Buying lightweight, healthy snacks to pack along on outdoor adventures can seriously break the bank. Even then, you may find weird ingredients on the labels and worry how those mystery substances will hinder your performance out there.

Dried fruit can be one of the biggest offenders. Even organic dried fruit at grocery stores often contains sugar and other additives.

Many of those expensive packaged foods can be made at home to save money and give you control over the ingredients – and dried fruit is a good one to start with because it requires minimal kitchen skills.

Kyle Merritt, a Spokane native and avid backpacker, dries fruits and vegetables at home for his hiking trips. Merritt’s list includes zucchinni – which he slices thin to make chips – onions, carrots, apples, plums and bananas.

“All the veggies, I end up throwing in when I am about halfway through cooking a dish,” he says. The vegetables rehydrate as they cook and add nutrients to simple meals like ramen noodles. The fruit, he sprinkles over oatmeal in the mornings and eats for snacks along the trail.

Merritt uses a dehydrator, by far the most efficient method for drying food.

Higher quality and longer lasting food dehydrators average about $250 at big box stores and online. Sun People Dry Goods, a locally-owned natural living supplier, sells two models in the same price range. That’s a lot of money for a kitchen appliance, but drying your own stuff sure beats the price of packaged organic, all-natural foods at the store.

“[The dehydrator] appeals to people who, one, are cost conscious and two, those who like to do it themselves,” says Sun People owner Juliet Sinisterra. Many of her customers use dehydrators to make a variety of products. “People want to prepare their own dried fruit. A lot of people want to dry their own herbs. You can even do granola in there.”

Sticker shock shouldn’t be a deterrent from drying your own food. The locally owned General Store in Spokane also has several less expensive models of dehydrators ranging from $50 to $150. Quality used dehydrators can also be found online and at garage sales. Almost everyone I asked about their dehydrator said they found theirs second-hand. Merritt found the one he’s been using lately in the basement of his house when he moved in.

As an alternative to a dehydrator, you can also use your kitchen oven and supplies you already have on hand. It can take several hours to most of a day to dry different fruits and vegetables in an oven set around 100 degrees, depending on what you’re drying and how thin you slice the food. Cracking the door and setting a fan nearby can help simulate a dehydrator.

Whatever method you use will require three elements: warm temperatures, low humidity and airflow. Your fruit should be ripe (not overripe), pitted or cored, and evenly sliced for uniform drying.

Dipping the fruit in citric acid or lemon helps preserve the color of the fruit, but Merritt says he likes his fruit just as it is.

For him, the only drawback to drying with a dehydrator is that you can only make so many dried snacks at once. He’d like a solution that uses less power and has a larger capacity – and he’s found instructions online for building just such a thing. “Someday, I strive to make a solar-powered dehydrator for the backyard.”

Check out Sun People Dry Goods (sunpeopledrygoods.com) or the General Store (generalstorespokane.com) if you’re looking to buy a new food dehydrator from a locally owned store.

Where to Find Fresh Fruits & Veggies for Drying

Cole’s Orchard
Cole’s is a certified organic, small family farm/orchard up at Green Bluff that offers apricots, prunes, pears, and apples, as well as a variety of vegetables. They are open Fri-Sunday and by appointment. More info: 509-238-4962
www.greenbluffgrowers.com/map/15.html

Spokane Farmers Market
Many types of fresh, local, and organic fruits and vegetables. Located downtown on 5^th Ave. between Division and Browne on Wednesdays and Saturdays from 8am to 1pm.
www.spokanefarmersmarket.org

Sandpoint Farmers Market
Downtown in Farmin Park Wednesdays from 3-5:30 and Saturdays from 9-1.
www.sandpointfarmersmarket.com

The post DIY Snacks appeared first on Out There Venture.

Heinberg, a senior fellow at the Post Carbon Institute and author of ten books, has most recently published, The End of Growth: Adapting to our New Economic Reality. Biological economists such as Herman Daly and oil geologists like Colin Campbell have been warning for years, that once we hit, or start to approach the limits of natural resources on this planet, the abnormal growth that our economy has experienced these past 150 years will start to retreat. Heinberg tackles what this new era, without growth, looks like, its ramifications, and the potential for new types of human and environmental well-being. Central to his work is his overriding compassion for our world and those of us who populate it.

OTM: You start your book with a basic overview of economic history, and the roles of currency and usury. Why is it important to understand money and its relationship to our current ecological predicament?

