Walk the Talk

www.walkthetalktoday.com

Statistics show it. Americans get a gold star for being over scheduled, overweight, and overwhelmed. Many of us are too busy to focus on good health habits for our bodies and our environment. Many of us are wasting precious time and resources without giving much thought to our actions. Many of us can be heard saying, “I want to be healthy. I want to lose weight. I want to stop global warming.” 

It’s Time to Take Action and Walk the Talk Today!

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens
can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”  ~ Margaret Mead

Walk the Talk Today!, a 90-day community-based initiative from January 7 - April 7, 2008, challenges Chequamegon Bay residents, businesses, schools and city governments to embrace the power of healthy living. Participants will commit to weekly action focused around 3 simple, fun and motivating steps that will improve individual and community health while reducing environmental waste. 

Step 1.  Move It - Participants will commit to 30 minutes of movement (walking, running, swimming, biking, yoga, Pilates) five days/week to shape up, slim down and be kind to the environment. More than 61% of Wisconsinites are obese or overweight, and minimal adjustments in diet and daily exercise can result in enough weight loss to reduce risk factors for cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and certain types of cancer. We’ll also car pool, take the bus, and group errands to reduce gas consumption. Note: Participants may choose to purchase a pedometer as a powerful motivator and easy way to track daily steps.

Step 2.  Eat Healthy - Participants will commit to carrying canvas or reusable bags into grocery stores and food co-ops and filling them with high-quality, minimally processed foods (local and/or organic whenever possible). We’ll increase healthy food choices while reducing the more than one billion single-use plastic bags that are handed to consumers each day. Note: Participants are encouraged to purchase a canvas bag or two for groceries and other items.

Step 3.  Quench Right - Participants will commit to carrying their own reusable water bottle and drinking 48-64 oz. of clean water each day while reducing/eliminating the purchase of water bottled in plastic. 80% of the 25 billion single-serving plastic water bottles Americans use each year end up in landfills. Note: Participants are encouraged to purchase a water bottle (and coffee or tea cup) and carry it everywhere.

It’s EASY to Get Started!

1.  Recruit a Partner or Support Team
Recruit a partner or team of co-workers, friends or family members. Adults and kids of all shapes, sizes and fitness levels can benefit from the support of teammates. Buddy and team relationships will help you get started, stay focused and boost success. Click this link for ways to recruit a partner or team and take action. (Scroll down the page to Ways to Take Action.) Note: Check with your employer, school system, college or city government to see if they are hosting Walk the Talk Today! as a workplace, school or community wellness program.

2.  Make A Commitment
Simply click the “Register HERE for Walk the Talk Today!” link below. You’ll be prompted to enter your contact information (name, city, email and phone number). After you register, you will receive a confirmation email. Once confirmed, you’ll be entered as a Walk the Talk Today! participant and will be eligible for prizes in one of four drawings held throughout the 90-day program. You’ll also receive a free weekly eNewsletter, Momentum Matters!, chock full of tips and tactics to help you boost success. Note: We will never share your contact information with anyone, and you can unsubscribe at any time. 

Register HERE for Walk the Talk Today!

3.  Track Your Milestones
Click this link to download your Starter Kit for the program:
Download WalkTheTalkTodayStarterKit.pdf

Your Starter Kit includes a tracking log, motivational tips, and information to help you get started and stay on track. You’ll set 90-day goals. You’ll document baseline health statistics including weight, body mass index and blood pressure at the beginning, middle and end of the program. You’ll get excited! Monthly challenges, motivational workshops and simple program tracking will help you stay focused and working toward significant, long-term change. NOTE:  We encourage you to visit your health care provider for blood pressure screening, additional health screenings and medical approval to participate.

What’s the Cost?

We’re on a mission to ignite our communities to adopt healthy lifestyles and reduce environmental waste. That’s why there is no charge for this powerful 90-day program. While we encourage full participation, fulfilling any piece of the program will result in BIG changes, individually and for the environment.

What’s the Benefit?

•  You’ll establish positive lifestyle changes…for yourself and the environment. 
•  You’ll reduce the risk of heart disease, diabetes and other lifestyle diseases.
•  You’ll increase self-awareness and discover how simple changes can bring BIG results.
•  You’ll discover the power of group action and a network of friends.
•  You’ll have FUN!

