Parks Being Dramatically Altered by Stormwater Projects

Planning that will dramatically change the green spaces of Fontenelle Park, Spring Lake Park and Levi Carter Park is currently underway and was recently completed at Adams Park. Each space is to be modified for community usage or to address sanitary/stormwater discharge requirements.

During the planning process, designs have been typically derived from a common theme: provide additional recreational opportunities and utilize socalled green solutions to reduce stormwater runoff.

Staid designs are often the result, based upon a personal review of park plans and after hearing comments by residents at two recent park planning meetings.

For recreation, it is a matter or using the available landscape to provide options which will increase park usage. Place soccer fields where there is an expanse of flat ground. Add a disc golf course wherever it can fit. Place a dog run area at another place in the park where parking can be readily provided. Put in a recreational trail that follows a circuitous route around the site. Etc.

CSO! options are a regular mantra of adding features that will reduce stormwater runoff during peak precipitation events, and do something to improve water quality. The options repeatedly given are wet and dry detention basins, wetlands, and bioretention gardens. Visibly, an example will soon be presented at the east side of Elmwood Park - along 60th Street - as construction is currently underway at the site.

Landscape and Nature

East Omaha parks landscapes are the result of numerous and repeated impositions during decades of their history, and as currently underway. The changes are quite dramatic.

At Carter Lake, the former oxbow lake will soon be "industrialized" using a massive tonnage of rock riprap, to establish a place to fish regardless of impacts upon other oxbow features, with a slight nod to improving water quality. The master plan then calls for additional changes that will simplify the lake environs. There is no apparent recognition being given to the original character and history of the lake, nor a sense of design other than shoving in whatever feature park visitors might want.

At Spring Lake Park - a site which when purchased did not include a natural lake - plan participants want to put the lake back into Spring Lake Park, ignoring where the lake water originated. The springs provided the water, and land developers decided a lake would be preferable so the flows were dammed. There is nothing in the proposed designs for the park - presented November 15 - to reflect the importance of the flowing springs which are the most unique and important resources of the park environs.

For Fontenelle Park, there is the potential to devise a plan which will reflect its original character - a prairie and trees as land was first being purchased in the mid-1890s - and convey a sense of what park designed H.W.S. Cleveland envisioned. Meetings during the coming months will determine the outcome.

These plans are often based upon an lack of a thorough understanding of the prominent features of the land, its history, intent of original area designs, aesthetics, opportunities at adjacent properties and an incomplete understanding of what the community would prefer.

Nature is an essential part of urban Omaha. Green spaces are a priceless asset for residents, and this value is derived from the simplistic yet unsurpassed presentation of trees and water and open spaces free of the constructs. Soccer fields impose their simplistic view. Massive amounts of riprap do not provide a green perspective. Mown grass is simplistic and unimaginative. Concrete does nothing to add color and variety.

As Omaha parks are being modified, the always dynamic essentials of nature should be foremost in the perspective of planners and reflect an understanding of current, exciting methods of landscape architecture. Without this consideration the city will be a lesser place, dreary to those preferring a vibrant and exciting experience outdoors. Something to enjoy, remember and share.

Planning Elements Essential for Urban Omaha Parkland

Planning efforts for local parks convey an essential need to have a new understanding of some basic tenets of landscape and how it is presented.

Two recently published books convey these essentials. Both should be read thoroughly by the people responsible for designing new landscapes for eastern Omaha parks.

Public Parks, The Key to Livable Communities - issued in 2011 under the authorship of Alexander Garvin - has a broad perspective starting with history of the first parklands in the United States, which date to 1573 at St. Augustine, Florida. The wide-spread establishment of parks throughout the states often included features similar to parks created in Europe during the 1840s.

The subsequent eleven chapters provide an important perspective about parklands, with key topics discussed in the different chapters, which include:

• Key roles
• Design influences
• Parks as evolving artifacts
• Stewardship
• Finance and governance
• The role of the public; and
• Sustainability: the key to success

Each chapter presents examples of how the particular topic was successfully applied to different parks. Many of the parks discussed are in New York City, the homebase of the author, with particular attention given to Central Park.