RH: In traditional societies, money and debt played a relatively small role in people’s daily lives. With the massive economic growth of the 19th and 20th centuries, which came about because of the temporary availability of cheap fossil energy, money became an essential tool enabling capital accumulation, the trading of rights to natural resources, and the distribution of manufactured products. During the past two decades, innovations in the financial world multiplied debt and monetary claims on real goods to such an extent that now there is no way all the existing claims can ever be honored. We let the environment go to ruin, we let people suffer, and we let communities disintegrate because doing anything to protect them would hamper further economic growth.

What has gone wrong? Have we just gotten too greedy? I argue that what we’re seeing is the convergence and—crucially—the ending of two trends: a two-century expansion of production (economic growth) based on cheap energy, and a concurrent expansion of credit based on the belief that the economy will continue to grow forever. We can print all the dollars we want, but we can’t make land, water, topsoil and other resources. So we have reached a fundamental turning point in our economic history, where resource limits are forcing an end to economic growth.

OTM: In Chapter 3, “Earth’s Limits: Why Growth Won’t Return,” you discuss and show the historical correlation between rising oil prices and economic recessions. While most economists look to the housing bubble as the primary cause of the crash of 2008, you and other oil geologists and biophysical economists have looked to the escalating prices of oil as the root cause. Can you talk briefly about this?

RH: I’m not saying the housing bubble had no role in triggering the current economic crisis. Of course it was a proximate trigger, but it wasn’t the only one. People tend to forget that the oil price spiked to $147 in July 2008—the highest level ever. Every oil price spike since 1970 has been followed by a recession. On the basis of oil prices alone, we should have expected to see a long and deep recession commencing in the third or fourth quarter of 2008. The timing of the bursting of the housing bubble was also affected by oil prices. As several economists (including James Hamilton of the University of California, San Diego) have pointed out, it was in exurban neighborhoods where most residents had long commutes that house prices first started falling. Once the cost of filling the tank of a typical SUV shot to over $100, folks in those communities realized they didn’t have enough money at the end of the month to pay their mortgages and credit card bills.

It’s always important to see events in perspective. Why did we have a credit bubble in the first place? Because of expectations that the economy would continue to grow and house prices would continue to escalate. Why would people expect the economy to grow continually? Because it has grown so much over the past few decades. Why has it done so? Because we had access to cheap, plentiful energy from fossil fuels. Of course, markets and technological innovation played their roles, but without abundant cheap energy we could not have achieved economic growth on a scale remotely similar to what we’ve seen. Seen in context, the 20th century was one long fossil-fueled mania. We are just starting to wake up from it.

OTM: I found Chapter 7, “Life after Growth,” to be a great blueprint of where we need to be heading from a community development perspective. In a related blog, you discuss the need to be happier with living with less, living slower, smaller and poorer. Can you expand on this?

RH: The consumer lifestyle did not evolve spontaneously; it was deliberately engineered by corporate America and the advertising industry as a way of dealing with the problem of overproduction during the fossil-fueled boom times. Acquiring more stuff can give us a momentary jolt of stimulating brain chemicals, and we can easily get addicted to that kind of stimulation, but it doesn’t actually make us happy. Having nurturing relationships with the people around us, having a sense of autonomy and agency, and being engaged in creative work is far more satisfying over the long term. Being shackled to the consumer treadmill actually works against that kind of deeper satisfaction.

Traditional societies understood the value of slowing down and reining in consumption; that’s why most families in such societies sent at least one child to live in a meditative monastery wherein voluntary poverty was extolled as a high virtue. During the 20th century we tended to forget values having to do with community and love of nature, because they didn’t help promote economic growth. Now that the growth era is over and done with, it’s a really good idea to get back in touch with sources of happiness that don’t require a big salary, big spending, a big house, and a big car. Being a genuine optimist doesn’t mean thinking that circumstances will always be to our liking; rather, it’s maintaining a positive attitude and making the most of what life has in store.

By Juliet Sinisterra

The post Interview With Richard Heinberg appeared first on Out There Venture.

By Juliet Sinisterra

Snorkeling in the Bahamas, exploring the Baja, hiking in the Canadian Rockies-you have seen the ads in Outside Magazine and long to have an adventure of your own, but you just don’t seem to have the disposable cash or the vacation time.

What about Eastern Washington? Have you considered exploring our own bioregion? Why not scale all 7,210 feet of Hooknose Mountain near Colville or explore the Blue Mountain Range near Walla Walla? James P. Johnson, the author of 50 Hikes for Eastern Washington’s Highest Mountains, loves the thrill of climbing a mountain, enjoying the view and being home before dinner.

