WEBVTT

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[music]

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Major funding for this
program is provided by

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the National Science Foundation,

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America\'s Investment in the Future.

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Additional funding is provided by Bank of America,
a financial services partner to customers

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and companies around the world; the
United States Department of Energy;

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The Teresa and H. John Heinz III Foundation

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and by the Corporation

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for Public Broadcasting.

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He dropped it.

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This is the Phillips neighborhood in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
It\'s the largest and most diverse neighborhood Hennepin County.

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It\'s also Minnesota\'s poorest.

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I think it was a statement about Phillips,
that Hennepin County was making,

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that we really rejected, that
this neighborhood is garbage.

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And this is what… You know, this is
what we deserve for development.

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And we said, \"No, no way.

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This is not appropriately induced
for a… a residential community.\"

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In 1979, the county started
demolishing homes in Phillips

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to make way for a new garbage transfer
station - a place where garbage

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is loaded into bigger trucks and taken to the
county dump. One issue was truck traffic -

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lots of it - and another was garbage,

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tons of it.

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They have dumped things on us. Much of this, the
garbage transfer station struggle came to its heights,

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uh… as the environmental justice movement
was developing in the early \'90s,

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showing the environmental deprivation
happening to communities of color.

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Longtime resident Annie Young
rallied her neighbors.

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It was a 10-year battle, but they
did defeat the county\'s plans.

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A friend of Annie\'s convinced her not
to stop there. She never said, \"Yeah.\"

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She said, \"When you win this,

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what are you going to do with that land?\"
Because we really didn\'t have an idea

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of what we would do with the land.
It was an inspired thought.

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The dream was a glass building with a pond

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and a deer at the pond

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and big huge wind machines
along Hiawatha Avenue.

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Don\'t ask me where that came from, because
you don\'t know where your dreams come from.

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But I then shared it with a couple
of good friends in the neighborhood.

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And they went, \"Wow!\"

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And this is it! She hopes there will
be an industrial park here someday

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and jobs for the community. To
make that dream become a reality,

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she formed a non-profit organization
and called it \"The Green Institute.\"

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The ReUse Center was its first project.

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Let me take a look. And I think that\'s it.

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Thanks for your donation. You got…
Thank you. Have a good day. Thanks.

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Well, we hated to see it go to waste, so we
thought this was a good idea. About a third

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of landfill trash was construction waste.
For Susan Gust,

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the owner of a construction company, it seemed
that too much was just being thrown away,

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so she started up the ReUse Center
to turn that garbage into gold.

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Truckloads of discarded doors, windows, sinks,
and commodes are being fixed up and resold.

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So those construction materials
are now donated to us.

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And we employ 14 people,
full-time and part-time,

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at living wage jobs and a full 100%
medical benefit program, to work here,

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to sort those materials, shelve those
materials, price those materials,

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and operate this. Incredibly fun business.
Total is 64 cents.

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Wow! What a buy! Fortunately! We\'ve
taken environmental problem,

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made it our mission to reduce the
solid waste stream to create jobs,

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to create economic justice,
to transfer skills about,

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how do you create a place that brings people
across racial and class differences together

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for a common shopping experience?

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The ReUse Center was just a beginning.
Tonight, it is the unveiling of the plans

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for the Phillips Eco-Enterprise Center
- the new home of the Green Institute.

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This is the bid to do.

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What we are presenting tonight is what\'s
called the master plan. This is a lot of

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what we\'re thinking about of how
it\'s gonna look, so on word.

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They want to build the center using recycled
construction materials, and they wanted

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to be powered by the sun and the wind
- by solar technology and windmills.

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They want to attract businesses whose goods
and services won\'t harm the environment,

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and who will work together
to reduce waste as well.

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And it\'s just the idea that we
have to change our thinking about

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how we do business, and how
our personal actions impact

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the rest of the world. And
I think that reflects

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the inherent intelligence
of communities like ours,

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where you have so many different
cultures in the same place

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that if you ever can get to the place, we have the opportunity
to sit down and talk to each other and share your information,

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it\'s very, very powerful, umm…

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to walk together in a direction that way.
If the poorest community

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in the state of Minnesota can
figure out how to revitalize itself

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into live vibrant community,

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why on earth isn\'t everybody else doing it?

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Think about the places you love
in cities - train stations,

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museums, theaters, main streets
- places that make you proud

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to be part of a community. I\'m Bill
McDonough, and this is where I live,

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Charlottesville, Virginia. You know, lots
of main streets in America have died,

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but this one is vibrant and alive,
because the citizens of Charlottesville

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refuse to let it die. The people in the
Phillips neighborhood of Minneapolis

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also refuse to let their neighborhood die. They
didn\'t want it to become a county dumping ground,

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so they fought and won. Instead
of letting their community

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be seen as an empty graveyard, they
saw it as full of life, full of hope

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and opportunity. Sometimes
it takes a problem,

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a challenge, to make us focus on the
issues that really affect our future.

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It could be a declining economy,
unsafe water, our utility bills.

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But these are often just symptoms of much larger
issues. What we will see in the next hour,

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are communities that are rebuilding from crisis and choosing
new goals to work for and new strategies for success.

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This might mean designing neighborhoods
for people instead of cars,

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retooling industrial areas,
uncovering river and waterfronts,

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converting waste areas into parks.
It might even mean,

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planting trees right in the middle of main street. Things like
this are happening right now in communities all over America,

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where citizens are making important and
intelligent decisions for themselves

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and their children\'s future.

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[sil.]

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The people of Sacramento, California,

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come here to the Rancho Seco
Recreational Area to relax.

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It\'s a beautiful place for canoeing,

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picnicking, fishing. Ten years
ago, the lake also served

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as the emergency cooling pond for
the Rancho Seco Nuclear Reactor.

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It\'s a power plant with a troubled past.

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Beginning in the early \'80s, the
plant began to have some problems.

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It began to breakdown fairly frequently.

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For the second time in 11 days, Rancho Seco was offline. Its cooling
towers quiet. The plant had gone into the so-called hot shutdown

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at about 4:00 in the morning.