Listen To Your Heart & Walk the Talk Today!

Will you commit to small changes that create huge results including individual, community and environmental health? Take a minute to look and listen to the following clip. If it resonates with you, you’d be an ideal participant for Walk the Talk Today!

;

"There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world,
and that is an idea whose time has come." ~ Victor Hugo

Can This Simple 3-Step Program Really Make a Difference?

Absolutely! Our goal is to help you make simple, lifelong changes that will improve individual, community and environmental health. Here’s how it will happen:

Step 1.  Move It!

Participants will commit to 30 minutes of movement five days/week. The challenge is highly flexible and individual. Whether working out alone or with a group, participants can choose from walking, running, swimming, skiing, biking, aerobics, strength training, yoga, Pilates or anything that feels good. Participants will be encouraged to ride bikes, wear pedometers, car pool, take the bus, and group errands together to reduce extra trips in the car. This goal is based on the following facts:

Obesity is an epidemic, claiming an estimated 300,000 deaths and costing the United States about $117 billion each year.

More than 61% of Wisconsinites are obese or overweight.

Minimal adjustments in diet and daily exercise can result in enough weight loss to reduce the risk factors for diseases stemming from obesity, such as cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and certain types of cancer.

Step 2.  Eat Healthy!

Participants will commit to carrying canvas or reusable bags into grocery stores and food co-ops and filling them with high-quality, minimally processed foods (local and/or organic whenever possible). This goal is based on the following facts:

More than one billion single-use plastic bags are handed to consumers each day.

Individuals can greatly reduce waste and single-bag usage by carrying canvas bags in their cars for use at grocery stores, pharmacies, retail stores or anywhere they may be given a plastic bag. High-quality canvas bags are readily available at Chequamegon Food Co-Op in Ashland and at retail stores in the region.

Individuals can greatly alter individual health by consuming more nutritious foods. We’ll model the guidelines here:  Eat, Drink & Be Healthy

Step 3.  Quench Right!

Participants will commit to carrying their own reusable water bottle and drinking 48-64 oz. of clean water each day while eliminating the purchase of water and beverages bottled in plastic. This goal is based on the following facts:

Physicians and nutritionists recommend drinking 48-64 oz. of water each day

80% of the 25 billion single-serving plastic water bottles Americans use each year end up in landfills.

Reusable water bottles are available through the Walk the Talk Today! program, locally at Bodin’s on the Lake, or online at www.kleankanteen.com and www.nalgene-outdoor.com

Reusable, stainless steel coffee cups are readily available locally at Bodin’s on the Lake, Black Cat Coffee House, and Daily Bread

Are You Ready To Get Started?

Can you imagine what it would feel like to be fit and healthy? Can you imagine what it would feel like to be part of a BIG grassroots initiative? Can you imagine what it would feel like to positively impact individual and community health and the environment? It’s time to Walk the Talk Today! Join us. Take action now!

Register HERE for Walk the Talk Today!

Truth Force

Thank you to Linda Webster who sent us Gore’s acceptance speech of the Nobel Peace Prize

http://www.algore.com/
SPEECH BY AL GORE ON THE ACCEPTANCE OF THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE
DECEMBER 10, 2007 — OSLO, NORWAY

Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Honorable members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Excellencies, Ladies and gentlemen.

I have a purpose here today. It is a purpose I have tried to serve for many years. I have prayed that God would show me a way to accomplish it.

Sometimes, without warning, the future knocks on our door with a precious and painful vision of what might be. One hundred and nineteen years ago, a wealthy inventor read his own obituary, mistakenly published years before his death. Wrongly believing the inventor had just died, a newspaper printed a harsh judgment of his life’s work, unfairly labeling him “The Merchant of Death” because of his invention – dynamite. Shaken by this condemnation, the inventor made a fateful choice to serve the cause of peace.

Seven years later, Alfred Nobel created this prize and the others that bear his name.

Seven years ago tomorrow, I read my own political obituary in a judgment that seemed to me harsh and mistaken – if not premature. But that unwelcome verdict also brought a precious if painful gift: an opportunity to search for fresh new ways to serve my purpose.

