Meeting Minutes:
In attendance:Eliza Greenman, Dan Lief, Jason Pickering, Cynthia Lief, Marya Spurling, David Thomas, Henry Isaacs, Rachel Thomas, Cindy Thomas, Cory Duggan and Kaitlyn Duggan.
Island Winterizations:
Eliza- I envision the mission statement of the Cranberry Isles Sustainability Initiative as one in which we do smaller projects that can be accomplished in the immediate future, while also keeping the long term missions of island sustainability in tact. I’d like to do something along the lines of meet-do-learn-teach. With that said, I think we should consider winterizing people’s houses who are in need for one reason or another- in order to keep the cost of oil heat down to a minimum.
Dan- Keep the winter in mind, pick out a few homes on both islands with some easy stuff that could be done. Do some stuff, we’ll come up with the money and man power so it could be done.
Marya- Bring an energy auditor out to report on current situations
Dan- Well we have done that in the past, Cynthia will take care of that. There is a video of an energy auditor doing an audit on a few of the houses out here
Henry- How do we come forth to peopole in need without insulting anybody? Maybe if we start with those folks on fixed incomes, the meals on wheels people, those must be the folks that have the hardest time with this.
Cindy- Do we even know how to do these improvements?
Jason- We start with the little things
Cynthia- the Kilo-watt plug-in monitors in the library are helpful to measure the amount of energy being used by appliances. Also, the use of heat sensors will allow you to see where the heat is escaping. The heat sensors are pretty expensive, but would be worth it in money they would save.
Dan- I think that is what we need to get for these projects in the short term. What if we made a list of stuff around the house that was susceptible to more of these winter problems. For a 100 dollars in investment, you could probably save 500 dollars.
Dan- lets assess
David- along those lines, let’s also pay attention to light bulbs and things that could be changed into those energy savings ones
Jason- What’s drawing the most power when you are using it?
Cynthia- The new kilo-watt monitors could show you that. They are available in the library. I’ll make copies of that film for everyone to see (the energy auditor)
Dan- for outlets, we need that foam screw in insulation stuff
Cory- I just read an article on some of this same stuff, and a drafty apartment can be helped by using the plastic-wrap window insulating stuff. Under doors, perhaps the sweep under a door, should be cleaned and weatherstripped with double sided tape.
Dan-So our game plan would be to: Identify houses, Go to a house with a team, make a list of what can be done, shop, and do it.
Henry- Home depot has a program for people with lower incomes to get weather stripping, light bulbs etc for these people.
Kaitlyn- Check out the electric companies and home depot to see if they will give out insulation blankets for the hot water heater.
Jason- Lets let GCI know what we are doing, tell them how to use the monitors and how we are gong about this all.
David- Ask Joy, go to the source.
Cindy- I don’t know if they put insulation in.
Henry- Rich of poor, these are houses that should be done
Cory- one thing to think about with these houses that we are considering, furnace cleaning is also important. A clean furnace always burns more efficiently than a dirty and clogged one.
Cynthia- Does Acadia Fuel clean furnaces?
Cory- We should hire a licensed person to come and do this. I think the place to start is to come up with a list of things to look at, things to focus on in a house. Before this though, we should make a list of questions to ask- when was the last time you had your chimney cleaned? Would you like us to come into your house? So the question is, do we form a sub committee to do this sort of thing?
Dan- For our senior citizens, should this be based on donation? ex-These were the costs of supplies and if you can make a donation, fine- if you can’t, that’s alright.
Cory- What if we said: Whatever you think it is valued at, give that amount.
Dan- Ok, how about if we classify whose houses we will do by saying you have to be 70 and over?
Cory- So how do we approach it.
Cindy- I can talk to Kara, she’s always in the library
Jason- So, we have 7 potential places. Maybe like 3 people per house plus a carpenter. Is everyone willing to do it?
Crowd- Yes
Well let’s go to the souce, these people’s care takers.
Dan- Everyone report back to Eliza.
Cory-Personally, I think we should look into more permanent solutions as well.
Eliza- That will take a lot more money and education
Jason- People can’t afford 10,000 dollar home efficiency rennovations- not right now at least. Lets just start small.
