Listening to Urban Soils: Stories of Contamination, Excavation and Compost Co-Creation

Presented by S. Perl Egendorf, assistant professor of environmental studies and science at Pace University, as part of the Geography and the Environment Department's and the Community Geography program's spring 2026 Colloquium Speaker Series.

Urban soils support vital green infrastructure and spaces for urban agriculture, where communities can work together to foster food justice. In this presentation, we will consider the roles of geochemistry in listening to soils, locating contaminants, identifying clean soil alternatives and creating the New York City Clean Soil Bank, the only free municipally run soil distribution system in the country.