system-wide northampton hubs (cont’d) Municipal Compost Facility at Bleiman Property Another potential hub located in the Agricultural District is the Bleiman Property, where the local food system could house a city-wide composting facility. Bleiman is 9.5 acres of recently acquired city land. Initially thought to be a fertile location for community gardens, the Bleiman Property Agricultural Management Plan (2009) found many obstacles to food production, including seasonal flooding; zoning that restricts new buildings; a vernal pool with a protection buffer; wetland forests that cover 4.5 acres; limited accessibility; low visibility; and illegal dumping. The Bleiman Property Agricultural Management Plan recommended that one of the best options for the property would be to site a composting facility there because compost does not necessarily need a building; a vegetation buffer exists between the site and the city; and it is near the agriculturally dominated Meadows that could use the compost. Additionally, the landfill in Northampton is filling up and city officials are looking for ways to reduce waste inputs in order to prolong the operational life of the landfill.
Case Study for Municipal Composting Facility San Francisco has required all homes and businesses to participate in its citywide compost system, and drafted agreements with waste management companies to pick up the compost. Residents are encouraged to pitch all biodegradable matter into bins, provided by the city, that are picked up once a week on the curbside. Compost trucks pick up and deliver to a compost staging hub where the material is loaded into giant black cylinders (approximate volume 50,000 gallons) and brought to an open field. The cylinders are slowly rolled from one end of the field to the other, rotating the hot compost. Once each cylinder reaches the other side, it has fully biodegraded into rich compost that is then sold to offset operation costs. The city has found it saves money by separating compost from other wastes compared to the cost of throwing it all away in the landfill (Kielty 2006).
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Feed Northampton System-wide Hubs
Education and Processing Center at Smith Vocational High School Smith Vocational High School could function as a hub by providing a certified community kitchen, a site for a mobile slaughterhouse, and large-scale compost facility. The large indoor and outdoor areas could function as a food-distribution hub by hosting a weekly farmers market. The relatively large open land on campus has the capacity to operate as a feeder site as well. Centrally located along Route 9, the school is easily accessible by foot and bike for much of Northampton’s population. Stakeholders from the community described a need for a Board of Health certified community kitchen that cultivators could use to process value-added goods. Sources from Northampton say there is already an industrial kitchen at Smith Vocational that need some minor upgrades to legally process commercially-grade goods. Having a closer commercial kitchen would save feeder farms money, which could be redirected to the school as fees. The campus has space for a small mobile slaughterhouse to process locally raised livestock. No slaughterhouse facilities currently exist nearby. The school already houses an existing compost operation for its own use. The operation could be expanded to continue providing for the school’s own compost needs, but also sell surplus to local residents and feeders who may have site-specific constraints that make composting difficult. Smith Vocational could apply several cultivation strategies like intensive annual gardens and perennial poly-culture food forests, utilize currently dormant greenhouses, and raise small livestock and bees. The cafeteria could use the food grown on the property to feed students and staff, and also sell the surplus at the farmers markets. The campus may be willing to host an outdoor farmers market to sell its own produce but also provide local growers market space.