Energy Audits
Eliza- I wanted to tell you all about a woman I met at the SILC, Erika Shriner. She is an energy auditor out of SW Harbor and has expressed interest in conducting low cost energy audits out on the islands. She said that a large chunk of the audit can be done by the homeowner, measurements and such- thus reducing the price. She has agreed to come out and show us how to do this, but I wanted to put this all out there for everyone to think about.
Marya- Is there any way we can get someone to be an on-island energy auditor?
Cory-The class costs quite a bit of money, 1500 dollars or so.
Dan- Why would someone get an energy auditor certification? Is it just seen as getting in the business/employment opportunity?
Henry- When we get into photvoltaics, and other kinds of real energy production and conservation- in order to get most state and federal grants, you are required to get an official energy audit.
Dan- The town has money to invest in an island person, perhaps give them a scholarship- so when they do this audit for the island people, they would give an X discount.
Marya- That is a good idea, let’s say it and promote it and see where it takes us
Dan- Let’s raise it at the selectmans meeting on Thursday.
Cynthia- I’ve seen these courses offered, a man who came to this island told me about a class he was going to offer online -where there is a weekend in Unity or something like that.
Dan- I think the town can pick up a piece of the cost for training and equipment.
David- I would rather see someone get the equipment themselves, someone should probably be certified to do this because the point was made for long term solutions to take care of this stuff.
Cory- Once you go through GCI and LCI, you’re done. What do you do after that? Perhaps you should take that money and offer scholarships to help get this done. Hire Erica Shriner, who will offer us a deal.
Marya- At the same time, I’d like to have a local person do it
Rachael- It depends how fast you want it done
Jason- I don’t see the problem in having an island person go around and do all of the energy audits, make 50 grand, and then move on.
Dan- Cynthia, you have done work on the energy audits, what is the plan forward?
Cynthia- If someone is interested in getting trained, they can come to the selectmen and ask for a grant/no interest loan to cover what they can’t cover. There’s also a guy from Belfast who is willing to come up and do energy audits. In the past, he charged 1500 dollars for 4 houses, 2 here and 2 on GCI.
Henry- An energy audit is really cool, there’s a giant sucking machine
Jason- I didn’t think we were talking about the government
Henry- We should buy a town sucking machine!
David- I’m not going to do an energy audit until I’ve done the improvements things around the house that could reduce our energy costs.
Henry- The only reason to do it is if we’re really advancing along. I get more money back than 1000 bucks…but that is in Vermont and we get lots of grants.
Jason- This really doesn’t sound like something we should pay someone off island to do.
Henry- Lets put the weatherstripping on Betty’s house and move on.
Cindy- Maybe we should arrange for someone to come out and blow in insulation? What about insulated window shades, a tight weave curtain- probably 15 degree difference. Closing the curtains too.
Rachael- Find out what it would cost with the discount with Erika Shriner.
Dan- Agreed, lets see how much Erika would actually charge us.
Cynthia- Lets make a plan to see the video
Cory- Lets make copies of that video and distribute it to everyone.
Forest Study
Dan- This is an important issue for us, that is why we selected Eliza as our Fellow- because she has a background in forestry. Philip Conklin is interested in helping us out as well.
Eliza- I am currently working on a forest study, an executive summary as of yet, to assess the forests that we have on GCI and LCI, determine how large these forests are, what is the general health and status of these forests, an what we can do in terms of cleaning them up. Its imporant, from a view of sustainability, to manage these forests for both the present state and also looking forward 60-100 years. With this said, we are looking into different local industries where these forest products could go- from a small-scale saw mill to wood pellet production.
Henry- Could you tell me, Eliza, what the current state of the forest is?
Eliza- Much of the forest is overly mature. That is the age in which the diameter growth slows and a tree starts to deteriorate. Because of the history of these forests, having been regenerated from farmland, most of these trees are currently at this over mature state. What that eans, exactly, is that the general health of the forest has declined, it’s not as vigorous as it once was- more rot will be present, therefore attracting more disease, insects and fungus. From a fire perspective, this place is a large match. I’m pretty confident that if one tree were to catch fire, the whole forest would burn…except for the already managed properties thanks to Jason, Edgar and Courtney.
