeaf to organize the employment of community members to plant, maintain, and harvest.
-Education: developing a bamboo planting, cultivation, and end-uses training program in partnership with NGO’s like Green For All and community colleges.

Year 1) Establish test site/nursery. Gather test site data.
Year 2) Divide plants from nursery and install Urban Bamboo Biofilters.
Year 3) Harvest first poles for use in gardens.

Explain your initiative in more depth and its stage of development.

The creative harnessing of earth’s ecosystem services is the most energy efficient approach to air filtration and wastewater treatment. Biological systems provide an immediately attainable solution to ecological well-being, as no new technological advancements or breakthroughs are needed--terrestrial vegetation is a 400 million year old technology! Communities have been cultivating and harvesting bamboo plantations for hundreds of years, so there is plenty of intellectual capital available. The low cost of implementing Urban Bamboo Biofilters provides a solution for urban air and water remediation that is easily replicable in a broad diversity of disadvantaged and urban communities throughout the world, affected by point-source air contaminants. There are over 1000 species of bamboo from which climate tolerant species or species with specific qualities for end-use purposes can be selected.

How does your strategy and approach respond creatively and comprehensively to key issues?

Marisha Farnsworth and Brent Bucknum, both live and/or work in West Oakland. Marisha is a founder of The Natural Builders, a contracting company specializing in building with natural materials. Marisha has built with bamboo in the US, Mexico and Costa Rica, participated in the development of bamboo composite building materials, and taught classes in bamboo cultivation and construction through Merritt College, Solar Living Institute, New College of CA, and San Francisco Institute of Architecture.

Brent runs the Hyphae Design Laboratory; a research and design firm dedicated to bridging the gap between innovative architecture and biological science. From 2005-2008, Brent served as Design Director for Rana Creek. Brent’s work includes the design of living roofs and walls, ecological landscapes, rainwater catchment, greywater systems and constructed wetlands. He has managed design budgets of 250k for construction projects up to 25 million. Notable projects include the California Academy of Sciences, and Transbay Terminal, and recently the Climate Clock, a 100-year monument to climate change.

The Urban Bamboo Biofilter Project is endorsed by: Green For All, Architecture for Humanity, Eco-City Builders, West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project, members of the West Oakland Commerce Association, members of BAAQMD.

http://urbanbamboobiofilter.blogspot.com