NEWS
BY JORDAN RICH
LOCAL GREEN
ENERGY PROJECTS
COMPETE
S
olar or hydroelectric? Veneta or Cottage Grove? Se-
niors or youth? Either way, a massive grant for renew-
able energy is going to an organization with a worthy
cause.
Two nonprofit organizations are competing for
a grant of up to $40,000 from the Emerald People’s Utility
District (EPUD) to build renewable energy infrastructure. The
Branch Road Farm School in Cottage Grove wants to establish
a hydroelectric power system on its 73-acre property, and Mid-
Lane Cares in Veneta wants to put solar panels on the roof of
its Fern Ridge Service Center. Both projects passed a technical
feasibility test from EPUD to ensure their viability.
The winner is decided by EPUD’s customers who have
signed up for their Green Program, where they pay $5 to $10
more on their utility bill to contribute to green energy projects
in the Northwest. These customers get to vote on their pre-
ferred project on EPUD’s website until June 12.
EPUD, a utility company servicing more than 20,000
customers in Eugene and surrounding areas, is going into its
fourth year of awarding this grant. The past winners are the
Creswell Food Bank, Pleasant Hill School District and the
Lost Valley Education and Event Center.
“The costs of renewable infrastructure kept going down,
but the prices for our customers stayed the same and we re-
ally wanted to support projects in our communities,” says
Rob Currier, energy services coordinator at EPUD. “If we
can get more customers, maybe we can do two projects.”
They host teaching workshops, hands-on demonstrations,
field trips, children and adult cooking classes, farm camps
and after school programs. They also have a state licensed
commercial kitchen for their own use and for use by the pub-
lic for local food production and processing.
Ponds and Microturbines
The Branch Road Farm School’s proposal is to build a wa-
ter storage and hydroelectric power system that would gener-
ate 8,000 kilowatts of electricity per year.
“I believe that our project is worthy of voting for because
we are a growing educational and resource center that can also
serve to help with the very real needs to develop greater re-
newable energy resource understandings beyond solar,” says
Andhi Reyna, owner of Branch Road Farm.
The plan, if they succeed in getting the grant, is to build
three large ponds on their property ranging from 150,000- to
200,000-gallon capacity. Water from the highest pond will
travel down through a pipe that is rigged with a microturbine
system to generate electricity. The water stored in the lower
ponds will be used for gravity-fed irrigation.
During the summer, energy generated from solar panels
will be used to pump water from the lower ponds back up to
the higher pond to keep the hydroelectric system going. The
farm school proposes that the electricity generated in this sys-
tem will be enough meet their needs for machinery, refrigera-
tion, lights and irrigation, thus eliminating a large cost for the
nonprofit.
Branch Road works with the South Lane School District
to provide field trips for most schools in the district as well
as other regional school districts. They also participate in the
Farm to School initiative to supply produce for school lunches.
Solar Power in Veneta
Mid Lane Cares proposes to install forty 3-by-5-foot solar
panels on the roof of the Fern Ridge Service Center for an
annual production of 13,275 kilowatts of electricity.
The solar panels were a part of the initial design of the
service center. Due to budget constraints, however, that idea
had to be scrapped. Many energy saving design features re-
mained, such as large windows to let in natural lighting, win-
dows that can be opened to reduce the need for air condition-
ing and motion sensing light switches in all of the offices and
meeting rooms. These features ensure that the energy created
is reserved.
The Fern Ridge Service Center facilitates programs for
vulnerable residents of Veneta. Mid Lane Cares operates the
Love Project Food Pantry from the service center, which dis-
tributed 3,532 boxes of food in 2015. The center also houses
Café 60, a place where seniors can get a free nutritionally
balanced meal, as well as Meals on Wheels, which delivers
meals to seniors and checks on their safety. Mid Lane Cares
provides senior recreation, health and social activities at the
center such as a memory loss group and tai chi. Emergency
services and youth services, such as the SANTA program,
which gave Christmas gifts to 602 children in 2014, also op-
erate from the center.
T
IT’S
ABOUT
TIME
he frenetic flowering rush of spring is tapering off
as nature settles into the languorous days
surrounding the summer solstice. The sun rises
early, before most people wake up, and sunset
punctuates a late evening. For two months, the
change in day length varies by barely an hour.
The meadow and woodland flowers will use the mix of
long days and a reservoir of moisture in the soil to begin
seed production and dispersal. Grassy hillsides transition
from their brightest green to the beginning of brown over
this stretch of time. Flower watchers will be setting their
sights higher up the mountains in search of fresh bursts
of color. Those gorgeous mountain ridges are dancing with
butterflies seeking mates.
Nesting season is well underway, nowhere more
obvious than on the ponds near the Willamette River.
BY D AV I D WA G N E R
RIVERBANK LUPINE
LUPINUS RIVULARIS
Want to help decide who gets the grant? Go here: bit.ly/2qll0CH.
Goslings and ducklings provide some of the most relaxing
entertainment in town. Songbirds are active in the trees.
Once the nestlings are fledged, young bird families will be
seen in mixed foraging flocks again. Watch your home
feeders and fill often.
Some city streets and sidewalks take on a black,
varnished appearance after several sunny days in a row.
This is a sticky coating of aphid droppings. We see it
mostly under oak trees, favored by aphids. Aphids will be
active throughout the summer, releasing their honeydew
in highest amounts on sunny days. It is harmless but a
nuisance to clean off when a car is left parked under an
aphid tree on a hot day.
David Wagner is a botanist who works in Eugene. He teaches moss class-
es, leads nature walks and makes nature calendars. He can be contacted
through his web site: fernzenmosses.com.
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