RAIN MAY 1978 VOLUME IV, NO. 7 ONE DOLLAR
Page 2 RAIN May 1978 ~II =S=EW-.=~=G=E~ ' ' l!:::=:11 =fl=O=OD==--'' The Toilet Papers, Sim Van der Ryn, 1978, $3.95 from: Capra Press 631 State Street Santa Barbara, CA 93101 Captain Compost has finally written his memoirs-a warm addition to the pile of information now available on compost toilets, by one of the people most instrumental in their development. Toilet Papers covers a good bit of the same ground as the Rodale book and the OAT report, but focuses much more on creative owner-built applications and a lot of the reasoning and values underlying new approaches to sewage. Dis- • cusses community alternatives to central sewage plants, home compost and privy management, and construction of various designs. Contains pictures of numerout beautiful dry toilet installations that show well what these changes in attitudes are producing. Gives a muchneeded depth to the normal technological hardware discussions. -TB The Village Texturizer, by Meals for Millions Foundation, 1977, $ 3. 9 5 from: VITA Publications 3706 Rhode Island Avenue Mt. Rainier, MD 20822 Does your village need texturizing? Strange titles aside, this manual shows why and how to build a "pop-cake maker." Simple to make, cheap ($50), can be used at home or as a small business, can be built to use a variety of fuels, can quick-cook a wide variety of tasty and nutritious foods from inex- • pensive vegetable flours. Okay, but what are pop-cakes? A mix of flours is put between two heated plates under pressure. When the pressure is released, the moisture in the cake expands with a loud pop to give you a tasty, crunchy, nutritious puffed snack food. Variations are used all over Asia by street vendors. Manual contains a guide to complementary protein mixes, fuel requirements, how to figure costs for its use as a small business. -TB /I GOOD THINGS II Non-Radioactive Smoke Alarms Isn't it nice to be forced to have your own radioactive source in your home ("preferably in every sleeping area")? Ionization-type smoke detectors, which make up probably 95 percent of all smoke detectors sold, contain radioactive isotopes as their ionization source. Most models we've looked at make absolutely no mention of radioactivity in either product literature or on the mechanism itself. The manufacturers claim the radiation is totally harmless (hear that before?) alpha radiation that doesn't even penetrate through the casing. No mention is made of what happens when the plastic case breaks or is left off. We've seen some already with cases taken off while replacing batteries and not replaced. No mention is made of what happens after the alarm is discarded, burned or landfilled. An unnecessary hazard does exist, in part because of the millions of units sold, and in part because the radioactive source is unnecessary. Photo-electric smoke alarms are available at similar prices to the radioactive units. They're extremely hard to find, because the ionization units are so highly promoted. We finally located a source for them (Sears Catalog-$19.95) after trying more than 20 stores (and after our house burned down). Make sure your friends are aware of the hazards of the ionization types-they should be banned. -TB "ll:W nl<lf' SIWI • .__ __. ltHCU >E /\l,r-1 flU\l\ltJG~h·51UI' C.N\~ lllAHtrlG <-~- ) ~ -~ 11>\\<WE flt..,_llOUI l~>U:IU"G ' ~ " • l.jUlf Bl:>LT l'l"'IIH ElV~ from The Village Texturizer
/I AGRICULTURE II The People's Food Commission: A Cross-Canada Inquiry into the Food System 4th Floor 7 5 Sparks. Street Ottawa, Ontario CANADA Not unlike other people's commissions, this group hopes to launch an in-depth, nationwide inquiry that avoids the pitfalls and dead-endedn~ss of most government investigations. Their_focus will be the issue of food as it cuts across province, class and interest group. A ten-member commission will travel to 65 communities to hear testimony frorn the locals on the food system, and to identify the common interests of producers, consumers, workers and people of the Third World. They will seek answers to such problems as rising food costs, rural depopulation, poverty among primary producers, the impact of corporations, wages and working conditions in the foo.d industry, and nutrition. A decentralized support network is now being formed and hearings will begin in September, endip.g by April of next year. It should be instructive to keep tabs on this ambitious effort. - SA Willamette Valley Planting Guide, $1 from: • Lane County Office of Appropriate Technology Dept. of Community Relations Public Service Building Eugene, OR 97401 For all our regional friends, here's a ~andy 17"x22'" poster detailing the starting and planting dates in the Willamette Valley for everything from artichoke to watermelon. Includes notations on recommended spacing and the number.of days to maturity. N'Ow let's g~t that food up! -SA The Primo Plant: Growing Sinsemilla Marijuana, Mountain Girl, Leaves of Gr.ass/Wingbow Press, $4.50 from: Bookpeople 2940 Seventh St. Berkeley, CA 94710 What with all the poisoned pot that is now coming in'to the country, you may ' want to,brave the elements and grow your own. Mountain Girl, of Merry Pranksters fame, has lovingly put together this little manual for growing pure, organic sinsemilla (seedless) grass. Her topics range from seed selection and composting to pruning, pests and harvesting. Nicely illustrated and.to the point. Guess to whom it's dedicated! - SA May 1978 RAIN Page 3 RAIN access Rain helps things grow. We are all part of a joyful process of learning to live more lightly on this earth. Our contribution to that process is a magazine that: • networks informati'on about people and groups taking positive actions in their lives, communities and workplaces, • evaluates and gives access to practical tools, data and plans for the development of technologies appropriate to changing energy and resource conditions, • explores ideas which can enable the increased self-reliance of our regions, neighborhoods and families, • analyzes policies, programs and projects that help or inhibit.our ability to make these transitions. We live and work together out of a big green house in Portland. We aren't always consistent in our ideas and goals, but we have fur) thinking about these things. We enjoy feedback on ideas a_nd resource listings, and we appreciate the co.ntribution of any information or bits of wisdom you wish to share ... RAIN's office is at 2270 N.W. Irving, Portland, OR 97il0. Ph: (503) 227-5110. RAIN STAFF: Tom Bender Lane deMqU_ Joan Meitl Lee Johnson Linda Sawaya Steven Ames Typesetting: Irish Setter Printing: Times Litho II FORESTRY The Forester's Almanac 1977, free from: Pacific NW Forest and Range ' Experiment Station P.O. Box 3141 Portland, OR 97208 An acces guide for information on forest and rangeland research in the Pacific Northwest. Whole Earth format. Expansion of materials listed beyond thos_e produced by the Experiment Station would be a valuable service 'to people trying to separate the wheat from the chaff in this area. A good start though, to see what issues are co\·ered by existing research and which ones are not. - TB
