BACK to nature Volunteer efforts to bring back gardens and clean waterways are blooming in Lowell

By Andrew Ravens, aravens@lowellsun.com

Lowell Sun

Article Last Update: 05/13/2007 07:00:34 AM EDT

For Janice Pokorski, the “greening of Lowell” – a vibrant effort to clean up and improve the quality of life in the city – means revitalizing public gardens.

“I noticed there were gardens missing and green space was neglected,” said Pokorski, a former staffer at The Revolving Museum. “I just started dreaming, ‘What can I do?’”

Pokorski, a Dracut native, one day drew a picture of a greenhouse and taped it to her phone – “because I’m always on it” – as a constant reminder of her idea. That was in 2004.

A year later, Pokorski secured a greenhouse and a five-year land permit on Aiken Street from the Lowell National Historical Park. The greenhouse new serves as a home base in her volunteer-based effort, CommunityGardensGreenhouse.org, which that tends to and supplies more than a dozen gardens in the city.

Pokorski is on of several people who found inspiration and networking contacts through Lowell: The Flowering City, a decade-old committee charged with bettering the city’s environment. Everyone involved with the greening of Lowell – whether it’s serving organic foods, planting flowers, recycling or organizing canal cleanups – seemingly has a connection to the group.

Walter Bacigalupo, 63, the group’s chairman, ahs been involved with the effort since the beginning, when it started as on initial gather of 125 people who wanted to improve the city’s appearance.

“One of the incredible things about Lowell – there are groups of people with energy who want to improve the city,” Bacigalupo said. “We gathered about 11 years ago to talk about how culture and the environment and businesses could connect. There were all kinds of suggestions.”

Some suggestions – like improving the city’s riverwalk – became a reality and the committee continues to have a dynamic impact.

Its latest efforts are focused around greening ideas and imagining how the city can improve over the ne3xt 15 years, said member Dave Robinson, who also works as a communications specialist at UMass Lowell.

Robinson, along with the Lowell Canalwaters Cleaners, recently gathered volunteers from the Lowell High School to help fish out trash from the city’s canals.

That trash, Robinson said, is blown into the canals from overflowing downtown trash cans. He’d like to replace some of those cans with solar-powered trash compactors that function like mailboxes, keeping trash inside and completely contained.

Robinson, who is in talks with the city, wants to bring one or two compactors – priced at about $4,000 each – into Lowell to give them a test run. Each trash compactor holds four times the amount of material versus a regular can, he said.

“They (compactors) are expensive, but they solve a lot of problems as far as disposal for solid waste,” he said. “They keep pests out – and a lot of money goes into emptying (current) trash cans.”

When you consider exhaust fumes and the fuel consumed by dump trucks to empty city trash cans, the compactors save money over the long haul, Robinson said.

”Dave’s new trash compactors save time, energy and space,” said Bacigalupo.

Robinson has also spent time helping Joy Onasch launch Green Drinks, an environmentally conscious citizens group that meets on the second Tuesday of every month at the Brewery Exchange.

Robinson, Onasch said, helped her form an e-mail list in February to start the group, which brainstorms ways to improve the city. It’s yet another way for the green-minded people to mingle and connect.

“Definitely –people are motivated,” Onasch said. “I definitely feel momentum in building. People are very enthusiastic about the environment.”

To learn more, visit GreenDrinks.org and the CommunityGardensGreenhouse.org.