Groundwork Hudson Valley Changing Places. Changing Lives.

Click here to learn about our FREE Environmental Food Team Lecture, Film, and Field Trip series! Our Environmental Food Team is a program that brings older adults together for fun seminars on the history of food, cooking lessons and demonstrations, and field trips to local sustainable farms and gardens. There are occasional intergenerational events with youth from the area. All events are free and open to the public.

Specializing in small to mid-sized jobs (residential and commercial)

Call for a free estimate or more info: (914) 375-2151-Ask for Curt or Anne

LANDSCAPING
Skilled, apprentice-level Landscapers, trained and working under the supervision of Master Landscape Designer/Consultant Anne Megaro, Director of Land Programs, Groundwork Hudson Valley. Specializing in organic (chemical free) ….
–Perennial and Annual Gardens (Planting & Transplanting)
–Vegetable Beds (Creating, Planting & Maintaining)
–Planting Shrubs, Trees
–Organic Bed Development & Mulching
–Edging, Pruning & Trimming
–Mowing, Lawn Maintenance, Leaf & Snow Removal

DRY STONE MASONRY
Apprentice-level Dry Stone Masons, trained by Master Dry Stone Mason, Neil Rippingale and certified by The Dry Stone Conservancy of Kentucky www.drystone.org. Our experienced crew restored 2,000 ft. of wall at the Home of FDR National Historic Site, in association with the National Parks Service. Work is performed under the supervision of Curt Collier, Deputy Director, Groundwork Hudson Valley. Specializing in…..
–Dry Stone Wall Building & Restoration
–Unilock
–Retaining Walls
–Patio Work

Read the article here: http://teacher.scholastic.com/scholasticnews/magazines/scienceworld/pdfs/SW-041910-BARGE.pdf

On Friday, July 19th, The Wall Street Journal ran an article in its Metropolis section about the newly implemented once a week trash pick-up in Yonkers which is having devastating effects on Yonkers streets. The Wall Street Journal contacted Groundwork to see if we could connect them with community members to interview. Trash has been a big concern of the Green Team and an anti-trash campaign is underway. We knew that the Green Team youth could speak passionately about the effect that trash has on their community, so we gave them various numbers. They reached out to Ashley Perez, who is one of the youth leading the Anti-Trash Green Team initiative She voiced her disdain but followed up with the hope that a decrease in trash pick-up might encourage people to think more about the waste they generate. Click here to read the article.

Groundwork USA is seeking a dynamic individual to be its first National Services Director. Must be a highly organized, detail oriented entrepreneur with strong administrative, writing, communication, and finance/budgeting skills.  Successful candidate will have a demonstrated ability to adhere strictly to deadlines while managing multiple projects and have experience in business management and/or organizational development. They will be a self starter with a collaborative spirit.  Experience with grants management is a plus.   Knowledge of community development, volunteer stewardship and environmental restoration is helpful but not required.  A solid work and/or academic history with BA/BS is required.  MPA/MPP/MBA is a plus. Click here to download full job posting.

For the past 6 weeks a group of 9 AmeriCorps  members have been working hard in Yonkers and surrounding communities with Groundwork Hudson Valley. They completed a tremendous amount of work, building community gardens and rain gardens, helping on The Science Barge, clearing invasive vines along the Saw Mill River, volunteering at St. Christopher’s Inc. in Dobbs Ferry, and much more! Click here for a press release written by Lily Dover, a member of AmeriCorps.

CNN On the Science Barge-Hydroponics at Sea

Click here to watch the video.

The Saw Mill River Coalition is working with municipalities within The Saw Mill River watershed to locate areas for model demonstration rain gardens.

A rain garden is a living machine where form meets function. They are designed to soak up rain water, mainly from roofs, but also from driveways, patios, roadways, and parking lots. In developed areas, the majority of rainwater is flushed onto streets where it picks up oil, silt, and other pollutants and then funnels into storm drains, dumping into our rivers and streams, polluting the water, creating floods, and endangering natural habitat.

During heavy rains, a rain garden fills with a few inches of water which then soaks into the soil, going through a natural filtration process before making its way into the groundwater or an adjacent stream. Compared to a patch of lawn, a rain garden allows about 30% more water to soak into the ground. Rain gardens consist of a variety of plants including native flowers, grasses, and trees that are home to local wildlife. They are a beautiful and beneficial addition to any landscape.

The Department of Environmental Conservation is conducting a study of The American eel (Anguilla rostrata) at various sites along the Hudson River. They chose Groundwork Hudson Valley to coordinate a study in Yonkers, which will be the southernmost site in the study.