Page 4 RAIN May 1978 POWERS. OF ONE Lloyd K. Marbet FORELAWS ON BOARD 19142 S. Bakers Ferry Rd. Boring, Oregon 97009 503 /63 7-·3549 In the early '70s, when a lot of people were wringing their hands and wondering what had happened to the Movement, some folks were already digging into the new decade, grappling with a whole n~w set of issues a,nd preparing for a lo_ng, hard struggle. Lloyd Marbet of Portland, Oregon, was one of those people. And nuclear power was his issue. Somewhat inadvertently at first, Lloyd jumped into the nuclear political arena~fueled by a sense of moral outrage over the preposterous implications for humanity, and committed to enlightening his adversaries about the imperatives of entering into the Faustian Bargain. Several years and countless hearings later, after a law degree's worth of self-educition and a lot of personal sacrifice, Lloyd Marbet has grown into a well-tempered, highly skilled nuclear intervenor, using the legal and administrative processes available to citizen activists in a highly responsible mannernavigating the dense undergrowth of the nuclear regulatory and licensing bureaucracies in order to turn the nuclear option on itself and let if fail of its own ineptness. For the rest of us, the fact that one person like Lloyd is capable of channeling his concern for the planet's future into the legal quagmire, as well as the minutia of energy-related considerations that accompany it- load factors, plant economics, risk analyses- may well keep more nukes out of our lives and push us that much closer to realizing a humane and livable alternative. Clearly, in such an arena, the powers of 1 one highly-dedicated soul to affect change at critical junctures has a bearing on the survival of us all. . "When I came on board," says Lloyd, "there was simply no one else to do it!" Among his first activities was an initiative petition to set more stringent standards on the release of radioactivity in 1971. Then, in 1973 he be.came involved in· his first rate hearing with the Portland General Electric Company (PGE) and since then has be.en through four more, plus Readers, please take note: a paean to individualism this is not. To individuality, perhaps, y es. Individualism sees the self as ·the mosi important thing in the universe; individuality celebrates the self as its own unique manifestation of the universe. Powers of One is a celebration of what one engaging self can do for the Whole, for us all, by finding a niche and filling it, by seeking that purp'ose that has some truth and doing it. The country needs more people who can learn from Lloyd. another involving Pacific Power and Light. By the fall of 1974, when the public was just beginning to wake up to the extent of the growth fantasies being forecast by the nuclear industry, Lloyd had become an intervenor in the hearings for the li-' censing of two nuclear units proposed by PGE at Boardman, Oregon. He subsequently backed off becoming more involved. But when·the potential encroachment of a Navy bomber base forced the relocation of_the site to Pebble Springs on the Columbia River, he began intervening in ihe state hearings, ✓ and took on the federal hearings as well in 1975. Since that time it's been full-tilt intervention. It was at a lic'ensing hearing on the Trojan nuclear power plant where Lloyd first met Robert Cobq, a businessmanactivist disturbed by the prospect of a nuclear future and unafraid of engaging in controversy. Cobb has already founded his own self-styled advocacy organization called Forelaws on Board, a reference to Barry Commoner's Four Laws of Ecology, among other things. He eventually took Lloyd under his wing, providing him with the toClls and confidence to get him moving down the right path. Gradually Cobb became less involved in direct intervention .and began channeling his ener: gies into establishing an intentional community. Lloyd became the main intervenor, assisted by volunteers and encouraged by Cobb. Despite a general lack of legal skills, or maybe because of it, Lloyd took tl)e leeway to establish his own style of nuclear intervention. After several years of constant effort and various legal and extra-legal tactics, Lloyd scored a signiticant procedural victory in March 1977. At that time the Oregon State Supreme Court granted his petition, ne_cessitating a substantial delay·in the iss1:1ing of site certificates for the Pebble Springs project by ordering the Energy Facility Siting Council to rehear PGE's application from scrattch. Among the Court's concerns with the Siting Council's insufficient setting of standards were those involving the financial capabilities of the applicants, their
ii qualifications to construct and operate plants, and the distinction between "need" and "demand" for power. Of course, the Court had only addressed the procedural questions, but the issues involved were real and not impervious to changing political and economic climates. Clearly the interface between one person's strategic coup and our larger vision was th.e space it freed up for public education, the demonstration of renewable energy options and other positive forces to rush into the vacuum that had been created. Without such successes, the hard energy path would move closer to intransigence. • More recently the protracted ·length o.f the intervention process (which, says a friend of Lloyd's, if you are not careful will teach you patience) has come full circle as a positive factor in its own way. For example, the last few years have brought heavy developments for the nuclear power industry and its governmental bedfellows that have compounded the difficulties already at hand. The Brown's Ferry accident. Controversy over the Rasmussen report. Waste dispo_sal headaches. Sister Bertrell's radiation studies. And, of course, incredible inflationary pressures. Only a few years back many of these problems were more difficult to substantiate. Like toxins in the environment, the evidence is accumulating. • Also in this time,-Lloyd_'s begun to see a return on the, learning investment, and with enough support can now attract bright, well-qualified advocates experienced in energy issues and willing to wade through the mountains of paper to do the necessary research. It was such people who helped him rally from a temporary impasse in his.one-man interv~nor/ lawyer/witness tactics with fresh input and expertise. Now, Lloyd finds himself more able to concentrate on the argumentative side of the intervention process, absorbing more of the legal details at hand. In turn, he has taken on a kind of coordinator/den mother role: drawing together all this.good talent, keeping it in line, directing its flow of information and hoping that the whole effort will work out. May 1978 RAIN .Page 5 Come June, the re-hearings on Pebble Springs will convene. The new rules by which the Siting Council is to judge an application for site certificates are in place and the process will start up again. Lloyd, in conjunction with his advisors, researchers and supporters will take a new case before the Council using his well-polished skills as non-lawyer to carry the safety and operational