“In the early ’90s, I hiked up Mt. Abercrombie-the second highest mountain [in Eastern Washington]. I had lived here all my life and I was completely unaware there were such high mountains in our region, and so many of them,” says Johnson.

Johnson, an avid hiker, spent eight years researching, writing and hiking mountain peaks for the book. An elementary school teacher at the time, he devoted four of his summers to personally hike each of the mountains at least once.

“Some mountains are really easy to access-you can drive a car right up to then-some are very remote, an all day hike. If you had the whole summer and were really dedicated you could do them all. Once I hiked five in one day.”

When Johnson began his pursuit of Eastern Washington’s highest peaks he started at the map store. “There was no compilation of the highest mountains, so I began looking at USGS topographic maps,” says Johnson. Johnson took the names of each of the peaks from the maps, but found little background as to why each mountain was named. “I found hardly any research on names, history and there were no records of first ascents, probably due to the ease of the hikes,” says Johnson.

The hikes that Johnson lists are just that, they are not technical climbs. Every hike included can be climbed in a day or less and requires no specific gear or equipment. Many are suitable for young children. Johnson views the ease of each climb as one of the benefits of our region. With less danger involved, hikers can access high country earlier in the season.

The other benefit for Johnson, is that not many people know about these hikes. “I have hiked in British Columbia, Banff and the North Idaho Selkirks-our mountain peaks are not quite so spectacular, but if you love the outdoors, you can get out and appreciate it without the crowds. At times I have hiked on a holiday, or a busy summer weekend and have seen very few other people along the trail, and at times been a solitary hiker.” As a way to commemorate reaching the top, Johnson has built on the more remote, higher peaks, a few rock cairns at the summit, and has placed a canister inside with a sign-in log.

Several of the peaks listed in the guidebook, are managed for resource extraction primarily, they are not on protected public lands. “You pass through ripped up, torn apart landscape. Like the Salmo-Priest area-it seems so small on a map, but when you are there, standing on those peaks, the valley and slopes have all been logged. You can see the clearcut everywhere, the wilderness has been taken away. Hopefully by visiting these mountains, more people will pay attention and logging can be done in a more thoughtful manner,” says Johnson.

When Johnson began shopping his guidebook around, he found almost no interest from over hundreds of publishers. He had just about shelved the idea when in 2002 he discovered a small Oregon publisher, Frank Amato Publications, Inc. that primarily published fishing books. “I was at the bookstore and I noticed that they also had some hiking books, so I sent them a manuscript.” They agreed to publish the book almost immediately. Since then, 50 Hikes, has received a lot of local interest and support from local bookstores. Johnson is very happy with how it has been doing.

Johnson’s objective in publishing the book was to bring more awareness to the beauty of our bioregion, to allow us connect with our immediate landscape. “Being surrounded by the Cascades, the Canadian Rockies and Glacier is great, but if you only have one day available, you can go see something spectacular right around here,” says Johnson.

And if you are looking for that unique experience that comes with a true adventure look no further than the alpine toad. While hiking, Johnson has seen the prerequisite black bears, moose and even elk, but the animal he saw the most frequently were toads. “You expect to see a toad near a pond but not near the top of a 6,000 foot peak. The alpine toad seems to be everywhere. They seem to have quite the range in elevation.”

Juliet Sinisterra is a former managing editor of Out There Monthly, with founding publisher Jon Snyder, the precursor to OTO.

The post Hiking the Highest Peaks in Eastern WA appeared first on Out There Venture.

Sinisterra was inspired to open this type of store after working with Community-Minded Enterprises—a non-profit focused on sustainability—and working on the Mayor’s Sustainability Task Force for the City of Spokane. This group worked to find ways that Spokane could live up to the agreement to lower CO2 levels to those of 1990. She realized that the community is a large part of making that change and as we understand the science of climate change, we begin to understand the need to change behaviors quickly. She says, “We want to make [this change] fun and easy, not scary. It’s not that you’re giving up all of these things like consuming more water and using more electricity…you’re reviving lost arts and really just having a richer lifestyle.”

The grand opening celebration should provide a taste of things to come from Sun People. The doors open for shopping at 9:00 am and the event kicks off at 11:00 am with a ribbon cutting by Mayor Mary Verner. Festivities will also include a blessing of the store, music by Brian Young and Our Mother the Mountain, kids’ activities, David’s Pizza, chocolates from Chocolate Apothecary, a Sun People coffee blend from Roast House, worm bin demonstrations and store tours.

