- Honey Bee colonies around the world are disappearing at alarming rates. Many people suspect this may be because of global warming or other warming trends. Check out this new documentary which dives into the question and mystery of Colony Collapse Disorder.

-A fashonista is blogging about her experience transforming old thrift store finds into chic modern pieces all for the sake of being green. Check out her “Julie & Julia” style blog here, where she daily updates each piece she transforms.

-E-waste is now one of the EPA’s top 4 priorities next to Global Warming, Reducing Exposure to Toxic Chemicals, Expanding Access to Clean Water, and Improving Air Quality. Read about the EPA’s international priorities here.

-The beginning of long term damage from the Gulf oil spill is starting to take effect. Oil droplets lining the ocean floor in the Gulf appear to be having a toxic effect on bacteria and phytoplankton, a photosynthetic microorganism that serves as a vital food for fish and other marine life.

-Imagine fueling your car and eating your toast with the same thing… Butter!

- Russian fires raise the question of radioactive fumes being emitted from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster sites over 24 years ago.

- Portugal is stepping up in the realm of clean energy, almost 45% of their energy comes from renewable sources. They also plan to close two power plants by 2014 and reduce use of the others.

- Developing a sustainable or green house may not be as green as you expected. Katherine Salant gets us thinking a little bit outside the box when it comes to sustainable construction.

- Scientists report massive coral bleaching occurring in Indonesia. 60% of the corals off the island of Sumatra are bleached due to global warming. To learn more about coral bleaching read about it here.

- California’s cool summer competes with the East Coast’s record highs. Enjoy today’s warm weather SF! It’s about time.

Is Back!! We’ve missed updating you with our weekly edition of the Green News You Can Use, so we’ve brought it back. As always, please feel free to give us some ideas and don’t be afraid to leave us a comment.

· BP has successfully plugged the Gulf of Mexico oil well through their “static kill” operation, but has also fired 10,000 cleanup employees.

· Can you spend a weekend without consuming oil? One organization is asking thousands of people around the country to take the pledge. Can you spend the weekend without buying makeup, clothes, or sporting goods, let alone not driving? Take the pledge here.

· New York, Chicago, and Vermont are following Portland’s footsteps in setting up colored bike lanes to promote biking in the city. View SF’s newest addition on Fell Street here.

· The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced today that there are now 6,132 farmers markets in the country, up 16 percent from last year. Find your local farmers market here.

· UN Climate Change Conference is taking place in Bonn Germany August 2^nd – 6^th. Follow updates here.

· The Plastiki lands in Sydney after a voyage across the pacific in a boat made entirely of plastic bottles.

· Mother Nature made a better sports drink? What we think you should know about the new coconut water craze.

· Would you swim the English Channel for environmental awareness? This woman is.

· Iowa, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Minnesota now get 10% of their electricity from wind.

· Worst floods on record kill thousands in Pakistan.

· Solar power initiatives are on the rise.

· Green LEED certified correctional facilities are becoming more popular in the US as HOK designs the newest in Atlanta.

· The Galapagos Islands have been removed from the endangered species list.

· According to a recent study, 80% of rainforests — which hold a full half of the world’s plant and animal species — stand to be destroyed by climate change starting now.

In urban areas most people can’t imagine, that there was once, or still is a stream underneath them. Many municipal urban planners are bringing these streams “to light,” by a process called daylighting. This includes bringing a stream to light, from underground, often by integrating storm water management and ecosystems. Daylighting can have many benefits, including ecological, economic, and social. We wrote about a daylighting project in Seoul, South Korea about a year ago. Since then daylighting has gotten exposure from cities like Seattle, Berkeley, Portland, and our very own San Francisco. Most of these streams and creeks, which have not been visible since the 1800’s are now viewable as sewers and pipes transformed underground in order to make room for urban development. With global warming on the rise, many cities cannot handle the pressure of rising stormwater runoff, often backing up water treatment plants, which directly affects the entire city. Urban planners are turning to daylighting as a resource to relieve pressure from stormwater runoff as well as connecting people with their water resources.

Seoul Stream Daylighted and Turned Into a Beautiful Public Space

Seoul’s landmark daylighting project involved tearing down a major divisive freeway through the heart of the city and replacing in, instead of with another vehicular transportation network, with an enhancement of the natural environment, a community amenity, and a stormwater management improvement.