issues on his own and coordinating a host of other testimonies focusing on many different areas of analysis. Despite this strong back-up team, it is clear that the burden of the Pebble Springs intervention rests squarely on Lloyd Marbet's shoulders-and it·is no easy one. Total dedication means sacrifices and he has made his share. Have no "normal" career-means piecing together an income and financial budget from friends and supporters. Lloyd could always use more help there. In addition to material sacrifices, personal relationships can suffer from the intensity of an intervenor's lifestyle. And there's always the question of just what Lloyd might be doing if his whole life hadn't become committed to such a time-consuming cause. A moot question, perhaps, be.cause as he says: "Any change that a person wants to become involved in means changing the rest of your life." Lloyd continues: "I never realized all this would result," reflecting on years of hard and persistent work. "Of course, it's obvious that there's more to life than just issues. It means getting a perspective on the limitlessness of things, and the limitedness of our own roles-what we can do here and now. I'll be 40 years old in 1986 when Pebble Springs is projected to be completed and operating, which means I would be about 80 when it would be ready to be shut down permanently. Upon decommissioning, it would probably be entombed for 100 years and then dismantled, which means I would never live to see it dismantled, and neither would my daughter. This really signifies our limitedness.... The reason I've lasted at this is that there's no new world to go to. I guess I'm working for the day when I can put.myself out of work. continued next page
Page 6 RAIN May 1978 Exactly four months afte_r getting 850 proposals on November 21, 1977, California OAT recommended that DOE fund'85 for a total of just over $1 million. But DOE told them they'd only get to give away $200,000, or enough to fund only the top 16 to 20 small grants ideas. ' Recently, however, OA.T announced that DOE will allow $650,000 to be expended on California projects, so that nearly 60 of the best can be done. A list of the winning'proposals is avail_able from OAT Energy Grants Program, 1530 10th St., Sacramento, CA 95814. Negotiations on the contract~ will begin soon, and most projects will be underway by early May: Although,the second round of the DOE; small grants program will start in September 1978, additional·money.will be provided this time by the state, if a'bill recently introduced passes. State Senator John Dunlap's bill SB 1831 would allocate $2.5 million in fiscal 1979 for an energy technology innovation program that resembles the federal pilot program, but o_ffe::!s more financial and technical assistance. If you're a ·californian, write your local Assemblyman and State Senator urging them to co-sign and support it. If you're not, then why hot get a copy of SB 1831 from OAT and get something similar started in your state. ' Oregon's considering such a bill also, and I'll be there in Salem lobbying hard for it! For details, or to speak in support. of it, contact: Margery Harris, Conservation, Oregon Dept. of · Energy, 111 Labor & Industries Bldg., Salem, OR 97310. Powers of One continued Until then, the balance of things keep me involved." Part of that balance comes.from working in other arenas of action. Forelaws on Board, for example, has another full-time intervenor now, Eric Stashon, working on the Skagit nuc;lear power plant hearings in Washington. And now it is spearheading an initiative effort seeking an outright ban on any nuclear· power plants being operated or constructed anywhere in the state, as well as on the storage or transportation of nuclear wastes and fuels. This is much more point blank than the earlier safeguards ~ffort attempted in Oregon in 1976 and, seemingly, an extreme position for someone so accustomed to the grating subtleties of working through licensing and regulatory processes. But, perhaps not. Lloyd Marbet believes that, ultimately, an outright ban is the only real alternative to the current strategies for defeating the 'nuclear industry. There's a false sense of security, for example, in thinking that the nuclear dinosaur is dying and ready to cave in. He has seen the utilities in action too long, Lloyd says, to know that resting on such a hope is very dangerous. On the other hand, he's leary of the disaster mentality that concludes we need only wait for the first serious nuclear accident, .at which time the public wilJ finally respond. This is, pure and simple, an obstruction process to social change. If any post.uring will destroy the opportunity that we have to be responsible for this moment of time that we share together, it is such an 1 attitude. • Instea_d, enough i_nformation h~s been coming in now to , enable the voter in Oregon to say with confidence: "NO. - There is an alternative!" Of course, with this increase in public awareness, there are also other strategies for bypassing the nuclear option. Coordinating all these efforts for the maximum effectiveness is difficult. While emphasizing that he does not own the nuclear issue, Lloyd is nevertheless anxious to see Forelaws' initiative get on the ballot. In the meantime, he has plenty of work to keep him busy. J. , .Good Giving: I -.s.-----~ - - --~ Some more details on the California program, including the "informal selection criteria," are explained in a recent letter t from OAT to DOE-San Francisco. Lee Johnson Don't misread Lloyd Marbet because of th~ nature of his work, say his friends. Lloyd's not just some "anti" type person, immersed in the negativity of the issue with which he's dealing. He's a positive force, a believer in local control, and people taking responsibility for their own 1ives and their futures. His efforts spell difficulty for all the heavy-handed, overly-centralized systems that interlock with the elitist and oppressive tendencies of nuclear power. What's more, Lloyd is a true b~liever in intergenerational equity-the fact that eyes of the future are upon us, waiting to see if we can rally our sense of limitlessness in dealing with ~his very limited, very crucial piece of time that we call our own. Lloyd puts it a little differently: "I know now I'm not the grand finale ... I'm just a part of the flow. There's no'such thing as glory in making a difference." -Steven Ames FORELAWS FOR THE SOLO ACTIVIST Whether a part of a large organization or working in more intimate ways to effect changes, we can all use some good advice on how to go about it. Lloyd Marbet's experience as a solo activist has given him a lot of insight into how to find the right role for'the right time. And how to stick with it. For those of you striking out on your own, his words are well taken. But don't forget, there are a lot of you out there! -Get a good push from someon·e you respect and admire. , . -Have friends who will lend their support and assistance, especially at critical times. -Do those things which you can best do in the here and ndw. -Be willing to change the rest of your life. Any other suggestions from our readers? -SA .
