WHEN:  Saturday, May 12, 2012 at 10am.

The Chico Chapter of the Electric Auto Association will meet this  coming Saturday to discuss about issues having to do with:

WHEN:  Thursday May 24, 2012 – 9 am – 3 pm

WHERE:        Agriculture Training and Research Center
                            CSU Chico University Farm
                            311 Nicholas C Schouten Lane – Chico, CA 92928
                           (530) 898 6343

PRESENTERS:

 9:00   Ben House and Julie Trethric (PG&E) will talk about services and incentives for reduced energy consumption, three-phase Vs. Single phase power and voltage – Safety – Time varying pricing – Effective ways to manage energy costs – Energy efficiency and demand response programs / rebates.

10:00  Bill Green, education manager at the International Center for Irrigation Technology will present the “Agricultural Pumping Efficiency Program” (APEP) and will make a pump efficiency demonstration.

12:30  Dan Taverner, District Conservationist at USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) will introduce his agency and talk about resource concerns and conservation planning.  He will also present the NRCS Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) and more.

12:45  Jacqui Gaskill, CA Energy Conservation specialist (USDA – NRCS) will elaborate on EQIP Energy Resource Concern Assistance, online tools for energy conservation and renewable energy, National Energy initiative and energy / money saving tips

1:15   Ken Householder, Area engineer (USDA – NRCS) will talk about irrigation systems and irrigation water management.

1:30   Mel & Mary Thompson, ranchers, will present their farm:  Sierra Farms Lamb.

1:45   Steven Scott Nicholls, Assistant Energy Program Coordinator (USDA – Rural Development) will present the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) and discuss funds availability (loans Vs. grants) and eligibility to acquire such technologies as anaerobic digesters, geothermal energy generation, renewable energy generation and E85 / biodiesel blender pumps.

The RSVP deadline has been extended to May, 11, 2012.  Please reserve a seat early as space is limited!

To RSVP contact:
Phuong Ly
Phone: 530-534-0112 ext.118
Fax: 530-533-4936
Email:  Phuong.ly@ca.usda.gov

Thank you,

Kelly Miller, District Manager

Butte County Resource Conservation District
150 Chuck Yeager Way, Suite A
Oroville, CA , 95965
Phone: (530) 534-0112 ext. 122
FAX: (530) 533-4936
E-mail: bc-rcd@carcd.org

       Elementary School Teachers; we have a supply of Learning to Recycle with Terry the Trashman books for use in your classroom.  This book, written by a north state Trashman, meets California standards in grades K through 5^th and teaches the basics of recycling to our young readers.  To request copies for your classroom contact us at recycle@buttecounty.net.

       The Durham Recreation & Park District has significantly expanded its recycling program throughout the park system.  Big blue recycling containers are now placed at many locations for picnickers and athletes to recycle beverage containers and more.  Proceeds from the recycled materials will help support the Durham Dolphins Swim Team.

The Paradise Recreation & Park District has recently been awarded a grant to purchase dual recycling/trash receptacles to be placed throughout the ridge park system.  Look for these containers to start showing up at park sites throughout the summer. 

In this issue:

County News – Butte County receives grant to cleanup major illegal dump sites.

Closing the Loop –   A guide to buying recycled content products 

More County News –  Ag oil recycling comes to Biggs

Recycling Profile – Our friend the worm

County News:  Butte County awarded Farm & Ranch Cleanup Grant

Butte County has recently been awarded a $44,000 grant by CalRecycle to clean up four rural properties in an area just west of Bangor.  These four privately owned sites are strewn with over 3,600 waste tires, over 60 cubic yards of household trash and two abandoned mobile homes.  The tires create a safety hazard to the cattle that graze there, a potential breeding habitat for mosquitoes and a fire hazard.  

Scot Johnson, Butte County Solid Waste Code Enforcement Officer, has been working with the property owners of these sites to gain State aid in helping to cleanup years of illegally dumped material.  Owners of isolated areas such as these often fall victim to unscrupulous haulers who take payment to discard trash but never seem to make it to the landfill. 

Scot recommends always using a state registered tire hauler if you need a large quantity of tires removed.  Also, if contracting to have general trash removed, insist on a receipt from a permitted landfill or transfer station before final payment is made.

Closing the Loop: A guide to buying recycle content products

(From U.S. EPA)  Creating a strong market for recycled products is key to completing the recycling process or closing the loop. Consumers close the loop when they purchase products made from recycled materials. Governments and businesses can promote buying recycled products through their own purchasing programs and guidelines.  