Customers will likely encounter many unfamiliar labels on Sun People’s products; many of them are made by regional micro-manufacturers that haven’t had a market in Spokane before. Examples include Madrone regenerated clothing, a business from Port Townsend, Washington, that uses stained sweaters and t-shirts to create new, stylish clothing. Sun People will also stock regional gems such as recycled water bottles from Walla Walla and lead-free hoses from Oregon.

When looking for products, they will be examining the whole business, not just the item to be stocked. This means looking for businesses paying a living wage to employees and moving towards zero waste as much as possible.

The products on the shelves are only one aspect of Sun People. “People don’t know where to begin, so we want to make it easy…providing a place they can go with real live people giving live training as a way to facilitate living this way,” says Sinisterra. Many workshops are already scheduled for this winter including worm bin composting; DIY energy auditing with David Hale; bike commuting with Pedals 2 People and Paul Turner of the Spokesman-Review; a two-part garden start-up workshop with local expert Pat Munts; and DIY skin care with Monique Belair-Kovalenko.

One of the first workshops takes place on December 11 and aims to offer alternatives to conventional cosmetic products, which contain unregulated amounts of toxins and chemicals. Belair-Kovalenko has experimented with making her own products and now wants to share some of her best recipes and reasons for doing-it-yourself with workshop participants. She says, “I feel better knowing that making my own products often means I’m cutting down on the waste of extra packaging…I also know what’s going on my skin. It’s fun to play around and make my own scents.” Each participant in her workshop will go home with a body care kit containing toner, facial cleanser, deodorant and bath salts packaged in re-used glass jars and bottles. Belair-Kovalenko echoes Sinisterra’s comments about the store’s mission and says, “It really doesn’t have to be difficult…I plan on offering basic options that you can find in your kitchen, and it’s way cheaper than other high-quality organic products.”

Partnerships have been a key factor in Sun People’s initial months, both with local non-profits and workshop hosts and with the Spokane small business community. The Sun People staff have worked with ten local non-profits to identify their supply needs, and then created a Holiday Gift Catalog that people can purchase items from on behalf of a friend as a gift. For example, a customer might buy twenty trees for The Lands Council for their children or family members, like a local version of the worldwide Heifer project. The store will also stock t-shirts promoting non-profits and sustainable projects.

Sinisterra says that other partnerships have also emerged from within the small business community and are showing “the strength of small business working together.” Businesses including Yoga Shala, Santé, Boo Radley’s and Kizuri have worked with Sun People to promote Buy Local Black Friday, a local spin on the traditional day of consumerism. She also points out other examples of businesses working together to strengthen the overall market. Sun People and Eco Depot are doing cooperative purchasing on items they both carry to lower costs for both businesses. She says, “I don’t think we would have support like this starting up in Portland or Seattle. There’s a lot of momentum in our small business community right now.”

That momentum is currently being channeled into creating a BALLE (Business Alliance for Local Living Economies) Network in Spokane. According to the BALLE website, “[the organization] believes that local, independent businesses are among our most potent change agents, uniquely prepared to take on the challenges of the twenty-first century…they are more than employers and profit-makers; they are neighbors, community builders and the starting point for social innovation.” Using this philosophy, BALLE founder Judy Wicks has led the way for over 80 networks, including 22,000 business owners to become better connected in strengthening local economies.

Sinisterra attributes much of her inspiration in opening this store to Judy Wick’s story. She says, “Around the world, there are cities with thousands of thriving small businesses and more networks to support each other…it’s really inspiring to see everyday people deciding to [start a business] and support each other in doing it.” As the store grows, Sinisterra plans to continue working on the big picture of local business, eco-friendly business and “business as an agent for change.”

The post Sustainable Living: Sun People Dry Goods appeared first on Out There Venture.

Climate Change: Local Impact and Response
Tuesday, November 2 at 6:30pm

St. Aloysius Parish Center- 330 E Boone Ave

Panelists:
 -Amanda Parrish and Joe Cannon discuss The Land’s Council’s Beaver Solution, a natural way of storing spring runoff water for the dry season.
-Juliet Sinisterra, General Manager and Co-Owner of Sun People Dry Goods Co., an eco-friendly store.
-Sandy Compton, Program Coordinator of Friends of Scotchman Peaks Wilderness area on the Idaho/Montana Border

Soup, Bread and DVDs
Saturday, November 6 at 6:15pm

St. Aloysius Parish Center- 330 E Boone Ave

 TWO SHORT FILMS BY ANNIE LEONARD:

The Story of Stuff. (20 minutes) A movie about consumption and how environmental problems are linked with social justice issues.