Cal. a.t~ grants Mr. P.W. Kaspar, Director. Conservation Division San Frnncisco Operations Office U.S. Department of Energy 1333' Broadway Oakland, California 94612 Dear Mr. Kaspar: Seven peer reviewers, three technical reviewers, and the three Office of Appropriate Technology people involved in the ·grants program met in Sacramento on February 14 and 15. Of the 370 proposals reviewed by the peer panel, more than 1001were discussed during the two-day session. A third of those, totaling over $350,000 in requested funds, were ranked as the very best. , In the course of the discussion, several issues relating to this program were raised and ·debated. A strong and clear consensus emerged on a,number of them. The group agreed that communicating the basic resolutions to you would substantially enhance the design and operation of this program in the future. • Three categories encompass the main points: 1. Intended recipients 2. Salary guidelines 3. Dissemination of project results 1. Intended Recipients The prospective applicants should have the benefit of a clear statement specifying for whotn this program exists. The first program announcement did not provide such information. Th~ limited funds should go to those people who have little or no access to venture capitaJ: individual inventors, small businesses, and community groups rather than corporations and think tanks. Of course there will be exceptional cases, but generally this characteristic became in practice an eligibility requirement. ' , Therefore, those with ties to large laboratories, university money, and other funding sources should no·t an.ticipate using this program to finance their actiyities. The venture capital aspect of the requirement sh·ould be emphasized along with the lack-of-access criterion. For example, capital improvements to businesses and private home- }?uilding, even at its most ingenious, will not be funded. Similarly, college and univers:ity students should be forewarned that the government is not going to pay them to do the-kind of research which is traditionally done towards a degree. Apparently it is necessary to state that DOE will not be subsidizing anyone's efforts to become familiar with the stateof-the-art as available in existing literature. A better self-selection would occur if th~ $30,000-$50,000 range were presented as the -exceptional portion of the spectrum. Most qf our highest-ranking proposals requested funds under $10,000. Towards this end of revealing the perspective of the grantor, the technical and peer review evaluation forms or criteria should be included in the announcement/application pamphlet. Perhaps a_briefly annotated list of projects already funded would also clarify the thrust of the program and identify the state-of-the-art. A caution to branch out from such projects may be necessary. • Directions and guidelines for proposal writers to help them prepare a sufficiently developed and detailed proposal are • nece.ssary. Too many of the proposals contained vague ideas instead of specific intentions. We have _already forwarded our suggestions on this to SAN. • May 1978 RAIN Page 7 2. Salaty Guidelines Inclusion of salary guidelines is a crucial part of informing the public of the nature of this program. Our review team was unsympathetic to salary rates greater than $10-15 an hour ($20,000-$33,000 a year). Even that •seemed unacceptable when an advance waiver for patent rights was requested. When the project would largely improve the applicant's.own property, only expenses and materials costs should be allowed. There were dismaying patt~rns of large salary disparities in husband-wife, professor-student, and professional-layperson teams. 'Ultimate project responsibility may be reflected in differences in pay. We faced too many instance~s, however, of budget allocations totally inconsistent with principles of an appropriate technology consciousness. 3. Dissemination of Results We are very concerned that this does not become one more program in which the grantee recei~es a check and a year later hands over a final report which reaches only a select few. Public access to the process of experimentation and learning that occurs is vital. ' The benefits of these projects will obviously multiply with the audience reached. Furthermore, widespread reporting will inform future applicants of what we are seeking and should consequently enhance the quality of the next round of proposals. Some applicants indicated plans to develop publishable data and designs. _Most, however, do not have the special skills required to present the information in.a pleasing and accessible manner. One would expect a program,such as this to extend to.the _compilation and dissemination of results of the funded projects. To ask the right questions and edit the answers, even to three or four pages per project, is a maj-or undertaking. If it can be done well, th·ough, it may be the single most important aspect in getting an idea into the marketplace. 4. Other Comments a) It may be worth dedicating a portion of the grant funds to draw a'ttention and effort to specific gaps in appropriate energy technology development. If so, the announcement/ application pamphlet would be the place to indicate the targeted areas. b) The completed technical review was a valuable tool to the peer reviewers; without it their job would have been longer, murkier and no more independent. , 1c) It would help to kn.ow how much room for negotiation is in fact available. Not too infrequently a proposal could be significantly upgraded by a budget change, a systems component sub·stitu.tion, or a link-up with another proposer. The most opportune time and method to consider such changes may be during the review process. Therefore, the negotiating process should be flexible enough to allow reviewers to communicate with applicants. d) The Office of Appropriate Technology should have an opportunity to review the letter of rejection before it is mailed by SAN to the unsuccessful applic;ants. e) The review procedure can be better structured to allow time to process the proposals if we know the amount of funds available. The possible last minute tripling (or more) of the money has caused some unnecessary difficulty. Respectfully, Robert L. Judd, Jr. Director Office of Appropriate Technology
