Staunton Green 2020

Virginia Natural Resource Leadership Institute (VNRLI) is now accepting applications for Fellows.

Here’s more info on the program:

VNRLI is changing the way people make environmental decisions in the Commonwealth by helping Virginians take on the most challenging, costly and divisive local, regional and state environmental and land use issues through collaborative problem solving – reaching beyond common ground to “higher ground.” Our graduate Fellows – numbering over 250 – are working professionals in industry, small and independent businesses, local, state and federal government, educational institutions, and environmental, civic and non-profit organizations.

We are accepting applications for the 2010-2011 session workshops: six three-day learning experiences that we offer approximately two months apart – starting in September 2010 and ending in June 2011. The sessions usually start at mid-day on a Wednesday and end by mid-day on Friday. We offer each session in a different location in Virginia and focus on a set of natural resource issues of interest to citizens there. However, the underlying Institute theme across all sessions is to develop leaders who can help groups involved in contentious natural resources issues move beyond conflict toward consensus building and collaborative problem solving.

The VNRLI program grew out of a strong partnership between the University of Virginia Institute for Environmental Negotiation, Virginia Cooperative Extension, Virginia Department of Forestry and the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation.

Our alumni are involved in collaborative efforts in local, state and federal government, business and the nonprofit sector. They tell us that the VNRLI experience has helped them have the confidence and skill to get involved in resolving conflict in their work. They also report that the VNRLI experience has enhanced their careers and fostered new opportunities.

If you are interested in becoming a VNRLI Fellow, please visit our website:

http://www.virginia.edu/ien/vnrli/index.html

We’re inspired by PIMBY, a small business based in Thomas, West Virginia. Who here in Staunton will start a similar business? We think there’s a great opportunity here.

PIMBY stands for “Power in My Backyard”. The company provides services ranging from site assessments, home energy audits, and the installation of alternative energy systems such as wind and solar.

Matt, PIMBY’s owner, also keeps a blog.  A recent entry concerns a nifty gadget called TED. I want one!

TED stands for “The Energy Detective”, a device that measures energy consumption in your home. What’s cool about TED is that it connects to Google’s Power Meter – giving you real-time feedback on your usage so you can make adjusts to use less and save money, too.

Lots of things happening in Staunton tomorrow in celebration of Earth Day…

• A collection of groups will display outside Sunspots Studio, showcasing everything from rain barrels to solar gadgets (say hello to us!) Read more in depth about activities in this News Leader article by SG2020 steering committee member Bruce Dorries.
• Beverley Street Studio School will unveil its “Earth in the Balance (an anamorphic) illusion” piece
• … and of course, celebrate local food at the Farmers Market that’s going on, too.

In addition, don’t forget a special free event about the benefits of native grasses here in Staunton. Join us at City Hall coming up on the eve (April 21) of Earth Day proper (April 22).

Join Staunton Green 2020, Transition Augusta, and Mary Baldwin’s Center for Global and Civic Engagement tonight for a free screening of the film “Fresh”. Special guests, farmers Daniel Salatin and Jenny Driver, will be on hand to discuss afterwords.

The film will be screened in Mockingbird Restaurant’s music room. Doors open at 5:30 for a special meal featuring locally-raised food.  Come support the local farm producers participating. Film starts at 7pm.

Come early for best seats. Trailer below.

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• Hurry – Limited CSA Farm Shares Available (georgebowersgrocery.com)

BEVERLEY STREET STUDIO SCHOOL PRESENTS
“EARTH IN THE BALANCE (AN ANAMORPHIC ILLUSION)”

"Earth in the Balance (an anamorphic illusion)"

“It’s a small world after all…” Or maybe not!  The Beverley Street Studio School will unveil “Earth in the Balance (an anamorphic illusion)” on Earth Day, Saturday April 17 from 9:00 a.m. to noon in the Wharf Parking Lot, beside the Farmers’ Market in Staunton.  At 12′ x 45′, this work is believed to be the largest painting on canvas ever created in the city of Staunton.

“Earth in the Balance” is a giant image of Planet Earth as seen from Outer Space.  But instead of painting the usual spherical planet, the BSSS artists have created a strangely distorted elliptical blob.  Or so it will seem to viewers until they readjust their way of looking at our much-loved and much-abused planet.  From the right viewpoint, Earth will regain its graceful, familiar proportions.  Then if a spectator poses for a photo op in just the right way,  Earth will appear to spin serenely like a beach ball atop that person’s fingertip!

If a spectator poses just the right way, Earth will appear to spin serenely on its axis atop that person’s fingertip!