The Story of Bottled Water. (8 minutes) A look at our addiction to bottled water and its implications around the world.

 RSVP by November 4, for food planning purposes: Rita 313-7003

 Click Here for more information

‘I’m Dreaming of a Green Christmas’ 
Thursday, November 18th at 5:30pm. 

Check out our website for more information and please share our flyer with your friends! 
 

The post Three Great Events! appeared first on Out There Venture.

Mark Hanc
Chicago Review Press, 2008, 192 pages

In late february and early March, ambitious Spokane runners braved below freezing temperatures and remnants of sidewalk ice berms as they got in their early training runs for Bloomsday. Now drop the temperature another thirty or forty degrees, add a thirty mile an hour wind and make that training run a twenty-six miler. That will give you an idea of Mark Hanc’s notion of the birthday present of a lifetime.

The Coolest Race on Earth chronicles both the history of the Antarctic Marathon and Hanc’s decision to spend a couple of weeks way down under participating in the event in celebration of his 50th birthday. First run in 1995, the marathon has been an annual event since 2005. Because of the location and the difficulty of travel, the registration is limited to about twenty runners and travel and accommodation opportunities for the participants are limited. If you think this is the run for you, plan to pony up plenty of money. The 2009 entry fee, which includes travel from Punta Arenas, Argentina and accommodations in Antarctica, is $16,500.

Marathoner Hanc, who writes for Runner’s World and other publications, brings both a journalist’s style and a runners experience to the story. He provides vivid, succinct descriptions of the terrain, the trials and the glories of the run. Hanc illuminates the lives and character of his fellow competitors. As the subtitle suggests, the characters participating in the race actually make the story. In the end they come away as more a family than a group of competitors.

So, if last winter’s snow got you down, read The Coolest Race, get in shape, save your money and sign up for a winter vacation in say December of 2010; plan to run the Antarctic Marathon. Given the attention this book is sure to draw to the race, I would sign up soon or you may get old staying in shape long enough to make the entry limit.

Stan Miller

Plan C: Community Survival Strategies For Peak Oil And Climate Change
Pat Murphy
New Society Publishers, 2008, 304 pages

Soon after 9/11 IN 2001, former Vice-President Dick Cheney stated, “The American way of life is non-negotiable.” In 1992, then President George H. W. Bush made the exact statement at the Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In 2004, Colin Powell, while attending the follow-up to the Earth Summit was asked if President George W. Bush would be asking Americans to reduce consumption in order to address climate change. Powell responded, “The American way of life is a blessed one.”

Not so, says Pat Murphy in his book, Plan C: Community Survival Strategies for Peak Oil and Climate Change. According to Murphy, in order to adequately address climate change and the future stability of civilization itself, strategy number one is masssive energy conservation or curtailment—about 80% of our American “way of life” needs to go or at least change very quickly.

To some this may seem as an affront to their right to the pursuit of happiness. Murphy sees it as simply being smarter, more efficient and less wasteful. From the numerous statistics, charts and tables throughout Plan C, it appears that we Americans have much to work on. We are gluttons when it comes to consumption, in everything from our transportation choices and the size of our homes to the manufactured food we choose to eat. Each year, each American disposes of approximately 50,000 lbs of waste materials.

According to Plan C, Americans are the world’s worst offenders when it comes to waste and consumption. In 2006, per capita consumption of barrels of oil in the U.S. was 57.8, in China 9.7 and India 3.6. Russia was closest with 33.2. Murphy urges each of us to begin to understand our daily energy choices—67% of total U.S. energy consumption comes down to our personal daily decisions.

A 2004 report from the Pentagon states that global warming “should be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a U.S. national security concern.” With a 10,000-year-old ice bridge collapsing in Antarctica, the Arctic Siberian tundra melting and Greenland becoming more and more green by the day, time may be running out.

Juliet Sinisterra

The post Book Reviews appeared first on Out There Venture.

Can you say “Only in Spokane?” To be honest there maybe some folks in Idaho and Montana who believe that too. Spokane’s John Ahern, who gained fame for asking LC High School students how many babies they were killing–and equating gay people with pets, is leading the charge against sustainability in front of the city council tonight. Former OTM managing editor sent us this plea:

Hi Jon,

If you are able to spread the word to those that might be interested. Tonight the Council votes on the Action Plan generated by the Task Force. Right now only the naysayers are attending. We would like all those that want Spokane to address climate change and peak oil to be there if possible and show their support or speak.

