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Why So Many Jails Are Embracing Aquaponics [CityLab.com]

 

Dressed in traffic-cone orange, a similar shade to the fish under their care, inmates at the San Francisco County Jail set about their weekly duties: checking for pests, pH levels and the overall welfare of the jail’s pilot aquaponics program, the first of its kind in the state.

With guidance from their instructor, who has been schooling them on everything from plant biology to economics, the inmates check on the roughly 80 goldfish swimming in a 400-gallon blue water tank, and the beds growing jalapeños, berries, basil, rosemary and other plants.

Aquaponics weds aquaculture, or fish farming, with hydroponics, the science of gardening without soil. Water is pumped from a fish tank into plant beds, where bacteria breaks down fish waste into fertilizing nutrients for the plants. The water is then filtered as it passes through the plant beds and cycled back into the fish tank. It’s an emerging technology that offers several benefits over conventional gardening or farming. Aquaponics uses 90 percent less water than conventional growing methods, does not use pesticides, and grows food faster.

Across the country, with a focus on providing job skills and finding operational efficiencies, corrections facilities are installing aquaponics programs and converting conventional gardens to the technology. Jails in Washington state, Colorado, Texas, and Florida have all launched aquaponics programs in just the last few years. Not only are such gardens more efficient, the bigger ones provide food to prison kitchens and, most importantly, training in an emerging field.



[For more of this story, written by Tovin Lapan, go to http://www.citylab.com/crime/2...ancisco-jail/473310/]

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