Eugene weekly., August 29, 2013, Image 10

NEWS
RIDE (Rides for Intoxicated Drivers of Eugene) is a
nonprofit hoping to begin local service this winter. “It
is our mission to keep our community’s children safe
by reducing drunk driving on our streets,” says CEO
Jonathan Russell. RIDE will provide sober drivers to
chauffeur intoxicated patrons home in their own
vehicles. Chase drivers will follow behind and pick up
the RIDE driver once the patron has arrived safely
home. Russell says RIDE is “still in the funding stages”
using Indiegogo. Perks are available for those who
donate at various levels. See rideeugene.org or call
870-6941.
Juventud FACETA is a local nonprofit that offers
Latino/a youth a safe place where they can discover
their talents and abilities, practice cultural traditions and
build leadership skills. The group is celebrating its 13
years in Lane County with a homemade tamale sale
from 5 to 8 pm Thursday, Aug. 29, at the old Whiteaker
School, 21 N. Grand St. Tamales are $2.50 each and 300
will be available. See juventudfaceta.org.
GarageSkins is a new business in Lane County,
founded by Rick Medlen of Creswell. The business
produces and markets light-weight, magnetic garage
door overlay systems, manufactured in Eugene. The
kits provide the look of real wood and are designed to
stick on metal garage doors without using tools. Cost
ranges from $495 to $925. See a video at garageskins.
com or call Medlen at 514-3331.
Reality Kitchen has a new food cart, Eugene’s
Best Soft Pretzels, which made its first appearance at
the Eugene Celebration last weekend.
The Eugene-based Terra Firma Botanicals is now
offering a unique product, Chocolate Elixirs, according
to River Kennedy, president of the company. The
organic brews include “Passion,” an elixir intended to
“stimulate sexual vitality.” Others are for energy,
balance and relaxation. See terrafirmabotanicals.com.
SheerID, founded in Eugene earlier this year, has
this week added the UO Duck Store to its client base.
SheerID will help the store confirm alumni status for
discount offers. The store had a problem last year
when a coupon code went viral and nonmembers
redeemed discounts. SheerID also confirms military
status and other targeted groups, according to CEO
Jake Weatherly. See sheerid.com.
The fifth annual BRING Home and Garden Tour, a
self-guided tour of 12 homes and gardens that
exemplify the art of sustainable living, is coming up
Sunday, Sept. 8. See story next week and visit
bringrecycling.org or email tour@bringrecycling.org.
Beer, food and activism? Great combo. Many
enviro and political groups and other nonprofits are
raising money by teaming up with restaurants and
pubs for special days or evenings. The venues donate
a percentage to the groups and the groups in turn
work to get their members and anyone else they can
find to show up and spend money. Everybody wins.
We run some of these events occasionally in Biz Beat,
but we’re starting to get a lot of them. Keep sending
them in, but we’ll probably only run ones that are a
really good deal for the nonprofits, such as 50 percent
of the proceeds, as opposed to 10 percent of the
profits. Don’t forget to send them to our What’s
Happening Calendar, too, cal@eugeneweekly.com.
lighten up
BY RAFAEL ALDAVE
Did you know that if Sen. Ted Cruz
renounced both his Canadian and U.S.
citizenship he would qualify to be a
Cuban citizen? The best job for him may
be ambassador to the United Nations.
10
A ugust 29, 2013 • eugeneweekly.com
thing,” Slaughter says.
It’s easy to forget
that she came from
such a diffi cult start;
however,
“Emma’s
future is still unclear,”
Elliott says. “Emma is
on a journey, and we
are looking for a per-
son or family that have
the fi nancial resources
and time commitment
that it will take to
properly care for her.”
In the meantime,
nothing in her history
seems to have slowed
her down. Emma
looks happy chasing squirrels, following her foster mom
around the house and generally just being a dog.
“I think she had a good start in life,” Slaughter says.
Anyone interested in adopting Emma can contact Green-
hill or the 1st Avenue Shelter. — Jordan Tichenor
NEW LGBTQ CENTER
IN LANE COUNTY
A new project is on the way to open a LGBTIQ com-
munity center in Lane County. The original Q, the nonprofi t
Queer Resource for Social Change, closed its doors in De-
cember 2009.
Since the community center closed in 2009, Q has been
hosting an online community resource that highlights cul-
tural events focusing on building community for LGBTIQ
people (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and
questioning). Q has been using art as a way to create a safe
space in the world for trans people since 1997.
The goal is to create “a space in the community that’s
really owned by and used by the community, where queer
people can come to and feel safe and have a connection to
each other and their culture,” says Max Jensen, a new Q
board member and co-president of the Gender Sexuality Al-
liance at LCC.
