ABSTRACT
In a series of e-mails and phone calls, Ed Landa and Lillian Ball discuss community activism, the public and private challenges of watershed restoration, and the imagery and language of soil remediation. The conversation focuses on the ongoing WATERWASH® wetland restoration project initiated by Ball in 2008 along the Bronx not far away from where Landa grew up. Funded by the LIS Futures Fund, the project successfully transformed a boat ramp parking lot into a renaturalized biotope. WATERWASH Bronx River (2009–ongoing) is a collaborative green infrastructure solution to runoff pollution in the Bronx River. Apprentices from Rocking the Boat, a nonprofit doing environmental river work with local youth, planted 8000 native plants. WATERWASH Bronx River filters commercial parking lot runoff before it enters the river, opens private property to pubic use, and was sponsored by the New York State Attorney General's Office.
