Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation

Today we continue our CUES guest blog series with a topic that’s near and dear to our hearts: a green roof project!

Hackensack Riverkeeper roof

Hackensack Riverkeeper owns a headquarters building located in the middle of the highly urbanized City of Hackensack, NJ. When suburban families want to improve stormwater quality and reduce runoff from their property they can choose to install a Rain Garden. This Best Management Practice is great in suburban New Jersey where there is a lot of lawn, but downtown Hackensack is close to 100% covered by concrete sidewalks, roads, and buildings! So a different kind of solution is needed to manage Riverkeeper’s rooftop runoff. It is especially important to solve the runoff problem in older cities like Hackensack because the stormwater flows into the city’s Combined Sewer System (CSS). During heavy rains, the CSS discharges untreated sewage, along with stormwater, directly into the Hackensack River because the antiquated plumbing cannot handle the larger water volumes.

Urban areas across the U.S. (most notably Chicago) and North America have turned to utilizing green rooftops for their environmental benefits. While there are a few green roof installations in New Jersey, such as the Essex County Environmental Center in Roseland, we do not know of any urban areas in NJ that are currently using green roofs to diminish the impact of stormwater runoff. Hackensack Riverkeeper collaborated with CUES to determine the feasibility of converting their black tarpaper roof to a ‘Green Roof’. Undergraduates in the Departments of Landscape Architecture & Design and Environmental Sciences Studio Design courses at Rutgers School of Environmental & Biological Sciences (SEBS) accepted this challenge and designed a modular Green Roof system appropriate for installation on the Riverkeeper’s existing 1,500 sq. ft. flat roof.

Hackensack Riverkeeper roof

The benefits of installing a green roof have been known since ancient times (the Hanging Gardens of Babylon in present day Syria), and today green roofs are becoming an accepted building design feature, particularly in Europe where they may account for up to 14% of all flat roof systems. Environmental benefits of green roofs can include reduction in urban stormwater runoff and improvement in runoff water quality and plant uptake of carbon dioxide. Ecological benefits include an increase in urban habitat diversity. In highly urbanized areas such as those found in older NJ cities, up to one-third of the horizontal surface may be represented by rooftops. However, there are few green roof installations in NJ, and none in typical older urban downtown centers. There are no installations that we are aware of that might be duplicated inexpensively in privately owned, small to medium size buildings that make up much of the infrastructure of NJ’s urban landscape. Therefore, a demonstration Green Roof constructed on the Hackensack Riverkeeper building in the center of Hackensack, NJ (five blocks from the Bergen County seat) can show elected officials, building department staffs, and the general public an important tangible example of a sustainable construction option.

Captain Bill, Lisa Ryan, and Rich Dwyer from PSE&G went to New Brunswick to see the first 15 draft designs created by the students in the sophomore design studio class. They were joined by Dr. Christopher Obropta and his engineering students from the Department of Environmental Sciences. An example from the first design phase (conceptual plan) is shown here. While this illustration may not necessarily be the final form of the roof, it is the first step in determining a design that will achieve our stormwater goals, while having an aesthetic appeal that is representative of Hackensack Riverkeeper’s organization and mission.

The environmental engineering students then worked with the landscape students to develop plans for the final Hackensack Riverkeeper Urban Green Roof that PSE&G employees have volunteered to construct. It is particularly fitting that the roof will be built by PSE&G volunteers because the Hackensack Riverkeeper building was originally built by PSE&G as a regional substation – we are now coming full circle. The green roof installation will be done under the guidance of a certified green roof professional and Rutgers University Landscape Architecture & Design and Water Resources staff will test various vegetation combinations for their ability to reduce heat loss from the Riverkeeper roof. The Water Resources engineers and scientists will design a water collection system that can store rainwater for future use, and an easily maintained pumping system operated via solar power to move water from the collection system to the roof.

