Lis Thomas, May 24th, 2024
Title
Lis Thomas, May 24th, 2024
Description
In this interview, Lis Thomas discusses her background in farming, the impacts of climate change on urban farmers, and the ways urban farmers are attempting to alleviate these effects. She also talks about flooding in the Jefferson Chalmers and East Poletown neighborhoods of Detroit.
Publisher
Detroit Historical Society
Rights
Detroit Historical Society
Language
en-US
Narrator/Interviewee's Name
Lis Thomas
Brief Biography
Lis Thomas has been living in Detroit since the early 2010s, and currently works as both an environmental consultant and the owner of Bloomtown, a flower farm founded in the East Poletown neighborhood of Detroit in 2021.
Interviewer's Name
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo
Date
5/24/2024
Interview Length
23:19
Transcription
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: I’m Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo, it’s May 24th, 2024. And I'm here with, please say your name.
Lis Thomas: Lis Thomas.
DLT: Can you please spell your name?
LT: L i s T h o m a s.
DLT: And do you live in the city of Detroit?
LT: I do.
DLT: How long have you lived there?
LT: About 11 years.
DLT: What neighborhood do you live in?
LT: I live in East Poletown.
DLT: And do you work in the city of Detroit?
LT: I don't.
DLT: What career are you in?
LT: Well, I have two, I guess. I run a flower farm, which is in the city of Detroit, and then I'm also an environmental consultant.
DLT: And how long have you had that flower farm?
LT: I think it's my third year.
DLT: What's the name of your business?
LT: Bloomtown.
DLT: And where in Detroit is it located?
LT: It's next to my house in East Poletown.
DLT: How did you get into farming?
LT: I've always farmed. I grew up doing it. And then I worked with urban farms for a long time in, like, a nonprofit capacity. And through, like, university work. I went to grad school for soil science. So I've been involved in agriculture for a long time, and then I have worked on other farms in the past. But this is the first flower farm that I've run.
DLT: And what were some of those urban farms you've worked on in the past?
LT: They were in New York City and in Vancouver, BC. Do you want to know about them? I'm not sure if it's relevant since they weren’t in Detroit.
DLT: Did it kind of help you create Bloomtown with that experience?
LT: Sure, yeah.
DLT: And how did Bloomtown itself get started? What were the early days of that like?
LT: Well I had been working at a job in an industry that I didn't like. So when I quit that job, I took small business class through ProsperUs Detroit, which is a program, I think it was through Eastside Community Network. And that sort of walked me through the steps of starting a business, so I knew I wanted to do an agriculture business. And I ended up with flowers based on some of the research that I did in the class.
DLT: And what did that Eastside Community Network help look like?
LT: It was really just kind of— I mean, they offer a lot more support than I've probably taken advantage of, but the course was a 20 week course that really walked us through the process of putting together a business plan and doing market research and understanding different types of business setups.
DLT: And is your urban farm impacted by climate change, from your perspective?
LT: It is impacted by climate change. Yeah.
DLT: What do you believe the impacts of climate change are on your farm?
LT: Well, I mean, there's quite a few, right? So we have a lot of increased storm events. So for me, there's a lot of wind that would be related to that, heavy rain events. And then, for instance, we can have a really bad pest year if we don't have a cold winter. It does change a little bit some of the planning that I do for the future, in terms of planting things that will maybe provide windbreaks, provide insulation, and shade, things like that.
And then also as I'm planting for the future when I plant perennials, I am thinking about what kind of pest impacts I might see down the line that maybe weren't typical for this region in the past. Or whether I can plant things for warmer climates, for instance. So, there's— Michigan used to be, like, probably a zone 5 here, and we're now definitely a zone 5B, a lot of people say we're zone 6A. The climate this year at least would indicate that.
So, there's a lot of impacts like that. And then of course in Detroit, and the work I do is mostly about industrial pollution and agricultural impacts. So, not entirely climate change, but there's a lot of specific factors of growing in an urban environment that you have to consider.