For this preeminent urban park, the author explains that "the landscape itself is the destination" with the variety of features providing different uses to the community. This element "is dependent on people's continuing ability to get to and enjoy those destinations without interfering with everybody else in the park. It begins at the dividing line between the park and the surrounding city." Entry points are defined. Streets are covered with a canopy of trees. Waterways and vegetation are obviously essential in the success of the park layout. Noise from roadways is masked. Since the designers considered the many influences on the park space, and they were appropriately considered, the park is a success as shown by the many people that visit the space to partake in their own particular activity.

Aesthetic sustainability was shown to be essential, and takes advantage of the changing vistas of the seasons.

The grand design for Central Park was noted as being successful due to the efforts of not only the park designers, but also the many others involved every since the park was created.

Author Garvin states: "public parks are not finished works of art when they are opened to the public. They are the evolving product of a living natural landscape and its interactions with the generations of people who use them."

Prominent park designers considered in the text are Frederick Law Olmstead - to whom the book is dedicated - and H.W.S. Cleveland, who had an essential role in the development of some of the first parks in Omaha and its interconnecting boulevard system, though this aspect of his career is not discussed.

A Landscape Manifesto

This book is a visual treat which has a primary goal to redefine the role of landscape in the urban environment. Author Diana Balmori indicates two "major new tasks" that can be accomplished:

1) "landscape can now create a new kind of livable city"; and

2) "through design it can broker the coexistence of human beings with the rest of nature."

These two tenets are given in the books prelude, and the remainder of the pages present examples using concepts and illustrations derived from actual or potential projects, worldwide.

"Critical shifts" are needed to achieve these tasks, the author indicates. New visions are essential.

The concepts given in this lavish book present a cosmopolitan perspective for landscape in a built environment. Any reader will get a new awareness of what is actually involved in maintaining 31 million acres of lawn in the U.S.A., and the environmental cost!

There are many clever and unique design tidbits presented. There are so many options other than concrete and tons of riprap.

None of the designs shown in this book included riprap.

Use of this artificial material seems to be integral at Omaha to complete a task when a preferable option more integral to a green space, is not considered or used. Projects at Carter Lake and along Happy Hollow Creek will be prominent in their use of these big rocks. There are no aesthetic benefits to using large masses of rock. Neither do they provide a natural setting inviting to people of the community or migratory birds.

There were many tons of rock placed at the concrete structure where the stormwater project east of Elmwood Park, empties into Wood Creek within the park environs. During a visit on November 18th, the base of this megolith was filled with a whitish colored liquid.

The following items are from A Landscape Manifesto as presented by Diana Balmori, in her wonderful book:

"1. Nostalgia for the past and utopian dreams for the future prevent us from looking at our present.

"2. Nature is the flow of change within which humans exist. Evolution is its history. Ecology is our understanding of its present phase.

"3. All things in nature are constantly changing. Landscape artists need to design to allow for change, while seeking a new course that enhances the coexistence of humans and the rest of nature.

"4. Landscape forms encapsulate unseen assumptions. To expose them is to enter the economic and aesthetic struggles of our times.

"5. Historical precedents do not support the common prejudice that human intervention is always harmful to the rest of nature.

"6. Shifts are taking place before our eyes. Landscape artists and architects need to give them a name and make them visible. Aesthetic expertise is needed to enable the transforming relations between humans and the rest of nature to break through into public spaces.

"7. High visibility, multiple alliances, and public support are critical to new landscape genres that portray our present.

"8. Landscape - through new landscape elements - enters the city and modifies our way of being in it.

"9. New landscape elements can become niches for species forced out of their original environment.

"10. The new view of plants as groups of interrelated species modifying each other, rather than as separate and fixed, exemplifies fluidity - a main motif of landscape form.

"11. Nostalgic images of nature are readily accepted, but they are like stage scenery for the wrong play.

"12. In his History of the Modern Taste in Gardening (1780), Horace Walpole writes that William Kent 'was the first to leap the fence and show that the whole of nature was a garden.' Today landscape has leapt the fence in the opposite direction, to the city, making it a part of nature.

"13. Existing urban spaces can be rescued from their current damaging interaction with nature.

"14. Landscape artists can reveal the forces of nature underlying cities, creating a new urban identity from them.

"15. Landscape can create meeting places where people can delight in unexpected forms and spaces, inventing why and how they are to be appreciated.

"16. Landscape, like a moment, never happens twice. This lack of fixity is landscape's asset.

"17. We can heighten the desire for new interactions between humans and nature where it is least expected: in derelict spaces.

