Berkshire Agricultural Ventures Awards Grant to Gould Farm

12:29PM / Monday, January 02, 2023Print Story | Email Story

GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass.— Berkshire Agricultural Ventures (BAV) awarded Gould Farm a Resilience grant of $5,000 to complete construction of a new hoop house that will enable the farm to extend their growing season.

This grant was awarded in conjunction with funding from the United States Department of Agriculture - Natural Resource Conservation Services (USDA-NRCS).

"BAV recognizes the importance of helping farms implement adaptive growing strategies, like hoop houses, to address the increasing challenges Berkshire farmers face due to climate change. Recent growing seasons provide multiple examples of increased extreme weather patterns that increase risks to Berkshire farmers," said Ben Crockett, BAV's program manager who focuses on Climate Smart Agriculture.

Gould Farm will use this hoop house (also known as a "high tunnel system") to cover and protect crops from sun, wind, excessive rainfall, frost, and increase Spring and Fall crop production in an environmentally safe manner.

"Farmers in our region will continue to see dramatic fluctuations in weather patterns for the foreseeable future" said Crockett, "and supporting Gould Farm in completing this hoop house is part of BAV's effort to improve local farm resilience to extreme weather events and ensure farms keep farming."

Gould Farm produces crops as part of their mental health programming, where clients grow, cook and consume vegetables from the farm. During the growing season Gould Farm also supplies the Multicultural BRIDGE Food Pantry.

With the hoop house addition, Gould Farm will be able to increase the amount and availability of fresh produce for the farm and pantry.

"Our program participants are hard at work building the hoop house," said Executive Director, Lisanne Finston. "And look forward to being able to spend more time doing what they love...growing and sharing fresh food for the community."

Gould Farm is a a 700-acre working farm whose mission is to promote recovery for people living with mental health and related challenges through meaningful work, community living, and clinical care.

Berkshire Agricultural Ventures (BAV) is a nonprofit organization working to support the development and viability of local farms and food businesses throughout the Berkshire-Taconic Region (Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut), to build a thriving local food economy and improve access to food.

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Lee Wants Bioremediation in Housatonic River Vernal Pool Study

05:24AM / Thursday, September 03, 2026

LEE, Mass. — The town has asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and General Electric to include PCB bioremediation in its vernal pool study on the Housatonic River.

Lee officials are urging the EPA to require GE to add a bioremediation treatment arm to the vernal-pool study or provide the public with a clear explanation for why such testing is being excluded.

"This is exactly the kind of question EPA and GE should be asking before final remedy decisions are locked in," Select Board Chair Bob Jones said in a statement released to the press. "The town is not asking to slow the cleanup. We are asking EPA and GE to make the cleanup smarter, less destructive, and more protective over the long term."

An open house was held in Pittsfield earlier this summer for the Vernal Pool Pilot Study on Reach 5A of the Housatonic River, a five-mile stretch between the river's confluence and Lenox border.

EPA has required GE to conduct a Vernal Pool Pilot Study as part of the Housatonic River Rest of River remediation, comparing excavation and restoration with activated-carbon-based treatments, including a product called SediMite and powdered activated carbon, the town said.

Ten vernal pools will be cleaned of polychlorinated biphenyls in total, five with excavation and five with active carbon, and seven additional vernal pools will be monitored as controls. Construction will be complete around October, but the pools will be left to their natural processes and monitored with surveys and sampling for three years.

The Lee PCB Advisory Committee wrote a letter calling for the 21st-century approach it said could reduce long-term toxicity, avoid unnecessary destruction of sensitive habitats, and improve the effectiveness of the cleanup.

It states that Lee supports the study's purpose and agrees that EPA and GE must understand how cleanup activities affect sensitive vernal-pool ecosystems.

"The current pilot includes 10 treatment pools and seven control pools, while local officials understand that roughly 100 vernal pools may occur in the broader remediation corridor," the Aug. 27 letter reads.

"That makes the pilot study consequential: the methods tested now could shape how many sensitive wetlands are excavated, reconstructed, treated, or left with PCBs managed in place."

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