Unexpectedly, that quest has brought me here. Even though I fear my words cannot match this moment, I pray what I am feeling in my heart will be communicated clearly enough that those who hear me will say, “We must act.”

The distinguished scientists with whom it is the greatest honor of my life to share this award have laid before us a choice between two different futures – a choice that to my ears echoes the words of an ancient prophet: “Life or death, blessings or curses. Therefore, choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.”

We, the human species, are confronting a planetary emergency – a threat to the survival of our civilization that is gathering ominous and destructive potential even as we gather here. But there is hopeful news as well: we have the ability to solve this crisis and avoid the worst – though not all – of its consequences, if we act boldly, decisively and quickly.

However, despite a growing number of honorable exceptions, too many of the world’s leaders are still best described in the words Winston Churchill applied to those who ignored Adolf Hitler’s threat: “They go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all powerful to be impotent.”

So today, we dumped another 70 million tons of global-warming pollution into the thin shell of atmosphere surrounding our planet, as if it were an open sewer. And tomorrow, we will dump a slightly larger amount, with the cumulative concentrations now trapping more and more heat from the sun.

As a result, the earth has a fever. And the fever is rising. The experts have told us it is not a passing affliction that will heal by itself. We asked for a second opinion. And a third. And a fourth. And the consistent conclusion, restated with increasing alarm, is that something basic is wrong.

We are what is wrong, and we must make it right.

Last September 21, as the Northern Hemisphere tilted away from the sun, scientists reported with unprecedented distress that the North Polar ice cap is “falling off a cliff.” One study estimated that it could be completely gone during summer in less than 22 years. Another new study, to be presented by U.S. Navy researchers later this week, warns it could happen in as little as 7 years.

Seven years from now.

In the last few months, it has been harder and harder to misinterpret the signs that our world is spinning out of kilter. Major cities in North and South America, Asia and Australia are nearly out of water due to massive droughts and melting glaciers. Desperate farmers are losing their livelihoods. Peoples in the frozen Arctic and on low-lying Pacific islands are planning evacuations of places they have long called home. Unprecedented wildfires have forced a half million people from their homes in one country and caused a national emergency that almost brought down the government in another. Climate refugees have migrated into areas already inhabited by people with different cultures, religions, and traditions, increasing the potential for conflict. Stronger storms in the Pacific and Atlantic have threatened whole cities. Millions have been displaced by massive flooding in South Asia, Mexico, and 18 countries in Africa. As temperature extremes have increased, tens of thousands have lost their lives. We are recklessly burning and clearing our forests and driving more and more species into extinction. The very web of life on which we depend is being ripped and frayed.

We never intended to cause all this destruction, just as Alfred Nobel never intended that dynamite be used for waging war. He had hoped his invention would promote human progress. We shared that same worthy goal when we began burning massive quantities of coal, then oil and methane.

Even in Nobel’s time, there were a few warnings of the likely consequences. One of the very first winners of the Prize in chemistry worried that, “We are evaporating our coal mines into the air.” After performing 10,000 equations by hand, Svante Arrhenius calculated that the earth’s average temperature would increase by many degrees if we doubled the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Seventy years later, my teacher, Roger Revelle, and his colleague, Dave Keeling, began to precisely document the increasing CO2 levels day by day.

But unlike most other forms of pollution, CO2 is invisible, tasteless, and odorless — which has helped keep the truth about what it is doing to our climate out of sight and out of mind. Moreover, the catastrophe now threatening us is unprecedented – and we often confuse the unprecedented with the improbable.

We also find it hard to imagine making the massive changes that are now necessary to solve the crisis. And when large truths are genuinely inconvenient, whole societies can, at least for a time, ignore them. Yet as George Orwell reminds us: “Sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.”

In the years since this prize was first awarded, the entire relationship between humankind and the earth has been radically transformed. And still, we have remained largely oblivious to the impact of our cumulative actions.

Indeed, without realizing it, we have begun to wage war on the earth itself. Now, we and the earth’s climate are locked in a relationship familiar to war planners: “Mutually assured destruction.”