DLT: Can you tell me a little bit more about those factors?
LT: Sure! I mean, throughout Detroit we really don't have native soil here. We mostly have imported soil, which is really a mix of anthropogenic materials, construction fill. Where my farm is particularly, it used to be all houses, and now it's not. So, the soil is going to have, not only like a lot of sand and clay, which aren't necessarily typical for the region because they were construction fill, but also it's going to have fairly high lead from house paint in the past. You may have impacts from fires. You can have other metals in addition to lead, of course, like cadmium, arsenic, nickel, zinc. And then there's atmospheric deposition from exhaust and from roadways that will settle onto the surface of plants.
So when considering what kinds of food we eat and what kinds of soil we use, most of the people I know do not grow in the soil that, like, in the existing soil, we grow on top of soil. We maybe put down a geotextile barrier and then add compost on top. But depending on the source of your compost, if it's a municipal compost, you could still end up with, as the organic matter decomposes, you may still end up with accumulation of metals. You can still have atmospheric deposition, of like, just PAHs: polyaromatic hydrocarbons. More metals from like, zinc from brakes and tires. Nickel, things like that, that can settle onto the surface of your plants.
DLT: And are all of these issues as well in those farms you saw in New York and in Vancouver, or are some of these unique to Detroit?
LT: I mean, these are issues for urban farms throughout. My work in New York really impacted my decision to go and study soil contamination in grad school, which I did in Vancouver, which is why I was there. Certain cities have more contamination than others. Detroit is obviously pretty high. Which doesn't mean that you can't grow things here. It just means that there's, you know, certain mitigation factors that you want to consider.
DLT: And going back to climate change, do you feel that combating climate change is an important part of your work?
LT: Absolutely. Yeah.
DLT: And what do you do to attempt to do that through your work?
LT: I mean, here's the thing. We can't, really. We can combat climate change. But as a farmer on a small scale, you know, I'm not— A large scale farmer might have more of an impact on climate change because they are turning soil, which is going to release stored carbon. They might be spraying fertilizers on the land, which could run off into waterways and cause, like, eutrophication, like we see in Lake Erie, things like that.
On a small scale, there is no way that any of my farm practices are going to actually make a dent in climate change. That's just sort of what that is. So I really, I mean, I do no-till agriculture, I don't fertilize other than with compost, but if I were to fertilize, I would of course be mindful of, you know, applications, not applying before it rains, things like that.
But really, I think for what I see and for what I'm doing, and probably for most small scale urban farmers, what we're really doing is focusing on climate change mitigation and climate change adaptation. So we are trying to create landscapes that maybe provide more shade in the future for homes, for residents. We're trying to rebuild soil so that we can generate some places for soil carbon.
And really, particularly, especially in the city where we have such a major stormwater problem because our sewer system is so old and poorly maintained, creating places, green spaces, and maintaining them so that they can be a place for stormwater runoff to sink rather than run off into the storm sewer. That's really important. But it's not, it's not fighting climate change. It's mitigating and adapting to climate change so it can mitigate the impacts that we see in our homes or in our urban environment. But it's not going to reverse it, by any means.
DLT: And from your perspective, what has been the reaction of the community to these mitigation efforts?
LT: I mean, the community loves green space. So, people like urban farms, people like gardens, people like parks and green space that they can walk in, that they feel welcome in. When I do talk to my neighbors, I spend probably a fair amount of time talking to my neighbors because they walk down my block and they stop while I’m gardening, one of the things we really talk about a lot— It’s hard to engage people on climate change, it feels sort of nebulous.
But there are really good ways to engage people. If you can say, hey, did your basement flood last year? What's up with that? Here's some things that we can do, like, you know, to reconnect your downspouts, to, say, rain barrels or to funnel some of the stormwater runoff from your home or your business to places where it's not going to impact you. I think that is a lot more useful sometimes. Because all of us in Detroit have experienced a lot of flooding, or property impacts. But I think people are more motivated to make changes when it's presented in that kind of a way.