It’s optical magic that you won’t believe until you see it for yourself.  The project is free, open to the public, and designed to be kid-friendly and interactive.  Children, pets, and whole families are invited to pose with the picture. Bring your camera, wear a costume if you like, and be prepared to see what it’s like to personally hold the Earth in balance.

Contact: Cleveland Morris (540) 332-6111 or cmmmmix@gmail.com

We’re going to be burning the midnight biofuel* the next few days getting ready for some awesome events:

~ Fresh, the movie: Thur. Apr. 15 @ 7pm at the Mockingbird Restaurant (123 W. Beverley St. Staunton)

New thinking about what we’re eating… This uplifting film picks-up where Food, Inc. left off and will inspire and empower you. Post film chat with local farmers Daniel Salatin and Jenny Driver.

The movie is FREE, but come early (doors open at 5:30pm) for a special dinner in the Music Hall featuring food from local farmers (call 540.213.8777 for reservations). Click here to learn more about the film.

Co-sponsored with Transition Staunton Augusta and the Spencer Center for Civic and Global Engagement.

~ Earth Day: Sat. Apr. 17 @ 9am-Noon at the Sunspots Parking Lot in Downtown Staunton (immediately adjacent to the Farmer’s Market)

From rain barrels, composting and solar gadgets to live music/plants, great kids activities and public art you’ll have a blast celebrating, learning about and committing to our sustainable future.

~ Dawn of a New Urban Landscape – The Natives Return: Wed. Apr. 21 @ 7pm at Staunton City Hall, Council Chambers (116. W. Beverley St.)

On Earth Day Eve find out how native grasses in our yards sequestor carbon, absorb that nefarious stormwater and restore our quickly disappearing biodiversity. Click here to learn more.

We look forward to seeing you at these great events!

steve grande and the Staunton Green 2020 Steering Committee

*p.s. So this polar bear walks into a bar (with melting ice caps they have to go somewhere) and says to the bartender: “I’ll have a gin………………….……….. and tonic” The bartender say’s “Sure, but why the big pause?” The polar bear looks down and replies: “I don’t know, but my Dad had them too.”

Mark your calendar…
Dawn of a New Urban Landscape — The Natives Return
7 p.m, April 21, City Hall, Council Chambers

In addition to the Staunton/Augusta Farmer’s Market kicking off this Saturday… (4/3/10)

A Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program through Nu-Beginning Farm is available for subscribers to pick up at George Bowers Grocery.

If you are unfamiliar with CSAs, they work similarly to a farmer’s market. Farm food is divided into subscriber “shares” and each box is picked up from a central location.

Unlike the pay-as-you-go Farmer’s Market experience, the farmer is funded up front to cover costs at the beginning of the season. You, as the consumer, pay once and enjoy your share of the harvest all summer.

More details here.

Disclosure: I am one of two owners of George Bowers Grocery.

via  Gerald P. McCarthy, Executive Director, Virginia Environmental Endowment

EPA MAKES TSCA INVENTORY AVAILABLE ONLINE FOR FREE

EPA celebrated Sunshine Week by putting online for free the large list of chemicals in U.S. commerce. It was a first.

Wait a minute. It was actually two firsts. EPA has never before celebrated Sunshine Week, as far as the WatchDog (who watches these things closely) knows.

The list is known as the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Chemical Substance Inventory. Technically, it includes about 84,000 chemicals being used in U.S. commerce. Of these, some 17,000 are kept secret because manufacturers allege that they are trade secrets. The list has been available to the public, but access was difficult, and EPA charged a fee for providing it. EPA announced on March 15, 2010, that it was putting the database (minus secret portions) online for free, so that the entire public could get easy access.

– EPA Release of March 15, 2010 <http://bit.ly/a609Bq>.

– “States Push EPA, Congress to Curb Business Confidentiality Claims for Chemicals,” Greenwire,  March 1, 2010, by Sara Goodman <http://nyti.ms/cQl9rm>.

– “Bit by Bit, EPA Opening Up Toxics Program,” The Fine Print blog, OMB Watch,  March 15, 2010, by Brian Turnbaugh <http://www.ombwatch.org/node/10833>.

Reid's water heater

By Reid Oechslin

This winter I tried some ideas I’ve had for saving energy in my home. They may be a little odd, and they certainly wouldn’t apply to everybody. They’re things I’ve thought about as I was falling asleep or waking up. Ideas that come to me that way can either be great or terrible. I will spare you the terrible ones, and try to pass along the keepers. It’ll take me several articles to do it.