More than two decades ago, scientists calculated that nuclear war could throw so much debris and smoke into the air that it would block life-giving sunlight from our atmosphere, causing a “nuclear winter.” Their eloquent warnings here in Oslo helped galvanize the world’s resolve to halt the nuclear arms race.

Now science is warning us that if we do not quickly reduce the global warming pollution that is trapping so much of the heat our planet normally radiates back out of the atmosphere, we are in danger of creating a permanent “carbon summer.”

As the American poet Robert Frost wrote, “Some say the world will end in fire; some say in ice.” Either, he notes, “would suffice.”

But neither need be our fate. It is time to make peace with the planet.

We must quickly mobilize our civilization with the urgency and resolve that has previously been seen only when nations mobilized for war. These prior struggles for survival were won when leaders found words at the 11th hour that released a mighty surge of courage, hope and readiness to sacrifice for a protracted and mortal challenge.

These were not comforting and misleading assurances that the threat was not real or imminent; that it would affect others but not ourselves; that ordinary life might be lived even in the presence of extraordinary threat; that Providence could be trusted to do for us what we would not do for ourselves.

No, these were calls to come to the defense of the common future. They were calls upon the courage, generosity and strength of entire peoples, citizens of every class and condition who were ready to stand against the threat once asked to do so. Our enemies in those times calculated that free people would not rise to the challenge; they were, of course, catastrophically wrong.

Now comes the threat of climate crisis – a threat that is real, rising, imminent, and universal. Once again, it is the 11th hour. The penalties for ignoring this challenge are immense and growing, and at some near point would be unsustainable and unrecoverable. For now we still have the power to choose our fate, and the remaining question is only this: Have we the will to act vigorously and in time, or will we remain imprisoned by a dangerous illusion?

Mahatma Gandhi awakened the largest democracy on earth and forged a shared resolve with what he called “Satyagraha” – or “truth force.”

In every land, the truth – once known – has the power to set us free.

Truth also has the power to unite us and bridge the distance between “me” and “we,” creating the basis for common effort and shared responsibility.

There is an African proverb that says, “If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” We need to go far, quickly.

We must abandon the conceit that individual, isolated, private actions are the answer. They can and do help. But they will not take us far enough without collective action. At the same time, we must ensure that in mobilizing globally, we do not invite the establishment of ideological conformity and a new lock-step “ism.”

That means adopting principles, values, laws, and treaties that release creativity and initiative at every level of society in multifold responses originating concurrently and spontaneously.

This new consciousness requires expanding the possibilities inherent in all humanity. The innovators who will devise a new way to harness the sun’s energy for pennies or invent an engine that’s carbon negative may live in Lagos or Mumbai or Montevideo. We must ensure that entrepreneurs and inventors everywhere on the globe have the chance to change the world.

When we unite for a moral purpose that is manifestly good and true, the spiritual energy unleashed can transform us. The generation that defeated fascism throughout the world in the 1940s found, in rising to meet their awesome challenge, that they had gained the moral authority and long-term vision to launch the Marshall Plan, the United Nations, and a new level of global cooperation and foresight that unified Europe and facilitated the emergence of democracy and prosperity in Germany, Japan, Italy and much of the world. One of their visionary leaders said, “It is time we steered by the stars and not by the lights of every passing ship.”

In the last year of that war, you gave the Peace Prize to a man from my hometown of 2000 people, Carthage, Tennessee. Cordell Hull was described by Franklin Roosevelt as the “Father of the United Nations.” He was an inspiration and hero to my own father, who followed Hull in the Congress and the U.S. Senate and in his commitment to world peace and global cooperation.

My parents spoke often of Hull, always in tones of reverence and admiration. Eight weeks ago, when you announced this prize, the deepest emotion I felt was when I saw the headline in my hometown paper that simply noted I had won the same prize that Cordell Hull had won. In that moment, I knew what my father and mother would have felt were they alive.

Just as Hull’s generation found moral authority in rising to solve the world crisis caused by fascism, so too can we find our greatest opportunity in rising to solve the climate crisis. In the Kanji characters used in both Chinese and Japanese, “crisis” is written with two symbols, the first meaning “danger,” the second “opportunity.” By facing and removing the danger of the climate crisis, we have the opportunity to gain the moral authority and vision to vastly increase our own capacity to solve other crises that have been too long ignored.