DLT: And can you tell me a little bit more about the impacts of stormwater on the community?
LT: Oh, sure. I'm sure you've spoken to a lot of people. I mean, at least on my street, I'm the only person who lives on my street. But, I mean, my basement has filled with water multiple times. I used to live over in Jefferson Chalmers. Everyone there, at least in the seven years that I lived in that neighborhood, pretty much all of us had our basements flood twice with, I mean, I'm talking like 4 to 8ft of water, not like a couple inches. So yeah, I mean, people have had to replace all their appliances. People lost their cars. The entire neighborhood was underwater in 2018.
So there's a lot going on there that I think really has affected our community. And I don't know if you've seen the billboards around town that say, like, are you having, like, climate-related anxiety about storm events? But I mean, there's a reason those are around. I certainly have that. Every time it rains, I'm kind of inclined to go check my sump pump and think about that. So there's been a lot of— Because the infrastructure in Detroit is so out-of-date and poorly maintained. And then because we keep seeing these 100 year storm events, I think there's, most people in Detroit have been affected by that.
DLT: What do you think the biggest needs are regarding the infrastructure? What needs to change?
LT: Oh, well, I mean, the city did put in, I think it was, gosh, I think it was in ’18, ‘19. You might know better than I do. They put in the CSO facilities, the combined sewage overflow. I want to say those might have helped? I'm not sure. They certainly haven't helped in all cases because we've still had a lot of, a lot of stormwater issues throughout the city and in my community for sure.
I mean, the biggest issue now would probably be rather than building new infrastructure, maintaining and repairing the existing sewer lines, especially in neighborhoods where there's been some disinvestment, where there aren't as many people living, where there aren't as many houses as there used to be. A lot of those sewers are just partially collapsed, full of roots, poorly maintained, or probably not really maintained.
DLT: And do you have plans for more mitigation efforts you could do on your farm for the future?
LT: Yeah. I'm working with the USDA on a couple of conservation practices that I do, which include preventing soil erosion, which also helps to reduce, like, sedimentation and build-up in the sewer system itself and in our storm sewers. So, I do mulching, I do cover cropping, the purpose of which is really to keep the soil where it is, rather than allowing it to run off in a heavy flow. I plant native plants, pretty much all over the place. I have lots of pollinator gardens. I maintain beehives, and I plant trees.
So, that's something that I do every year and will probably continue doing as long as I live here. So, hopefully that will provide some increased shade, especially as a lot of our trees in the community are sort of getting towards the end of their lifespan, that are about 80 to 100 years old, planting new trees for the future so that we can keep our houses cool and insulated.
DLT: Do you cooperate with a lot of other urban farmers nearby?
LT: Yeah, I do. I, well, my neighborhood, I don't know if you're familiar with it, but we have. I mean, there's farms all over the place here. And then I'm part of a couple different farm co-ops. So I'm part of City Commons, which is a CSA co-op where we source food boxes from a bunch of local farms, so everyone contributes different things. I live near Treetroit or the ARB, which is a community initiative and a nonprofit now to create parks and plant more trees in the neighborhood to create green space for people. Yeah, and then I'm part of a flower growers cooperative as well. So, I work with a lot of flower farmers from other parts of Detroit and also from Washtenaw County.
DLT: Can you tell me a little bit about your work as an environmental consultant?
LT: Sure! Mostly, I do quite a few different things. Mostly, I work with environmental permitting and compliance. I mainly work with industrial clients. It's mostly because they're the ones who have money to pay consultants. So, I do a lot of permitting. I also work with handling and storage of highly hazardous chemicals. So I work with a lot of chemical manufacturing. I do stormwater plans and work with clients, like, developing stormwater infrastructure, oil pollution prevention plans, which is, it's a federal requirement. It's also a state requirement.
