by Elizabeth Hernandez
DENVER, CO – Instead of inmate beds, a bed of lettuce sits in the Denver jail’s Palmer Building, where a convict dormitory has been transformed into a space for sustainable food growth.
This past February, officers at the jail undertook a pilot program to begin growing their own food on a small scale through aquaponics after hearing about similar setups nationwide, said jail Deputy Hazel Pablo.
The facility is currently waiting on a $20,000 grant through Denver’s Dept. of Environmental Health to expand the operation.
Sheriff’s Deputy Hazel Pablo harvests large plants of romaine lettuce at the Denver County Jail. Officers at the jail have launched a pilot program using aquaponics to grow their food. (Kathryn Scott Osler/The Denver Post photo)
An aquaponics system combines fish with plant cultivation (as fish farmers already know), said J.D. Sawyer, president of Colorado Aquaponics, a Denver-based business that he founded with his wife, Tawnya, in 2009.
In this system, the fish are raised on site, and their nutrient-rich waste is pumped into water housing plant roots. The roots take in the nutrients and return clean water to the fish tank, Sawyer said.
“It’s really meant to be a balanced ecosystem, very similar to what happens already in a natural environment. It has the benefit of localized food production,” Sawyer said.
The result: organic, pesticide-free vegetables produced in a sustainable fashion, Pablo said.
If the jail were to receive the grant and expand the system, the city could save $20,000 in food costs a year, city officials said.
…read the rest and much, much more in Issue 6, 2014 of Fish Farming News.
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