Mason Campus Garden Consortium

Last Thursday members from the three organic gardens on campus, the Mason Organic Garden, SoA Green Garden, and the Child Development Center Garden, met to discuss pooling their resources to strengthen sustainable gardening efforts on campus. The meeting was organized by the Office of Sustainability Project Specialist, Danielle Wyman, who also manages the Mason Organic Garden behind Potomac Heights Student Apartments. Attendees included Sustainability Coordinator Lenna Storm, AgriArt Professor Mark Cooley, Auxiliary Enterprises Project Manager Daniel Waxman, Child Development Center (CDC) Director Tina Morris, CDC Lead Teacher and Garden Operations Manager Dorothea Tyree, Mason Organic Garden members Amanda Wall, Cassondra Coleman, and Nya Jackson, and SoA Green Garden members Justin Raphael Roykovich, Vina Sananikone, and Liz Edwards.

One of the common concerns discussed among the three gardens was summer maintenance. Wyman noted that the Mason Organic Garden struggled with finding enough volunteers to manage the garden over the summer and had to hire former Mason Organic Garden member, Yuka Taylor, to assist with daily maintenance. The SoA Green garden expressed similar concerns. “I was here last summer and managed the garden but all of the SoA Green leadership will be graduating making volunteer recruitment or sharing important” said Roykovich.

Lenna Storm, the Campus Sustainability Coordinator suggested “maintenance free summer planting”. If we can incorporate permaculture principles into the gardens it will minimize the daily maintenance and we won’t need as much volunteer labor which is difficult to find during the summer. Cooley agreed it was important to get more students involved in the gardens but believes there are shortcomings with the organizations created to manage the gardens.

Eventually the leaders of these groups graduate and there’s no guarantee that we’ll be able to recruit more members. “We need to work the gardens into the curriculum” stated Cooley. Cooley also suggested following the community garden structure where members of the Mason community pay for plots during the summer and are responsible for maintaining the plots and entitled to the produce harvested. Wyman supported this idea saying a few Resident Advisors (RA’s) had expressed interest in garden plots. While no decision was made regarding summer garden maintenance the discussion did get the group thinking ahead about summer plans.

The group also discussed sharing funding among the three gardens. In April the Mason Organic Garden received a $5,000 grant from Transurban-Fluor which expired November 1st. Wyman expressed the difficulty she expressed with spending the grant. “It’s hard when you’re used to operating with no money and then you have $5,000 to spend. $5,000 is a lot for one garden.” said Wyman. SoA Green was more than happy to help with spending money. “We don’t have any money. We can definitely use some” said Sananikone. The CDC is also interested in sharing grant money depending on the stipulations from the grant making organization.

Lastly the group discussed the name of the Mason Organic Garden. Waxman noted that since all three gardens don’t use pesticides or other chemicals they’re all organic and suggested the Mason Organic Garden change its name to the Potomac Heights Garden. Mason Organic Garden manager, Danielle Wyman and member Nya Jackson agreed. Jackson told Waxman she would get back to him with a final decision after she spoke to fellow garden members and got their approval.

The Mason Campus Garden Consortium ,which encompasses the three gardens present at the meeting, have agreed to meet again in late February to begin planning for the 2011 growing season. The Mason Organic Garden will organize the meeting. In addition to the Mason Campus Garden Consortium, there are other efforts on campus to collaborate and combine efforts. This Monday the Office of Sustainability is hosting a Sustainability Lunch and Learn to bring Mason students, faculty, and staff together to discuss how to promote sustainability at Mason. If successful the Office of Sustainability is looking to make it a weekly occurrence. The Sustainability Lunch and Learn will take place in the Paul Robeson Room in the Johnson Center from 12pm-1pm. For more information please contact the Office of Sustainability Outreach Coordinator, Colin Bennett, at cbennet6@gmu.edu.

For more information about the Mason Campus Garden Consortium please contact Sustainability Projects Specialist, Danielle Wyman, at dwyman@gmu.edu.

Images From Mountain Justice Fall Summit

All photos by Colin Bennett. To see the piece that accompanies these images, please click here.

Mountaintop removal from a distance

Surveying a mountaintop removal site on Kayford Mountain

Marching through the woods

Entering the MTR site

John Johnson at the rally

Planting trees

Quit coal

Planting trees

Walking onto MTR site

From left: Ken Hechler, Mike Roselle, Jesse Johnson, Larry Gibson

EAG Continues Fight Against Mountaintop Removal- Two Students Risk Arrest in West Virginia

This past weekend seven people from Mason traveled to Kayford Mountain in southern West Virginia to attend the annual Mountain Justice Fall Summit.  Mountain Justice Fall Summit is an anti-mountaintop removal event designed, according to its description, to give participants the chance to, “Stand up for the mountains and future of Appalachia.” This was the third consecutive year that Mason students attended the event. Two people from the Mason group, Allison Rutledge and Robbie Krieger, were among several dozen individuals that risked arrest by participating in direct action. Specifically, they trespassed on a mountaintop removal site to plant trees as a form of symbolic protest.

