Eugene weekly., June 06, 2013, Page 8, Image 8

NEWS
HEMP HISTORY WEEK
FOCUSES ON INDUSTRY
It’s not pot! That’s one of the main messages behind
Hemp History Week, says Eugene hemp activist Michael
Moore, better known as Papa Hemp. Eugeneans will gather
for a free educational event from noon to 10 pm Saturday,
June 8, at 267 Van Buren St. across from Ninkasi, and learn
more about the plant that can’t get you high.
“So many people today, when they hear the word hemp,
they immediately think of the word marijuana,” he says,
and while more people are now laughing at the Reefer Mad-
ness-style depiction of cannabis, there’s still a lot of misin-
formation about hemp, which has ineffectively low levels
of THC, the psychoactive substance
that gets people stoned. Hemp is le-
gal in the U.S., but growing it isn’t.
Moore says that until agricultural
hemp was criminalized in the 1930s,
it was as important as oil. Naval
fl eets used it for their sails, and it
was an important structural piece of
MICHAEL
levees designed by the Army Corps
of Engineers, allowing water to spill over, if necessary,
while maintaining structural integrity. Part of the reason it
was criminalized, Moore says, was its ability to compete
with the timber industry, which could look at reincorporat-
ing hemp into its troubled business model.
Canada re-legalized agricultural hemp in 1998, and af-
ter a brief period of infrastructure development, it began
exporting hemp and its products, to the tune of $10 million
(Canadian) by 2010. Much is sold to the U.S., where it’s
used in many products — mostly foods like hemp milk or
in clothing. Advocacy group Vote Hemp says that the U.S.
hemp industry is already worth more than $400 million in
retail sales.
Moore says that he called one inventor who made a car
from hemp to talk about bringing one to a event, and he
was told that the inventor couldn’t make another car due to
a hemp shortage. He says Oregon’s economy could benefi t
if industrial hemp was legal again,
and Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff
Merkley agree — they’ve spon-
sored the Industrial Hemp Farm-
ing Act of 2013, which would le-
galize growing the already legal
product.
Saturday’s speakers will dis-
MOORE, HEMP ACTIVIST
cuss different aspects of hemp’s
‘So many people today,
when they hear the word
hemp, they immediately
think of the word marijuana.’
THE HOUSE THAT
SUSTAINABILITY BUILT
UO architecture students aren’t just taking classes and
making fl oor plans, they’re using their degree-earning
time to rebuild a house — with a special focus on the
marriage of design and sustainability. The Center for the
Advancement of Sustainable Living (CASL, sounds like
“castle”), at 1801 Moss St., is re-creating and adding onto
the house where it’s based, while inviting the local resi-
dents inside to brainstorm about their own projects.
CASL sprang from the thesis project of architecture
student Jo Rogers, who designed a low-impact house that
used technology and had a modern-living feel. In De-
cember 2008, the UO and CASL student leaders signed
a memorandum of understanding for the house at 1801
Moss St., and CASL has been building ever since.
“When we got the house it was pretty dilapidated,”
says UO architecture graduate student Shannon Arms.
The house needed a new foundation, new subfl oor and
new roof. Now those trappings are complete, plus insula-
tion and windows. “It’s almost a brand-new house,” she
says. When students fi nish retrofi tting the existing house,
which will be a common living area, they plan to complete
a three-bedroom addition in which three CASL student
co-directors will reside. CASL will then become even
more of a demonstration and education center for sustain-
able living, with tours, workshops and speakers.
The German design standard behind the CASL house
is called a “passive house,” which Arms says could be
compared to LEED for houses. It’s centered around mak-
ing the house as airtight as possible. “There’s a measure-
ment system where you pump the house full of air and
you measure how much air actually leaks out. When you
go inside and close the door, it’s super quiet, and it takes
8
uses and economics, including Hemp Shield, a local com-
pany that creates a deck stain and sealant. Foodies can
check out hemp ice cream from 4 pm until supplies run out,
and parents can bring young ones to the kids zone. Leave
those pipes and bongs at home, though, Moore requests.