Thornton Creek in North Seattle has just recently been daylighted in collaboration with a mixed-use, residential, commercial, and office, development adjacent to the Northgate Mall.

While daylighting seems like an extremely attractive option for urban water system improvements, there are also many issues related to daylighting. One of our engineer’s Adam writes, “While it’s easy to tout the benefits of daylighting from an academic or professional perspective, American municipalities often get caught up on fiscal constraints, searching for exaggerated untruths to defend inaction. Benefits vary depending on the location and scale of the drainage network, what habitats are associated with the stream, the local climate conditions, existing stormwater management conditions and infrastructure, and the scope of the daylighting project.”

Recently San Francisco has pondered upon the thought of using daylighting throughout the city, which would relive stormwater runoff pressures and would expose watersheds to the public. Show your support for the use of daylighting in San Francisco by attending the next community meeting here.

August 3rd 2010

Here you can see that there have been two big holes dug approximately 2,00 square feet by 4 feet deep. This is the future location of the planter bays. Also, this area that was excavated has exposed some underground utilities that are to be relocated.  You can see the plans below for a more detailed vision.

Davis Street between Jackson and Washington streets in downtown San Francisco is currently undergoing a renovation. This urban space which is privately owned has traditionally been used as a corridor for pedestrians traveling to and from Market St and the downtown area to the waterfront properties. This space is also the entrance to the parking structure for the Gateway living complex as well as a drop off for a restaurant. This combination of private and public use has created an opportunity to transform this site from a difficult and hazardous experience to a new open urban plaza. The design team of RHAA landscape architects and planners, Endres Ware structural engineers, Ned Kahn artist, CMS fountain specialist, Pankow Construction and Sherwood Design Engineers were challenged by the property owner to develop a space that invites pedestrians, allows for integrated vehicular traffic and creates a space for the public and private.

The site improvements will include a relatively flat seamless pedestrian friendly plaza space, a unique stormwater collection, conveyance, treatment and groundwater infiltration system integrated into the tree planting zones and an art feature to highlight the uniqueness of the space. The stormwater system was designed to meet LEED credit 6.1 as dictated by the new San Francisco Stormwater Guidelines for Combined Sewer Areas recently adopted by the city. The runoff from the site will be separated into four microsheds, with the two larger sheds discharged into sequential hydraulically connected planter beds that will receive the stormwater, treat through plantings and amended structural soil and then infiltrate into the favorable sandy soil below the site. This system was designed to handle at least a 2 year 24 hour storm event.

We plan to upload daily photos of the progress of this project. At completion we hope to have a flip-book of the construction of this project! We hope you will follow along, and if you pass by the site,  email us your pictures! (press@sherwoodengineers.com)

July 30th 2010

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July 13th 2010

Sherwood, global leaders in Sustainable Infrastructure design and planning, announced today that John Paul Peterson has been appointed to lead their Energy Infrastructure and Systems Design efforts. This addition expands their expertise of energy system design at all scales of planning, building integrated systems, energy performance, modeling, and life cycle cost analysis. For years Peterson has been at the leading edge in designing Zero Energy and LEED Platinum projects throughout North America.

“We see increasing demand for energy systems expertise and passive building design knowledge at the planning level from our partners and clients across the North America and Asia,” said Bry Sarté, founder and CEO of Sherwood. “We’re thrilled to have John Paul join the team and lead the Energy Infrastructure and Systems Design efforts for our firm. His experience and efforts will take our sustainable infrastructure services to a higher level and bring deeper value to our clients.”
“Sustainable Infrastructure is all about understanding and optimizing resources flows within, around and through a site,” said Peterson. “This layer of expertise is synergistic to Sherwood’s leading knowledge of infrastructure design solutions, and will allow our clients and partners to leverage a more complete site resource evaluation and plan. Sherwood has proven itself as a company that values creative problem solving; I’m very excited to be a part of this visionary team!”

Before joining Sherwood, Peterson was an Associate at Stantec Consulting in San Francisco (formally KEEN Engineering). Peterson holds a Bachelors of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Messiah College in Pennsylvania and is a registered Mechanical Engineer in the State of California. You can follow him on twitter at @petersonjp.