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The first was a very serious accident that occurred the day after
Christmas in 1985, when the plant had an over cooling incident

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and the reactor operators lost
control for about 26 minutes.

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The Sacramento Municipal Utility District - known
as SMUD - which owned and operated the plant,

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shut it down for repairs. They were
forced to buy power from other utilities.

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Rates doubled. When they fired it up again,

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there were three more accidents
in quick succession.

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Because I\'m mad. We\'ve got to make those tough decisions, they
can\'t. It\'s gonna be up to each of us, as voters in this community,

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to close that place because it\'s sucking us
dry. The people of Sacramento had seen enough.

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The fate of the plant was put
to the voters in a referendum,

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and they pulled the plug on Rancho Seco.

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The trouble was, it supplied half of Sacramento\'s
electricity, and losing Rancho Seco in 1989,

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couldn\'t have come at a worse time.

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The city was about to be hit
with a major recession.

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The 1980s had been boom years.
Industry and jobs streamed

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into the valley. The state
capital attracted the ambitious,

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looking for an upbeat lifestyle. Hi.

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Hi. I\'d like a yellow latte.
Cheap power propelled them,

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and there was electricity in
the air and in the streets.

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Perfectly engineered electric vehicle,
cost me 1.4 cents a mile to… to drive.

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It can\'t beat dead.

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The city put in a light rail. Electric
trains running right through downtown

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and into the suburbs, was part of a plan
to promote new building along rail lines.

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They called it \"transit-oriented
development\",

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and Sacramento was the nation\'s prototype.

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Housing stocks were high,

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exciting new subdivisions sprang up.

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Then came the twin crises,

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recession and the power plant shutdown.

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For now, the plan for neighborhoods

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with town centers, shops, parks, and
lakes would be an empty vision.

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[sil.]

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But just as in the Phillips neighborhood
of Minneapolis, the people of Sacramento

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saw the crisis as an opportunity.
They own the utility there,

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they elect the Board of Directors.
So in the worst of times,

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they sent SMUD off on a brave new course,
turning itself into a green utility.

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SMUD invested in renewable energy sources.

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[sil.]

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We can quite often have as many
as 500 to 1,000 volunteers

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in a single year for the 100 slots for PV
Pioneer systems that we have available.

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In Sacramento, people stand in line to pay the
utility for the privilege of becoming a PV Pioneer -

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a photovoltaic trailblazer.

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The plan works like this. You let
SMUD know that you\'d like them

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to cover your roof with solar panels, the
kind that turns sunlight into electricity.

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If your roof catches enough sun, then you pay
SMUD $50 a year to let them use your roof.

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It\'s an individual investment
in a renewable energy future.

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We felt that the sustainability issues are
very important and we wanna be able to

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make a contribution wherever we can. When you think about it,
you could contribute 50 bucks a year to your favorite cause

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or you could not go out to dinner once, which is about
50 bucks, and that\'s kind of what we\'re doing here.

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We\'re saying, this is something that we feel is important,
so it\'s… it\'s worth doing it. Joel and Susan Swift

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have been PV Pioneers for two years. Okay, what
we\'re looking at here is the side of our house.

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And this conduit right here, comes
from all the panels on the roof,

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uh… that generate a DC voltage off the
panels and comes down here into a breaker,

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which is a safety breaker, into this converter
which converts it from the DC power

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to AC that the system can use.
And you can see right now

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with the clouds in the sky, it\'s about 930
watts, about enough to run a hairdryer.

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And then it goes into a meter, the top meter is
the one that\'s showing how much we\'re generating,

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and the bottom meter shows how much we\'re using. And this
house is basically generates a little bit more than it\'s used

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over the past two years, and that\'s kind of a… it\'s a good feeling to feel
that, hey, we\'re… we\'re actually generating power instead of using it.

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Actually, these solar panels are just
a small part of a much broader plan.

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SMUD is diversifying.

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It\'s investing in wind and
geothermal technologies too.

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After getting quite relying too
much on one source of power

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and losing it, SMUD is
opening up its options.

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There\'s a lot to be said for hedging your risk by
having 100 megawatts and 100 megawatts of that,

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some solar power, some geothermal power,
some biomass power, some natural gas power.

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So if natural gas prices go up, hey, I\'ve got a
lot of other resources that will help insulate

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my customers from rate shock.
Still, there\'s a risk in adopting

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the latest technologies. With the coming
deregulation of electrical utilities,

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consumers will be able to choose their power company
like they would their long-distance phone service,

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always looking for the best deal.

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Probably, the single, biggest
factor in successfully deregulating

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the electric business is having
educated and informed consumers.

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People need to know where their power is coming from,
they\'re gonna have to get more familiar with it,

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they\'re gonna have to understand the
options, because, otherwise, I think, uh…

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potentially we\'re just gonna end up with a lot of confusion,
people won\'t know if they\'re getting a good deal or not.

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SMUD worries that too many of their customers
will seek out cheaper power from other companies.

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Those short-term savings could cost them
the lead in a renewable energy future,

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right at the time that solar technology
is attracting some big players.

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Solar Two in the Mojave Desert,

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a $48 million experiment.
It\'s all done with mirrors,

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2,000 of them, tracking the
sun, focusing the sunlight

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all day long on a container of
salt, high atop a 300-foot tower.

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The salt heats up to over a
1,000 degrees, boiling water

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and producing steam to run a generator.
It\'s a closed loop system.

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The salt ends up back in the tower, and
the water is cooled to be boiled again.

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The beauty of the system is
that it can store solar energy

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for up to three hours, providing
electricity after the sun has gone down.

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Right now, Solar Two powers 10,000
homes in Southern California.

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There are plans to double the yield here, and
to build many more plants in the southwest

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over the next 20 years. For now though,

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the costs of solar are still high.
In many more neighborhoods,

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it will take many more people like Joel and
Susan Swift willing to pay a little extra

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to support a sustainable future.

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We\'re on the roof at the School of
Architecture at the University of Virginia.

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This is a solar collector, the kind we
saw in Sacramento, making electricity.

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And this is a recent development in solar
electricity, a photovoltaic shingle.