Here is a summary of last week’s council meeting:

http://www.inlander.com/content/newscommentary_john_ahern_and_his_friends_are_secret_united_nations_plot

Thanks,

Juliet Sinisterra, Services Director
Community-Minded Enterprises

We think the Sustainability action plan is a great thing that everyone should support. Please attend tonight’s meeting at 6PM and City Hall. Don’t let the anti-sustainable folks dominate the discussion!

The post Sustainability A United Nations Plot? appeared first on Out There Venture.

Back in August 2007 did a story on pro-hemp Idaho Republican. Tom Trail champions hemp as a great economic development tool for our region. In today’s USA Today there is a great piece about to North Dakota farmers sueing the government to be able to grow hemp. Check the great Quotes from the Dr. Bronner’s Soap guy. If you never read our original article you can read it here.

A Pro-Hemp Republican

By Juliet Sinisterra

While the Midwest focusses on increased corn and soy production for biofuels, the Dead Zone in the Gulf of Mexico is getting bigger. Named for its lack of oxygen and abundance of nitrates, the Dead Zone is thick with algae. The United Nations warns that the world’s growing number of dead zones are a direct result of herbicide and pesticide-intensive farming practices. According to a recent report by BBC News, the volume of nutrients flowing down the Mississippi River into the Gulf has tripled over the last 50 years. Just this past year, farmers planted 15% more corn than the previous year to meet government-induced incentives for ethanol production.

Representative Tom Trail, Idaho House Representative from Moscow, sees industrial hemp as a potential answer. “We are the only country in the world that prohibits the growing of industrial hemp. Industrial hemp has so many positives about it. In today’s world of biodiesel and ethanol, the economists I have talked with at Purdue University indicate that biodiesel from hemp seed would be a realistic possibility,” says Trail.

Unlike, corn, industrial hemp, requires no pesticides or herbicides. Dense thick roots, growing 12 to 15 feet below the surface help with water infiltration and wipe out any weeds. Trail sees the plant as being an “excellent alternative crop” for farmers in the Inland Northwest. “Hemp helps in the rotation sequence to break up various types of viruses or blights that you might have with wheat or peas, lentils or barley. It is also terrific habitat for wild birds and game,” says Trail.

Trail first got interested in hemp while reading about Henry Ford. Ford utilized industrial hemp in the ‘20s. Hemp fiber was used to make various components for the early Model T s and A s such as the dashboards and molding. Ford also used hemp seed to make biodiesel.

“Hemps got quite an important economic history in the early development of the United States. Large plantation owners, like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, grew industrial hemp. The state of Virginia back at the turn of the 1800s required payment of taxes in industrial hemp. Also, it is very likely that the first American flag was made of industrial hemp,” says Trail.

With uses ranging from textiles and paper, to edible oils and seeds, hemp appears to be dream crop for struggling U.S. farmers. So why is it still illegal to grow?

“Hemp, a cousin to marijuana contains only traces of THC—the drug-inducing substance. Someone once said that in order to get a kick out of smoking industrial hemp, you would have to roll a cigar the size of a telephone pole,” says Trail.

To date, 28 states in the U.S. have introduced hemp legislation and 15 have passed legislation; seven (Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Montana, North Dakota and West Virginia) have removed barriers to its production or research. Trail has introduced hemp legislation three times in Idaho. Although, Trail found a wide variety of support among farmers, law enforcement in Idaho along with conservative lawmakers continually blocked his bill.

North Dakota, the first state to issue licences to grow hemp, now has two farmers embroiled in a lawsuit with the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) for a failure to process their licenses. Trail is closely watching this lawsuit.

“Unless we can change national regulations, the Department of Drug Enforcement is pretty well set, they have their rules down that prohibit the growing of industrial hemp. Now Dakota had thought they had an arrangement so that farmers there could grow industrial hemp, the State’s infrastructure was all set up for it, but apparently, Drug Enforcement in D.C. reneged,” says Trail.

Recreational use of cannabis in the United States began in the early 1900s and gained in popularity around the time of the prohibition. Trail points to the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 as the most damaging piece of legislation against hemp. Here, all forms of cannabis were lumped together, including hemp used for textiles, fuel or medicine.