Page 8 RAIN May 1978 RICH TECH/POOR TECH ? At a recent gathering of a.t. people in Oregon I noticed an immediate uncomfortable shifting in seats when the question of a. t. and poor people was brought up. I've noticed similar uneasiness surfacing whenever people haven't quite had a chance to sort out their ideas on a potentially sticky subject. It is also often related to residual (or active) feelings of guilt. Why do we get so defensive about the relationships between .alternative technologies and the low income? Perhaps it is time to open up the proverbial Pandora's Box for discussion. Since my own evolution into working on RAIN and a. t. issues in general comes from an early ir1volvement in urban ghettos in the '60s, it's a problem that has been part of my consciousness for as long as I remember. I am hardly alone in expressing the feeling that .I had begun to feel distinctly uncomfortable working within that milieu both because I wasn't black in the days when that was becoming increasingly important and because I had seriously begun to doubt whether I had anything more than bandaids and good intentions to offer. This was true even in the ,days when I was working with community design centers making available architects1 and planners' services to design day care centers and to fight urban renewal. At least then we were offering a service that people ' had requested and obviously needed, yet it always felt like we were only doing cosmetic work. Even when we were successful in helping to block a freeway expansion into a neighborhoop, the sense of power that ·we generated in the area was always shortlived compared to the debilitating powerlessness caused by the welfare system and the lack of jobs. I always felt that we ,were learning and growing more than the people we were trying to help. And so I, like many other people at the time, removed myself more and more to dig into my own head and to learn new skills in what I thought was a totally different direction. I have a strong memory of a mentor of mine speaking scornfully of students who were beginning to get into ecology. His implication was that the problems of the earth were cop-out, middle-class stuff compared to the life and death issues of urban blacks. I also remember the disgust with which many blacks greeted Martin Luther King's beginning involvement in the anti-Vietnam War movement. How could stopping that war have any relevance to the hungry children the Black Panthers were trying to feed? Thus when I began the shift away from direct anti-poverty work I felt a twinge of guilt that maybe I was only moving·on to something that was easier for me than struggling to make a difference in that alien world. • Our sense of the problems was so fragmented in those days. We didn't see that the degradation of the farmer's life and the move towards large-scale agribusiness was a major part of the reason the blacks and poor whites were pushed into the cities in the first place. We hadn't yet documented the connection between the corporation's push for bigger and bigger profits, the exploitation of poor people all over the world, and the exploitation of our diminishing resources. It had not . even dawned on us that our resources were diminishing. It has taken a long time for 4s to fully realize that the costs of pollution, increased mechanization and higher priced energy would most hurt those who can least afford it. The poor get it coming and going as prices rise and unemployment worsens. I should have known that things would be coming full circle. Wee.re only just now beginning to realize that the skills and information we have been developing over the past five or six years are more than ever directly relevant to the problems of the poor. Work on solar colkctors, urban gardens and credit unions along with the documentation of corporate ripoffs can be an important means for beginning to shift the balances of power that have held the majority of the poor in their place for so long. The realization of these connections has recently been coming from within both the a.t. world and the more traditional anti-poverty circles. But viable and productive relations between haven't always been (and still aren't always) possible. Since much of the research and proselytizing of alternative· technologies of all kinds has been done by predominantly .. ~hite, upper ~iddle class long-hairs ahd forrrier long-hairs, 1t has had a kmd of unreal, hippy/back-to-the-land appeal that has turned off most of the urban, real poor (as opposed to the voluntary poor). Helga Olkowski tells a story of proudly pulling together a group of community action people on the fir~t NCAT Board to watch t;,he Canadian National Film Board's movie on the New Alchemists. She thought this would really pull the ideas together for them and was horrified when they furiously demanded to know what relevance all those hippies running
519 E. 11th (foregtound), Empire State Building (backg~ound )' around without much on and tinkering with odd-looking machines had to do with their problems. There is also the example of Karl Hess's experiment in the Adams-Morgan area of Washington, DC, where a group of people were experimenting with urban-related appropriate technologies in an old warehouse. Despite their best efforts to include their neighbors, the weekly meetings were attended by otl)er experimenters from all over the country but were largely ignored (or even ripped off) by the local people to whom the work was meant to be a~med. Karl has recently written that this was in part due to the fact that most of the poor in the neighborhood had grown used to the handout mentality of government programs and were not interested in tackling the hard work of attempting self-reliance. (For an interesting discussion of his perspectives on the project, read his article, "Flight from Freedom" in the Sept./Oct. issue of Quest/77, available for $2 from: Ambassador International Cultural Foundation, 300 West Green Street, Pasadena, CA 91129). However, as effqrts like the National Center for Appropriate Technology (which is firmly out of the anti-poverty world) have shown, the time has come when it·is clear that technologies and processes _supporting self-reliance and local control have far more universal applications than either poor blacks or hippies. And as so often happens when the time is right, there are people from both worlds who are beginning to bridge those gaps. Apparently ~e've all done a good deal of learning and growing during the five or six years that have transpired. I know why the technology is being developed, but I am not at all clear about the dynamics of the changes within the -communities. Perhaps ethnic awareness has begun to generate the strength and authority within the community to be able May 1978 RAIN Page 9 to achieve the first steps of control and knowledge on their own. Perhaps the barely noticed and rarely thanked work of the tireless organizers who did stay is beginnin~ to pay ~ff.. At any rate, as they reach out there are increasingly begmnmg to be people at hand with useful skills and kno~ledge to apply. The examples are numerous and heartening: • Louise Howard in Illinois has pulled together a successful rural community garden and cooperative cannery in one of those huge housing projects. She started the program on her own but is beginning to work with the Midwest Alternative Energy Network/Acorn people to help teach farming to Chicago city kids. • At 519 East 11th Street in Manhattan, local blacks and Chicanos began to rehabilitate and solar-and wind-retrofit an abandoned tenement building with the help of an al- 'ternative energy architect and Conjmunity Service Admi..nistration funds. Sweat equity at its best. (See ''Wind" entries this issue.) • c;ontinued next page