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It not only makes electricity,
it\'s also your roof.

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These are roof shingles.
And here\'s how they work.

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You plug them into each other, and then plug them into your
house, and away you go, letting the sun make electricity.

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[sil.]

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Your house is now part of the town\'s grid.

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We\'re going to be amazed by some of the solar
power products being designed right now,

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for houses, like this shingle; for
offices, like advanced daylighting systems

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and a whole variety of things for
communities, from solar farms in Las Vegas

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to wind farms for Iowa. The cost of
these technologies is dropping fast.

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And pretty soon, we\'ll be seeing them
everywhere. This is part of our energy future,

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the part without air pollution.

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Water -

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Is there a water future without pollution?

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Take this one big river. This
is the mighty Rio Grande

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at its grandest. The Rio Grande

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is the southernmost border between
the United States and Mexico.

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It\'s one of the most threatened
streams in the nation.

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And that has happened primarily because
the development has been so fast

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in the region. Development in the
sister cities on opposite banks -

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Matamoros, Mexico and Brownsville, Texas.

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[music]

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The Charro Days in Brownsville.

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The city is celebrating its international
heritage as a border town.

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[music]

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Once an outpost colony for Imperial Spain,

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the city has struggled with war and
revolution, with exploration and opportunity.

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The challenge now

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is to maintain the quality of life
on the face of explosive growth.

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Would you like to try some of this? It\'s a
little… Those little things are hot. Okay.

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[music]

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It\'s a city on the move.

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It has the energy and feel
of a modern frontier town.

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International trade is on the rise.
There is growth and development.

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People are pouring in from Matamoros
looking for good-paying jobs

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and many are staying.

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Over a quarter of a million people have ended up living
in these makeshift developments called colonias -

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unregulated areas with no electricity,

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sewers or water.

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These homes need to be hooked up soon. But this rapid
growth is straining the city\'s budget, infrastructure,

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and resources, and especially water.

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Less than 1% of the
planet\'s water is fresh,

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that\'s not very much, and Brownsville
is suffering through a 10-year drought.

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With so many people and industries

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depending on the Rio Grande for their health and wellbeing,
there\'s a real concern here about the quality of the water.

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The city, like many others,
draws its drinking water

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right from the river, but so do hundreds
of towns, factories and farms upstream.

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By the time it gets here, to Brownsville,

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it\'s a regular witches\' brew.
Metals, heavy metals,

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it would mean chemicals,
it would mean PCBs,

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it would mean Chlordane -
agricultural chemicals,

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it would mean arsenic. I know what is
in the river, there\'s dead bodies,

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we have people that use as restroom,
we have sewages that just pour out

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into the river. Why would I want
to drink that water? Lisa Gomez -

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Lifestyle Editor for the Brownsville Herald,
mother of three - won\'t drink the water.

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She won\'t let her kids drink it either.
Something tells me, it\'s not safe,

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it\'s not good enough for my kids.
Look, look!

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We\'ve got distilled water,
spring water, drinking water.

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Umm… This is another one that I
like to get, purified water,

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baby formula water. Take your pick.

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People are drinking more and more bottled
water, because, like Lisa Gomez,

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they\'ve lost confidence
that their water is safe.

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Even the nation\'s capital, isn\'t immune.

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Unboiled water, unboiled water, DC\'s
finest tapped water. Thank you.

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DC Mayor Marion Barry remains adamant
that last week\'s \"boil water alert\"

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should have never happened. Just
like the people in Brownsville,

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Washington, DC, residents get their
drinking water from the river.

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The process to clean it up is pretty
straightforward. Anything that\'s in the water -

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mud, debris, plants, fish - is filtered out
here at the Dalecarlia Treatment Plant.

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For the most part, Dalecarlia does its job.

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But in 1995, tests found a
dangerous bacteria, E. coli,

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in the system. DC residents were
warned to boil their water.

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It turned out, the problem wasn\'t the
Treatment Plant, it was the delivery pipes.

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They are old and most are corroded, like this one,
and they are covered with lime deposits and slime.

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This main is about 70 years old.

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And you get… get… tuberculation
has developed over the years,

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that\'s what these little pieces
are, if you\'d break them off,

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it\'s just basically sediment. You know, any
bacteria that\'s in the sediment, it sits there

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and then as… as your… your clean
water comes through this there is a…

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a film that… that develops,
a biofilm that sits there.

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And… And basically that bacteria is underneath
that, flossy gets enough and it… it…

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it tears that biofilm off, and then the
bacteria is… is released into the water.

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The nation\'s capital neglected its
maintenance. There are 1300 miles

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of water pipes here, and most needed to
be scraped clean and then realigned,

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using a machine like this one. It
sort of works like a water sprinkler,

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spraying concrete as it\'s
pulled through the system.

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Other pipes are in such bad
shape, they need to be replaced.

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It\'s time to pay the piper,

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to the tune of $300 million for the
cleaning bill. It\'s a cautionary tale

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for cities like Brownsville, the
city coffers are running dry.

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Brownsville recently pumped in

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over $11 million in upgrades trying to make their water
more drinkable, by adding new filtration systems

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and computer controls.

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They even installed track facts - a water vacuum
that scours dead bacteria, dirt and sludge

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from the bottom of settling
tanks as it accumulates.

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Now, water coming out of the tap is cleaner

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than the EPA requires. But
Lisa Gomez and her family

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still won\'t drink it. She
says, \"It tastes terrible.\"

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I don\'t have a dinner water. I have water for everything
else. I just drink whatever… whatever I pour the kids,

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it\'s easily the fluoride water. Tap
water just tastes like mud to me.

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They add all kinds of chemicals
and everything you can imagine.

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Why would I want to drink that water? But
it\'s not entirely Brownsville\'s fault.

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If the countless industries and
municipalities lining the river

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released clean water, then the job
of producing tasty drinking water

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would be a lot easier, because whatever
impurities are put into the water upstream,

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have to be taken out, downstream.

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We\'re here in a marsh in
the Virginia countryside.

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Over there, in the grasses, are some egrets.
There\'s pond. There\'re tadpoles, fish, snails.