Henry- So what is the first step, after this summary?
Eliza- I would like to get a Maine forester out here, because my forestry training is in the Southeast and it’s different up here, to conduct a one or two day tree marking class for people like Jason, Edgar and anyone else who is interested.
Cindy- Is it possible to mark trees without killing others?
Eliza- If the person is trained, then yes. You can fell trees with minimal damage. But, marking trees is an art and everyone does it differently. You are taught to think about how a certain tree would fall and what trees around the one that you are felling would benefit. I just want to bring someone in to offer some extra insight, things to consider that the logger may not have thought about before. Managing for different objectives such as fire- saw logs- thinning for forest health, they can be difficult. It’s best to have a professional come and share some knowledge.
Dan- Pellets from brush is definitely better than taking the brush out in truckloads and disposing of it/burning it on the beach. The fellow from Athens maine is apparently using bark and brush in the pellets I use for my pellet stove. It’s a reality that we really could utilize a lot of this “biomass” to make pellets.
Henry- So Eliza, some of the steps we would take would be to:
1.) Contact a State forester and get their imput
2.) Combine that with your own personal assessment
3.) Conduct a business assessment, with the help of Phillip Conklin
4.) Come up with a plan that outlines choices about what we (the private landowner) should do, and what is possible in terms of viable business opportunities
5.) THey would then make informed decisions and start spending/making money
Henry- the Hitachi foundation gives grants for new entrepreneurships that help benefit small, rural communities. By way of a non-profit, they can give 20,000-100,000 dollar seed money to provide innovative jobs. Sustainable, environment-safe, community rich projects. They are very cultural, based in Virginia, they fund everything from arts projects to environmental projets. They could probably be great friends to these islands. Whether it is setting up a saw mill, pellets, etc- if it can be seen to improve the community, than I suggest it.
Eliza- I would love to have more informaton on this Henry
Cindy- Get the sawmill, make sawdust, Make pellets from sawdust.
Crowd- Cindy, you should charge for your private consultations.
Sustainable Island Living Conference Overview
Dan-Who here attended the SILC? (Eliza and Jason raise hands)
Jason- It was a great conference. I learned a lot about wind, tidal power, and attended a breakout session on green building/energy efficiency for home construction. I have a problem with the way people are selling insulation these days. Sure, it has a great R value and seals your house up…but you are trapped with all these toxic chemicals which require major ventilation systems. They talked about cellulose as being an option, but that causes just as much trouble as it saves. So, they didn’t talk about too many healthy options. I think it was the precenters looking at it from the perspective of look- it has a high r value (disregarding it’s health factor). LEED certifications- a lot of it has to do with where you get your materials. But, they don’t consider the health effects of all the products as much as they should.
Henry- We got the LEED certification on our house in Vermont and they very much look at that. We had to buy concrete that didn’t contain formaldehyde and was sourced within a certain distance. It was very difficult, considering lots of concrete is made from crushed rock from Maine, which is then shipped to china, crushed again with formaldehyde added, and then shipped back to the US. I Think people at these conferences need to be a bit pessimistic in order to drill it into people’s heads. Concerning the LEED certifications, they really do look at these toxins.
Dan- What about shredded paper for insulation?
Henry- In principle that is cellulose, so we ended up using wheat stock (the leavings from hay fields). Since part of our certifications were dependent on geographical things, we had to go with it. It’s gray, very fine. There’s a material called ecoblock that’s made out of wheat stock and it looks a lot like Styrofoam.
Dan- Is there a topic for a next session? Should we be thinking of a longer term- bigger plan?
Jason- I like the idea of forests, and winterizations…but I also like making energy. That’s a little out of our reach for right now though. I say we concentrate on the two topics we discussed today and then we’ll work from there.
Cory- We should watch out for the fox islands too, see what they are doing and move from there.
Agreed.
Eliza- Soren Hermansen’s speech is located on the Island Institute website. He was the keynote speaker at the SILC. You can go here to listen to it…
I also helped to create a Sustainable Island Living Resource Guide, which can be found here…
1 response so far ↓
Alice // November 20, 2008 at 11:11 pm |
Thanks for the update