We must understand the connections between the climate crisis and the afflictions of poverty, hunger, HIV-Aids and other pandemics. As these problems are linked, so too must be their solutions. We must begin by making the common rescue of the global environment the central organizing principle of the world community.

Fifteen years ago, I made that case at the “Earth Summit” in Rio de Janeiro. Ten years ago, I presented it in Kyoto. This week, I will urge the delegates in Bali to adopt a bold mandate for a treaty that establishes a universal global cap on emissions and uses the market in emissions trading to efficiently allocate resources to the most effective opportunities for speedy reductions.

This treaty should be ratified and brought into effect everywhere in the world by the beginning of 2010 – two years sooner than presently contemplated. The pace of our response must be accelerated to match the accelerating pace of the crisis itself.

Heads of state should meet early next year to review what was accomplished in Bali and take personal responsibility for addressing this crisis. It is not unreasonable to ask, given the gravity of our circumstances, that these heads of state meet every three months until the treaty is completed.

We also need a moratorium on the construction of any new generating facility that burns coal without the capacity to safely trap and store carbon dioxide.

And most important of all, we need to put a price on carbon — with a CO2 tax that is then rebated back to the people, progressively, according to the laws of each nation, in ways that shift the burden of taxation from employment to pollution. This is by far the most effective and simplest way to accelerate solutions to this crisis.

The world needs an alliance – especially of those nations that weigh heaviest in the scales where earth is in the balance. I salute Europe and Japan for the steps they’ve taken in recent years to meet the challenge, and the new government in Australia, which has made solving the climate crisis its first priority.

But the outcome will be decisively influenced by two nations that are now failing to do enough: the United States and China. While India is also growing fast in importance, it should be absolutely clear that it is the two largest CO2 emitters — most of all, my own country –– that will need to make the boldest moves, or stand accountable before history for their failure to act.

Both countries should stop using the other’s behavior as an excuse for stalemate and instead develop an agenda for mutual survival in a shared global environment.

These are the last few years of decision, but they can be the first years of a bright and hopeful future if we do what we must. No one should believe a solution will be found without effort, without cost, without change. Let us acknowledge that if we wish to redeem squandered time and speak again with moral authority, then these are the hard truths:

The way ahead is difficult. The outer boundary of what we currently believe is feasible is still far short of what we actually must do. Moreover, between here and there, across the unknown, falls the shadow.

That is just another way of saying that we have to expand the boundaries of what is possible. In the words of the Spanish poet, Antonio Machado, “Pathwalker, there is no path. You must make the path as you walk.”

We are standing at the most fateful fork in that path. So I want to end as I began, with a vision of two futures – each a palpable possibility – and with a prayer that we will see with vivid clarity the necessity of choosing between those two futures, and the urgency of making the right choice now.

The great Norwegian playwright, Henrik Ibsen, wrote, “One of these days, the younger generation will come knocking at my door.”

The future is knocking at our door right now. Make no mistake, the next generation will ask us one of two questions. Either they will ask: “What were you thinking; why didn’t you act?”

Or they will ask instead: “How did you find the moral courage to rise and successfully resolve a crisis that so many said was impossible to solve?”

We have everything we need to get started, save perhaps political will, but political will is a renewable resource.

So let us renew it, and say together: “We have a purpose. We are many. For this purpose we will rise, and we will act.”

A Special "Diet"

From: bill heart
To: Mary Rehwald
Subject: FW: Thought you’d enjoy this article from today’s Wisconsin State Journal. D.

MON., NOV 26, 2007
The “Atkinson” Diet helps town cut energy use
ANITA CLARK
608-252-6138
aclark@madison.com
FORT ATKINSON — This small city is on a diet.
It’s The Atkinson Diet, a reducing regimen aimed at cutting community energy use instead of cutting calories.
With a goal of raising awareness and lowering greenhouse gas emissions, a small group of citizens is trying to persuade its neighbors to “love where you live.”

