Community Science Ecological Inventory, Ecological restoration workshops & Reconciliation, Remediation and Rematriation at the Pine Street Barge Canal
Community Science Started Spring 2022- Fall 2022: https://fb.me/e/1BnhoeRit
Every 2nd & 4th sunday of the month from 3-5 pm All (from newbie naturalists, to amateurs to professionals) are welcome to join us in discovering who in the trophic web (mammals, reptiles, amphibians, flora, fungi, invertebrates, birds...) lives on this land and to record it for a baseline inventory.
This parcel of land on Unceded Abenaki Territory is a Brownfield Site abutting a Superfund Site and has the potential to become a model of how the community can learn about the resilient earth here, document this as baseline data to guide a long term restoration - remediation plan including becoming an accessible living laboratory to grow community ecoliteracy & skills.
Bring binoculars, hand lenses, field guides, your iphone for pictures and Inaturalist entries, For anyone with mobility challenges who wants to attend, please let us know your needs and we will do all we can to support your participation.
Since the site is a Brownfield Site, there is a waiver to fill out. Precautions: to keep any shoes worn to the site for 2 days to prevent particulate exposure, thorough tick check, and of course tending hydration, sun protection, and snack needs. Meet at the gate on Pine Street. Park across the street at Dealer.com or behind the Maltex building.
This event is hosted by MycoEvolve's Mycolab in partnership with Friends of the Barge Canal. Thanks to NE Grassroots Fund for their initial support. Here is a video about the site and a petition to sign to support the mission.
Above are images of some Community Science Inventory days thus far. Most photos are on our Inaturalist Project site.
Every 2nd & 4th sunday of the month from 3-5 pm All (from newbie naturalists, to amateurs to professionals) are welcome to join us in discovering who in the trophic web (mammals, reptiles, amphibians, flora, fungi, invertebrates, birds...) lives on this land and to record it for a baseline inventory.
This parcel of land on Unceded Abenaki Territory is a Brownfield Site abutting a Superfund Site and has the potential to become a model of how the community can learn about the resilient earth here, document this as baseline data to guide a long term restoration - remediation plan including becoming an accessible living laboratory to grow community ecoliteracy & skills.
Bring binoculars, hand lenses, field guides, your iphone for pictures and Inaturalist entries, For anyone with mobility challenges who wants to attend, please let us know your needs and we will do all we can to support your participation.
Since the site is a Brownfield Site, there is a waiver to fill out. Precautions: to keep any shoes worn to the site for 2 days to prevent particulate exposure, thorough tick check, and of course tending hydration, sun protection, and snack needs. Meet at the gate on Pine Street. Park across the street at Dealer.com or behind the Maltex building.
This event is hosted by MycoEvolve's Mycolab in partnership with Friends of the Barge Canal. Thanks to NE Grassroots Fund for their initial support. Here is a video about the site and a petition to sign to support the mission.
Above are images of some Community Science Inventory days thus far. Most photos are on our Inaturalist Project site.
Ecological Restoration, Reconciliation & Rematriation
Several community members have attended the series of trash clean up days Friends of the Barge Canal hosted to remove two decades of homeless encampments. There are still several tons of trash embedded in the landscape so these efforts will continue. Jess along with a few folx in the Friends of the Barge Canal has been guiding a series of restoration workshops which involve removing nonnative plants from the restored parcels in ways that minimize soil disturbance, maximize carbon sequestration and grow eco literacy and skills in the community. We have been scratching in native wetland seed following the areas we restore since pre-industrial era days, this site was a wetland. Currently we have held two free public workshops fall 2022, (first led by Mike Bald of Got Weeds?), as well as two for Vermont Youth Build. If you are interested in a trainings on this site, please contact MycoEvolve. While there is a long term restoration plan for this site, it is on pause until the many moving parts and stakeholders are aligned. Because the site can never be restored to its pre-colonial site, earth repair workers attempt to reconcile the damage done here, and there are a series of social reparations that also need to occur on this unceded, severely degraded Abenaki Territory, this work is more accurately called reconciliation. We are in collaboration with local Abenaki and over time also aim to move towards supporting rematriation. Rematriation does not solely involve the Abenaki but also all of the inner city youth, descendants of slaves, new migrants, and local citizens as well all strengthen our birthright connection and access to healthy clean water, soil & habitat here.
Several community members have attended the series of trash clean up days Friends of the Barge Canal hosted to remove two decades of homeless encampments. There are still several tons of trash embedded in the landscape so these efforts will continue. Jess along with a few folx in the Friends of the Barge Canal has been guiding a series of restoration workshops which involve removing nonnative plants from the restored parcels in ways that minimize soil disturbance, maximize carbon sequestration and grow eco literacy and skills in the community. We have been scratching in native wetland seed following the areas we restore since pre-industrial era days, this site was a wetland. Currently we have held two free public workshops fall 2022, (first led by Mike Bald of Got Weeds?), as well as two for Vermont Youth Build. If you are interested in a trainings on this site, please contact MycoEvolve. While there is a long term restoration plan for this site, it is on pause until the many moving parts and stakeholders are aligned. Because the site can never be restored to its pre-colonial site, earth repair workers attempt to reconcile the damage done here, and there are a series of social reparations that also need to occur on this unceded, severely degraded Abenaki Territory, this work is more accurately called reconciliation. We are in collaboration with local Abenaki and over time also aim to move towards supporting rematriation. Rematriation does not solely involve the Abenaki but also all of the inner city youth, descendants of slaves, new migrants, and local citizens as well all strengthen our birthright connection and access to healthy clean water, soil & habitat here.