“Our basic problem today is that hemp has been continually demonized as marijuana, since the infamous Marihuana Tax of 1937,” says Trail. He alleges that Congress passed the act under the influence of DuPont in order to protect their emerging nylon and plastics industry. It is true that two of the bill’s main proponents, Harry J. Anslinger and William Randolph Hearst had economic interests opposed to hemp. Anslinger was the husband of Treasury Secretary, Andew W. Mellon’s niece. Mellon Bank was a primary funding source for DuPont. William Randolph Hearst, publishing magnate, was also a timber baron and paper mill owner.

Trail says that many places in Europe are now growing varieties of industrial hemp with zero THC. England, now has a burgeoning hemp industry, since overturning legislation in 1993 that had made the growing of hemp illegal. Sustainable industries, there, are researching ways to make hemp a viable alternative to cotton—a huge consumer of pesticides. Environmentalists working on behalf of hemp, in England, lament the thousands of trees cut down to make paper and the tremendous amounts of pesitcides used toward the cultivation of cotton—all of which could have been significantly reduced through hemp. According to an article in The Guardian from September of 2006, hemp is deemed as having almost half the “ecological footprint” of cotton by the Stockholm Institute.

Back in Idaho, Trail sees most of his opposition coming from local law enforcement. Trail says the most common argument that he hears is that if legalized, farmers could easily grow a small patch of marijuana within a larger field of hemp. Trail dismisses this fear as unfounded, “Law enforcement in Europe is using the growing of industrial hemp to control marijuana. Marijuana and industrial hemp cross-pollinate, so if you are a marijuana farmer, you don’t want to be within 15 miles of an industrial hemp field because cross-pollination lowers the potency of your crop by about 80%,” says Trail.

But Trail sees the the biggest hurdle to growing industrial hemp coming from federal level. Recently, an 8th U.S Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the DEA in a case against a Native American farmer in South Dakota. Thinking he was protected by tribal sovereignty, farmer, Alex White Plume proceeded with growing hemp in 2000 only to have his crop destroyed by DEA agents just prior to harvest. In its ruling the Court did recognize, “that the growing of hemp for industrial uses is the most viable agricultural commodity for that region,” but felt that, “these are policy arguments better suited for the congressional hearing room than the courtroom.”
Faced with a world in the midst of environmental crisis, dwindling energy sources, and struggling American farmers, hemp appears to be a no-brainer. Let’s see if the U.S. government is willing to listen.
“There is no question about the economic positives in raising industrial hemp. At this point, it really is an educational process to gain local and state support to put pressure on the President and Congress. It will take continual pressure from the States,” says Trail. //

To contact Representative Tom Trail please call (208) 882-6077 or go to www.legislature.idaho.gov.

For more information on hemp legislation throughout the United States, please visit www.votehemp.com

The post Update: North Dakota Hemp Heroes appeared first on Out There Venture.

Out There Monthly‘s sister publication, The Go Green Directory, was awarded the first annual Children of the Sun Spokane Peace Prize on Friday. This award honors people and organizations in Eastern Washington and Northern Idaho for outstanding contributions to environmental endeavors. Other Spokane Peace Prize winners included Hearts of America Northwest, and peace activist Al Mangan.

The Go Green Directory is produced by a partnership of Bill Bloom, Juliet Sinisterra, and Jon Snyder. It grew out of OTM‘s popular Sustainable Living column and is now in it’s 4th year of publishing a guide to green and sustainable living in the Inland Northwest. Free copies are available at many locations and a free pdf version of the current edition can be downloaded at http://www.gogreendirectory.com/

Thanks to Tom Brooks and everyone who coordinated the Spokane Peace Prizes and the Spokane Essay Contest that was also awarded on Friday.

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Is Wetland Treatment of Wastewater a Viable Option for the Spokane Valley?

The use of dispersed wetlands over the Spokane Valley Rathdrum Prairie (SVRP) Aquifer is questionable as a wastewater management option. There are several technical, public health and economic reasons for this. Wetland treatment is not a high as is generally perceived by the general public, especially in light of ground water and Spokane River discharge standards. Public meeting have revealed a high level of concern over the public health implications of wastewater being applied to the land surface. Costs of achieving the required treatment levels and for acquiring land for installing wetlands rival the cost of centralized treatment and disposal. Spokane County is exploring the use of a restored Saltese Wetland as a way to use reclaimed water from the planned treatment facility for SVRP Aquifer recharge. Planning this wetland restoration as a potential water reuse facility much information on wetland restoration, construction and treatment capabilities. The following discussion is based on that and other information on wastewater treatment, wetland science and state water quality requirements.