The American Eel is a migratory fish that is born in the Sargasso Sea, a region of the Atlantic Ocean near Bermuda, that migrates all the way to the Hudson River as tiny “glass eels” each spring and then swims up small Hudson River tributaries to mature. In the first week of the study we have found a dozen glass eels at the mouth of the Saw Mill River, an important Hudson River tributary. We are testing for eels further north in the river in Yonkers to see if they are making it beyond the mouth. The species is in decline over much of its range, making tributaries where they can safely mature very important.

This Yonkers study comes at a perfect time, before the groundbreaking for the Daylighting project, that will reveal and restore sections of the river that run underground. If the study finds that man-made obstacles are making it impossible for the small eels to get up the river, we may be able to engineer changes to accommodate them. To get involved in the study please contact Emily Ederat 914-375-2151.

Recent News: American eel—a tricky critter to accommodate in Yonkers Daylighting!
Who’d have thought that the American eel could reach 7 ½ miles up the Saw Mill River ABOVE the Woodlands Lake dam with everything it has to go through now—entering the river underneath the train station, swimming under Larkin Plaza for 1 mile in the dark, then up over a flow station, through concrete channels, and up a 20-foot dam! Studies completed by Robert Schmidt of Hudsonia for the Saw Mill River Coalition (a program of Groundwork Hudson Valley) in the spring of 2008 found the American eel—ABOVE THE DAM! These creatures slithered up vegetation to make beyond the dam.

The tricky part now for the eel with the Yonkers’ daylighting project, is to be sure that when engineers bring two new sections of river back to the daylight, their design will allow species of fish to make it upstream, and down again. This will impact the American eel, and other migratory species, possibly the alewife (herring). Coming down the river is as important as going upriver because the adult American eels, after about 5 years growing in tributaries, come back down river, into the Hudson and out to the Atlantic to swim to the Saragossa Sea to spawn. Ensuring a healthy eel population means being sure both routes—up and down—“work” when you re-engineer a new river path.

To that end, Groundwork Hudson Valley is working directly with the City of Yonkers, bringing fish expertise to the problem. As part of a New York/New Jersey Harbor Estuary Program Grant, Groundwork Hudson Valley has a fish passage expert and a habitat consultant working directly with the engineers. One section of the river that will be exposed in Larkin Plaza will be turned into a public park, raising the concern of how to prevent “floatable” trash from coming through the park after a storm. A trash netting chamber is being designed, and the fish passage expert is working with the engineers to be sure the fish species in the tributary will be able to pass up and down, through and around the netting chamber and not be caught in it.

One exciting part of the river park design will be a fish ladder, called an Alaska steep-pass, that will be visible to the public as it assists the fish in making it up the slope in Larkin Plaza. This will be a terrific teaching opportunity in our new river park! The engineering plans should be set soon and the City is hoping to begin construction of this wonderful new park sometime in 2010! For additional information, please email: annmarie@groundworkhv.org.

On Wednesday, April 14th The Science Barge hosted a small news crew from the sister Brazilian television networks, TV Amazonica and Amazon Sat who are producing a series of informative TV news stories on critical environmental issues, to be jointly produced for broadcast throughout Brazil. The Charter School in Yonkers brought their 4th grade class for a tour. They had a great time in front of the camera and sent green tidings from Yonkers to Brazil!

The U.S. Department of State’s Office of Broadcast Support (OBS) in Washington D.C. invites serious, credible journalists to come to the U.S. to produce TV news reports and documentaries on subjects and themes of need or interest in their country. To that end, the U.S. Embassy in Brasilia and the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C. are sponsoring this project, through a grant to TV Amazonica and Amazon Sat.

These timely reports will be taped in the United States to highlight “Successful ‘Green’ Experiences in the U.S.” that can serve as examples to the Amazon region. To that end, the series will examine efforts being made by the U.S. Federal government, State and Municipal governments, businesses, and private citizens to increase energy efficiency, and combat climate change, as well as preserve “green” spaces and natural resources.

During our local high school’s Spring Break we brought together the Our Folks intergenerational program with The Environmental Food Team to go on a couple of field trips and get to know each other. The groups met at Phillipse Manor Hall for a tour of the historic site and also took a bus trip to The Cloisters, the branch of the Metropolitan Museum devoted to the art and architecture of medieval Europe. Located on four acres overlooking the Hudson River in northern Manhattan’s Fort Tryon Park, the building incorporates elements from five medieval French cloisters.

The Our Folks Team from Riverside High School have been working since last summer to make needed repairs in the homes of older adults in the community. During these projects, the seniors and the youth get to know each other and socialize, helping to bridge the gap between generations. The Environmental Food Team is another group of older adults in the community who take classes at Phillpse Manor Hall once a week with Groundwork’s Curt Collier where they learn about the history of food and current issues surrounding nutrition and agriculture. Now that The EFT has been introduced to Our Folks students, they are also interested in signing up for Our Folks projects.