"18. Emerging landscapes are becoming brand-new actors on the political stage.

"19. Landscape renders the city as constantly evolving in response to climate, geography, and history.

"20. Landscape can show artistic intention without imposing a predetermined meaning.

"21. Landscape can bridge the line between ourselves and other parts of nature - between ourselves and a river.

"22. Landscape is becoming the main actor of the urban stage, not just a destination.

"23. The edge between architecture and landscape can be porous.

"24. Landscape can be like poetry, highly suggestive and open to multiple interpretations.

"25. We must put the twenty-first century city in nature rather than put nature in the city. To put a city in nature will mean using engineered systems that function as those in nature and deriving form from them."

This summary conveys a nuance to consider once and then again and again. The particulars associated with each item provide the basis for a contemporary attitude towards nature in the city. Chapters in the book provide a foundation for further understanding each item.

These tenets should be recognized and understood as essential aspects in devising plans for urban parkland in Omaha. To do otherwise, would be a mistake of ignorance.

Omaha Nature Center Continues as Hazard

Officials of Omaha Parks Recreation and Public Property department have not yet addressed the window situation at the Hummel Park Nature Center, among the woods used by many sorts of birdlife.

The large windows on the north side, still do not have anything in place to create a visual barrier, to prevent any bird strikes. Officials have said they would be putting something in place to achieve this, but nothing has been done yet, despite their indications.

This is a view of the building on November 20, 2011. Note the reflective character of the glass.

Barriers over the windows which were to be used according to the building's design, will not be available until mid-January.

February Update

This is a photograph of the Hummel Park Nature Center taken Saturday afternoon, February 11th. Obviously the city officials claim that blinds would be in place by mid-January was wrong. This was obviously a false claim!

It was a weak design decision to incorporate something into a building's features that is not even readily available.

Community Debates Future of Fontenelle Park

The future of Fontenelle Park was considered at a community meeting held November 17th at the park pavilion to discuss a master plan and pending changes from the Clean Solutions for Omaha! project.

"Tonight is an opportunity for everyone to have input," said Ben Gray, a member of the Omaha City Council, during one of the many times he spoke.

Parks officials did not propose any features or suggest changes for the 108-acre park. CSO representatives did present options - larger lagoon, retention basins and wetlands - that have been used elsewhere to reduce the extent of stormwater flows and to improve the water quality.

Some of the comments made during the meeting were:

• "manicure of the golf-course has gone downhill"
• "more trees need to be planted"
• improve walkways and provide benches
• would like to see something pleasing to the eye
• Provide soccer fields if no golf course
• make the ponder bigger (this lagoon will be renovated in association with the stormwater separation project)
• provide a larger playground for the kids
• provide gender-neutral and age-neutral uses in the park; there are wonderful opportunities for the park that are not golf-centric
• maintain the natural beauty as it was designed in the original park; would not support uses that degrade the artistic design - these comments were from a member of the Fontenelleview Neighborhood Association
• develop a prairie area on the east hilltop (a neighborhood association has received funds from a mayoral program to establish a prairie setting in Fontenelle Park, as well as in Benson Park)
• wetland are a beautiful theme
• repair the basketball court to help youth activities at the park

The golf course situation received particular attention, as it is no has enough revenue to pay expenses, with about $80,000 lost last year, said Melinda Pearson, director of Omaha Parks and Recreation. The number of rounds played yearly has consistently dropped from 13,757 in 2009, to 11,145 in 2010 and 10,470 this golf season, she noted, adding that the extent of golfing has declined for the past ten years.

If the golf course is to remain, it must be self-supporting, officials stated.

Additional meetings will be held in the next few months to develop community-based plans for park amenities and features for future decades.

The next meeting will include a discussion of Northstar Foundation and the Omaha Home for Boys role in community improvement west of the park. Several dilapidated apartment buildings were recently demolished near 48th and Sahler streets by the Northstar group. There is also a community garden in the immediate vicinity.

The goal is to complete the park's master plan by spring, said Pearson.

About 35 residents attended the meeting along with about a dozen officials with the city and architectural firms were also present. There were two television stations and a reporter for the local newspaper. Several different advocacy groups were represented.

Fontenelle Park is one of Omaha's oldest - property was first acquired in 1893 - with the renowned park planner Horace Cleveland involved in its original design.