Jensen and Jesse Quinn, a recent UO women and gender
studies graduate, are at the origin of the new project. Af-
ter they realized that such a place did not exist in the area
and after they promoted the idea through social networks, Q
found them.
Listening to Jensen’s presentation for the center was in-
spiring and gave the Q members energy to jump back into
the project, former President Amber Dennis says.
Jensen and Quinn give themselves two to three years to
open the new LGBTIQ center. For now they are focusing
on starting a solid foundation and building up services. Q
operates with a few board members, voting members and
volunteers. They hope to get interns ready to take part in
the project.
“When we open the doors, we’ll be able to provide the
resource to the community,” Quinn says, “whether that’s op-
portunities for disenfranchised youth, archiving our history,
providing a cultural forum or just being able to develop and
foster a sense of the LGBT culture.” Learn more at aqueer-
resource.org. — Laetitia Béraud
LOCAL COMPANY
MARKETS CALIFORNIA WATER
The trendy bottled water you’re drinking is often just tap
water in disguise. In the case of a young company here in
Eugene, it’s actually out-of-state tap water. Emerald Valley
H2O is marketing an “eco-friendly” brand of bottled wa-
ter that uses plastic bottles made from 100 percent recycled
materials, with some of its water sourced from Southern
California municipal water. When a glass of local tap water
costs less than 5 cents and doesn’t require a throwaway plas-
tic container, bottling
water from California
and sending it to Eu-
gene has an environ-
mental impact.
According to the
Food and Drug Ad-
ministration, Ameri-
cans gulped down
over 8 billion gal-
lons of bottled wa-
ter in 2009, costing
consumers over 300
times more per gallon
than tap water, not to
mention the expense
and environmental
impact of creating,
transporting and recycling the plastic bottles. “Just because
we recycle doesn’t mean we shouldn’t reduce,” says Sarah
Grimm, waste reduction specialist for Lane County. “It’s
much more important to reduce your use of materials. Buy-
ing a whole new bottle is going to be more environmentally
intensive.”
Local company Emerald Valley H2O markets its bottled
water brand, ecoh2o, with the slogan, “Bottled water go-
ing green.” Manager Mike Scnear says some of its water is
sourced from a spring near Mt. Palomar in Southern Cali-
fornia, where the water is extracted and then transported to
a “green” bottling facility in Commerce, Calif. The water
undergoes extensive sanitization and fi ltration processes be-
fore being bottled and shipped about 1,000 miles north to
Eugene. In addition to spring water, ecoh2o uses Los Ange-
les County municipal water to manufacture its electrolyte-
enhanced bottled water, putting it through an additional
two steps of purifi cation before bottling it. Much of L.A.
county’s water comes from the Colorado River via a 242-
mile aqueduct.
But by national standards, local EWEB water — Eu-
gene’s municipal water supply — is already considered pris-
tine, and drinking it doesn’t necessitate the production and
transportation of plastic bottles. According to EWEB’s 2012
Consumer Confi dence Report, EWEB’s water quality met or
exceeded all water safety standards set by the Environmen-
tal Protection Agency. “We actually do really well in terms
of our water quality,” says Joe Harwood, external commu-
nications coordinator for EWEB. “We’ve been consistently
designated an outstanding performer.”
“We know that water bottles take a bad rap in the media,”
Scnear of ecoh2o says. “But if people don’t buy stuff that’s
made from post-consumer plastic, we’re not benefi ting the
reason we recycle.” He says that he hopes to eventually open
a bottling plant in Oregon.
Sales manager Brandon LaDuke says ecoh2o’s water is
cleaner than tap water, and their fi ltration processes remove
chlorine, salts and traces of sulfur. “The bottles set us apart.
It’s all BPA-free,” he says. “That’s the beauty of it; we have
this good water and good bottles to back it up.” Ecoh2o’s
website says that their bottles leave a 65 percent smaller car-
bon footprint than other brands, due to the recycled elements
in the bottles.
Local PepsiCo products distributor Bigfoot Beverages
also disseminates a few brands of bottled water, including
Aquafi na, which comes from an undisclosed “public water
source,” and EARTH2O, which sources its water from Opal
Springs in Central Oregon and bottles it near Culver, Ore.
“How much more ‘ecological’ could you get to have wa-
ter delivered right to your tap, without any plastic bottles?”
says Lance Robertson, EWEB public affairs manager, in an
email. “The bottled water industry likes to paint tap water as
scary and dangerous. Maybe there are issues in other cities,
but here in Eugene and Springfi eld, we have great and very
clean tap water.”
And it’s hard to beat when it comes to cost — local tap
water costs about 38 cents per gallon, including basic charges
that cover EWEB’s infrastructure costs. A 23.7 ounce bottle
of ecoh2o goes for $1.19 at most retailers. — Amy Schneider