GoingTrueGreen's Blog Postings

SMALL TOWN RESTAURANT PROVES HOW INDIVIDUALS HELP SAVE ENERGY AND EARTH

9/26/2022

Front Street Station restaurant, greenport, southold, north fork, long island, LIRR, David Sailor, Sharon Sailor, saving energy, sustainability, saving money, saving earth, going green, going true green, waterless urinal, kohler, infrared motion switch, greenport new york

Front Street Station Restaurant In Greenport

I had the pleasure to visit, over a two day period, a family owned restaurant that does more proportionally to help our environment and save energy than big corporate chain restaurants. Additionally, the food and desserts were amazing.

Out near the end of the North fork of Long Island, Sharon and David Sailor operate their restaurant, Front Street Station, in the town of Greenport, New York. Located at 212 Front Street, this daughter and father team have an old style bar in an old train car that opens to an atrium for full service dining. Located by the very last stop on the Long Island Railroad that was built for those traveling from New York to Boston in the late 1800s, the restaurant displays photos and railroad history in several ways. At this last stop in Greenport, travelers would disembark the train and then take a boat for the rest of their journey to Boston. While I was enjoying dinner and lunch with David and Sharon, I took in all the history and become acutely aware of their energy and environmental saving actions that many other corporate owned restaurants have not done.

A family owned restaurant taking the initiative to accomplish these actions are especially difficult in a quaint town dependent on summer tourism and now dealing with inflation locked in tandem with a recession after two years of COVID. Nevertheless, Sharon and David should be very proud of their restaurant, community outreach and sustainable accomplishments.

The first item I noticed was the Kohler waterless urinal in the men’s room. Just this one item saves 14 thousand gallons of water per year and cut their water bill in half. This low maintenance unit involves buying a gallon of Kohler’s liquid sealant that is used once a month and lasts for years. Total cost was $300.00 for the waterless urinal, $300.00 professionally installed, $100.00 for the liquid sealant. Payback less than 6 months!

Next were the automatic infrared motion light switches. Very helpful for the time we were misinformed about COVID spreading via surfaces. Yet, since the Flu spreads with surface contact, these switches are very sanitary.

Of course LED light bulbs were being used throughout the restaurant and the payback for that change over is also months.

The bathrooms also utilized Dyson Airblade hand dryers thus saving on the cost to buy rolls of paper towels and then paying for their disposal. FYI: Cost of disposal includes an employee’s time, plastic waste bags, garbage pickup, along with soap and water to wash hands. Then the environment cost comes into play with the process used by the sanitation department.

Hand Dryer

Atrium Facing NE with Evergreens

I was also impressed that the glass enclosed atrium for the dinning area was facing northeast and shaded by Evergreen bushes. These Evergreens offer natural protection from cold winter winds and they are tall enough to provide shade on hot sunny days.

David and Sharon Sailor from Front Street Station, Greenport

These actions stated above were just the ones I noticed while dinning there. I am sure there are other sustainable elements that they did and perhaps additional actions that can still be done. I did not do an energy and sustainability study for the operation and structure of Front Street Station. So I had no influence on Sharon and David at all. As individual business owners they have taken action on their own.

Sadly, our Planet will be in real trouble if individuals keep doing nothing, because they believe that a politician, corporation, political party, government, organization, celebrity or the UN will save us all. Gratefully, we have many Sharon and David Sailor being real superheroes helping to save our world.

Bill Lauto, at GoingTrueGreen.com
Environmental Scientist
International Sustainability and Energy Consultant
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BBV Publishing, untold stories, Telomere, Upper Room, L. J. Williams

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The Complete Truth About Sinking Cities

9/12/2022

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sinking cities, montauk, long island, miami, east end, new york, miami of the north, changing climate, climate change, indonesia, PNAS, seawater, sea levels, peer reviewed, Mr. Fisher, carl fisher, InSAR, satellites, southeast asia, subsidence, groundwater, recharge, solutions, going true green, sustainable living

What is the real cause for some sinking cities?