Page 10 RAIN May 1978 . • At the request of low-income groups first in New Mexico · and now all over, Bill Yanda has been doing workshops to teach the building of simple solar greenhouses that will help heat homes and grow food. • Utility rate organizing in various parts of the country is allowing poor communities to stand up against rates that (as usual) discriminate against low income users in favor of corporations. • Several years ago Eugene and Sandi Eccli put together that excellent booklet for the then Office of Economic Opportunity called Save Energy, Save Money-it was geared towards poor people but it was useful for anyone. These examples also extend into the Third World. The Intermediate Technology Development Group in Britain and Volunteers in Technical Assistance in the U.S. (among others) have been showing that if asked by local groups, whether in Guatemala or Sri Lanka,. the technical creativity is relatively easily mustered to develop tools and processes that are appropriate for particular situations. G;IJ..dens and playground emerge through asphalt. from Acorn Okay, then, why is there still that uneasiness when the topic is raised of applying appropriate technologies in poo,r communities? I think a lot of it comes from the still relatively undiscussed issue of the ''voluntary" poor. Some of the "pooracrats" seem particularly bothered by this issµe and are quick to discount the experiences of those who have chosen to live on less. Having done very well for themselves running government: programs that treat symptoms r_ather than the real problems of the poor, they now seem to feel threatened by the low salaries and high expectations of the a. t'. people. The thrust of the government programs has been to bring the poor into ,the mainstream of American life by raising their incomes and expectations to match those of the middle class. It is part and parcel of the assumption•that there is a huge pie to be shared and the poor and rich can have bigger and bigger pieces. On the contrary, the pie is getting smal-ler, and if there is to be anything left for the poqr, the more fortunate of our society must learn to live on less. Unquestionably many,of us who are conveying these messa:ges and experimenting on the enabling technology are speaking, by and large, from a position of privilege. Most of us come from the "haves" rather than the "have nots." But, we know the problems and unfulfilled promises of having oversized .slices of the pie and are pleased by the results of our efforts to learn to live more lightly. The key here see~s to be that we- as educated, relatively well-off do-gooders-can't shove our ideals or our experiments off onto poor communities, urban or rural. We cannot really know their problems or their constraints. But given particular situations and ~rn invitation, there is a lot we have to offer. • Anyone living on a limited income needs cheap foodroof-top gardening and organic pest_control techniques as demonstrated by Farallones Institute and the Institute for Local Self-Reliance in urban situations can help. So can solar greenhouses if they are cheaply and easily constructed. • As energy pri~es rise we all have to spend a vast amount of our money on heat and electricity-community and/or individual based alternative energy systems in conjunction · with utility rate reform can go a long way towards easing that squeeze on already empty pocketbooks. • People need personal and community power-the rese::i,rch done by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and others into the dy.namics of neighborhood economics and the organizing work by groups such as ACORN can be applied to most ~ny community to begin to ,bring the powerbase hack to the people who live and work there. At the same time, collective, worker-controlled, or at least small-scale (even home-based) working situations can begin to bring a sense of power and well-being back into individual lives. Clay Collier describes hydroponics We are not talking here about second class technology or second class lifestyles. We are talking about the generation'. of skills and living patterns that we as drop-outs from middle class values are proud of and which we are convinced have relevancy to traditionally low-income people as well. We may be voluntarily poor and as such have the education and selfesteem to back us up, but we are using those skills to develop ways of living and working that are appropriate to low-budget, low·energy condition·s. What we have learned has been of value to us, and we are slowly beginning to apply it in our own lives (as we work the bugs out). We have long known that the ways were good for the conditions we are moving into, but we haven't been about to to sell them to anyone else until we are using them in our ·own lives. For those of us interested in getting these technologies and working patterns to those who need it, thf task is to make the information available. The people in poor communities must be able to lay their hands easily on the ideas when they reach out for them, as they are increasingly doing. - Lane deMoll
ll RECYCLING II Connecticut Bottle Bill Passed The Connecticut General Assembly passed a bottle bill on March 31 which requires a 5</. deposit on all beer and soft drink containers beginning January 1980. The bill also bans cans with fliptop openings. Gov. Ella T. Grasso has indicated she will sign the bill. Deposits on beverage containers are mandated by law in Maine, Michigan, Oregon and Vermont. Other states have laws banning pull-tabs or imposing levies on beverage containers. -LJ Project SORT (Separation of Office & Residential Trash), for more information contact: Terry W. Conner, Project Manager Rm. 101, Courthouse Annex San Luis Obispo, CA 93401 A voluntary solid waste collection/ recycling program in this city achieved a 65 percent participation rate in the first six months of its residential operation .(April-Sept. 1977). 5200 of the town's 8000 households took part in home separation and curbside collection for old newspapers, bottles, jars and metals. SORT is also handling an office paper recycling program involving some 1500 workers in 21 office buildings occupied by both private firms and government agencies. As a result, over 2-1 /2 tons of high-grade paper is recycled per week. -LJ II WIND II Windmill Power for City People: A Documentation of the First Urban Wind Energy System, by Energy Task Force, NYC, CSA Pamphlet 6143-8, Sept. 1977, $3.00 from: U.S. Govt. Printing Office Washington, DC 20402 If you're considering a city or suburban wind system, then this is an excellent starting point. Covers zoning, structural calculation, public utility commission regulations and tariffs, as well as basic windpower theory and practice, in language easily understood by most people. Lots of clear drawings, schematics. Very well done by the people who installed a 2kw Jacobs wind-electric system atop the housing cooperative at 519 E. 11th St. in New York City. -LJ FILM A City Farmstead, produced by Steve Greenberg, directed by Louis Schwartzberg, 1977. 15 minutes, color. Sale: $225. Rent: $30. Available from: Energy Productions 846 No. Cahuenga Blvd. Hollywood, CA 90038 213/462-3 310 Down to Earth-City Living, produced and directed by Joaquin Padro, 1977. 