Outdoor sustainability: Cape green group growing eco-friendly ideas

Editor's note: This is the third of a four-part series about the Girardeau Goes Green Advisory Board, a relatively new group that is charged with looking at the ways the city affects the environment. The third part deals with outdoor sustainability, with the final story Monday to focus on energy.

On a brisk day in November, Marcus Janzow and a few others spent several hours planting seeds in two spots along the Cape LaCroix Recreational Trail.

On a frigid day two months later, Janzow stood near the straw-covered 2,000-square-foot patch of ground and acknowledged it didn't look like much.

Not yet, anyway.

But come spring, he and his friends from the Girardeau Goes Green Advisory Board look for a panoply of wildflowers to be sprouting along sections near Arena Park and close to a trailhead along Kingsway Drive.

They hope it's seen as an aesthetic benefit for bicyclists, walkers and others who use the trail. But, more importantly, Janzow said, they know it will be a benefit to the environment.

"We've been looking for ways to help the city reduce its environmental impact," said Janzow, an intern with the Missouri Department of Conservation working toward his master's in environmental studies.

"It doesn't seem like much," Janzow said. "But you get enough projects like these and it starts to add up."

The Girardeau Goes Green Advisory Board holds a meeting Jan. 10 at the Cape Girardeau Public Library. (Kristin Eberts)

The Environmental Protection Agency agrees: Landscaping with native plants does improve the environment. According to EPA literature, natural landscaping like wildflowers attracts a variety of birds, butterflies and other animals.

Also, once established, native plants do not need fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides or watering, which helps the planet while also reducing maintenance costs.

Julia Thompson, the city's parks and recreation department director, also agreed that it would save the city time and money. The project has been relatively low-cost so far: Thompson won about three pounds of wildflower seed at a silent auction and the group donated its time.

"But I just love this group," Thompson said. "To have this type of group in Cape Girardeau, one that is so committed to improving how we live and lessen our footprint on the environment, is just amazing. How many other people would be willing to go out there in cold weather and plant wildflowers?"

The wildflower project is just one of the ideas that has stemmed from brainstorming sessions of the outdoor sustainability focus group. They've talked about community gardens, promoting organic farming, planting more trees and bandied about a few other ideas.

That's the story with the overall group, too. At the board's most recent meeting this month, chairman Adam Gohn provided city staff members with a URL to be printed on future water and sewer bills. The web link would be to a "sustainable living" or "green tips" Web page that were generated by the board.

The board also discussed the idea of a city ban on plastic shopping bags at the behest of Debra Tracy, the Cape Girardeau City Council member and liaison to the board. The board decided as a whole that they felt like there would be little chance of the ban being passed and that the effort to enact such a potentially controversial ban could hurt the credibility of the board.

But that's the give-and-take of the board, Janzow said. At its core, it's really a group of volunteers who want to effect positive changes.

"We're looking for opportunities for the city [officials] to help decrease their carbon footprint, their environmental impact and promote environmental projects," Janzow said. "We're also really just trying to do some good."

Janzow heads up the outdoor sustainability focus group, but it also includes a couple of residents who aren't on the board and fellow Green board member Glen Williams.

Williams, a professor of communication studies at Southeast Missouri State University, said oftentimes it's a misconception that environmental measures are at odds with profitability.

For example, he said, less mowing on the wildflower projects will save the city in fuel and labor expenses.

"It's not always the environment pitted against the economy," Williams said. "We know we're operating within constraints. We can't just go out and do whatever we want, but what we're doing makes good economic sense, not just environmental sense."

smoyers@semissourian.com

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