Planning Changes at Spring Lake Park

"Between Omaha and South Omaha where the trees are the thickest and the hills most picturesque lies Syndicate Park. Here again is water in abundance and it is the veritable 'wine of the rocks," as clear as ever came from the distilleries of the heavens and flowing in ample and refreshing streams from hidden channels underneath the rock-ribbed river." — February, 28, 1892; Omaha Sunday Bee

A community meeting was held to discuss the stormwater project proposed for the south Omaha area around Spring Lake Park, on the evening of November 17th. This project will dramatically alter the park, which was originally established as privately owned Syndicate Park in the latter 1880s.

Officials for this "Clean Solutions for Omaha!" project presented their "10% conceptual design" and took public comments. Parks and Recreation Department staff also attended the meeting which lasted less than two hours.

The basin for this project covers about 416 acres, which about half is the park and associated golf course.

The primary feature is to add new conduits for sanitary discharge and to revise stormwater runoff facilities so the two do not mix. Peak stormwater runoff would be reduced using retention basins, a created wetland and a wet pond, which would be primarily placed within lowland of the park. Dry detention basins may also be constructed at the golf course.

This work is being required by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Pertinent public comments include:

1. Concern over the runoff of oil from neighborhood streets, and how this would be addressed?
2. The "underwhelming" lake feature being proposed. The commenter was "disappointed" in the plan as presented, and thought there could be "something a little more spectacular" He asked that design considerations include options for a larger lake, that would be a "community enhancement." The lake the person suggested would inundate the entire lowland of the park north of F Street.

Pond proposal for Spring Lake Park, north of F Street. The proposed pond would have a maximum depth of 10-12 feet, which would require excavating extensive amounts of soil from the ravine, according to project officials. A fishery would be provided, probably through the Urban Fisheries Program sponsored by the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission. This pond would inundate at least three or four flowing springs. The water quality basin would also inundate one of the larger and most prevalent springs. Numerous trees would be removed, as well as complete hillsides would need to be obliterated. Graphic courtesy of the City of Omaha.

One particular concern is why the lake area could not be placed south of F Street. Project officials were concerned with the presence of a former landfill in an area which is now unused brome grass. The material would have to be removed and hauled away.

It was noted that if excavation is required for the lagoon proposed north of F Street, why couldn't the excavation be done south of F Street, and avoid inundation of the unique springs in the lowland north of F Street.

In March 1931, city officials completed construction of a new fish pond in the park, and it was located south of F Street. A picture of the first of the three planned ponds was included with the newspaper article. The three lakes would extend about three blocks.

The following personal comments were made during the meeting, with most of them derived from details in a grant application submitted to the Nebraska Environmental Trust:

• Why wasn't this meeting mentioned in the community news -- nothing seen in the newspaper or on a regularly watched television station?? Yet, the project conveys that community awareness is one of its more important features.
• How does project preserve the meadow and wetlands as specifically recognized in a document prepared years ago in association with recognition of parkland features??
• "Wetland, pond, and dry detention facilities will enhance wildlife habitat within the park" – conjecture as there are no particular details given on how this will be achieved
• "Wetland, pond, and dry detention facilities will keep the uniqueness of a natural area within an urban park" - more conjecture
• If the park cannot be kept clean of trash and free of tires now, how would the project result in making the place more attractive or discourage illegal dumping?? Current park cleanups have never accomplished the goal of completely removing unwanted trash or debris.
• It is not possible to improve water quality in the park, as the only water now in the park is spring water, and it does not need any improvement!
• What are the infiltration basins, proposed for just south of F Street??
• Project does not supplement groundwater, as if this means anything in this area anyway!
• How is this project help sustainability of resources?? This is another conjecture as it does just the opposite.
• How much rock would be used with the features of this project?? Most engineers in projects devise plans using massive tonnage's of rock.
• First notes on birds in June 1890; more than 100 species recorded, primarily since 2000; with nearly fifty personal surveys -- there are no subtropical birds at Omaha; there has been no evaluation of how the changes would impact the local avifauna within the park
• Proposed pond just north of F Street will inundate several distinct springs; there are none similar in any other Omaha park -- existing wetlands and brooks not enhanced by inundation -- Project does not enhance existing wetlands, it inundates them!!
• Make site more attractive by clearing underbrush; in direct opposition with other comments on habitat enhancement
• Pond will inundate springs and then on top of that, additional trees would be lost due to walkway
• Many proposed features do not represent Best Management Practices; educational signage would be nothing but propaganda

Audubon people familiar with the project are opposed to inundation of the north springs area. This area is well-used by birds during the winter as the spring flow remains unfrozen and is an important source of water. One planning official called this area an "unused part of the park," though he did retract his comment when provided a different explanation, based upon a bird/wildlife perspective.