18 minutes, color. Sale: $250. Rent: $30. Avail.able from: Pyramid Films Box 1048 Santa Monica, CA 90406 At a time when the typical urban household is consuming enormous amounts of energy and generating large quantities of waste, the Integral ·Urban House in Berkeley exists as a demonstration of the practical alternatives to this destructive cycle. Steve Greenberg has produced a film which examines the life-support systems that have made this home more self-reliant and reduced its negative impact on the environment (solar capture, waste recycling, food production). This film, A City Farmstead, is a nice introduction to the people and ideas from which the Urban House evolved and the possibilities and implications it demonstrates for more livable cities. Another film, Down-To Earth- City Living has also been done by Joaquin Padro about the Integral Urban House, but its scope, perspective and overall quality is not nearly as good as A City Farmstead in giving an accurate understanding of what is happening there. I am compiling a list of the best a. t. related films now available. If anyone has any suggestions (especially of more obscure films), please let me know. Muchas gracias! - JM May 1978 RAIN Page 11 II INFORMATION II National Directory of Addresses and Telephone Numbers, Stanley R. Greenfield, editor, 1977, $9.95 from: Bantam Books 666 Fifth Ave. New York, NY 10019 This book is a must for information centers and information junkies-it would probably come in handy for most_ offices too. I've used it several times already in the last few days I've had it and I'm sure we'll be wondering soon what we ever did without it at the Rainhouse. Over 50,000 of the most wanted listings in the U.S.-corporations (by type), government offices (all levels,) colleges and universities, hotels, organizations (by type), bus stations, radio stations and newspapers. Each is also repeated under the general alphabetical listing. What fun-now I can easily call the Randolph County Courthouse (in NC, IL, GA, WV, MO, AR, AL or IN) or I can write to the president of Mobil Oil to complain about their ads. -LdeM II TRANSPORT II Trucklets, Vanlets, Where Are You? Vans have been getting a lot of environmental flack lately because of their poor gas mileage (true). Vans and pickups shouldn't be exempt from gas mileage regulations, but vans in particular have a lot of versatility that is quite valuable. I often claim a greater people/ mpg and cargo/mpg than other vehicles and claim that my van gets better mileage than any other home I've lived in. The real kicker to me is why mini-vans aren't available in this country. We've heard rumors that GM is coming out with a VW bus sized van, but haven't been able to track that down. The VW is overpriced and underpowered, no "stripped" model is available, and it lacks versatility because of the engine location in the cargo space. Toyota, Datsun and several other companies have for years made small, economical, versatile front-engine vans that are a real delight-but you can't ,buy one in the U.S. We were told that Datsun imported two of them into L.A. (our big-is-better capital) in 1974, then shipped them back to Japan. What's going on? When are we going·to be able to buy an inexpensive, gas-saving;people and cargo carrying basic vehicle? -TB
Page 12 RAIN May 1978 , We woke up that morning early and happy, and lay in bed tasting the first sweet fruits of leisure after a long job finally done. The night before we had finished the last painful task of sanding and oiling the floors of the house we had spent every moment and ounce of energy over the last seven months building. The bone-weary two-hour drive back to Portland for a bath, collapse into bed and dreams of the next morning's final trip with our belongings out to the house were behind us. The phone interrupted our pleasant musings. It was Kip. Our house had burned down. No. It can't be. We were just there twelve hours ago. It was fine. It was solid. It was beautiful. It couldn't just vanish like that. The house has burned up. All of it? Some of the walls are still there, but it's a total·loss. What caused it? They don't know. What has gone haywire with our world? Fred, our neighbor and dear friend on the mountain dies suddenly on the way back to our house in Portland. Now, exactly a month later, our house burns down- the morning after we finish it. No reason, no cause, just gone. Get to the end. Don't take a breath. Go back to ground zero. Now we know how Sisyphus feels. What next? How do you feel when you're bone-weary and just sitting down and someone kicks the chair out from under you? Cheated? Bewildered? ... Exhausted. Sometimes you decide to just lay there a while until you can get the energy to get up. Numbness is a blessing. It keeps the pain away until you can find the strength to deal with it. How do you feel? Numb. In a strange way, lighter and freer. You feel somehow the release of those bondages that each of your possessions has on you. You have unexpectedly the opportunity and responsibility to rethink a lot of things and remake a lot of choices. You really have to begin again. Seven and a half months of our lives-gone-up in smoke. It's not until much later that we really realize that it's no different from any other seven and a half months of our lives, which are equally as gone, yet with fewer satisfactions and rewards. Maybe it's the sense of having to repeat it that weighs most heavily. All that work and ICU "0 c:: cu Q:l e 0 E--o all that love- but now just a rerun. Hopefully we can find ways to turn the rebuilding into a new and also rewarding experience. We follow a logging truck most of the long drive out to the coast. There are rainbows in the spray from its wheels leading us on. Bizarre, but somehow comforting. On the way we think of the things that were there, and say goodbye to each. What things we later pull from the ashes intact have become gifts, and will be greeted with cheers as well as tears. We finally start up the last stretch of road and brace ourselves for what floodgates the reality of the charred hulk will open. It doesn't. Still numb. Kip and Amy meet us. They had to watch it burn- to see Kip's beautiful shingling turn to smoke and be sucked up into the cloud capping the mountain. At least they burned well. Where do you get the strength to pick around in the ashes of a newborn child you have just brought into this world through long months of loving labor? Where do you get the strength to look at the left-behind body of a dear friend? Sometimes you don't have the strength, but those things don't go away. They just wait there until somehow or somewhere you do find the strength. You have to, somewhere. It's hard, but good. Death, tragedy and loss are all parts of life that our society does its best to hide, cushion, mask or deny. You read of tragedies every day in the papers, but it's just the statistics, the outer carcass of what happened. No sense of how people's lives were affected, no sense of what it meant or felt or changed. An always distant-kept, abstract thing. Those realities, though difficult, add some sort of completeness to our lives, and knowing that we have the strength to deal with such things and that we grow through the process is a strength in itself. We hear a truck racing up the road and turn to see a pickup charging in the driveway. They see us, slam on their brakes and back down the road as fast as they came. Looters. My blood boils. Kip says the firecrew warned him to stay at the house just because of th:n. There had been several others.