Yeah, so I do a lot of developing programing and compliance assistance. And then I also do what we call site solutions, which is more, I tend to work at the intersection of, like, soil contamination and stormwater impacts. So, working a lot of the time with clients to identify, you know, it can be a range of things. Sometimes it's, like, past historic land use, and that's causing contamination of stormwater and working on, like, mitigations and ways of correcting that. So it's never the same.
DLT: And how would you say that your work as a farmer and a consultant affect each other?
LT: Nothing that you learn ever really goes to waste. So, when I'm farming, I am certainly always thinking, I think, I probably think a little bit more about stormwater impacts and about, like, large-scale impacts. So, you know, I have my little farm, but I'm often thinking about how I'm going to, you know, prevent phosphorus runoff to my storm sewers, etc. I mean, I don't use a phosphorus fertilizer, but if I did.
So I think I'm usually a little bit more engaged on the chemical/technical aspect of things. Which can be really useful. I mean, it's separate. In many ways, it's separate from the work I do as a farmer. But it's really useful for me to help some of the other urban farmers that I know and that I work with to kind of understand some of what's going on, on the science and on the chemistry side of what they're doing.
A number of people in town—and this is really why I started doing this sort of work to begin with—people have a lot of questions about soil contamination, how it affects plants, what parts of plants it affects. And it's really not, there aren't really clear cut answers. It really depends on what you're growing, how you're growing it, what your soil is like. So I do a lot of work with just sort of helping people to understand that, when possible. I have taught some workshops in town, just community workshops on, like, soil assessment, how to know what your risks might be, and how to work around them.
Most people in Detroit really don't have the money or the technical background to be doing, you know, a lot of soil testing and then also to be interpreting the results. And then, kind of everybody in my community sort of just knows that if they do do any soil testing, I will be very excited to help them understand what it means.
So, yeah, I mean, I try to spread that understanding in a way that is accessible to people and that's useful. I think there can be a real disconnect with, like, how people understand technical information. And it's important to value that growing food in a city is important, and it's important ecologically, and it's important for social reasons as well. So you don't want to scare people away from doing it by saying, you know, your food could be contaminated. It's more really just about helping people to understand what the risks are. And, you know, just general best practices.
DLT: So what would you say to someone who was interested in urban farming, but was concerned about contamination or any other challenges of urban farming?
LT: Depending on what they were growing, and I would probably talk to them about what they were growing first, what they were planning to grow, and talk about creating, you know, probably some sort of either a geotextile barrier or, like, cardboard, you know, biodegradable barrier, over the existing soil, putting compost on top. If possible, and this is not possible for everyone, but if possible, buying compost from somewhere where you can get, analytical information about what's in that compost. And I generally recommend—and the USDA has a program, I'm sure you've seen the hoop houses all over town—but growing food in a hoop house is better because it will prevent atmospheric deposition from the air of, like, particulate onto your soil surface and your leaf surfaces.
DLT: And you did allude to this earlier, but what would you say to someone who doesn't believe that climate change is real or an issue?
LT: Well, there aren't a lot of those people here in Detroit. [Laughter] Occasionally I might run into somebody who thinks that climate change isn't real and isn't an issue. And really, there's not much I can say to them that's going to change their mind, I don't think. Whether or not people think that climate change is an issue I think doesn't necessarily impact,what they're doing or the impact they might have.
I mean, I am well aware that climate change is an issue. I still drive a car, you know, with a combustion engine. So. I feel that on, like the personal level there, there are things we can do, but it's really not going to affect the kind of change that, you know, industry regulation or something is going to affect because there's so much more pollution on that end. Yeah, I mean, if somebody doesn't believe in climate change, I'm not going to change their mind. I'm also not going to agree with them.