Hackensack Riverkeeper green roof

The proposed Hackensack Riverkeeper green roof design is modular – it can be adapted for any size/shape structure, and so has broad applicability in older urban centers where there is a preponderance of available flat rooftops. This demonstration project will allow us to quantify actual energy and cost savings before and after implementation of the green roof, while introducing a design concept that utilizes readily available materials. The concept was designed with cost effectiveness as a critical component. This model demonstration project will allow other urban building owners in Bergen and adjacent Hudson Counties to see the energy saving benefits of a green roof installation and to easily adapt the concept for their own buildings. The energy and cost savings data generated by the pilot project will be disseminated through tours with elected and building code officials, description of the project on the Hackensack Riverkeeper and CUES websites, and via the quarterly Hackensack Riverkeeper newsletter, Tidelines.

The purpose of the Hackensack Riverkeeper Green Roof Project is to demonstrate that readily available, inexpensive components can be combined in a modular green roof system. Unless this technology can be demonstrated with ‘real-world’ local examples for building code officials, elected officials, the construction industry, and the general public to view, wide-spread acceptance of the green roof technology will not occur. Plus, the roof will provide a unique and exciting new vista for downtown Hackensack! CUES and Hackensack Riverkeeper have applied for funding to cover the cost of materials, engineering services, permit applications, and professional management of this project, and we hope to begin construction in spring 2011.

View additional conceptual plans for the Hackensack Riverkeeper Urban Green Roof.

Also, you can learn about the Dodge green roof and see photos of our garden here and here.

This guest blogger series will conclude next Monday.

Molly de Aguiar, Program Associate

We’re only weeks away from getting our hands in the dirt and planting our rooftop garden—we’ve already cleaned it up and have starter plants of lettuces, dill and radishes in our kitchen. We’re also working with the Freylinghuysen Arboretum to source native and local plants and to help us plan for three seasons of planting.

We took advantage of the warm weather last week to clean up our planters.

Our lavender and chives are thriving already.

And so are our strawberries!

This compost bin is a very happy addition to our gardening arsenal. We have a smaller compost bin in our staff kitchen which we empty into our rooftop bin frequently. In addition to our food scraps, the Dodge Foundation uses compostable plates, cups and napkins which we can tear up and stick in our bin.

Right now, the rest of our green roof is growing beautifully. The color of the sedum is spectacular.

I’ll share more pictures as this year’s garden grows. In the meantime, if you want to take a look at last year’s garden and green roof photos, you can find them on Flickr.

While we’re on the topic of green roofs and gardens, below is an interesting video from the Guardian on green roofs in Sheffield, Yorkshire, UK which I saw on Twitter via our friends at grist. (Follow grist on Twitter).

Here’s a clever idea for small space gardening from Re-nest using recycled soda bottles:

From CRAFT, you might find these best easy garden tips helpful:

And The Crochet Dude helps you plant your garden in an easy grid:

Excited to get your hands in the dirt? What are you planting this year?

* * *

The Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival in Newark is October 7-10
Follow the Dodge Poetry Festival on Twitter
Become a fan of the Dodge Poetry Festival on Facebook

Follow the Dodge Foundation on Twitter
Become a fan of the Dodge Foundation on Facebook

Molly de Aguiar, Program Associate

Tomorrow we’re cleaning up (composting!) the remnants of our garden, and we’ll be talking as a group about the lessons we learned from our first year of urban gardening as well as planning for what we’d like to accomplish next year.

For me personally, it was such a treat to watch the green roof grow this year, to pick fresh strawberries and cherry tomatoes at lunchtime, and to see the bees and butterflies come to our flowers. And there’s nothing so restorative during the busy work day than to eat lunch in the sunshine,  surrounded by the trees, flowers and grass—one floor up!

Here’s a look back at our green roof this first year in our new offices, starting with what it looked like before it was planted (November 2008) to the present. Pretty remarkable, don’t you think?

* * *

Dodge has announced its new guidelines. Please visit our website for full details.

We want to connect with you! Follow us on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook (where you can see more garden and roof photos).

Here are a couple “Before” pictures of the green roof at 14 Maple Avenue. Stay tuned for the “After” pictures and other construction updates.