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This wetland is teeming with life.
But you might not realize,

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this is also nature\'s way of
filtering out waste from water.

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That\'s right. The waste from upstream - the
farms, developments, sewers, whatever -

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it all ends up, down here. And what this wetland
does, is make sure that the water leaving here,

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is cleaner than the water that came in.
Nature\'s able to do this,

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because one organisms waste is
another\'s food. This log, for example,

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will slowly and safely rot and return
to the soil. How does this work

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for water filtration? Well, let\'s see what
happens when you design a marsh to purify water.

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Orlando, Florida:

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home to Disney and over
a million residents,

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growing faster than anyone had
imagined, new sewage treatment plants

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became loaded to the hilt, algae blooms were warnings
of dangerously high nitrogen and phosphorus levels.

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The problem was traced to
those treatment plants,

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and the city was told to stop pumping
its treated waste into the rivers.

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They decided to construct their
own wetland to clean the water.

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The city found a farm on the banks
of the St. John\'s River, bought it

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and returned it to its
natural state - a swamp.

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[sil.]

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This is the deep marsh area,
troublesome nitrogen and phosphorus

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are removed and stored by
cattails and bulrushes.

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And there are hundreds of other species
of plant here to help clean up the water.

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Diversity rules. Not only does the
Orlando system work beyond expectations,

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it actually attracts more wildlife
than surrounding natural wetlands.

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Over 145 species of bird live here.
Incredibly,

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the wetland will attract
another species too - humans.

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The city has plans to open the area to
camping, campers who will quickly forget

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they\'re in a sewage treatment marsh.

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Constructed wetlands, like this
work, but you need lots of land.

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But what if you can\'t find it or afford it?

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Most cities clean up
their sewers like this -

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in big, smelly tanks.

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Burlington, Vermont: a city of
130,000, the state\'s largest;

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an economic and cultural hub on
the shores of Lake Champlain.

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Because so much of their identity is tied to the
lake, extra care is taken not to pollute it.

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The city\'s brand new

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$18 million sewage treatment plant
is located right on the shore.

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If you think of it, a conventional, waste
treatment plant is usually down on the wrong side

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of the tracks, as far away from
neighbors as possible, usually next to

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some major body of water, and its massive,

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and the impact on the river, like
our oceans, is also massive.

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Some cities are beginning to think,

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it would be better to move the treatment
closer to the source of the sewage.

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But most people don\'t want sewage in the
middle of their neighborhood. Unless perhaps,

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it looked like this. The beauty
of it is that it doesn\'t stink

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and it\'s pretty. This, is what the
next generation of treatment plants

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might look like. Sewage, you can
be proud of. More botanical garden

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than a sewage plant.
It\'s the living machine.

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The brainchild of John Todd.

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The reason why it\'s called the living machine is that the vast
majority of the parts that make up the machine are alive.

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I mean, you\'ve got everything from
microscopic bacteria that you can\'t see,

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all the way to bald cypress,
and fish, and clamps.

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So the full panoply of life is
represented in a living machine.

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This is the first tank the…

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the raw, screened, untreated sewage enters
here. You notice how the plants are racked up

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to be off the surface to help protect
their roots from the high strength waste

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at the early phase. Eighty thousand
gallons per day of raw sewage

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are drawn from the South Burlington treatment
intake - that\'s the waste from about 400 homes,

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a large neighborhood. The waste water flows

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through a series of concrete tanks,
14 feet deep, covered with plants

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and filled with bacteria, snails, clams,
and fish that actually live off the waste.

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Here, you have a community
made up cyanobacteria,

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blue-green algae, and algae. And down
here, where the light is less intense,

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you have a mixture of algae with the microbial
communities. And then grazing on these, as you can see,

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are the snail communities. They are
vastly complex, and they really do act

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to trap particles that are
in water and degrade them.

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According to the EPA, the living machine can clean
wastewater just as well as conventional systems.

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But a key to this design is that it
makes sewage treatment pleasant,

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accessible and more likely to be
found anywhere and everywhere -

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neighborhoods, apartment complexes,
and commercial, and industrial areas,

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even downtown. So this is

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the last phase, the last cell in the

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roughly two-day cycle. You can
see that, it\'s very clean.

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The journey is done.
It\'s good quality water.

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I can see one thing in here, that\'s a
tiny little animal swimming around

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in the water. You see it? Apart
from that, there\'s nothing.

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Beautifully treated water.

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And this is where the
water leaves the building

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and starts its journey to
Lake Champlain. I think,

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we\'re gonna see an absolute transformation in
how we see waste treated in the next 20 years.

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We\'re gonna see waste as resources
out of place. We\'re gonna see

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waste treatment facilities as
facilities that transform the waste

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into as many different value-added
products as possible. For example,

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in some of our facilities, we\'re producing
plants, particularly water loving plants

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for the water garden industry, and we\'re
beginning to think about things like medicines.

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We\'re talking uh… an
industrial ecology here

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that starts with waste, but where
it ends, nobody knows yet,

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all we know is a lot of
good things could happen.

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Wetland, by themselves, might not be able to clean
up all the water at the scale of large cities.

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For that to happen, several technologies
will have to work in concert with this one.

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But it can be done. You know, in cities,

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all problems start out looking big, complicated
and even overwhelming. But some cities

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are beginning to effectively handle the problems
of waste, pollution, transportation, urban decay,

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everything, because they\'re approaching these
problems as part of an overall design,

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one that takes one problem at a time, but
realizes that they\'re all connected.

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Lookout Mountain in Chattanooga

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was the sight of the famous Civil War engagement
which is now remembered as the Battle of Clouds.

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Although the clouds still
shroud the valley,

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their character has changed. They are
a poisonous haze of particulates

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and noxious gases. In the
1970s, Chattanooga, Tennessee,

00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:04.999
was clearly a city in distress. The
things that were good for our city

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led to a problem to decline.
The smokestack, once the icon

00:35:10.000 --> 00:35:14.999
of affluence and prosperity, had
become the icon of pollution

00:35:15.000 --> 00:35:19.999
and environmental disaster. The Department of Health,
Education and Welfare proclaimed Chattanooga\'s air

00:35:20.000 --> 00:35:24.999
the dirtiest in the country. City
councilman, David Crockett remembers.