And I'm not really an arguer. If they wish to continue talking about it, you know, I'm sure I could point to some things or get them to acknowledge some items. But, I mean, there's nobody in Detroit that I've ever met who's trying to say climate change isn't an issue. You know, we've all experienced major impacts of climate change here, especially with, like, damage to our homes, flooding increases, like, heating and cooling costs, things like that.
DLT: And was there anything else you wanted to discuss that none of my questions brought up?
LT: No. Thank you so much for reaching out!
DLT: Thank you so much for your time.
Lis Thomas: Lis Thomas.
DLT: Can you please spell your name?
LT: L i s T h o m a s.
DLT: And do you live in the city of Detroit?
LT: I do.
DLT: How long have you lived there?
LT: About 11 years.
DLT: What neighborhood do you live in?
LT: I live in East Poletown.
DLT: And do you work in the city of Detroit?
LT: I don't.
DLT: What career are you in?
LT: Well, I have two, I guess. I run a flower farm, which is in the city of Detroit, and then I'm also an environmental consultant.
DLT: And how long have you had that flower farm?
LT: I think it's my third year.
DLT: What's the name of your business?
LT: Bloomtown.
DLT: And where in Detroit is it located?
LT: It's next to my house in East Poletown.
DLT: How did you get into farming?
LT: I've always farmed. I grew up doing it. And then I worked with urban farms for a long time in, like, a nonprofit capacity. And through, like, university work. I went to grad school for soil science. So I've been involved in agriculture for a long time, and then I have worked on other farms in the past. But this is the first flower farm that I've run.
DLT: And what were some of those urban farms you've worked on in the past?
LT: They were in New York City and in Vancouver, BC. Do you want to know about them? I'm not sure if it's relevant since they weren’t in Detroit.
DLT: Did it kind of help you create Bloomtown with that experience?
LT: Sure, yeah.
DLT: And how did Bloomtown itself get started? What were the early days of that like?
LT: Well I had been working at a job in an industry that I didn't like. So when I quit that job, I took small business class through ProsperUs Detroit, which is a program, I think it was through Eastside Community Network. And that sort of walked me through the steps of starting a business, so I knew I wanted to do an agriculture business. And I ended up with flowers based on some of the research that I did in the class.
DLT: And what did that Eastside Community Network help look like?
LT: It was really just kind of— I mean, they offer a lot more support than I've probably taken advantage of, but the course was a 20 week course that really walked us through the process of putting together a business plan and doing market research and understanding different types of business setups.
DLT: And is your urban farm impacted by climate change, from your perspective?
LT: It is impacted by climate change. Yeah.
DLT: What do you believe the impacts of climate change are on your farm?
LT: Well, I mean, there's quite a few, right? So we have a lot of increased storm events. So for me, there's a lot of wind that would be related to that, heavy rain events. And then, for instance, we can have a really bad pest year if we don't have a cold winter. It does change a little bit some of the planning that I do for the future, in terms of planting things that will maybe provide windbreaks, provide insulation, and shade, things like that.
And then also as I'm planting for the future when I plant perennials, I am thinking about what kind of pest impacts I might see down the line that maybe weren't typical for this region in the past. Or whether I can plant things for warmer climates, for instance. So, there's— Michigan used to be, like, probably a zone 5 here, and we're now definitely a zone 5B, a lot of people say we're zone 6A. The climate this year at least would indicate that.
So, there's a lot of impacts like that. And then of course in Detroit, and the work I do is mostly about industrial pollution and agricultural impacts. So, not entirely climate change, but there's a lot of specific factors of growing in an urban environment that you have to consider.
DLT: Can you tell me a little bit more about those factors?
LT: Sure! I mean, throughout Detroit we really don't have native soil here. We mostly have imported soil, which is really a mix of anthropogenic materials, construction fill. Where my farm is particularly, it used to be all houses, and now it's not. So, the soil is going to have, not only like a lot of sand and clay, which aren't necessarily typical for the region because they were construction fill, but also it's going to have fairly high lead from house paint in the past. You may have impacts from fires. You can have other metals in addition to lead, of course, like cadmium, arsenic, nickel, zinc. And then there's atmospheric deposition from exhaust and from roadways that will settle onto the surface of plants.
