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permaculture - Re: [permaculture] Durable alternative to asphalt?

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  • From: Toby Hemenway <hemenway@jeffnet.org>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Durable alternative to asphalt?
  • Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2004 09:10:05 -0800

Ben Haggard (ReGenesis Design) and partners in Santa Fe have done a number of parking lots that, although compromised by code restrictions and the engineering mentality (Water is your enemy! Banish it to the ocean!), work pretty well. They are asphalt, laid out more or less on contour, and have parking-space-sized slots and other well-planted interruptions in the pavement to intercept runoff and allow it to percolate (think "series of small swales"). The engineers have forced them to put drains in them too, but even in big storms, water rarely makes it to the drains, or so Ben told me. The plantings probably help filter out petroleum pollutants too. You might be able to design some of the swales so that snow from plowing could be piled onto them to melt. They get some snow in Santa Fe, but not as much as Organic Valley does.

Toby
http://www.patternliteracy.com

Anyone have any
experience in a northern clime with something other than gravel,
asphalt, & these permeable tiles which shift around & would make it
hard for snow plowing?






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