Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Gloria Baikauskas <gcb49@flash.net>]

Check this out: 

 

http://www.mywesttexas.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=18346919&BRD=2288&PAG=461&dept_id=475590&rfi=6

 

All that is green is not plant material - West Texas goes "green"

 

Burr Williams<br>MRT Correspondent
Midland Reporter-Telegram

05/16/2007

 

Golly gee! West Texas is going green - not green from the rain, but with renewable energy resources and green architecture.

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Wind generators are everywhere. A bunch of the big windmills are going up between Sterling City and Robert Lee. I saw parts of another one on the Denver City to Plains highway last week, heading north. Where was that one going?

On Saturday the southern Llano Estacado Chapter of the Master Naturalists identified spring wildflowers and grasses under a giant turbine on the Dickson ranch south of Roscoe (and 40 other towers were in view.)

I have been told that the technology has improved so much that the towers do not need to be at the edge of a mesa (like the first thousand plus in West Texas.) It is our understanding that a power transmission line will be built that will circle Lubbock so wind turbines will soon be the new crop of the Llano Estacado. Imagine that!

Some people do not like their looks. Some worry about their effect on wildlife. Landowners are ecstatic. "I don't think I could turn down the $5,000 dollars a year per tower, the initial damages payment, or the excess production royalty," Yoakum and Cochran County landowner Randy Beasley told me while I munched down on his 2B Ranch Catering Company's lunch of brisket and all the fixings at the Sibley Nature Center sponsored trip to watch lesser prairie chickens "boom." Mr. Beasley's figures for his monetary gain might not be exact.

 

Mr. Beasley might be over-anticipatory, for the wind power companies might not put towers in lesser prairie chicken and sand dune lizard habitat. Although both species are not on the endangered species list, both are considered "species of interest." The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says that the two species' inclusion is warranted, but precluded - meaning there is not enough money to adequately protect them at the present time. That might change, because of the wind energy boom. Life in a democracy is interesting - to whom will the politicians and career bureaucrats listen? What will happen during the next presidential administration?

The Sibley Nature Center is working with the June Leland Wildlife Foundation to prevent the lesser prairie chicken from being listed. Farmers, ranchers, oil field operators, wind power companies, and others would have to deal with some stiff regulations if it or the lizard officially become endangered species.

We believe that West Texans "can take care of their own" and "do right by all of God's creations" and the interests of mankind, too. We West Texans are independent sorts and do not like the government telling us what to do. We believe research should be done to find out exactly what happens to the two species when a wind turbine is installed in their habitat of vegetated sand dunes.

The staff and board of the Sibley Nature Center have noticed other aspects of the "greening" of the region. Rammed earth houses, adobe mixed with concrete houses, foam houses, third generation solar water heaters, strawbale house construction - the list is extensive with all the ways that folks are experimenting with ways to lower energy costs.

The "greening of America" is affecting just about everybody. In 2007 hardly a week goes by without a national news story about the "green boom." The dot-com billionaires fuel part of the boom - for they are investing venture capital with green entrepreneurs.

Part of the boom is fueled by the government's recent push for increased ethanol production. Farmers with land enrolled in the CRP (Conservation Reserve Program of the USDA) are talking about putting their land back into production to produce ethanol when their contracts run out. (We just wish someone could figure out a way to produce ethanol from mesquite - imagine mowing down the mesquite over a million acres every three years - you cannot kill a mesquite!)

Another aspect of green architecture is rainwater harvesting. Folks in dry West Texas have decided that it might be a smart idea. The early settlers did it with their cisterns, but today fiberglass storage tanks feeding drip irrigation systems are topics of conversation among folks talking of building a new home or a vacation home.

Interestingly enough, however, we have not heard many people talk about waterless toilets. Although Caprock Canyonlands State Park has some, the idea of composting human waste still seems a mite unseemly to most.

The Sibley Nature Center is working to raise money for improvements for the center, and we are talking about a small "green" twist to the project. One of the improvements is a Wildlife Garden and an observation room. The observation room will have one way glass windows and speakers connected to microphones in the garden. To cool the room we have been discussing using "prairie dog air-conditioning." If air coming into the building is pulled through an underground pipe for a distance, the air becomes cooled to the temperature of the ground (which is about 55 degrees Fahrenheit year around.) We are planning some rainwater harvesting additions to the center, too.

About a month ago William H. Takahashi Jr., a real estate investor from California who recently opened an office here, dropped by the Sibley Nature Center and talked about his interest in the subject with several board members and myself. His visit got us to thinking - is there a possibility of a local "demonstration development of green housing" on the horizon? On Friday at the Rockhounds game I visited with Shawn Beard, a local geothermal entrepreneur. Using the heat of the earth and ground water (even saline) his company provides power, heating and cooling for homes and institutions.

We are inspired by the example of Ms. Stephanie Sparkman, the executive director of West Texas Energy Technology Initiative (and who is a business associate of Mr. Beard.) She has done a great job of publicizing FutureGen and other new developments in the regional energy industry.

Sparkman is a modern West Texan living up to the old saying "The sky is the limit." The Sibley Nature Center would like to sponsor a Green Energy and Green Architecture Roundtable. If you have an interest in any of the subjects mentioned above, please contact me at 684-6827 or e-mail me at bwilliams@sibleynaturecenter.org . If we get a goodly number of responses, we will set up a meeting time here at the center. Please suggest topics, speakers, and tell us of your particular interests.

Just how will green energy and green architecture evolve in West Texas?