So when considering what kinds of food we eat and what kinds of soil we use, most of the people I know do not grow in the soil that, like, in the existing soil, we grow on top of soil. We maybe put down a geotextile barrier and then add compost on top. But depending on the source of your compost, if it's a municipal compost, you could still end up with, as the organic matter decomposes, you may still end up with accumulation of metals. You can still have atmospheric deposition, of like, just PAHs: polyaromatic hydrocarbons. More metals from like, zinc from brakes and tires. Nickel, things like that, that can settle onto the surface of your plants.
DLT: And are all of these issues as well in those farms you saw in New York and in Vancouver, or are some of these unique to Detroit?
LT: I mean, these are issues for urban farms throughout. My work in New York really impacted my decision to go and study soil contamination in grad school, which I did in Vancouver, which is why I was there. Certain cities have more contamination than others. Detroit is obviously pretty high. Which doesn't mean that you can't grow things here. It just means that there's, you know, certain mitigation factors that you want to consider.
DLT: And going back to climate change, do you feel that combating climate change is an important part of your work?
LT: Absolutely. Yeah.
DLT: And what do you do to attempt to do that through your work?
LT: I mean, here's the thing. We can't, really. We can combat climate change. But as a farmer on a small scale, you know, I'm not— A large scale farmer might have more of an impact on climate change because they are turning soil, which is going to release stored carbon. They might be spraying fertilizers on the land, which could run off into waterways and cause, like, eutrophication, like we see in Lake Erie, things like that.
On a small scale, there is no way that any of my farm practices are going to actually make a dent in climate change. That's just sort of what that is. So I really, I mean, I do no-till agriculture, I don't fertilize other than with compost, but if I were to fertilize, I would of course be mindful of, you know, applications, not applying before it rains, things like that.
But really, I think for what I see and for what I'm doing, and probably for most small scale urban farmers, what we're really doing is focusing on climate change mitigation and climate change adaptation. So we are trying to create landscapes that maybe provide more shade in the future for homes, for residents. We're trying to rebuild soil so that we can generate some places for soil carbon.
And really, particularly, especially in the city where we have such a major stormwater problem because our sewer system is so old and poorly maintained, creating places, green spaces, and maintaining them so that they can be a place for stormwater runoff to sink rather than run off into the storm sewer. That's really important. But it's not, it's not fighting climate change. It's mitigating and adapting to climate change so it can mitigate the impacts that we see in our homes or in our urban environment. But it's not going to reverse it, by any means.
DLT: And from your perspective, what has been the reaction of the community to these mitigation efforts?
LT: I mean, the community loves green space. So, people like urban farms, people like gardens, people like parks and green space that they can walk in, that they feel welcome in. When I do talk to my neighbors, I spend probably a fair amount of time talking to my neighbors because they walk down my block and they stop while I’m gardening, one of the things we really talk about a lot— It’s hard to engage people on climate change, it feels sort of nebulous.
But there are really good ways to engage people. If you can say, hey, did your basement flood last year? What's up with that? Here's some things that we can do, like, you know, to reconnect your downspouts, to, say, rain barrels or to funnel some of the stormwater runoff from your home or your business to places where it's not going to impact you. I think that is a lot more useful sometimes. Because all of us in Detroit have experienced a lot of flooding, or property impacts. But I think people are more motivated to make changes when it's presented in that kind of a way.
DLT: And can you tell me a little bit more about the impacts of stormwater on the community?
LT: Oh, sure. I'm sure you've spoken to a lot of people. I mean, at least on my street, I'm the only person who lives on my street. But, I mean, my basement has filled with water multiple times. I used to live over in Jefferson Chalmers. Everyone there, at least in the seven years that I lived in that neighborhood, pretty much all of us had our basements flood twice with, I mean, I'm talking like 4 to 8ft of water, not like a couple inches. So yeah, I mean, people have had to replace all their appliances. People lost their cars. The entire neighborhood was underwater in 2018.
