On board the "Waterpod"

The pod docked at the Worlds Fair Marina in Queens. Photo: Samara Freemark

(click image to enlarge)

This text will be replaced

 Download audio |  Post/Read Comments |

Transcript: Samara Freemark, October 30, 2009

When I caught up with the Waterpod barge, it was docked at a marina right next to Laguardia Airport.

(sound of a plane)

That’s the sound of people and products moving all around the world.

But on board the Waterpod, four artists have spent the summer living locally – about as locally as a group of people can possibly live. They’ve been surviving almost entirely on what they can make, grow, or gather on a 3000 square foot barge.

Which is where I found artist and Waterpod creator Mary Mattingly.

“Hi.”

Last spring, Mattingly and some friends rented the barge and spent a month converting it. They built a kitchen, 4 bedrooms, gardens, and a whole lot of alternative energy and water systems. They wanted to see whether they could create a floating self-contained ecosystem – one that could adapt to a future where resources were scarce and rising sea levels had swamped coastal regions.

“We’re probably going to need to find new ways to make land that’s usable. So can you just recreate it on a platform like this? So what’s the answer? I think so.”

Waterpod launched in June. It’s been traveling to docks in the New York City area since then. The barge is towed around by tugboats – not exactly a sustainable energy source, true, but the crew does pretty well producing just about everything else.”

We have 33 vegetables and 2 fruits. In this garden we’re growing kale, potatoes, tomatoes.”

There’s also a coop for 4 chickens, which each produce an egg a day.

“Their names are Gilly, Rizzo, Marble and Bonzai.”

Between the chickens and the gardens, Mattingly says Waterpod is almost self-sufficient for food. The barge gets its water from collected and purified rain.

“We get enough water barely. We are very close to not having enough water. We only use a 55 gallon jug of water a day. So split between four people that’s about maybe 10 gallons a day at the most. So we’re taking really short showers.”

Solar panels and a power-generating stationary bike provide energy – enough to power the lights and the fridge and an impressive collection of laptop computers. The crew uses those to collect and analyze data on how their various survival systems are functioning.

Crew member Ian Daniels says the data could eventually be used not just by people embarking on radical living experiments – but also by regular folks who just want to make their homes a little more sustainable.

“We have 3000 square feet here. So what would happen if you cut that in half? Or a third? What can I use that space for? Maybe you’re growing food on your roof or in your window. Maybe you just take this example and take it down a notch, just do what’s plausible in your own world.”

The Waterpod experiment is ending. So, I asked the crew for the biggest lesson they learned this summer about living sustainably. Was it about energy conservation? Or, a new method for collecting rainwater? Actually, Mattingly told me, it was mostly about getting along with other people.

“I guess I didn’t really consider what it would be like to live in such a small space for such a long time with other people and the psychology of that became a really interesting part of the day to day life, and how we managed to make that work and how we would have to have that dinner every night to reconnect and get back together.”

Which, she says, is a lesson that translates pretty well back on land.

For The Environment Report, I’m Samara Freemark.

Copyright © 2009. The Regents of the University Of Michigan. Used with permission.