Remediation
Mycolab rearises from its 3 year hiatus. We recently inoculated cold pasteurized spawn with 2 native, local saprophytic oyster species (Pleurotus ostreatus, Pluerotus populinus) from a local mycologist. These fungi will support mycoremediation pilot trials we design to degrade the petrochemicals in the soil and water. Based on the site's previous scientific reports, research gaps and current data as well as the current peer-reviewed studies of effective remediation, we designed a series of remediation pilots to address the 56 toxins of concern on site. Their implementation are on pause until we strengthen local municipal partnerships, understand better how to work with as well as help educate the EPA& DEC in their understanding of true remediation, establish long-term funding, increase FBC infrastructure, grow our local scientist team, and firm up our collaboration with CoRenewal.
Mycolab's Herstory
mycoMycolab started out as a seed inspired from our participation in the Radical Mycology Community. We originally had a little Vermont Myconode through which we experimented with cultivating fungi in our apartments. We then raised funds through New England Grassroots Environmental Funds SEED grant (thank you!!!) to build a true lab in the basement of an ephemeral permaculture community that hosted a lavender farm in Charlotte. This was an amazingly fertile and inspiring time for us in which we learned a ton about cultivation, held monthly collective meetings, educational workshops, and grew spawn for local mycoremediation pilot projects MycoEvolve was conducting.
After inevitable community shifts occurred the lab transitioned into germination mode relocating into a barn and repurposed wine cooler (culture library still there). Jess reentered academia for furthur training and the group became more oriented towards serving marginalized members of our community. This lab is now dedicated to serving these communities in ways which increase ecological literacy, accessibility to scientific learning, and opportunities to engage and train all interested in the needed service of ecological restoration. While fungi are a huge part of this work, so are microbes and plants!
2020 summer, the lab hosted (with help of a grant from NEGEF), Abenaki members of Alnobaiwi to offer reclamation ceremonies at Shelburne Farms where we are conducting Myco-Phytoremediation research; this location like so many needs remediation from years of colonial land practices that still contribute to watershed degradation. Now at that site an agreement is being drafted up between Shelburne Farms, MycoEvolve, and Abenaki leaders to expand our research plots into Abenaki harvest ways since 88% of our plant palette has medicinal, edible, utilitarian use to Abenaki and phosphorus is benign when uptaken in plants. We orient all community remediation projects in urban and rural areas to engage Original Peoples as primary stakeholders, guides, decision makers and leaders while we do the dirt work of attempting to clean up the legacy of colonial extraction practices.
In addition to tending our ongoing research at our Myco-Phytoremediation plots at Shelburne Farms, we are working to develop a long-term remediation, restoration plan for the Barge Canal, albeit complex politics, impending development and an overall dearth of knowledge in and models for brownfield remediation at this contamination level. Any hydrological engineers, mycologists, botanists, GIS experts, grant writers, or other relevant experts who want to join our team are welcome. Join us here.
This lab's work is currently our community offering. We continue to write grants to NE Grassroots Environmental Fund and other local organizations to fund these endeavors as we slowly shift the paradigm through decolonial, racially just, accessible, non capitalist forms of community care, earth tending, true remediation, ecological literacy, earth repair training and rematriation.
After inevitable community shifts occurred the lab transitioned into germination mode relocating into a barn and repurposed wine cooler (culture library still there). Jess reentered academia for furthur training and the group became more oriented towards serving marginalized members of our community. This lab is now dedicated to serving these communities in ways which increase ecological literacy, accessibility to scientific learning, and opportunities to engage and train all interested in the needed service of ecological restoration. While fungi are a huge part of this work, so are microbes and plants!
2020 summer, the lab hosted (with help of a grant from NEGEF), Abenaki members of Alnobaiwi to offer reclamation ceremonies at Shelburne Farms where we are conducting Myco-Phytoremediation research; this location like so many needs remediation from years of colonial land practices that still contribute to watershed degradation. Now at that site an agreement is being drafted up between Shelburne Farms, MycoEvolve, and Abenaki leaders to expand our research plots into Abenaki harvest ways since 88% of our plant palette has medicinal, edible, utilitarian use to Abenaki and phosphorus is benign when uptaken in plants. We orient all community remediation projects in urban and rural areas to engage Original Peoples as primary stakeholders, guides, decision makers and leaders while we do the dirt work of attempting to clean up the legacy of colonial extraction practices.
In addition to tending our ongoing research at our Myco-Phytoremediation plots at Shelburne Farms, we are working to develop a long-term remediation, restoration plan for the Barge Canal, albeit complex politics, impending development and an overall dearth of knowledge in and models for brownfield remediation at this contamination level. Any hydrological engineers, mycologists, botanists, GIS experts, grant writers, or other relevant experts who want to join our team are welcome. Join us here.
This lab's work is currently our community offering. We continue to write grants to NE Grassroots Environmental Fund and other local organizations to fund these endeavors as we slowly shift the paradigm through decolonial, racially just, accessible, non capitalist forms of community care, earth tending, true remediation, ecological literacy, earth repair training and rematriation.