So there's a lot going on there that I think really has affected our community. And I don't know if you've seen the billboards around town that say, like, are you having, like, climate-related anxiety about storm events? But I mean, there's a reason those are around. I certainly have that. Every time it rains, I'm kind of inclined to go check my sump pump and think about that. So there's been a lot of— Because the infrastructure in Detroit is so out-of-date and poorly maintained. And then because we keep seeing these 100 year storm events, I think there's, most people in Detroit have been affected by that.
DLT: What do you think the biggest needs are regarding the infrastructure? What needs to change?
LT: Oh, well, I mean, the city did put in, I think it was, gosh, I think it was in ’18, ‘19. You might know better than I do. They put in the CSO facilities, the combined sewage overflow. I want to say those might have helped? I'm not sure. They certainly haven't helped in all cases because we've still had a lot of, a lot of stormwater issues throughout the city and in my community for sure.
I mean, the biggest issue now would probably be rather than building new infrastructure, maintaining and repairing the existing sewer lines, especially in neighborhoods where there's been some disinvestment, where there aren't as many people living, where there aren't as many houses as there used to be. A lot of those sewers are just partially collapsed, full of roots, poorly maintained, or probably not really maintained.
DLT: And do you have plans for more mitigation efforts you could do on your farm for the future?
LT: Yeah. I'm working with the USDA on a couple of conservation practices that I do, which include preventing soil erosion, which also helps to reduce, like, sedimentation and build-up in the sewer system itself and in our storm sewers. So, I do mulching, I do cover cropping, the purpose of which is really to keep the soil where it is, rather than allowing it to run off in a heavy flow. I plant native plants, pretty much all over the place. I have lots of pollinator gardens. I maintain beehives, and I plant trees.
So, that's something that I do every year and will probably continue doing as long as I live here. So, hopefully that will provide some increased shade, especially as a lot of our trees in the community are sort of getting towards the end of their lifespan, that are about 80 to 100 years old, planting new trees for the future so that we can keep our houses cool and insulated.
DLT: Do you cooperate with a lot of other urban farmers nearby?
LT: Yeah, I do. I, well, my neighborhood, I don't know if you're familiar with it, but we have. I mean, there's farms all over the place here. And then I'm part of a couple different farm co-ops. So I'm part of City Commons, which is a CSA co-op where we source food boxes from a bunch of local farms, so everyone contributes different things. I live near Treetroit or the ARB, which is a community initiative and a nonprofit now to create parks and plant more trees in the neighborhood to create green space for people. Yeah, and then I'm part of a flower growers cooperative as well. So, I work with a lot of flower farmers from other parts of Detroit and also from Washtenaw County.
DLT: Can you tell me a little bit about your work as an environmental consultant?
LT: Sure! Mostly, I do quite a few different things. Mostly, I work with environmental permitting and compliance. I mainly work with industrial clients. It's mostly because they're the ones who have money to pay consultants. So, I do a lot of permitting. I also work with handling and storage of highly hazardous chemicals. So I work with a lot of chemical manufacturing. I do stormwater plans and work with clients, like, developing stormwater infrastructure, oil pollution prevention plans, which is, it's a federal requirement. It's also a state requirement.
Yeah, so I do a lot of developing programing and compliance assistance. And then I also do what we call site solutions, which is more, I tend to work at the intersection of, like, soil contamination and stormwater impacts. So, working a lot of the time with clients to identify, you know, it can be a range of things. Sometimes it's, like, past historic land use, and that's causing contamination of stormwater and working on, like, mitigations and ways of correcting that. So it's never the same.
DLT: And how would you say that your work as a farmer and a consultant affect each other?