In less than a year, the group, Heart of the City, has enrolled about 110 diet members, at $11 apiece (for the potential 11 degrees of global warming in the next century), and nudged neighbors, businesses, schools and even city government toward conservation.
Its tools have been education, persuasion and a healthy sense of humor.
“It’s a fun way to explain yourself without having to sound heavy,” said Kitty Welch, president of Heart of the City and an owner of the popular Cafe Carpe downtown. “We want people to start where they are because everybody can help.”
Welch, for example, added baskets to her bicycle for grocery shopping and sends customers home with leftover containers made of sugarcane fiber.
She coined the term “flarb,” which means carbon flab, for excess carbon dioxide emissions.
Atkinson dieters are exhorted to be “big losers” and take a four-week plunge into flarb reduction using such tactics as substituting compact fluorescent light bulbs for incandescents, biking instead of driving and starting a home compost pile.
“What we’re doing, really, is trying to raise awareness,” Welch said. “By raising awareness, we hope people will change, a little bit, how they do things.”
Heart of the City is among a growing number of grassroots efforts that try to address local livability issues through citizen advocacy, said Steve Grabow, a community development educator for UW-Extension in Jefferson County.
“It’s an excellent example of an organization that takes citizen planning and change to a high level,” he said.
To recruit Atkinson Dieters, a lively Web site with engaging cartoons offers weekly reducing tips and shines an admiring spotlight on “carbon stars,” people who share their ideas and success stories.
One dieter is Steve Tessmer, a Web page designer and City Council member who got involved because “it really felt right.”
He and his wife downsized to one car, installed new storm windows on their old house and “gently remind each other” about conserving water and electricity.
When the Uncle Josh Bait Company consolidated its storage and turned off a walk-in cooler, its electrical use fell so dramatically the utility thought its meter malfunctioned, said Patrick McDevitt, an owner.
He was trying to save money, he said, but “you want to be a good steward. You can’t just waste things.”
Heart of the City hopes small steps will lead to big changes as people talk to their neighbors, share resources and try to shape their city of about 12,000 people into a place of cleaner air, less traffic and more community feeling.
“It’s a slow process, as change usually is,” said John Wilmet, Fort Atkinson city manager.
The city has adopted energy conservation measures such as setback thermostats, efficient lighting and an anti-idling policy for vehicles. And after heartfelt discussion, City Council members adopted their own version of the U.S. Mayors’ Climate Protection Agreement, setting local goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Even the traffic lights are on The Atkinson Diet. After installing red LED (light-emitting diode) bulbs on its own, the city accepted a $1,200 donation for green bulbs from Heart of the City and business partners.
The LED bulbs use significantly less energy than incandescent bulbs and last seven to 10 years, instead of about two years for incandescent bulbs, Welch said.
Partners in the green light gift were the Verlo Mattress Factory Stores of Fort Atkinson, its headquarters and its parent company, VyMaC Corp.
Those businesses are housed in the five-story former Creamery Building in downtown Fort Atkinson, a restored 1920s structure that’s now a showcase for energy efficiency and historic preservation.
Whether it’s a project as large as a building restoration or as small as stocking LED holiday lights in local stores, Heart of the City is seeing growing interest in a carbon-reducing diet.
“The idea is to keep the discussion going,” said group member Cynthia Holt.

Apple Fest documented

A Documentation of Sustainability, Trash, and Recycling Efforts Apple Fest 2007

A Personal Account
By Grandon Harris

…basic observations …A few comments…Definitions and semantics: “Garbage” and “Trash”
Clarity in our terms for disposal/recycling
Chamber’s memo to vendors and orchards
Comment on Bayfield’s rest-of-the-year recycling system
Comment on Dalrymple Campground
Marina/Yacht Club
Private contractor’s dumpsters
Comments on the contents of trash cans (from my photos)
Comments on red containers for aluminum can recycling
The Iron Bridge
Some “main street” business notes
Some vendor notes
Photos of note
Leading the way
Conclusion

(I am unable to post this long article in a way that would be convenient for readers, so I am going to place the photos here, and send the article out as a PDF. Sorry, I just don’t have time to learn that blog skill right now. –Ros)

Smile

Is Wind Energy in the Oredock’s Future?