00:35:25.000 --> 00:35:29.999
Probably, the Chamber of Commerce didn\'t
think that was a good bumper sticker,

00:35:30.000 --> 00:35:34.999
America\'s most polluted city.

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The city had been so successful,
it nearly killed itself.

00:35:40.000 --> 00:35:44.999
That point of the city literally
needing a quadruple bypass

00:35:45.000 --> 00:35:49.999
after having this equivalent
of a… of a coronary as a city.

00:35:50.000 --> 00:35:54.999
Pollution, urban decay -

00:35:55.000 --> 00:35:59.999
a similar story being played out in many
cities across America. But something different

00:36:00.000 --> 00:36:04.999
happened in Chattanooga.

00:36:05.000 --> 00:36:09.999
Today, there are new clean
industries with jobs.

00:36:10.000 --> 00:36:14.999
The Tennessee River Front has
been successfully reclaimed.

00:36:15.000 --> 00:36:19.999
Businesses, homes and restaurants
are returning downtown.

00:36:20.000 --> 00:36:24.999
In an ongoing effort,

00:36:25.000 --> 00:36:29.999
Chattanooga is reclaiming its pride.
The Chattanooga Choo Choo…

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There has been a major part of the history of this community,
and this is got the names of all of the different railroads.

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How did this happen?

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We want each of you to share one of your ideas and we\'ll go
around… It all started at meetings like this one, 13 years ago.

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Okay. Somehow, we… we need to clean up
that poor industrial image we\'ve got out

00:36:50.000 --> 00:36:54.999
by the interstate. There were two
campaigns. The first was Vision 2000,

00:36:55.000 --> 00:36:59.999
a series of small group
meetings began in 1984.

00:37:00.000 --> 00:37:04.999
Their mission: Conceive a new
vision for the city, set new goals

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and figure out how to achieve them.
Then came Revision 2000,

00:37:10.000 --> 00:37:14.999
involving the whole city
in designing their future.

00:37:15.000 --> 00:37:19.999
Revision 2000, it involved
youth, adult, the rich,

00:37:20.000 --> 00:37:24.999
the poor, every class of people,
and every… We involved everybody.

00:37:25.000 --> 00:37:29.999
And we met, met, met, met, met, met, met,

00:37:30.000 --> 00:37:34.999
and had everybody that were interested
to come in and give us ideas.

00:37:35.000 --> 00:37:39.999
Good fast rail travel.

00:37:40.000 --> 00:37:44.999
Revamp middle and high school curricula to teach
kids how to be entrepreneurs. They put down on paper

00:37:45.000 --> 00:37:49.999
what they want a Chattanooga to be like.
Visioning, became a new verb in their language.

00:37:50.000 --> 00:37:54.999
Revision 2000. Hello, Chattanooga!

00:37:55.000 --> 00:37:59.999
Hey! And as you can see, all
your hard work and plans

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have really been put into action. And we hope,
today, that you get a chance to read all the goals.

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And that you do put up your little stickers where
you would like to really make something happen.

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A new definition of the
city began to materialize -

00:38:15.000 --> 00:38:19.999
one with parks, a clean
river, an exciting downtown.

00:38:20.000 --> 00:38:24.999
City hall opened up everything to public scrutiny.
Then, people literally voted on what should be done

00:38:25.000 --> 00:38:29.999
and in what order.

00:38:30.000 --> 00:38:34.999
Chattanooga, Tennessee, had become an
environmental experiment in progress.

00:38:35.000 --> 00:38:39.999
A living laboratory, devoted
to sustainable development.

00:38:40.000 --> 00:38:44.999
It\'s a new paradigm.

00:38:45.000 --> 00:38:49.999
It is a dramatic shift. If you\'re
gotta be a living laboratory,

00:38:50.000 --> 00:38:54.999
every neighborhood is important.

00:38:55.000 --> 00:38:59.999
I came to this neighborhood,

00:39:00.000 --> 00:39:04.999
right out of high school
as a new bride in 1934.

00:39:05.000 --> 00:39:09.999
Hey, honey, how are you?
Everybody knows everybody.

00:39:10.000 --> 00:39:14.999
It\'s… It\'s… It\'s a great neighborhood. I don\'t know
of another neighborhood that I would rather be in.

00:39:15.000 --> 00:39:19.999
Fourteen years ago, there were leaders in the city and
in business who thought their neighborhood preservation

00:39:20.000 --> 00:39:24.999
was in conflict with economic growth.
So when Lincoln Park was threatened

00:39:25.000 --> 00:39:29.999
by the expansion of a nearby
medical center, Bessie Smith -

00:39:30.000 --> 00:39:34.999
then 66 years old - stood
alone to rally her neighbors.

00:39:35.000 --> 00:39:39.999
We heard that Erlanger Medical Center
was buying up property down here,

00:39:40.000 --> 00:39:44.999
the older people first. And
we wanted to know why?

00:39:45.000 --> 00:39:49.999
We asked them, \"What are you planning to do
with the property once that you\'ve bought

00:39:50.000 --> 00:39:54.999
all the houses at here? Once
that this neighborhood is gone,

00:39:55.000 --> 00:39:59.999
what do you plan to do?\"
They said they had no plans.

00:40:00.000 --> 00:40:04.999
I think that they felt that because it
was a small neighborhood, low income,

00:40:05.000 --> 00:40:09.999
that we just didn\'t care. All of this was
new. She had to learn what to do, fast.

00:40:10.000 --> 00:40:14.999
Bessie Smith and 75 of her
neighbors took their complaint

00:40:15.000 --> 00:40:19.999
to the hospital board. It wasn\'t
grandstanding, they just wanted to be heard.

00:40:20.000 --> 00:40:24.999
We were just not some little people
that were trying to make headlines.

00:40:25.000 --> 00:40:29.999
We didn\'t care if nothing was ever in the paper.
What we wanted was our neighborhood saved.

00:40:30.000 --> 00:40:34.999
Hi, how are you doing? Fine, how are you?
All right, thank you.

