BEACON – Scenic Hudson’s Long Dock Park in the City of Beacon is one of eight projects nationwide to achieve certification through the Sustainable Sites Initiative as part of the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center of the University of Texas at Austin.
It was given three out of four stars for its sustainable design, construction and maintenance of built landscapes, said project Director Danielle Pieranunzi.
“It is an urban project; it is a brownfield redevelopment project, which is wonderful. A large concept of the Sustainable Concepts Initiative”, Pieranunzi said. “It is a term called eco-system services, which is basically these benefits that we get from natural systems. So, when you have a degraded site that is very urban like this one and you are restoring these, it is providing opportunities to clean the air and clean the water and providing access to an area that at one point inaccessible to the public.”
Long Dock Beacon is a 14-acre property on the Hudson River that Scenic Hudson has restored for recreational and educational purposes.
The other sites to achieve the certification are in Wimberley, Texas; Houston, Texas; Washington, DC; Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico; Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado; in Scottsdale, Arizona; and in Golden, Colorado.