my dear friend claire agre, who i met while working in milan and who is now a graduate landscape architecture student at harvard, is in the new york times today! woohoo! it's an article about the environmentally responsible redevelopment of a historic piece of former mining land in colorado. check it:

Academics and experts on mine reclamation---one of the biggest environmental problems of the West, where there are perhaps 500,000 abandoned mines---say that Breckenridge's groundbreaking path could change how mine reclamation works. With ownership of the pollution and control of the land, they say, comes the power to shape the post-mining landscape in a way that goes far beyond just cleaning it up.

"Breckenridge can lead the way," said Alan Berger, an associate professor of landscape architecture at Harvard and founder of the Project for Reclamation Excellence, a group at the design school that works on reclaiming land damaged by resource extraction. "The opportunities of what the town and county can do here are completely open-ended."

And so are the burdens. The property is hatch-marked by miles of unmarked and unmapped trails carved by generations of backcountry users at a time when no owner was around to say boo. The new owners are bracing for what they expect will be contentious public meetings beginning this spring as managers decide which trails to keep open and who may use them. The town favors things like hiking and biking, while the county wants to make sure that motorized users have their say as well.

Mining's legacy on the forest is another headache. In gold's heyday, lumber was needed for mills and tunnels, and by the late 1800's the Horseshoe was stripped. The result today is a narrow monoculture in which the oldest trees are about 120 years old---mostly lodgepole pines.

Pine beetles, which have ravaged vast parts of the West, are just hitting this part of Colorado. Local officials warn that the bugs, which love mature lodgepoles, could kill 80 percent of Horseshoe's trees.

But Breckenridge, which has carved a tourist niche around its mining history and historic buildings also wants to incorporate the story of the Horseshoe into the fabric of the local economy. That means thinking about mines and miners, and how they gave rise to Breckenridge.

That is where Claire Agre, a Harvard graduate student in landscape architecture, enters the picture.

you'll have to read the rest to find out what superhero claire agre is doing to save the world!

you can see my world-renowned series of "claire, pensive" photos here, here and here.