An item of immediate concern was a erosional crevice within the park, created due to street runoff which enters the park at 18th and G Street. This hazard has been present for years and never been repaired. The situation would be fixed as part of the stormwater project.

A "30%" preliminary design meeting will be held in the March-April period in 2012.

Online Archives Essential to Historic Ornithology

Any evaluation of historic ornithology for northern America would rely on archival and database information presented online. Without particular information, an adequate consideration would simply not be possible.

There are four primary sources worth recognition and accolades.

ORNIS - The Online Ornithological Information System

Provides a search option to many collections which contain specimen and egg records. This catalog can be "ornery" at times, but there are plans being considered for it to be upgraded, which will improve performance.

The Smithsonian Institution is included with the search option, though they also have their own online catalog.

Google Books

The sheer extent of information available here can be quite overwhelming. It requires focused searches, but often when an item is noted elsewhere, it can often be found in its entirety at this site. The options for searching using multiple words or terms is an essential tool. What is also valuable it that a series of items can often be perused, so if a particular article is part of a series, the other volumes can be reviewed to find the remainder of the information presented.

Online Newspaper Archives

There are two readily apparent online archives of newspapers which have details relative to birds which were published before there was anything like an ornithological journal.

Chronicling America has many newspapers from most of the United States. The most valuable aspect it the search option where criteria can be defined so as to return pertinent records. Paper pages are provided in PDF format, which makes them easy to view and print what might be of interest. This site is essential for its coverage presented for such an expansive geographic region.

The California Digital Newspaper Collection presents newspapers from 1846 to 1922, and is maintained by the University of California, Riverside. It is a wonderful source of information, with an easy to use search tool. Results are presented in a user-friendly manner which includes a snippet of the particular item, making it much easier to evaluate its content and any need to take a closer look. The few words are often enough to convey that the item does not have details for the topic.

The CDNC search results are preferable to the similar feature at the Chronicling America site where search results show the matching items in a pdf document, which requires further evaluation of the page. This requires downloading the entire page and zooming in to determine if the results are of any significance.

Search results for the California newspapers can also be evaluated based upon the type of item (article or advertisement and whether there is an associated image), as well as the year of issue. Providing different methods of sorting details is what makes this online service especially valuable. Each page presented can be viewed in a portable document format, which makes it an easy task to find something of interest and then get a printout for further consideration.

Efforts such as these have allowed research into the history of ornithology to expand to a whole new realm where a multitude of records, historic books or documents, and oldtime newspapers can be considered. These sources often contain records of species for a particular place and time. Early history newspaper often had details of bird occurrence during an era when there was no such thing as an ornithological journal.

These creation of these archives is one of the top developments in the study of birds which have become available during the past ten years. They surpass many other notable achievements for this period, and are absolutely a most essential aspect for anyone with an interest in the study of the fascinating details and nuance of historic ornithology.

Autumn Pictorial - Spring Lake Park

A visit was made to Spring Lake Park in south Omaha to see what autumn birds were about on November 1, 2011. There weren't many birds, but it was a nice day and the autumn colors were vibrant.

Debris dumped in the north part of the park.
With the many tires usually about this park, it should almost be called tire park!

Former ball field which will be made into a stormwater detention basin (i.e., a wetland).

Illegal fire site.

Fishing tackle box abandoned at the south spring, the largest in the park. What might they have been fishing for?

The following two images indicate the results of unfettered stormwater runoff from the corner at 18th and G Streets. The resultant erosional rift - more than 20 feet deep and a prominent park hazard - among the forest trees has been ongoing for years, and the Public Works department has never addressed the problem.

Perhaps a local resident is trying to build a facility for a tire business.

This is a view of the area where there was a fishing pond constructed in 1931, according to a newspaper article of the era.

Water stream from a north spring. The robins - and other birds - enjoy this water for drinking and bathing, especially during the winter when few other water sources are available. This spring and others would be inundated by a pond.