Bry Sarte, Executive Director at the Sherwood Institute, delivered a lecture yesterday at a special forum hosted by Stanford University’s Center for Sustainable Development and Global Competitiveness. In his talk, “Regenerative Urbanism: City-Scale Sustainable Water and Energy Strategies in China,” Bry discussed the Institute’s work in the Chinese city of Langfang to create and implement new policies in the area. The Sherwood Institute is working to create a comprehensive policy package for the city. The package will address urban water issues regarding stormwater, wastewater, rainwater harvesting, and general green design principles in water management. You can learn more about Langfang in this recent post on the Sherwood Engineers blog.

Stanford’s Center for Sustainable Development and Global Competitiveness believes that all future economic and business developments should be based upon environmental concern. They are working to fulfill this mission by promoting and teaching business strategies and leadership practices that will promote a sustainable and green environment.
The forum brought together speakers, academics, professionals and students to discuss opportunities and challenges in providing services in the environmental services sector in China.

Stanford’s Center for Sustainable Development & Global Competitiveness invites you to a special forum:

Providing Environmental Services in China

Wednesday July 14, 2010; 6 to 8:00PM
James H. Clark Center Auditorium, James H. Clark Center
Campus Drive West, Stanford University

Speakers:
* Margaret Wong, President and CEO, McWong Environmental and Energy Group. Environmental & Energy Project Opportunities in China.
* Bry Sarte, Principal/Founder Sherwood Design Engineers. Regenerative Urbanism: City-Scale Sustainable Water and Energy Strategies in China.
* Peter Haase, Principal Engineer, Fall Creek Engineering. Rural Wastewater Management in China: Program Development and Sustainability Strategies.

As China rapidly develops the country is devoting increasing resources and efforts to mitigating and preventing environmental damages, and improving environmental quality. Our speakers will discuss their China experiences, and the opportunities and challenges in bringing and adapting Western technology and expertise to China. There will be a brief reception after the forum.

Directions/maps
Questions?—contact Duc Wong, 650-725-2390

Liquid SPACES, a San Francisco based nonprofit dedicated to assisting emerging artists in the development and promotion of new work, is excited to showcase the work of San Francisco artist Emily Huffman. An innovative painter, sculptor, and installation artist working in a variety of mediums, her new show ‘Amalgam’ is a mixture of works from 2005 to 2010. Mostly oils on paper and canvas, as well as two mixed media installations, the pieces explore internal conversations about the nature and relationship of thoughts, body, feelings, and change.

Amalgam be showing at Sherwood’s One Union gallery from July 8th – August 31, and the opening reception is this Thursday July 8th from 5:30-8pm. Please come join us and celebrate the opening of this unique showcase of work!

Opening July 8, 2010
5:30-8:00pm
One Union Street (@ Front St), San Francisco, CA 94111
Food, Drink, and Music
Free! RSVP on Facebook

You may recall we wrote about the ASLA Sustainable Sites Initiative (SITES) last month. Today we are pleased to report that SITES has announced the selection of three Sherwood Projects to be among the first landscapes to participate in a new program testing the nation’s first rating system for green landscape design, construction and maintenance.

The three projects – Penn Treaty Park, Boeddeker Park and Meadow Residence in Santa Cruz – will join more than 150 other projects from 34 states as well as from Canada, Iceland and Spain as part of an international pilot project program to evaluate the new SITES rating system for sustainable landscapes, with and without buildings. Sustainable landscapes include clean water, reduce pollution and restore habitats, while providing significant economic and social benefits to land owners and municipalities.

SITES, a partnership of the American Society of Landscape Architects, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at The University of Texas at Austin and the United States Botanic Garden, selected these Sherwood projects based on their extensive environmentally friendly elements. Our projects join the Smithsonian Institution’s African American History & Culture museum, a New Orleans’ project to absorb storm water on the streets of the Lower Ninth Ward flooded during Hurricane Katrina, and other pilot projects that include academic and corporate campuses, public parks with hundreds of acres, transportation corridors and private residences of less than one acre.

We are pleased to have been selected and proud to be a part of the ASLA Sustainable Sites Initiative!