Allow me to start by sharing a lesson from the 1920s and 1930s that developed on the end of eastern Long Island, in a town call Montauk, New York. This town is named after Montauk Sachem, who was the tribe leader around 1665 that ruled from the eastern end to the western end of Long Island for decades. However, to share this lesson we must first head south to Miami during the 1920s. Miami had become the popular spot to stay in the winter months for prosperous people living in the northern states. Yet, when the hot summer months came in Miami, they abandon Miami to head back north for cooler temperatures.

From this, Carl Fisher who developed Miami Beach in the 1920s, wanted to make Montauk the "Miami of the North" for the summer months. Therefore, all those that can afford the travel, would be able enjoy beach weather all year long without the extreme heat. Miami beaches would be enjoyed in the winter months and Montauk beaches in the summertime. Plans were drawn up to construct hotels, restaurants and clubs to accommodate the potential crowds visiting Montauk in the summer.

For Mr. Fisher, alas, his dream did not come true for one main reason. This reason is the lesson never learned and now a major contributing factor as to why so many cities are sinking, and sinking fast...

Major coastal cities around the world today are sinking and facing flooding caused by the all encompassing battle cry prediction under climate change. Cities such as Miami are losing land to the rising water levels, but is that the complete truth?

The journal Geophysical Research Letters published a study of 99 cities with the end result showing some of the major cities around the world are sinking more than the rising sea around them. How can that be? This is by far a threat more urgent than previously predicted under climate change. Yet, climate change (I prefer, a changing climate) does not have anything to do with this phenomenon. This is what the study reported:

Over 33 cities are sinking more than one centimeter per year. At that rate we find based on data from the PNAS, (National Academy of Sciences) a peer reviewed journal that offered recent estimates of global sea-level rise, we have a sinking rate that is five times faster than the rising seawater levels.

The fastest sinking cities are located in Southeast Asia. Indonesia's capital has a city with 10.5 million people. This city, Jakarta, is sinking fast. So while these cities are not sinking fast because of climate change, they are sinking fast because of other humankind actions.

From InSAR (Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar), a technique for mapping ground deformation using radar images of the Earth's surface, we have collected data from orbiting satellites that show the following:

coastal cities, sinking cities, montauk, long island, miami, east end, new york, miami of the north, changing climate, climate change, indonesia, PNAS, seawater, sea levels, peer reviewed, Mr. Fisher, carl fisher, InSAR, satellites, southeast asia, subsidence, groundwater, recharge, solutions, going true green, sustainable living

Montauk never became the "Miami of the North" because there wasn't enough clean drinkable water under the narrow land strip of eastern Long Island. Pumping water up from the ground would allow salty seawater to encroach and within a few years, there would be no clean domestic water left to use in all the hotels, restaurants and clubs. If this lesson was remembered and expanded upon, humankind would not have pumped up water from below our cities and our cities would not be sinking faster than the rising sea. The humankind issue with the fastest sinking cities isn't called climate change, the name is subsidence.

Subsidence is when land settles or is compacted due to a drastic change well underground. Subsidence is the cause for many of our cities sinking at a faster rate. All of humankind's actions to pump groundwater up and out, causes buildings to sink more and more. If the "Miami of the North" became a reality like Miami in Florida, we would now be comparing the problems of a sinking Miami to a sinking Montauk.

We must now rethink our developments and paving over our land with blacktop and cement. All of this prevents rain from recharging the water tables below. A process that takes centuries when not disrupted. Additional, alternatives must be found so massive extraction of groundwater is reduced or stopped. One advantage New York City has is that their drinking water reservoirs are upstate and not a contributing factor to reducing the water tables below the city. Around the start of this century, the Indonesian government has been regulating the extraction of groundwater. The city of Jakarta was sinking on average 20 centimeters a year for the past three decades. Recently, after new citywide actions, the city only sank 3 centimeters in the past seven years.

So because the media is only pushing a narrative that makes advertisement dollars, they fail to present the complete truth to the public. After all, the media deems facts and truth boring. End result, a delay in knowing the complete story and bringing forth real solutions.

Bill Lauto, at GoingTrueGreen.com
Environmental Scientist
International Sustainability and Energy Consultant
Contribute your comments!

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