00:40:35.000 --> 00:40:39.999
They met with city officials for two years, but
plans to destroy the neighborhood proceeded.

00:40:40.000 --> 00:40:44.999
Everything that they could think of
to do was done to discourage us.

00:40:45.000 --> 00:40:49.999
But we kept fighting. We kept fighting.

00:40:50.000 --> 00:40:54.999
I just… I… I\'m sorry, but
I just don\'t give up.

00:40:55.000 --> 00:40:59.999
Then they decided that
they would do something

00:41:00.000 --> 00:41:04.999
to compensate for the damage
and… and what had been done.

00:41:05.000 --> 00:41:09.999
And they asked, \"What did the
neighborhood need most?\"

00:41:10.000 --> 00:41:14.999
And I said, \"We need most, a
playground and some type of recreation

00:41:15.000 --> 00:41:19.999
for our neighborhood children who
are playing out in the streets.\"

00:41:20.000 --> 00:41:24.999
The hospital not only built a playground for the children,
they offered to rebuild some of the homes they\'ve torn down.

00:41:25.000 --> 00:41:29.999
Lincoln Park was made green.
It was a lesson

00:41:30.000 --> 00:41:34.999
the city needed to learn, sustain
the neighborhoods. I think that

00:41:35.000 --> 00:41:39.999
they really had decided that
neighborhoods, all over the city,

00:41:40.000 --> 00:41:44.999
need them and they need the neighborhoods.

00:41:45.000 --> 00:41:49.999
And there was another lesson - environmental
enthusiasm should envelop the next generation.

00:41:50.000 --> 00:41:54.999
A strategy of sustainability swept into the
schools with practical hands-on learning.

00:41:55.000 --> 00:41:59.999
All right guys, where\'s the residential area? It\'s right here.
Where do I put the roads? We\'re on the plot of building.

00:42:00.000 --> 00:42:04.999
[sil.]

00:42:05.000 --> 00:42:09.999
They really didn\'t plan ahead of time.
We need more… more roads.

00:42:10.000 --> 00:42:14.999
And we need a way to get the Church.
You know, we need to solve…

00:42:15.000 --> 00:42:19.999
The students at Chattanooga\'s public school
of their 21st century, are designing the city

00:42:20.000 --> 00:42:24.999
of their dreams. And this can be the state
part. It\'s got lots of parks, rivers,

00:42:25.000 --> 00:42:29.999
lakes, bike path, a playground to live in.

00:42:30.000 --> 00:42:34.999
They\'re really excited. This
is a great bunch of kids.

00:42:35.000 --> 00:42:39.999
There… There\'re young environmentalists, wanting to
make a difference. Cities are dynamic living organisms,

00:42:40.000 --> 00:42:44.999
and you can be sure they\'ll always be changing.
Young people come to understand this.

00:42:45.000 --> 00:42:49.999
Knowing about environmental design and
the links between living systems,

00:42:50.000 --> 00:42:54.999
enables them to tackle the
challenges of the future.

00:42:55.000 --> 00:42:59.999
That area in the far corner, that\'s
the sort of apartment complex area,

00:43:00.000 --> 00:43:04.999
a national park, and we\'ve
got wildlife, a preserve,

00:43:05.000 --> 00:43:09.999
these like are malls and commercial area. It\'d
be much easier if everybody had an equal chance

00:43:10.000 --> 00:43:14.999
to go straight to the middle,
save you a lot of time

00:43:15.000 --> 00:43:19.999
and just be much better.

00:43:20.000 --> 00:43:24.999
Across town,

00:43:25.000 --> 00:43:29.999
the students of Howard High School are
getting another kind of hands-on lesson -

00:43:30.000 --> 00:43:34.999
they\'re testing the water of
Chattanooga Creek. The creek,

00:43:35.000 --> 00:43:39.999
a toxic legacy of the city\'s industrial past,
flows right through their neighborhood.

00:43:40.000 --> 00:43:44.999
It\'s an EPA Superfund site. And
the students are figuring out

00:43:45.000 --> 00:43:49.999
how to clean up the toxic sludge,
using bacteria and common plants.

00:43:50.000 --> 00:43:54.999
This is dumpy. The plants actually
survive off of the pollute…

00:43:55.000 --> 00:43:59.999
the polluted water. The idea of using
natural scrubbers to clean up filthy water

00:44:00.000 --> 00:44:04.999
seems to be getting around. Some
people call it the living machine,

00:44:05.000 --> 00:44:09.999
but we call it the \"Howard School
Wetland System\". These are carp fish.

00:44:10.000 --> 00:44:14.999
What we want the system to do is give us the knowledge
so that we can build a bigger model like this one,

00:44:15.000 --> 00:44:19.999
especially for the Chattanooga Creek
to have that to be cleaned up.

00:44:20.000 --> 00:44:24.999
It might take years for the
Howard School Wetland System

00:44:25.000 --> 00:44:29.999
to clean up the creek, but
it took years to pollute it.

00:44:30.000 --> 00:44:34.999
The students here want to take action now.

00:44:35.000 --> 00:44:39.999
[sil.]

00:44:40.000 --> 00:44:44.999
Environmental solutions are part of everything in Chattanooga,
whether the city is tearing blocks down or renovating.

00:44:45.000 --> 00:44:49.999
But this will be almost a downtown.

00:44:50.000 --> 00:44:54.999
This will be a… a campus
that will be downtown.

00:44:55.000 --> 00:44:59.999
Councilman David Crockett, direct
descendant of \"The David Crockett\",

00:45:00.000 --> 00:45:04.999
sees Chattanooga as an opportunity to try out new
green ideas, like designing sustainable buildings

00:45:05.000 --> 00:45:09.999
or building modern neighborhoods
in the middle of deserted lots.

00:45:10.000 --> 00:45:14.999
You see these buildings here?
They look pretty rotten.

00:45:15.000 --> 00:45:19.999
And you\'d have to look at that and know that you\'re
looking at something that has a lot of potential.

00:45:20.000 --> 00:45:24.999
The goal here is to lure people back
downtown, reclaiming the inner city,

00:45:25.000 --> 00:45:29.999
so the suburbs don\'t
strangle the countryside.