My family lives in a split-level house built in 1972. It was an amazing time. America could fund the arts, send men to the moon, fight the Vietnam War and build the interstate highway system. People were regularly predicting that energy would soon be “too cheap to meter.” Our 3000 square-foot house has a 600 amp electrical service–that’s three times the size of the power panel in new homes–because it has an electrically-heated driveway! (Or it HAD an electrically-heated driveway–I turned it on once after we bought the house and I heard sparking noises coming from the grass around it. I decided to take pity on the neighborhood dogs and turned it off permanently.)

Along with our interesting driveway feature was another convenience: no matter which hot-water faucet you turned on in the house, you’d have hot water within a few seconds. Remember, it’s a split-level, and it’s a long, narrow house, so the gas water heater is really far from the bathrooms that serve the bedrooms. How’d they do that? I did some checking and found that instead of two pipes connected to my hot water heater, I had three: one for the cold water to go in, one for the hot water to go out, and another for the cooler hot water that flowed in a loop past all the faucets to go back into the hot water heater. Hot water was slowly circulating through the pipes in my house all the time, so hot water was only a few feet away from any faucet. The really hot water would flow out of the top of the heater, through the hot water loop, and, since it was cooling off as it made its way through my basement and the uninsulated ceiling of my cold garage, it would be slightly heavier than the newly-heated water when it returned to the bottom of the water heater. No pumps, just convection. Brilliant–no wasted water going down the drain, and no wasted time waiting for hot water to arrive. Except–my hot water heater, with its nice blanket of insulation, was not the only repository of my hot water. It was as if the uninsulated hot water pipes were little radiators heating the basement and the garage. That’s really not where I wanted to put my heating dollars, so I closed the valve where the cooler water went back into the water heater. (If you’re curious about what orifice the cooler water uses to go back into the heater, it goes back in through the valve at the bottom that you use to drain the tank.)

Almost immediately I got negative feedback from my wife: “We don’t have any hot water!” After I explained what I had done and why, she still didn’t like the idea of the wait, and the idea of wasting the water that comes out as you wait. (She is from the Caribbean, where rainwater is collected in cisterns, and there is no other water supply. If you run out, you call the water truck to make a delivery, which is expensive. It’s a system that stresses personal responsibility.) I did feel guilty about the water that was wasted, and decided to measure how much water was going down the drain during the warmup. It turned out to be, at most, two gallons. What to do about that?

I decided that if the pipes were insulated, the water in them would stay hot longer. I couldn’t reach everything to insulate it, but was lucky that the ceilings in part of the downstairs areas and the garage were suspended tiles–I suppose to make maintenance and  repairs easier. I found that the cheaper, stiffer kind of foam pipe insulation worked better, because after you snap it around the pipe, you can push it along the pipe with another piece of insulation, even into areas that you can see but can’t get to. And the insulation did turn out to work somewhat– if you open a faucet up to two hours later, what comes out is at least warmer than it would have been, and the new hot water coming up the pipe isn’t trying to warm up every foot of that pipe from, say, 50 degrees. It certainly doesn’t work for the first shower of the day, though.

I did some rationalizing–the waste of water is not as bad as the waste of energy and the greenhouse gas emissions from the water heater. My best guess was that the insulation and the circulation change saves 15 percent off the gas bill. At my house, that’s 30 bucks a month, at least during the winter months.  It will probably be less of a difference in the summer, when the basement and garage are warmer and robbing less heat from the pipes. Still, well worth doing. What could be easier than closing a valve?

You probably don’t live in a house that has recirculated hot water, and you probably don’t have as much access to the pipes as I do, but you do probably live in a house that has bare copper pipes sticking out of the top of the water heater. Even insulating the first few feet of that pipe–that is constantly radiating heat away from the hot water tank–will make a difference. Most likely, you don’t spend a lot of time  next to your water heater, basking in the heat it is radiating.

Note that if you have a gas water heater like mine, the gas flue chimney is very close to the cold and hot water pipes that come out of the heater. Don’t use plastic foam pipe insulation next to that flue, because of the risk of fire. Instead, use fiberglass that won’t burn. The cheap fiberglass solution is just a band of the fuzzy insulation itself, with no backing, that you wrap around the pipe. It works, but for a little more swank factor, you can buy tubes of pre-formed fiberglass that fits around the pipe like a clamshell (buy the right size to fit around the pipe, usually 3/4″). It has a white outside coating, and even a self-adhesive flap that makes it neat. In this area, Home Depot and Hajoca carry it; Lowe’s does not. Next time I’ll tell you about my 1972 furnace and what I did to it.

Copyright 2010 Reid Oechslin

Reid is a SG2020 steering committee member and owner of Sound Light Image, LLC.