May 1978 RAIN Page 13 IAT IS TO GIVE LIGHT MUST ENDURE BURNING It is strange walking through something so transformed, strange what you latch onto, what brings laughter among the tears and pain. Lightbulbs melted into taffy. A dozen now well-cooked eggs on the kitchen floor. Beans starting to sprout on the charred kitchen counter. Pages of a Doonesbury book blowing about in the breeze. Broken glass by the bushel. Blobs of aluminum, melted off the foil-faced insulation. Vibrant technicolor views of the world going on about its business, framed in the black velvet mask of char. Everything is black. Beautiful patterns of charred wood. The stench of a smoldering mattress. The woodstove-proud, intact, ;J.lready rusting. Two cords of firewood, now premasticated. The detective games begin-what in the world was this? Lane finds the charred remnants of a jewelry box under a piece of now ghostly white insulation. Inside, her great grandmother's face stares up at her from a locket. We find a patch of golden, untouched floorboards only two feet from the center of the fire, and discover that the solder on a water pipe had melted, pouring water right into the middle of the fire. Poor house--it did its best to save itself. Our new neighbors arrive and help us load what we could salvage into our truck. We joke because·one of the things we went back to Portland for was a smoke detector-but it wouldn't have helped, only burned up like everything else. We apologize for the sad state of our housewarming. What else can you say? The neighbors are wonderful-arriving with pots of stew, offers of houses to stay in, help in getting our property taxes adjusted- but mostly to share with us and bring the knowledge that they are there for help if we need it. In a small town things are more tightly connected-for better or worse. The head of the fire crew had delivered the concrete for our foundations, and we talk about the fire later while pouring the floor to finish the garage that Fred was building when he died. Somehow that helps. The mayor, the owner of the local lumberyard, the people who installed the water main all helped put out the fire. People offer to help us clean up the debris. That night the more difficult learning begins. With darkness our vulnerability becomes more visible. That thin veil of predictableness that usually shields us from the writhing chaos of creation and destruction has twice been rent asunder. No longer can we consider ourselves immune-unfathomable events are no longer something that happen to someone else. Unanswered questions, the conjurings of battered and exhausted minds, keep us awake. We sleep with our clothes on, and as close to the ground as we can. More amazing things happen. Marcia sends out a package of things she thought we might need. Without knowing what we'd lost; she sends wonderful replacements for many of our most cherished things. Mary Jo gives Lane a white sweater she just knitted for herself- not knowing that Lane's favorite white sweater burned up. People we'd just met once knock on the door and give us an envelope with $50. Amy gives me some of Fred's clothes. It's good wearing our friends. Somehow the people level is so much more meaningful than the institutional one that is such a poor substitute for love and caring and sharing and understanding and helping and being vulnerable just like us. Any sense that we understood what happened was shattered some weeks after the fire while we were spending an evening with friends recently moved to Oregon from Philadelphia. Well into the evening Pauline hesitates, then announces that she had had a vision six months before that our house would burn-on February 8-but that we would be all right. She didn't know of our new house and thought it was the Rainhouse, but had written it all down in her journal. - As with Fred's death, we found that sharing our experience with others really helped. Their reactions, shared fears, and past experiences all helped make more whole our own. We discovered that many of us have a common "homecoming fear"- that turning that last corner we would discover our home burned, ransacked or recipient of some other dreadful quirk of fate. We did, and we're okay, and we know that fear will never have the same hold on us again. We learn of cancer victims who have been abandoned by all their friends who don't know how to deal with sickness and death. We remember the same feelings in ourselves, and know now that the best thing is to plunge in, be honest that we don't know what to do or say, and a good way will open. There's no right way. Amy felt that our losing our house was as bad as her losing her husband. We said no-the house was only an object, and could be rebuilt. She said yes-but her life could be rebuilt, too. We have all been more able to let out our fears of death, of losing each other, and that release seems to lessen them. We are learning to appreciate and enjoy what is part of our lives while it is there and not put off for tomorrow. We've learned more forcefully of the impermanence of all things. A house built to last a lifetime lasts but a single night. Will we build so carefully again? No. More carefully. We've learned that the best we have is the capacities that we carry within us and the love we can share. All else grows out of that and pales beside it. We've discovered that we only want valued things around us-things that are attachments, that attach us through associations, memories and love to the people, places and events that give meaning to our lives. We've become more thoughtful about acquiring things. Although we had some insurance which will help us rebuild, we know that the real insurance-the generosity and love of friends, family, neighbors and community- are there if needed. Although we were taught to be self-reliant growing up, we've learned that voluntary dependence, being able to receive, and the value of giving to both the giver and recipient are often of greater value than toughing through alone. We feel stronger, older and more humble. A week after the fire we began to plant trees. Somehow, carrying those green, fragile, living things through the black charred ashes began to make it all right. We tried to tear the hulk down this weekend and begin again. We couldn't do it yet, but we will, soon. -Tom Bender
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