00:45:30.000 --> 00:45:34.999
[sil.]

00:45:35.000 --> 00:45:39.999
This place, you can almost hear it,
come alive. You can hear people

00:45:40.000 --> 00:45:44.999
working in here. It\'s an old foundry,

00:45:45.000 --> 00:45:49.999
the Ross-Meehan Foundry. Look
at its magnificent architecture

00:45:50.000 --> 00:45:54.999
and hundreds of people,
Chattanoogans worked here.

00:45:55.000 --> 00:45:59.999
What it looks like, something
that should be torn down.

00:46:00.000 --> 00:46:04.999
It\'s gonna be saved, and it\'ll be reglazed,

00:46:05.000 --> 00:46:09.999
so that this becomes, somebody said,
a Crystal Palace of Chattanooga.

00:46:10.000 --> 00:46:14.999
A new freshwater aquarium

00:46:15.000 --> 00:46:19.999
became a visible symbol - the
new icon of the city\'s rebirth.

00:46:20.000 --> 00:46:24.999
Miles of trails

00:46:25.000 --> 00:46:29.999
and walkways were put in along the river. And the
Walnut Street Bridge, slated for destruction,

00:46:30.000 --> 00:46:34.999
was reclaimed as a park.

00:46:35.000 --> 00:46:39.999
But people need jobs.

00:46:40.000 --> 00:46:44.999
So, Chattanooga is attracting new industry to
town. Green industry, to further its reputation

00:46:45.000 --> 00:46:49.999
as a sustainable city. We do
have a living laboratory.

00:46:50.000 --> 00:46:54.999
[sil.]

00:46:55.000 --> 00:46:59.999
This is AVS, Advanced Vehicle Systems,

00:47:00.000 --> 00:47:04.999
a company that makes
buses - electric buses.

00:47:05.000 --> 00:47:09.999
It\'s a small startup company that
turns out about 30 buses a year.

00:47:10.000 --> 00:47:14.999
We build a bus from scratch.

00:47:15.000 --> 00:47:19.999
We purchase steel stock that we cut to length, weld together
in the sub-weldments through the weld of the frame,

00:47:20.000 --> 00:47:24.999
finish the frame, bring it back into
here and will go to bus from that.

00:47:25.000 --> 00:47:29.999
The city is pushing a linkage between the
environment and industry even further.

00:47:30.000 --> 00:47:34.999
They\'re asking for new
factories that don\'t pollute.

00:47:35.000 --> 00:47:39.999
But they\'re also trying to
clean-up and upgrade the old ones.

00:47:40.000 --> 00:47:44.999
We\'re standing in the furnace room of
Eureka Foundry. It takes a lot of heat

00:47:45.000 --> 00:47:49.999
and energy to make molten metal. It also creates
a lot of heat going into the atmosphere, here.

00:47:50.000 --> 00:47:54.999
We\'d like to see if we can find
a way to efficiently recapture

00:47:55.000 --> 00:47:59.999
this heat energy and use it again somewhere
else. Where do we want to use it?

00:48:00.000 --> 00:48:04.999
We want to capture some of this
energy and use it for hot water.

00:48:05.000 --> 00:48:09.999
Eureka is an old-fashioned foundry
- exactly the kind of industry

00:48:10.000 --> 00:48:14.999
that originally brought Chattanooga its wealth,
and later, its environmental concerns.

00:48:15.000 --> 00:48:19.999
They make ductile iron here.

00:48:20.000 --> 00:48:24.999
They also produce a lot of waste
- waste that might have value.

00:48:25.000 --> 00:48:29.999
The idea of industries

00:48:30.000 --> 00:48:34.999
finding other industries to use their waste,
is starting to take hold across the country.

00:48:35.000 --> 00:48:39.999
It was to find the old way of working.

00:48:40.000 --> 00:48:44.999
It basically has to do with three things lined up
in a row - get stuff, make stuff and dump stuff.

00:48:45.000 --> 00:48:49.999
Most workplaces, like this foundry,

00:48:50.000 --> 00:48:54.999
taking some sort of material, like scrap iron and
minerals, and process it to make new products.

00:48:55.000 --> 00:48:59.999
Most need utilities -
gas, electricity, water -

00:49:00.000 --> 00:49:04.999
and most generate byproducts and waste.

00:49:05.000 --> 00:49:09.999
The major product of most workplaces
is waste, rather than good product.

00:49:10.000 --> 00:49:14.999
It means a big difference
for us, in America,

00:49:15.000 --> 00:49:19.999
because we\'re spending too much money on
dumping and not enough money on building.

00:49:20.000 --> 00:49:24.999
Business leaders are beginning to
realize that waste hurts profits.

00:49:25.000 --> 00:49:29.999
Sharing heat, water, and
power can keep cost down.

00:49:30.000 --> 00:49:34.999
We\'re standing in the center of
our south side. And this is one

00:49:35.000 --> 00:49:39.999
of the many manufacturing plants here.
What we wanna do is tie four or five

00:49:40.000 --> 00:49:44.999
of these plants together. For example, the
Eureka Foundry generates a lot of heat.

00:49:45.000 --> 00:49:49.999
This chicken processing plant, a few
blocks away, needs a lot of hot water.

00:49:50.000 --> 00:49:54.999
If Eureka could recapture its waste
heat and use it to boil water,

00:49:55.000 --> 00:49:59.999
it could sell it to the chicken plant for
its process. The water could be cleaned,

00:50:00.000 --> 00:50:04.999
and be used over and over again.
It is not about

00:50:05.000 --> 00:50:09.999
creating a cluster of recycling businesses,
which in the old days would have been,

00:50:10.000 --> 00:50:14.999
uh… you know, sort of a mega dump.
Umm… It\'s not about that.

00:50:15.000 --> 00:50:19.999
Closing the energy and material
loops sounds simple enough,

00:50:20.000 --> 00:50:24.999
but most industries have many different forms
of energy and materials flowing through them.

00:50:25.000 --> 00:50:29.999
These new industrial parks are
called \"eco-industrial parks\".