At the technical level there are at least two interrelated problems associated with wetland treatment. First the highly porous nature of most of the soil over the SVRP Aquifer is not conducive to retaining water on the surface without extensive soil amendment and vegetation management. The highly porous nature of the soil and the subsequent leakage to the regions water supply aquifer, leads to limitations on the quality of water can be discharged to a wetland. Wastewater discharged to a wetland built on unamended Spokane Valley soil would be classified as a “surface spreading” aquifer recharge system under state law. Regulations for surface spreading require that the wastewater be treated to drinking water standards and that there be at least a six month time of travel between the point of application and the nearest public water supply well. The large number of water supply wells within the aquifer recharge area and the time of travel limitation make it very difficult to locate a recharge facility (wetland).

Second, the treatment level required for discharge to a wetland and or groundwater connected to the Spokane River cannot be achieved by simple primary treatment systems even in conjunction with a well functioning wetland. Primary water quality issues associated with domestic wastewater include pathogens (disease causing organisms), organic contaminants, and nutrients (phosphorus and nitrogen). Wetlands do a good job of reducing pathogens and decomposing organic components in wastewater. They are not very effective in removing nutrients. Wetlands form a short – term sink for nitrogen and phosphorus and show initial contaminant reduction while the wetland vegetation is developing. Once equilibrium is established and a stable ecosystem is growing, nutrient output then nears nutrient input. Putting this in perspective, the phosphorus and nitrogen in raw domestic wastewater are about 4 – 6 mg/L and 30 – 40 mg/L respectively. In a wetland over the aquifer, where there are no surface streams to carry off the outflow from a wetland, these nutrients will percolate to groundwater. Obviously with a drinking water standard of 10 mg N/L and a ground water standard of 5 mg N/L, recharging groundwater with raw wastewater violates the drinking water standards. Studies of septic tank discharges over the SVRP Aquifer show that nowhere near the 80% – 90% nitrogen removal needed to achieve the ground water standards is achieved as wastewater percolates to the water table. There is no drinking water standard for phosphorus but it is important from a Spokane River quality standpoint. In a recent effort to develop a water quality management plan for the Spokane River it was determined that the maximum phosphorus concentration allowed in point source discharges should be 10 micro – grams per liter. This means that more than 99% of the phosphorus must be removed from the waste stream before discharge to the River. A recent evaluation of septic tank impacts on the aquifer show that about half of the phosphorus applied to the ground over the aquifer will end up in the Spokane River.

The nutrient removal bar for Spokane area wastewater treatment is high. At present there are several “package” treatment systems that can achieve the required treatment for surface spreading; a few can even achieve the nutrient removals needed for SVRP Aquifer and Spokane River quality protection. However, for a facility in the 100, 000 to 1 mgd range a full time operator would be required at each site and for nutrient removal large amounts of chemical additives would need to be used. The labor and materials costs of such facilities would rival that of a large plant. At the level of treatment needed for using artificial wetlands, it would be more practical to find “reuse” opportunities such as industrial uses or irrigation of parks or golf courses near the site of treatment. Low O and M systems like community septic tanks or small aerobic digesters do not achieve the required treatment.

In the several public meetings on water reuse that Spokane County has held it is clear that the public has serious public health concerns over reuse of Class A reclaimed water for irrigation of parks and golf courses. Class A reclaimed water is higher quality than required under the drinking water standards established by the Department of Health except that bacterial levels slightly higher than drinking water levels are allowed. A small amount of disinfection would take care of that deficiency. If the public fears Class A water being applied on the land surface, imagine the level of concern they would have if water of significantly lower quality were to be ponded in wetland areas where kids might be tempted to play.

In addition to the Construction, Operation and Maintenance costs associated with satellite treatment plants required for use of wetland treatment in the Spokane Valley the cost of the land for the wetland itself will be high. State guidelines for wetlands treatment limit the wastewater application rate to a few centimeters per day. About three acres of wetland would be required for each 100,000 gallons of wastewater. About 400 households will produce 100,000 gallons per day of wastewater. Urban and surburban area land costs range from $10 to over $100 per square foot or somewhere between $400,000 and $4,000, 000 per acre. Capital costs for a satellite plant achieving the needed nutrient removal for 100,000 gallons per day is on the order of $500,000. Thus, capital costs for land alone would be at least $2000 per household. This compares with an expected capital cost of around $3000 per household for the nearly $100,000,000 central treatment and disposal system proposed by Spokane County.

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