Identifying Recycled-Content Products

Product labels can be confusing to consumers interested in buying recycled because of the different recycling terminology used. The following definitions might help clarify any uncertainty regarding manufacturers’ claims. For more detailed guidance, view a summary of the Federal Trade Commission’s brochure Sorting Out Green Advertising Claims or their Official Guidance for the use of environmental marketing claims.

  Recycled-content products are made from materials that would otherwise have been discarded. Items in this category are made totally or partially from material destined for disposal or recovered from industrial activities—like aluminum soda cans or newspaper. Recycled-content products also can be items that are rebuilt or remanufactured from used products such as toner cartridges or computers.

  Postconsumer content refers to material from products that were used by consumers or businesses and would otherwise be discarded as waste. If a product is labeled “recycled content,” the rest of the product material might have come from excess or damaged items generated during normal manufacturing processes—not collected through a local recycling program.

  Recyclable products can be collected and remanufactured into new products after they’ve been used. These products do not necessarily contain recycled materials and only benefit the environment if people recycle them after use. Check with your local recycling program to determine which items are recyclable in your community.     

More County news: Agricultural Oil recycling comes to Biggs

Butte County Public Works Department in partnership with the City of Biggs, has opened a new south county location to collect waste agricultural oil. It is located at 2865 West Biggs-Gridley Road at the City of Biggs Public Works yard. Hours are Monday thru Friday from 7:30 to 3:00. Now farmers and ranchers in the south portion of Butte County have a convenient location to deposit waste oil and filters for recycling.

This service is made available at no cost to the Ag community.  Farmers and ranchers can bring up to 55 gallons of waste oil per trip to the recycling facility. 

This program was made possible by a grant from the California Department of Resources, Recycling and Recovery. (CalRecycle)   For more information call 879-2352.

Recycling Profile – Our friend the Worm

Collectively they recycle more greenwaste and food waste than all recycling programs in the country combined.  They started recycling eons before sustainability was fashionable.  They work for free and are highly productive and prolific.  They are man’s best friend.  (Sorry Fido)  They are worms.

The role that worms play in the breakdown of organic materials was first documented by Charles Darwin in 1881.  However it was not until later in the 20^th century that worms’ contribution to curbing the buildup of greenwaste and enhancing soil composition was fully realized.  Vermicompost is a nutrient rich fertilizer that has been shown to suppress disease in crop plants.  Vermicompost is probiotic, and stimulates the growth of microorganisms, unlike traditional pesticides, which are antibiotic and inhibit such growth. Vermicompost works to create a stronger plant whereas pesticides just kill the pathogen.

Today, vermicomposting has become a highly utilized means to process greenwaste from municipal curbside greenwaste programs and create a superior soil amendment that is in high demand, particularly in agricultural areas such as Butte County.  They also are effective in small backyard composting and under-the-kitchen-sink food waste composters.

If you are interested in starting your own vermicomposting project, there are a number if resources available to help you get started.   Here are some links for more information:

http://www.calrecycle.ca.gov/organics/worms/              http://compost.css.cornell.edu/worms/basics.html

http://aces.nmsu.edu/pubs/_h/h-164.pdf                     http://kids.niehs.nih.gov/explore/reduce/worms.htm

Recycling Road Show

Would your club, classroom or organization like a presentation about current trends in recycling and waste management?  Our staff will speak at your school or function about local recycling and waste issues and be happy to answer questions about local and national waste trends.  Call 879-2352.

Coming in the Summer 2012 Issue:

• California’s new Mandatory Commercial Recycling Program
• Clean Boating: Oil and Water really don’t mix.
• Neal Road Recycling & Waste Facility’s Landfill Gas to Energy Project
• The new Paint Product Stewardship program

Questions, comments, suggestions?  Email us at recycle@buttecounty.net.  We will try to respond as soon as possible.

 Consider the trees and your tired, over-worked printer.  Please don’t print this newsletter.

A very diverse crowd came to listen to Richard Heinberg talk about the end of growth.

“The forever growth of our national or global economy – or of any economy for that matter – is neither normal nor possible”.  Heinberg opened fire with a complete anathema for the ruling mercantile elite of our modern world where the seemingly prevailing “wisdom” is that nothing matters more than growing GDPs forever.   “We cannot go on producing more stuff forever in a finite world made up of finite resources”.  Now how about that?   Perhaps more striking than Heinberg’s comments is the mere fact that such arguments would have to be pronounced in the first place.  Even more so that some would still have the nerve to deny this mother of all duh-isms.  Now of course, most people do not even consider our utter dependence as living beings on one or another source of energy.  For many in our industrial and post-industrial societies, energy is as “normal” as air, water, and what else… cable television and cellular phones ?  Few questions what energy is and where it comes from.  “Energy is convenient;  I have access to it now, so really why worry about it ?”  If the feedbag is full, why even bother popping our heads out and looking around ?