00:50:30.000 --> 00:50:34.999
The eco can mean both ecological and economic,
because linking companies together like this,

00:50:35.000 --> 00:50:39.999
is good for the environment and good for the
bottom line. It\'s about bringing together

00:50:40.000 --> 00:50:44.999
diverse industries along
different materials chains,

00:50:45.000 --> 00:50:49.999
which can work together in concert,
which improves the whole system.

00:50:50.000 --> 00:50:54.999
In Chattanooga, a few industrial
visionaries are taking the first steps.

00:50:55.000 --> 00:50:59.999
But the complexity of linking many different
industries together is an intimidating challenge.

00:51:00.000 --> 00:51:04.999
Bechtel,

00:51:05.000 --> 00:51:09.999
an international engineering and
construction firm based in San Francisco,

00:51:10.000 --> 00:51:14.999
developed a computer model to do just
that - to link many industries together

00:51:15.000 --> 00:51:19.999
throughout an entire region.

00:51:20.000 --> 00:51:24.999
It\'s a huge vision, and this is where the
first multinational eco-industrial park

00:51:25.000 --> 00:51:29.999
will have its start, the port of
Brownsville - Brownsville, Texas.

00:51:30.000 --> 00:51:34.999
This idea of recycling, reusing materials

00:51:35.000 --> 00:51:39.999
has been around forever. What\'s different than what we\'re doing in
Brownsville is that we\'re going beyond one or two or three industries

00:51:40.000 --> 00:51:44.999
and we\'re linking, in that
case now, 30 or 40 industries.

00:51:45.000 --> 00:51:49.999
That\'s what you need the tool for. David Cobb
is convinced that industries using this tool

00:51:50.000 --> 00:51:54.999
will begin to harmonize with the environment,
and they\'ll make money doing it.

00:51:55.000 --> 00:51:59.999
There\'s the savings to not
having to dispose of materials,

00:52:00.000 --> 00:52:04.999
not having to treat a waste, the
savings in transporting materials.

00:52:05.000 --> 00:52:09.999
The driving concept for the model was that there is
no such thing as waste, that everything is reusable,

00:52:10.000 --> 00:52:14.999
everything has value. It\'s an idea
he pursues with a sense of urgency.

00:52:15.000 --> 00:52:19.999
I think the concept of
taking recycling seriously,

00:52:20.000 --> 00:52:24.999
the concept of sustainable development, the idea that
we name may indeed be running out of natural resources,

00:52:25.000 --> 00:52:29.999
the understanding that the globe
is a… is a closed system, uh…

00:52:30.000 --> 00:52:34.999
that it will establish equilibrium, either
it will take part in establishing it

00:52:35.000 --> 00:52:39.999
or it will be imposed upon us. And I think,
more of us are beginning to realize that

00:52:40.000 --> 00:52:44.999
we may want to take more of an interest in the level of
sustainability that uh… that is… that we\'re approaching.

00:52:45.000 --> 00:52:49.999
If we look to the world in the future,

00:52:50.000 --> 00:52:54.999
the question is, will there be more concern
around the environment than there is now?

00:52:55.000 --> 00:52:59.999
And my answer is, yes. Will they\'ll
be more concerned about quality?

00:53:00.000 --> 00:53:04.999
And my answer is, yes. We have to
understand that our connections

00:53:05.000 --> 00:53:09.999
provide us opportunities,
opportunities in the business sense,

00:53:10.000 --> 00:53:14.999
opportunities to be creative, to create new ideas, new
approaches, begin to help our communities grow again.

00:53:15.000 --> 00:53:19.999
That\'s the kind of thing
which we can do if we begin

00:53:20.000 --> 00:53:24.999
to take a look at those connections.

00:53:25.000 --> 00:53:29.999
So we\'re beginning to understand everything
is connected. Industries are connected

00:53:30.000 --> 00:53:34.999
to transportation systems, which are connected to energy
sources, which are connected to our neighborhoods.

00:53:35.000 --> 00:53:39.999
And everything can be redesigned to make
these connections better for our planet.

00:53:40.000 --> 00:53:44.999
If we begin to plan our future this way,

00:53:45.000 --> 00:53:49.999
we can eliminate the concept of waste. We can
redesign industry to be profitable and clean.

00:53:50.000 --> 00:53:54.999
We can revitalize our cities and countrysides
and make them enjoyable, healthy places,

00:53:55.000 --> 00:53:59.999
now, and forever. The great peacemaker

00:54:00.000 --> 00:54:04.999
of the Six Nations of the Iroquois gave
his chiefs an interesting instruction.

00:54:05.000 --> 00:54:09.999
He told them to make all important decisions
on behalf of their seventh generation to come.

00:54:10.000 --> 00:54:14.999
I like that thought - designing
now, with them, in mind.

00:54:15.000 --> 00:54:19.999
If we don\'t think about
the children\'s future,

00:54:20.000 --> 00:54:24.999
what will our generation\'s legacy be?
Probably, not great.

00:54:25.000 --> 00:54:29.999
But if we do, I know one thing -
we\'ll certainly have no regrets,

00:54:30.000 --> 00:54:34.999
because we will have done everything we could
to give them the finest gifts of our creativity

00:54:35.000 --> 00:54:39.999
and our intelligence, a chance for
a better planet neighborhood,

00:54:40.000 --> 00:54:45.000
so long.

00:55:30.000 --> 00:55:34.999
Major funding for this
program is provided by

00:55:35.000 --> 00:55:39.999
the National Science Foundation -

00:55:40.000 --> 00:55:44.999
America\'s investment in the Future.

00:55:45.000 --> 00:55:49.999
Additional funding is
provided by Bank of America -

00:55:50.000 --> 00:55:54.999
a financial services partner to customers
and companies around the world,

00:55:55.000 --> 00:55:59.999
the United States Department of Energy,

00:56:00.000 --> 00:56:04.999
The Teresa and H. John
Heinz III Foundation,

00:56:05.000 --> 00:56:10.000
and by the Corporation
for Public Broadcasting.

00:56:30.000 --> 00:56:35.000
[sil.]