LT: Nothing that you learn ever really goes to waste. So, when I'm farming, I am certainly always thinking, I think, I probably think a little bit more about stormwater impacts and about, like, large-scale impacts. So, you know, I have my little farm, but I'm often thinking about how I'm going to, you know, prevent phosphorus runoff to my storm sewers, etc. I mean, I don't use a phosphorus fertilizer, but if I did.
So I think I'm usually a little bit more engaged on the chemical/technical aspect of things. Which can be really useful. I mean, it's separate. In many ways, it's separate from the work I do as a farmer. But it's really useful for me to help some of the other urban farmers that I know and that I work with to kind of understand some of what's going on, on the science and on the chemistry side of what they're doing.
A number of people in town—and this is really why I started doing this sort of work to begin with—people have a lot of questions about soil contamination, how it affects plants, what parts of plants it affects. And it's really not, there aren't really clear cut answers. It really depends on what you're growing, how you're growing it, what your soil is like. So I do a lot of work with just sort of helping people to understand that, when possible. I have taught some workshops in town, just community workshops on, like, soil assessment, how to know what your risks might be, and how to work around them.
Most people in Detroit really don't have the money or the technical background to be doing, you know, a lot of soil testing and then also to be interpreting the results. And then, kind of everybody in my community sort of just knows that if they do do any soil testing, I will be very excited to help them understand what it means.
So, yeah, I mean, I try to spread that understanding in a way that is accessible to people and that's useful. I think there can be a real disconnect with, like, how people understand technical information. And it's important to value that growing food in a city is important, and it's important ecologically, and it's important for social reasons as well. So you don't want to scare people away from doing it by saying, you know, your food could be contaminated. It's more really just about helping people to understand what the risks are. And, you know, just general best practices.
DLT: So what would you say to someone who was interested in urban farming, but was concerned about contamination or any other challenges of urban farming?
LT: Depending on what they were growing, and I would probably talk to them about what they were growing first, what they were planning to grow, and talk about creating, you know, probably some sort of either a geotextile barrier or, like, cardboard, you know, biodegradable barrier, over the existing soil, putting compost on top. If possible, and this is not possible for everyone, but if possible, buying compost from somewhere where you can get, analytical information about what's in that compost. And I generally recommend—and the USDA has a program, I'm sure you've seen the hoop houses all over town—but growing food in a hoop house is better because it will prevent atmospheric deposition from the air of, like, particulate onto your soil surface and your leaf surfaces.
DLT: And you did allude to this earlier, but what would you say to someone who doesn't believe that climate change is real or an issue?
LT: Well, there aren't a lot of those people here in Detroit. [Laughter] Occasionally I might run into somebody who thinks that climate change isn't real and isn't an issue. And really, there's not much I can say to them that's going to change their mind, I don't think. Whether or not people think that climate change is an issue I think doesn't necessarily impact,what they're doing or the impact they might have.
I mean, I am well aware that climate change is an issue. I still drive a car, you know, with a combustion engine. So. I feel that on, like the personal level there, there are things we can do, but it's really not going to affect the kind of change that, you know, industry regulation or something is going to affect because there's so much more pollution on that end. Yeah, I mean, if somebody doesn't believe in climate change, I'm not going to change their mind. I'm also not going to agree with them.
And I'm not really an arguer. If they wish to continue talking about it, you know, I'm sure I could point to some things or get them to acknowledge some items. But, I mean, there's nobody in Detroit that I've ever met who's trying to say climate change isn't an issue. You know, we've all experienced major impacts of climate change here, especially with, like, damage to our homes, flooding increases, like, heating and cooling costs, things like that.
DLT: And was there anything else you wanted to discuss that none of my questions brought up?
LT: No. Thank you so much for reaching out!
DLT: Thank you so much for your time.
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Citation
“Lis Thomas, May 24th, 2024,” Detroit Historical Society Oral History Archive, accessed January 21, 2025, https://oralhistory.detroithistorical.org/items/show/1022.