Public Meeting–Thursday, October 11th - 6:30 p.m.
WITC in Ashland, 2500 Beaser Ave., Room 106 (Building Entrance “A”)

Learn More and Share Your Views

ORE DOCK ENERGY PARK - featuring nine wind turbines. A concept presented by SEH Inc., one of the three firms presenting concepts for the oredock’s future at this Thursday’s meeting. “The Ashland Energy Park is equipped with eleven 300kW vertical wind turbines producing a total of 3.3mW – enough to power the majority of Ashland’s 5,400 homes. And the park is a visible demonstration of the vision of the citizens of Ashland to protect Chequamegon Bay for future generations by not only reclaiming the former Northern States Power site nearby but replacing power needs with a clean and renewable resource.” - excerpt from SEH proposal.

Public Meeting on Oredock Reuse Concepts
Special Meeting of the City of Ashland’s Planning Commission

Opportunity for Citizen Input

Alliance for Sustainability - P.O. Box 141 Ashland, WI 54806 - (715) 682-1189

Al’s rain garden

These photos represent three stages of Al Chechik’s (Artesian House) rain garden. Looks great! (Say Al, is THIS the reason it won’t stop raining?)
–early June, after he removed as much of the old invasive stuff as possible
–about June 19, after the garden was first planted
–late September–pretty well established
The Artesian House
84100 Hatchery Rd., Bayfield, WI 54814
715/779-3338 artesian@ncis.net www.artesianhouse.com

Homegrown Fuel - Discussion Oct 16th

A Panel Discussion on the Economics & Sustainability of Biodiesel
Tuesday, October 16th — 6:30 - 9:00 pm
At the Northern Great Lakes Visitor Center, West of Ashland on Hwy. 2, in the Martin Hanson Theater

Panel Members:
• Bob Krumenaker, Superintendent of the Apostle Island National Lakeshore
The AINL is currently using biodiesel in some of their motor boats. Bob will share the pros and cons of using this fossil fuel alternative.
• Herb Schweitzer, Ardizam, Biofuels Operations Manager
Ardizam is considering a biodiesel facility in the Ashland industrial park and has already commissioned local farmers to begin producing feedstock.
• Jason Fischbach, UW Extension Agricultural Agent
Jason has worked with many local farmers and businesses and is knowledgeable of land usage considerations and their impact on the economy.
• Brenda Rowley, Co-Owner of #2 Septic
#2 Septic produces and uses biodiesel in their small business and received a 2007 Environmental Stewardship Award from the BiNational Forum.
• Tim Nolan, MN Pollution Control Agency, Sustainable Development
Tim offers insight from our neighbor state and abroad having given talks on eco-industrial development to international audiences.

Join us for an evening of dialogue and inquiry into the potentials for usage and production of biodiesel in the Northwoods!
This event it co-sponsored by the Alliance for Sustainability and the Ashland-Bayfield County League of Women Voters.

Alliance for Sustainability - P.O. Box 141 Ashland, WI 54806 - (715) 682-1189

Summary on Bayfield Heights CoPar proposal

Offered by Linda Webster—

The owner of the last large plot of land in Bayfield is working with a developer, CoPar Development, to provide the Plan Commission with a conceptual plan to begin building homes of varying sizes on this property. The plan was first presented to the Commission about a year ago. The land owner has asked the Commission to comment on their interest in continuing working with CoPar on this project. The Commission has indicated that there are several issues to be resolved before the plan could be approved:
1) Change the ordinance dealing with the development, so that the Bayfield ordinance will allow a planned development. This will then allow CoPar to continue their request to gain approval to create a PUD (Planned Unit Development). This designation gives the city full reign in reviewing all aspects of the plan and negotiating with the developer.
2) Receive the expertise of a civil engineer who can assess the land and its ravines, to determine whether the plan as described by CoPar is feasible.
3) Ask CoPar to consider a street design other than a grid system, as is used in the rest of Bayfield, as a grid may have many detrimental ramifications for runnoff, etc. The CI can help determine this.

It would be useful to the citizens of Bayfield and surrounding area to keep apprised of this project by reviewing the comprehensive plan that is available for public viewing at City Hall, and to attend relevant Plan Commission and City Council meetings. Meeting agendae are posted on the City of Bayfield website www.cityofbayfield.com
If not found, call City Hall and reques that they be posted.

Two different ideas about boats

Photos by Grandon Harris, member of Sustainable Bayfield.