permaculture

[BK <lildragon@saber.net>]

Hi,
Just want to say I just got back from the very inspiring Bioneers
conference. Many great ideas there. I'd like to throw in a few ideas and
things I heard.
The talk of coal power companies resisting environmental laws made me think
of finding ways that might be economic for them. One story I was really
inspired by was the group TreePeople in LA (you might know, LA comsumes tons
of water, diverting large amounts of Northern California river water, and
making some enemies up in Nor. Cal.). TreePeople looked at the situation and
saw this:
LA Water Dept. spends about $1 billion on water a year.
LA has a flood problem, and was planning to spend copious amounts of money
to retrofit LA river to land a 130 year flood.
Water equivalent to 50% of LA's needs falls as rain.

So, LA had 2 agencies, one buying water, and another agency spending money
to stop flooding when it rains due to large amounts of impermiable
hardscape. Neither agency talked to each other. TreePeople proposed water
catchment for rooves, removing hardscape and replacing it with landscape,
and promoting rainwater to seep into the underground aquafer. They are doing
this! By looking at the problems in an integrated way, they helped save
water and money. The agency now thinks in terms of watershed management, and
has renamed itself accordingly. Demo sites have been created, and the
process is underway. The motivation to get the agencies to think different
was actually their hard financial times. More info at treepeople.org.
Economics can be a leverage point. Fisherman whose livelyhood is impacted do
to mercury can provide a push to get coal plants using scrubbers, or the
gov. can have sympathy for the fisherman and try to force the companies to
install scrubbers. Or, maybe there is some new economic structure or even
viewpoint that makes the company want to stop throwing mercury into the air.
Though right now, natural gas may be the best (still fossil) fuel to use,
and since it's essentially methane, could easy convert to some biomass
methane production at a later date. Better yet, distributed fuel cells
running on natural gas at a residental level, elliminating the need for the
electrical grid, which at some point in time, converts to pure hydrogen, or
distributed methane production.

Now to toxics concentration:
One presenter from a company who treats toxic waste with bacteria such as
diesel, PERC(!), etc was asked if he'd had any luck treating MTBE (the
carcinogenic gasoline additive), and made the point that treating the toxics
is alot easier when their in one spot, not evenly dispersed throughout
(which MTBE is pretty good at since it's very water soluble). So maybe in
some cases concentrated toxics might be a blessing, if you have a way to
make them less toxic. In terms of elemental toxics, some can be transformed
into compounds that are less toxic to life, or might have value in human
built products (with proper cycling to keep them out of
lifeforms/environment).

Cheers,
BK