The three day event featured educational components including workshops, panel discussions, movie showings, and site tours of an active mountaintop removal site. It also included camping and live bluegrass music. “The festive air of music, campfire, and the really friendly people reminded me of the church mission trips I took every summer in high school,” said Mason student Krieger, “you always walk away fulfilled.” The week’s activities culminated with a rally and more direct action activities.

Speakers at the rally included Larry Gibson, a well-known, long-time mountaintop removal opponent; Mike Roselle, co-founder of Earth First!; Jesse Johnson, Mountain Party candidate for U.S. Senate in West Virginia; and Ken Hechler, former secretary of state and Congressperson from West Virginia. Many people in attendance cheered loudly when Hechler, a longtime opponent of mountaintop removal, proudly proclaimed, “I may be 96 but there’s a fire in my belly. I’m here to help save these beautiful mountains of West Virginia and put people back to work doing useful things.”

Ce Garrison, one of the Mason students who traveled to West Virginia, said, “I attended the event because I wanted to know what the people of West Virginia are going through. I wanted a chance to see firsthand what I had been fighting against for the past year.” She saw MTR sites before this one, but she was particularly moved by a panel discussion featuring coalfield residents, “The people were so open and honest about their situations, and it was heartbreaking. I cannot imagine having to get permission [from a coal company] to visit my loved one's grave sites.”

Now that the summit’s over, Garrison proclaimed she is more motivated than ever to end MTR and help the coal field residents. “Larry Gibson and the others were such an inspiration to me and I want to help them find a place in the world where their homes are safe from destruction and their bodies safe from poison. I want to find an alternative for people in West Virginia to work that won't have them choosing between their families and their jobs.”

Krieger feels as though he now has an idea of what the people in Appalachia are dealing with. He grew up in a log cabin where as a child he played with his friends. When he was 15 the area, “was ransacked in favor of multi-million dollar McMansions.”  He feels that after this experience he knows, “what it’s like to lose precious property.” Partly as a result of that he was one of the approximately 35 people to risk arrest by planting trees on the site. “At first I was nervous about the action's uncertainty, but after talking with like-minded people I felt I should go out and fight the good fight with my comrades.”

Emily Miles, another Mason student, said her favorite part of the event was, “seeing my friends bravely walking onto the reclamation site and being there to support them.” She feels the event was a symbolic action, “in which [we] are taking back the mountains and doing the job that the big coal companies are legally required to do, restore the ecosystems of the mountains, but don't.” She concluded, “I thought the action was a great way to involve a large group of people that want to abolish mountaintop removal.”

In addition to planting trees, several attendees unfurled a banner at the site stating, “Reclamation FAIL,” in reference to what opponents of mountaintop removal say is a refusal of coal companies to put sufficient effort into attempting to repair the ecosystems that they have destroyed.  Although security for the coal company arrived on scene and called the police, ultimately no arrests were made. Now that it’s over Krieger says, “though it was a long few days, West Virginia residents and their families are going to continue to be threatened by these hungry firms every single day. Now I just want to keep the fire burning and keep the message alive.”

To see more pictures from the event, click here. 

Protesters trespassing on coal company property to plant trees.

 

Editor’s Note: This trip was part of Mason students’ active campaign to help abolish mountaintop removal. Their previous actions include raising awareness about the issue on campus, testifying at a recent EPA hearing on coal-ash disposal, lobbying at the state capital in Richmond, attending Appalachia Rising in Washington D.C., and participating in civil disobedience at the White House and at the EPA Headquarters. On Monday, the EAG cosponsored an event featuring, Tricia Shapiro,  the author of the just-published book "Mountain Justice: Homegrown Resistance to Mountaintop Removal, For the Future of Us All" to continue to bring attention to the issue. More events and activities will be taking place throughout the end of the semester and into next year; announcements will be made as they become available. Stay tuned for a video companion piece to this which will posted soon.

Mountain Justice Comes to Mason

Next Monday, October 25th, the GMU Environmental Action Group (EAG) and Mason’s Office of Sustainability will be hosting Tricia Shapiro, author of the just-published book "Mountain Justice: Homegrown Resistance to Mountaintop Removal, For the Future of Us All" at Mason. Tricia Shapiro has been covering anti-mountaintop removal activism as an “embedded freelance writer” since 2004. Her discussion will be in Meeting Room B of the Johnson Center at 7:30 p.m.

This event, which is sponsored by Campus Progress, is part of Mason students’ active campaign to help abolish mountaintop removal. Their actions previous include raising awareness about the issue on campus, testifying at a recent EPA hearing on coal-ash disposal, lobbying at the state capital in Richmond, attending Appalachia Rising in Washington D.C., and participating in civil disobedience at the White House and at the EPA Headquarters. This weekend the EAG will be attending the 2010 Mountain Justice Fall Summit on Kayford Mountain in West Virginia which, according to event planners “will build on the momentum of Appalachia Rising”.

