Industrial Ecology

with Babbie Dunnington and Essye Klempner

June 18, 2017

In New York City, “NO DUMPING” signs often indicate a good place to launch a boat.

They appear along sections of the coast that are unmonitored, unkept, where dead-end streets meet neglected coves,

often horribly polluted like this one, covered in goose poop and dead sharks,

a perfect place to begin our adventure.

I was exploring the North Shore of Staten Island with Essye Klempner and Babbie Dunnington,

Essye is a sculptor/painter/curator/organizer who’s work, whether making mushroom prints or organizing reading groups, is always smart, relevant, and focused on the mingled terrain between nature and culture.

Babbie is an activist and landscape architect who researched this area last year in her studio class at City College. 

Her and her classmates Anna Jalazo, Kate Jirasiritham, Veronica Tyson-Straight, Sarah Toth, Wing Tang, Jacqui Leboutillier, Craig Shaw, Kenia Pittman, Robynne Heymans, and Margaret Mulligan compiled all their class’s design ideas in this map featured in a presentation called “Towards an Industrial Ecology” at the Building the Outer Boroughs symposium at Brooklyn College.

One of Babbie’s contributions was an idea to make community docks all along the North Shore based on her belief that “interaction with toxic ecology is a necessary step toward remediation and stewardship.”

I couldn’t agree more.

Also, it’s fun to be here, free from roads and sidewalks, moving slowly and taking in the mystery of our surroundings.

Another map from Babbie’s presentation points out some disturbing facts, not mysterious at all, concerning environmental racism – “The placement of low-income or minority communities in the proximity of environmentally hazardous or degraded environments, such as toxic waste, pollution and urban decay.”

The energy infrastructure along the north shore completely cuts off access to the water in one of the most densely populated (and poor) sections of Staten Island.

The New Jersey side seemed a little more accessible,  industry merged with apartment buildings, marinas, and people fishing.

Back on the New York side, we floated past factories that stood like the barricade of a giant fortress.

The only problem was that we weren’t exactly floating past. We were paddling hard against the wind and waves, and starting to get tired.

We tied off on a navigational marker,

and quickly found out that it was against the rules.

Later on, Babbie posted to the internet, “You can get a ticket for roping your tiny boat to a buoy but what is the punishment for dumping oil, poisoning the water, decimating the oyster industry, leaving entire ships, factories to rust into the river until it’s too toxic to swim, unsafe to fish. Is there a police quota system to crack down on that? Who is going to protect us from this slow violence?”

Out here, the scale of global capital, and its unintended consequences were all visible, tangible, and close together.

Our mission was to spend the night camped out somewhere on  Staten Island and we wanted to check out all our options,

so we tied up the boat,

and drove to the southern part of the island.

If you remember Babbie’s map, that’s the area with lots of parks, marinas, city investment, cleaner land and water,

and patio restaurants.

We walked into a pretty, well maintained park, looking for a place to camp, but there was something wrong.

We were being followed.

There was a man walking some distance behind, keeping pace with us, ducking into the woods whenever we stopped.

Maybe it was nothing, just someone out enjoying the evening, but we decided to head back to the North Shore.

We remembered a spot in Richmond Terrace, a half sunken barge, covered with cement,

about 1,000 feet from shore, unreachable by anything but a small boat like ours.

We paddled back out in the dark and set up camp.

“I can’t believe we’re here.” said Babbie. She had seen satalite images of this barge while researching the North Shore and always wondered what it was like.

The morning came just like the night had been, with sounds of machinery and birds all around.

It was funny to be in such a busy spot, yet feel so remote.

The barges that we crawled up to get here the night before were now submerged by high tide.

we paddled to shore, put the boat back on the truck,

and returned to Brooklyn exactly 24 hours after we’d left.

Thank you Babbie and Essye!

from a post by Babbie (@sorcerx )”When your vacation is a boat trip around the toxic wreckage of capitalism #industrialecology”

 

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