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Hope Rises from the Ashes”, Jewish Journal

Posted at September 1, 2011 | By : | Categories : Uncategorized | 0 Comment

Hope Rises from the Ashes

Amy Sessler Powell
Jewish Journal Staff

Thu, September 01, 2011

 

Pho­tos by Amy Sessler Powell

Allan Huberman’s roof gar­den sur­vived the fire.

 

Allan Huber­man and his son, Dana, stand in front of the plants for sale before the fire.

 

The Jew­ish Jour­nal vis­it­ed Allan Huber­man in July to report on a new soil he devel­oped, with vast poten­tial in envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly technologies.
Just days after the Journal’s vis­it, but before pub­li­ca­tion of the sto­ry, he expe­ri­enced a near total loss of his busi­ness when a tanker truck on Route 1 over­turned on July 23, spilling fuel oil and fire into the Pen­ny Brook, which runs along the back of his property.
The Jour­nal has rewriten the sto­ry to show­case not only Huberman’s new prod­uct, but his courage in the face of this trag­ic fire.

SAUGUS — Allan Huberman’s new soil, the EZ Gro Water­grip Grow­ing Media got a tri­al it was nev­er look­ing for.

Many of the plants grown in the new­ly devel­oped prod­uct sur­vived a dev­as­tat­ing fire on July 23 that burned four build­ings at Huberman’s fourth gen­er­a­tion nurs­ery on Vine Street.

These stur­dy plants are in many ways a metaphor for Huberman’s spir­it. As he sur­veys the wreck­age of his green­hous­es, he remains positive.

We’re all still here,” he said, as he walked through bro­ken glass, charred plants and ruined prop­er­ty. “This fire could have been so much worse. It could have tak­en out all the hous­es on this street.”
His own house on Vine Street sur­vived, though he lost his green­hous­es, a stor­age build­ing and office. The dri­ver of the tanker truck, Neal Michaud, 59, of Man­ches­ter, N.H., died in the fire. More than 120 peo­ple were evac­u­at­ed to shel­ter as flames leapt 80 feet in the air.

Before the fire, Huber­man was busy meet­ing with uni­ver­si­ties, gov­ern­ment offi­cials and all sorts of peo­ple who might invest, pur­chase, research and man­u­fac­ture his new prod­uct, EZ Gro. At the same time, he had exper­i­ments all over his green­hous­es to see how the new prod­uct worked over time. He has con­tin­ued these meet­ings as he adds new ones with insur­ers, adjusters and others.

So what is EZ Gro? It is a light­weight soil that retains enor­mous amounts of mois­ture, there­by con­serv­ing vast amounts of water. At the same time, plants seem to flour­ish in it, elim­i­nat­ing the need for pes­ti­cides and reduc­ing weeds.

One EZ Gro prod­uct, called “the brown­ie,” is essen­tial­ly a one-by-two-foot rec­tan­gu­lar brick of spongy dirt, weigh­ing 3.5 pounds dry, but up to 34 lbs. wet. Plants ger­mi­nate quick­ly in the brown­ie, pro­duc­ing roots in much less time than com­pet­i­tive soil products.

To show­case what his prod­uct can do, Huber­man has a series of raised beds and sam­ple roof gar­dens that have been grow­ing over dif­fer­ent peri­ods of time. He also has a few sam­ples grow­ing with com­pet­i­tive soils to show the con­trast. (Vis­it http://www.ezgrowatergrip.com to see pic­tures of the gar­dens at var­i­ous stages).

In addi­tion, he uses EZ Gro in the plants he sells at his Vine Street busi­ness. Eeri­ly, a walk through the burnt and explod­ed green­hous­es reveals that many toma­toes, egg­plants and pep­pers are still grow­ing, even though the leaves appear to be brown and charred and the water has been shut off since the fire.

We were not look­ing for an exper­i­ment like this, but it proves a lot. The mate­r­i­al retains mois­ture and the plants are regen­er­at­ing,” Huber­man said.

Since he is now closed and was nev­er in the retail veg­etable busi­ness, he has offered the toma­toes to My Brother’s Table in Lynn.

At the same, time, the roof gar­den exper­i­ments sur­vived. Dur­ing the Journal’s first vis­it, Huber­man tossed plant clip­pings on top of the brown­ies to show that they would ger­mi­nate. On the sec­ond vis­it, one month and one dev­as­tat­ing fire lat­er, the plants had cre­at­ed roots deep into the brownie.

The old­er roof gar­dens remained lush, as if the fire nev­er occurred. They appear as an oasis of green and growth among the char.

This stuff is mag­ic,” Huber­man said.

What’s in the medi­um? Huber­man won’t tell, but he has a patent pend­ing. For now, he guards the intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty that went into the prod­uct devel­op­ment much like the Coca Cola for­mu­la or McDonald’s secret sauce.

His jour­ney to devel­op­ing this prod­uct comes from gen­er­a­tions in the nurs­ery busi­ness. Plants used on roofs or inte­ri­ors such as malls and offices usu­al­ly died, so he set out eight years ago to devel­op a prod­uct that would work bet­ter. The result is EZ Gro.

Huber­man is work­ing with uni­ver­si­ties, gov­ern­ment offi­cials here and abroad, and busi­ness lead­ers to try and gar­ner investors, as well as a man­u­fac­tur­ing plant in Mass­a­chu­setts or at least New Eng­land. He is also work­ing with UMass to test the soil in var­i­ous contexts.

One of the main appli­ca­tions for the EZ Gro prod­uct is roof gar­dens, pop­u­lar in Europe. Accord­ing to the Inter­na­tion­al Green Roof Asso­ci­a­tion, the ben­e­fits of green roofs include storm water reten­tion, a reduc­tion of dust and smog, and the pro­vi­sion of a new habi­tat for plants. Ben­e­fits to build­ings include increased roof life, reduced noise lev­els, ther­mal insu­la­tion, and effec­tive­ness as a heat shield dur­ing hot weather.

Exper­i­men­tal roof gar­dens exist at the Chica­go Botan­ic Gar­dens and many oth­er U.S. loca­tions. Leg­is­la­tion in a grow­ing num­ber of coun­tries require roof gar­dens for cer­tain structures.

The brown­ie makes the cre­ation of roof gar­dens eas­i­er because the brown­ies are easy to get onto roofs, and easy to plant and sustain.

Despite the wreck­age around him, Huber­man is still mov­ing for­ward. The only time he was reduced to tears was when his tem­ple in Saugus, Con­gre­ga­tion Ahavas Sholom, sent him a check, a ges­ture from his Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty, to help in the moments after the fire.

I sent it back as a dona­tion, but that check from the tem­ple turned me to mush,” Huber­man said.

He vows to rebuild the nurs­ery, while also work­ing to advance EZ Gro.

Huber­man said, “My father always told me the sun will come out tomorrow.”

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