Jason Von Kundra, co-chair of Mason's Environmental Action Group hopes this event will lead to more than increased awareness, "helping to end mountaintop removal has been one of our priorities for a long time and we are gaining momentum. I'm hoping that people come to this event get inspired to take action. As students, we have tremendous potential to make change," he concluded, "as more people at Mason learn about the issue, they inevitably feel compelled to do something about it."

Don Vanstory, a senior at Mason, has attended previous EAG events focused on mountaintop removal including the film screening of Coal Country. Don believes mountaintop removal is an example of “corporate elite’s greed triumphing the concerns of Appalachian residents”. Don admits he doesn’t know a lot about the topic but hopes the Tricia Shapiro event will teach him more about the issue.

Ms. Shapiro will be leading a free discussion on mountaintop removal, which is open to the public, describing the experiences of Appalachian residents living in communities effected by mountaintop removal, and recent efforts to end the devastating form of strip-mining including Appalachian Rising and Mountain Justice Fall Summit. She will also discuss her experiences with the Mountain Justice and Climate Ground Zero organizations while writing the book.

While Ms. Shapiro has been active in the fight to abolish mountaintop removal, her new book focuses on the accounts of other participants rather than her own experiences. According to Steve Fisher, editor of Fighting Back in Appalachia: Traditions of Resistance and Change, “Shapiro allows the participants in this battle to speak for themselves about their motivations, hopes, and fears. And it is from these voices that we come to understand that their fight is our fight too.”

Colin Bennett, Mason's Sustainability Outreach Coordinator is thrilled that Ms. Shapiro will be speaking at Mason, "mountaintop removal is an issue of growing concern among the Mason community, especially Mason students. Everyday more people are realizing exactly where much of our electricity comes from- coal obtained by blowing up mountains which destroys communities throughout Appalachia, including right here in Virginia. Having Ms. Shapiro at Mason, a person so obviously knowledgeable about mountaintop removal, will certainly raise awareness about the issue.”

The book, Mountain Justice, is available from Amazon....

Is Mason America's Most Vegan-Friendly School? Not According to PETA.

Perhaps you missed it (most people did) but Mason was recently competing in PETA2’s Most Vegan Friendly College competition. The contest’s blink-and-you-missed-it first round ended yesterday and Mason was knocked out by our perennial rivals: UMD. The news here isn’t that we lost, it’s that we were even competing at all. Ask any vegan at Mason how they feel about their food choices on campus and you’ll most likely get a barrage of complaints against Sodexo and Mason Dining and the lack of vegan options at Mason.

The contest, which started in 2006, works like this: schools are put into one of three categories- small colleges, large colleges, or colleges in Canada. In both the small and large college categories, 32 schools are divided into eastern and western divisions and pitted against each other in pairs. Each school is supposed to get its fans to go the website and vote for it. Mason was put into the large college category in the eastern division, head-to-head with UMD. Perhaps not surprisingly, the Terps won. In some of the other match-ups, NYU beat Cornell, BU bested UConn, and the University of Florida topped VCU. UMD now faces off against Towson in round two.

Luckily, Mason’s populace hasn’t been hoodwinked into showing school pride where it doesn’t deserve it. The profile of GMU on PETA2’s website claims, “Prospective students wanting to be within a stone's throw of the U.S. capital and within arm's reach of delicious vegan food—look no further. Within the past year, GMU has really kicked its vegan offerings into high gear, in direct response to negotiations and discussions with students.” It even goes so far as to say, “it's easy to see why GMU has been called the number one up-and-coming university in the U.S.!” To many vegans, this seems like a slap in the face. According to oft-quoted co-chair of Mason’s Environmental Action Group Jason Von Kundra, “There are no good vegan options on campus and there is hardly any ingredient transparency at most dining locations. I, along with several other vegans at GMU, get all of our food outside of campus because it's so bad.”

While it would be nice to to actually be a vegan-friendly school, Mason still has a long way to. To have received recognition this year, even by simply making it out of the first round, would have been a step in the wrong direction as it would have allowed Sodexo to pat itself on the back for the few paltry measures they have implemented. Hopefully by next year, with the help of the Environmental Action Group and other concerned students, Mason will have something to be proud of in terms of its dining options. The EAG is currently pushing Sodexo and Mason Dining to adopt sustainable food practices, including offering more vegan and vegetarian options. The EAG is even demanding an all vegan/vegetarian eating establishment on the Fairfax campus. That would go a long way toward giving Mason something to be proud of.

Editors Note: When asked for the specific results of the competition, a representative from PETA2 refused to provide numbers beyond saying that last year, “more than 20,000 votes were cast in the competition.” It remains unclear as to how many people actually voted or how many votes Mason received.