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 Laura Anderson - Water Quality Coordinator Asheville GreenWorks is seeking applicants to fill two AmeriCorps Project Conserve positions to restore and protect Asheville's fragile ecosystems. We have two positions available: Community Forestry Coordinator and Water Quality Coordinator. Service terms would begin Sept 1st 2020 and finish up July 31st 2021. The deadline to apply is May 15th 2020 - applications are now closed What is Project Conserve? Administered by Conserving Carolina, Project Conserve is a National Service program in which members come from across the nation to dedicate themselves to serving critical environmental and community needs in western North Carolina. Members are selected based on skill, education, experience, passion and commitment to service. The program focuses on collaboration with nonprofit organizations, community groups and local governments to provide service throughout the region. Project Conserve individually places members in service with one of our host site organizations working to protect the unique natural resources of the southern Blue Ridge Mountain region. During their terms of service, members will promote conservation through education, volunteerism, and direct environmental service. Members participate in 1 to 3 required training and service days per month with the full Project Conserve team. Training may cover a broad range of topics including wilderness first aid, CPR/AED, conflict resolution, forest management, trail construction, invasive plant identification, environmental education, volunteer management, and disaster preparedness.  By Finn Digman, Waste Reduction Education Coordinator for Asheville Greenworks If you’re staying at home full-time, now is the perfect time to clean up the yard. You might be cutting back invasive species, raking leaves, or pruning your fruit trees. No matter what, yard work tends to produce some unwieldy waste. The City of Asheville collects about 8,000 tons of brush annually within city limits. But in order to ensure the safety of their staff and slow the spread of COVID-19, brush collection is on a delayed schedule for the duration of the pandemic. Trash and recycling collection are occurring as scheduled. So, why is brush collection postponed? The City wants to protect the collection staff from potential virus exposure for their health and to ensure the residents of Asheville receive the services they need to keep life moving. Jes Foster, the Solid Waste Manager for the City of Asheville explains, “Brush collection trucks require 2 or 3 people to be in close quarters in the cab of a truck all day. We are modifying operations and pulling in additional staff and resources in order to perform some level of brush collection while maintaining social distancing recommendations.” Modifications starting the week of April 13th include:
While brush collection services are running on a delayed schedule, the City of Asheville respectfully asks residents to ensure that any containers, bags, or piles are not obstructing sidewalks or traffic. You may be thinking, “What now?” If you’ve got yard waste and don’t want to wait for pick up, look no further! We’ve compiled an easy list of ways to use or dispose of your yard waste this spring. Leaves
This article is written for the residents of the City of Asheville in partnership with the City of Asheville.
Special guest blog post by the Biltmore Estate.
Best management practices are employed in Biltmore’s agricultural and forestry operations to prevent silt and runoff into waterways, receiving the River Friendly Farmer Award from the Buncombe County Soil and Water Conservation Service for these efforts.
Asheville Greenworks demonstrates values in alignment with Biltmore’s focus areas. Thank you to Asheville Greenworks and their great work to protect the natural resources of the mountains that surround Asheville for the benefit of both present and future generations.  Americans throw away 25% more trash during the Thanksgiving to New Year's holiday period than any other time of year. That waste amounts to 25 million tons of garbage, or about 1 million extra tons per week!
Here are four easy ways to reduce your waste and go green this holiday season:
 Saturday Sept 16th - BRING OUT YOUR DEAD.... batteries, electronics, appliances, lawn equipment and MORE to be recycled here in the US. Our partners will be accepting: styrofoam, toner carts, books, scrap metals, electronics, appliances, batteries of any kind and spent cooking oil. The Asheville Humane Society will be there to receive donations of pet food, cleaning supplies and items for the office supplies. The Asheville Area Habitat for Humanity is accepting working appliances, clean furniture and building supplies for their ReStore. Pro recycling tips:
Collection location Madden Ace Hardware 2319 US Hwy 70 Swannanoa, NC 28778 Time: 10am to 2pm Download the event flyer here: http://www.ashevillegreenworks.org/hard-2-recycle.html   The High Line in NYC: The High Line is a public park built on a historic freight rail line elevated above the streets on Manhattan's West Side. Photo by: Shutterstock Guest blog by Dee Dee Clark Is it possible that our urban open spaces will become just as important as our national forests in supporting wildlife? It’s a concept that seems implausible especially here in Western NC where we are seldom more than an hour’s drive from numerous national parks and “wild” spaces. The land mass of the United States is so vast that, admittedly, our perception has been that no matter how many plots we subdivide, farmland we cultivate, or roads we pave, there will always be endless acres of undisturbed natural habitat for animals and insects to flourish. But is that still true today? If I asked you how much land you thought we humans have taken for our own use in the United States—what would your guess be?