Richard Heinberg, a senior fellow at the Post Carbon Institute, can be credited with spending a fair share of his life trying to wake humanity from its gluttonous sleepwalk towards the cliff of resource depletion.  At the beginning of his presentation at Chico State, he mentioned the 1972 book “Limits To Growth”.   The first highly publicized book to forewarn that there couldn’t possibly be such a thing as forever growth, “Limits to Growth” played a significant role in setting a younger Heinberg on his path to questioning the hyper-consumer model.  Derided as gloomy nonsense by most economists at the time, the book has ended up not only being proven right by recent economic developments, it actually missed how quickly things would turn bad for the “forever growth” model.  Indeed, oil and natural gas production peaked even faster than anticipated and the rising price of all commodities as a result threw the entire world economy in disarray.   But Heinberg points out that there is a co-determining factor that “Limits to Growth” failed to anticipate:  loans extended by banks out of thin air (i.e. funded by the anticipated payback with interest of current debts also emitted out of thin air) to families, businesses and even countries grew totally out of proportion with the actual tangible value that the world could produce.  Soon debts would escalate totally beyond what anybody could ever pay back.   Seemingly colossal financial institutions were proven overnight to actually be little more than bogus constructions of smoke and mirrors.  Decreasing energy supply and the higher cost of commodities then came as the nails to the coffins of both over-extended consumers and rapacious smoke lenders.

As Heinberg and many like him (James Kunstler, Jeremy Rifkin, David Korten, Jared Diamond, Herman Daly or Derrick Jensen to just name a few powerful thinkers and authors) point out, there is no such thing as “a series of recessions and recoveries”.  There is instead a steady erosion of an economic and financial system that overheated in an irrational frenzy of greed.   The intention of living a rich, comfortable life is not enough to produce actual, sustainable wealth.  Money that is not backed by the value of tangible, productive work is worthless.   With over-extended credit, we invented a currency of intent in order to match the seemingly limitless promises of phenomenal fossil fuel reserves.  Credit has been and still is emitted at a sky-rocketing level.  Energy supply for its part has already peaked and plateaued.  Like ancient Rome, the West is now more preoccupied by consumerism and entertainment than it is by actual production, relegating that to the poorer nations of the world, such as China, India and South Korea.

Nothing is sustainable about fossil fuel-powered, credit-funded resource gluttony.  Credit emitted beyond repayment will fund eternal growth no more than finite resources on a finite planet will fuel it.  We now have no choice but to re-invent what comes down to an eternal model of communal life.  We need local resilience and autonomy.  We need to re-skill and we need to re-establish connections with our human relationships and natural surroundings.  We must become again integrated participants in our own communities, in touch with the resources of our own lands.  The secret is to not try to grow beyond a state of harmonious continuity.  We need to tap on our planet’s bounty at a rate that actually allows for renewable resources to replenish themselves day after day, year after year.   This after all is not so difficult to achieve since this is how life has been able to thrive on Earth for millions of years.  Are we dumber than mushrooms ?

Post Carbon Institute's Richard Heinberg: "There isn't such a thing as forever growth on a finite planet."

On Tuesday night Richard Heinberg concluded on a happy note, making reference to the nation of Bhutan and its measurement of national “Gross Domestic Happiness”, as opposed to our own “GDP” or Gross Domestic Product .  With very modest living standards in comparison with the so-called developed world, Bhutan ranks among the first nations of the world for the happiness of its citizens.   Finding the “happy” medium between sufficient wealth and time spent in family and in community seems to be the secret to happy, fulfilling and contented life.  Luckily, many groups and communities around the world are already working hard at creating new models that would be able to thrive outside the illusory, unsustainable model of forever growth.  Almost marginal today, these projects seeking to re-introduce local currencies and communal solidarity may have to become de facto research laboratories for the solutions that the rest of the world will run scrambling for when the debt-based, fossil fuel-powered globalized economy finally collapses onto itself.  It is futile to even question whether or not we have time to prepare for a post carbon, post hyper-consumerism human environment.   If we believe in creating a sustainable society, and if we have the willingness to try, then we need to strive for it with all the energy and all the enthusiasm we can muster.  Let’s give it our best shot, that’s it.

- Gerard Ungerman