This isn’t that kind of event.
For more information, see the event’s Facebook page at
wkly.ws/1hn. — Shannon Finnell
NEW RULES SEEK TO
BENEFIT WOL F RECOVERY
It’s been more than half a century since packs of gray
wolves wandered the rim of Crater Lake and the Three Sis-
ters Wilderness, but conservationists say that their howls
may soon be heard again in those areas, once they disperse
into western Oregon. Due to a recent settlement between
several conservation organizations, the Oregon Depart-
ment of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) and the Oregon Cat-
tlemen’s Association, wolves are now granted increased
protection by Oregon law, easing their transition as they
recover their population.
The settlement was the end of a legal confl ict that start-
ed in 2011, when Cascadia Wildlands, Oregon Wild and
the Center for Biological Diversity fi led a legal challenge
SHANNON ARMS
AND HALLEY ANDERSON
about three people to heat it up pretty quickly,” she says.
“They call passive houses ‘hair dryer houses’ because in
theory, you’re supposed to be able to turn on a hair dryer
and heat it in the wintertime, which is kind of amazing.”
The CASL house’s pride and joy, the members say,
are its windows, which are triple-paned and open in two
fashions, one of which is just a few inches. This allows for
ventilation without security worries. Without a discount
for being an educational nonprofi t, they would have cost
the group $14,700. The house’s walls are about 14 inches
thick, Arms says, with insulation made of recycled blue
jeans. “It’s way less irritable for your skin,” she says. “I’ve
taken naps on it before. The only harm that it causes is that
you sort of look like you were hugging Cookie Monster a
little too tightly afterward. It’s completely nontoxic and
safe and it has a great insulating capacity. People get really
excited about that because they think, ‘Oh, I could have
my kids help me with this,’ and it’s relatively affordable.”
In addition to its major design elements, the CASL
house makes small sustainability improvements more ac-
cessible to the average Eugenean, such as taping the fl oor
at its seams so energy doesn’t leak. They’re designing a
rainwater catchment system to be visually appealing and
constructible in a single weekend, along with a how-to
guide they can pass out. “And if they have questions,”
Arms says, “they know that they can come back to us and
ask us.”
CASL tries to propagate the idea of living sustainably
in two ways, Arms says, by designing and reconstructing
the house as students and by connecting to the community.
The group is partway through a lecture series, which is
open to the public, on green interior design. “We had a
woman from a fi rm up in Portland come down and talk
about how love and joy of places is tied to sustainability,”
Arms says. “It’s not sustainable if you don’t love it. I think
that really resonated with a lot of people in CASL.”
The message resonated with CASL’s Nathaniel Rotta,
an MBA student whose career goal is sustainable develop-
ment for the mass market. “For me it’s just being able to
show people that a sustainable house isn’t a box,” he says.
“It’s being able to prove that it can be done and it can be
appealing to everyone.”
Undergraduate architecture student Halley Anderson
says that for her, CASL is a special experience because
it provides the opportunity to construct something physi-
cally, in addition to the environmental imperative. “I think
it’s really important to keep pushing what’s possible in
terms of sustainable living,” she says, “and showing that
to students who can carry that throughout studies and be-
yond.”
Eventually, the group plans to add, as an educational
element, monitoring systems that show how well the walls
perform in trapping energy. “We’re going to get a little
dashboard, so we can show little kids that when they go
breathe on the wall, there’s moisture that moves across it,”
Arms says. “Your breath has water in it!”
Work on the CASL house is still under way, but Arms
says that community members should stop by as the proj-
ect continues. “It’s taken about four years to get to this
point, just because it’s a student project and we fundraise
as we go. I think that right now, fundraising is our biggest
challenge.”
To learn more about CASL or make a donation, see
wkly.ws/1hq. — Shannon Finnell
PHOTO TRASK BEDORTHA
June 6, 2013 • eugeneweekly.com