Are We Running Out of Room for Nature?As of 2011, we had converted over 468 million acres to managed urban and suburban landscapes or cropland (USDA). That’s close to 7 times the area of Colorado. From 1982 to 1997, the greatest percentage of increases (2.6 million hectares or 58%) in developed areas were here in the Southeastern region of the U.S. (White, E. M.). Throughout these residential, urban, and suburban areas, we have decimated the native plant diversity that historically supported our cherished wildlife friends. Photo Source: Meritpath.com  Our Love Affair with GrassAdding to this destruction is our love affair with pristine and manicured lawns. It’s estimated that over 32 million acres of land in the U.S. has been converted to European and Asian turf grasses that are essentially useless to most of our native insects and wildlife (Tallamy D. W.). However, many birds, bugs, and butterflies could live sustainably with us if we chose to design both our public and private living spaces with diverse and native plant species. Less Mowing, More Pollinators Asheville Greenworks is making this city friendlier to bugs and birds by developing a template for turning low-use municipal park areas into native pollinator meadows like this bee and butterfly garden in Portland, Maine.  If you visit Lake Julian, you will see Greenworks’ Pollinator Meadow testing site along Fisherman’s Trail. In May, GreenWorks coordinated with geocaching expert Graeme McGufficke, Buncombe County staff, and about 30 volunteers to lay plastic, cardboard, and mulch at the testing site. Next spring, we are hoping you will see this area filled with a growing array of milkweed, tickseed, sunflower, wild bergamot, aster, goldenrod and other hardy perennial wildflowers. What's Wrong with Grass?Although Greenworks is currently determining the most cost-efficient and effective ways to kill turf grass and install perennial wildflowers native to this area, this isn’t a war on grass. We can appreciate the benefits of grass for dog parks or as a perfect picnic setting. In fact, evolutionary psychologists even theorize that humans have evolved to be attracted to large open grassy plots because our ancestors wanted to be able to see potentially dangerous animals coming their way. However, grass has some major drawbacks too. Lawns must be mowed regularly. About forty million lawnmowers consume 200 million gallons of gasoline per year and one gas-powered lawnmower emits 11 times the air pollution of a new car. Another downside of grass?... I have discovered that my lawn is a breeding ground for the Japanese beetles that have been turning the leaves on my bean stalks into something that resembles lace doilies.  This summer, I have been working as a Fellow of UNC Asheville’s McCullough Institute in partnership with Asheville Greenworks to document various methods of grass removal and to research which native perennials are both easy to grow from seed and will survive in a sunny meadow with minimal maintenance. The McCullough Institute for Conservation, Land Use and Environmental Resiliency aims to be a nation model for blending environmental study with business and sustainable economic growth in urban and rural landscapes.
Reference Sources: USDA ERS - Major Land Uses https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/major-land-uses/ White, E.M., et al., Past and projected rural land conversion in the US at state, regional, and national levels. Landscape Urban Plann (2008), doi:10.1016/j.landurbplan.2008.09.004 Tallamy, Douglas W. Bringing Nature Home: How Native Plants Sustain Wildlife in Our Gardens. Timber Press, 2007. It’s hard to believe but I am halfway through my internship with Asheville GreenWorks. The past four weeks have provided me with so many opportunities to learn, grow, and step out of my comfort zone. “Get dirty for a great cause” could not be a more perfect way to describe my experiences with GreenWorks so far and I have loved every minute of it. From water quality testing with macroinvertebrates, vermicomposting with worms, and river cleanups along the French Broad, every day that I come home with a little bit of mud is a day well spent. On my second week working with Asheville GreenWorks I accompanied Eric Bradford, Director of Operations, on a river cleanup with a visiting group from South Carolina. I had never done anything like it before so the idea of hopping out on the French Broad in a kayak was a little daunting at first. As soon as we hit the water I knew it was going to be a great day. Eric made sure everyone involved in the cleanup had the supplies needed for safe and successful participation. I had expected to collect plastic water bottles and maybe a tire or two after hearing about how many tires are found in the French Broad with each cleanup. As we made our way down the river I filled my bag with plenty of bottles, aerosol cans, and a surprising amount of styrofoam, which was particularly alarming to me since styrofoam can not be recycled. Not too long into our journey I passed a girl who was wading in the water waiting for assistance to remove what was left of a wheelchair from the mud below the surface. Two more foldable chairs were collected, along with old soccer balls and, of course, several tires. I have lived in Asheville my whole life, and I never would have imagined how much junk ends up in our waterways. The French Broad River is utilized by so many people and it was shocking to see the things dumped in the water. It seems like GreenWorks holds cleanups all the time, but even with the frequency of these events, litter still finds its way into the river. The beautiful thing is, the more community members that come out to join Asheville GreenWorks for a cleanup, the safer, more beautiful, and more green our environment and the place we call home becomes.
Becca Cohen - Z.Smith Reynolds Intern / Asheville GreenWorks  Becca Cohen Asheville - Four months ago when I was sitting at my desk searching an endless pool of internship opportunities in the nonprofit field, I never expected to find an organization that seemed to match my professional interests so perfectly.
I grew up in Asheville, and after studying Elementary Education and Nonprofit Studies at NC State in Raleigh for the past three years, the idea of returning to the mountains for the summer was more than enticing. When applying for internships through the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation brought to light the opportunity to work with Asheville GreenWorks I knew I had to be a part of this organization. I was positive that I would gain great experience toward my professional goals if I could intern with GreenWorks over the summer. I have been working for about a week now and I can already tell that my high expectations for the experiences I would have with Asheville GreenWorks were not high enough. As I become more familiar with the seemingly endless list of programs offered, I am continuously amazed that GreenWorks is able to provide so many terrific services to our community. It is evident that the experience each intern receives means a lot to the staff, and they truly strive to provide interns with the support and resources they need to succeed in what they are most interested in. When I applied to intern with Asheville GreenWorks I thought I would be working with an environmental education nonprofit. Now I realize that this organization goes above and beyond my initial impression and I can not wait to be a part of GreenWorks this summer! Becca Cohen - Z.Smith Reynolds Intern / Asheville GreenWorks |
