Hawley tours businesses for insights into improving WNY's economy

Revised 08/30/2010 - More U.S./N.Y. Initiatives

Our nation is in a crisis, and New York is not immune. The crisis is all about resources- insufficient resources, misapplied resources, competition for resources and the breakdown of systems dependent on resources.

The early environmental movement had a slogan, think globally and act locally. This mindset caught on as communities re-educated themselves: park and ride, car pooling, recycling, weather-proofing, insulation, energy saver lighting and appliances. Big government has been slow to grasp this mindset, often impeding local strategies, imposing blanket regulation.

Regulation applied to small businesses and communities has an unacceptable kill ratio. A new model needs to be engaged that drastically transforms not only the way we use resources, but the way we run our economies. The keyword is sustainability. Sustainability is a way of looking at how we do things, aimed at eliminating waste and maximizing results. Communities face a difficult transition to achieve sustainability. It’s a bottom-up transformation that will ultimately reverse notions about government, elevating localism as the driving force toward restoring our economy.

Michael Gainer is program director for Buffalo ReUse, an architectural salvage operation located in Buffalo, NY. Gainer, a grassroots organizer and Penn State graduate with a BS in Environmental and Agricultural Education grew up in Erie, PA on a farm. He founded Buffalo ReUse in 2006 as an economic and community development program related to deconstruction and re-use that provides quality job and educational opportunities by cross training in the trades, marketing, sales, and small business entrepreneurship.

Through building salvage and deconstruction Buffalo ReUse facilitates reclamation of quality building materials, preservation of architectural heritage and a supply of low-cost building materials to homes in the City of Buffalo. Buffalo ReUse’s vision extends educational opportunities for youth, strengthens community development, supports the incubation of related businesses, fosters policies that will encourage reuse and landfill diversion and mentors other “rust belt” cities toward developing building deconstruction projects.

A fundamental shift is required. It’s a novel approach, suppressing the urge to seek government intervention- instead finding our own solutions. Turning to grassroots action taps into imagination, vision, and ingenuity. This is where we ask ourselves how to solve problems, and sensible solutions become achievable. This is where we leave the partisan divide behind.

The community is the natural place to foster initiatives. Techniques of sustainability have been pioneered by community initiatives; among them, ecovillages, intentional communities and permaculture farms. The new wave of environmentalism applies practical problem solving to local concerns and propagates successes to transform mainstream society. While governments may not respond, communities readily pay attention to ideas that can benefit them- a sensible strategy for moving ahead.

Intentional Communities are neighborhoods designed to integrate people, land and each other in a dynamic, self-sufficient living arrangement. Intentional communities include gathering places such as common gardens, meeting spaces, exercise trails, and opportunities for other shared activities. One such community is forming near Saratoga Springs. Developer and architect, Robert Blanchard has designed a new neighborhood of eleven small-footprint (1,100-2,500sf) single family homes, three duplexes, and a Bed and Breakfast Inn clustered on sixty acres. The homes are southern facing and feature a passive solar design. They are super-insulated and incorporate renewable building materials. Equipped with Energy Star appliances, solar hot water and hydronic heating plus photovoltaics; energy impact will be nearly zero. Additionally, the site has potential for water and wind powered generation.

Each home occupies one acre and shares thirty-five acres of common space overseen by a homeowners association. Community members are encouraged to grow their own fruit and vegetables, and classes will be offered in biodynamic gardening. Consistent with permaculture design, an innovative roof water run-off capture system serves the gardens. The community goal is to create a blend of self-sufficiency and shared effort.

Environmentalists spearheaded the local movement, and their gains have turned communities to focus on dealing with the crisis. The crisis manifests itself as economic collapse, unemployment, homelessness, loss of business and market drain. The penalty is most acutely felt at the local level. Necessity has bore non-government responses that take root in regional and community plans. Communities are receptive and better prepared with ideas, strategies and energy. As more communities take responsibility for their unique needs, a generalized movement has emerged. Localism is a global phenomenon, a widespread response to government ineffectiveness and backlash directed at relentless corporate merging and the globalization of markets, distribution and production.

Permaculture was born of Japanese studies and developed in Australia. The practice aligns organic principles with the pending global crisis in food supply. Independent practitioners have been responsible for familiarizing U. S. agriculturalists with Permaculture. Universities such as SUNY Cobleskill are now offering courses. Permaculture merges the words permanent and agriculture. It is the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems according diversity, stability, and resilience inherent in natural ecosystems. It is the harmonious integration of landscape and people to provide food, energy, shelter, and other material and non-material needs in a sustainable way.

Permaculture design is a system of assembling conceptual, material, and strategic components in a pattern which functions to benefit life in all its forms. The philosophy behind permaculture is one of working with, rather than against, nature; thoughtful observation rather than thoughtless action; of looking at systems in all their functions, rather than the narrow frame of one yield; and allowing systems to demonstrate their own evolutions.

Hancock Permaculture Center is located on route 17 between Monticello and Binghamton. The Center was established in 2004 by Andrew Leslie Phillips, a garden designer specializing in natural stone, and a certified permaculture practitioner. Course offerings at the Center cover sustainable living systems for a wide variety of landscapes and climates, with special emphasis on temperate zones. Topics include the application of permaculture principles to food production, home design, construction, energy conservation and generation, and explore alternative economic structures and legal strategies supporting permaculture solutions. Specific topics include: History, theory and principles of permaculture, nature-friendly house placement, design and natural building, energy conservation techniques for cold climates, wood stoves, recycling and waste management, composting toilets, gray water, organic food production, water harvesting and management, terraforming, dams and roof water, aquaculture, ecological pest control, soil rehabilitation, composting, erosion control, livestock and catastrophe preparedness and prevention.

Restoring community level economies began with the popularity of farmers’ markets, food co-ops and credit unions. People created these opportunities to reclaim a share from value-neutral corporations that failed to respond to their needs. Sustainability requires alternatives that do not siphon resources out of the community. State and federal governments are guilty along with global corporations, displacing community resources and revenue. Despite widespread initiatives, localism remains marginal- having grown horizontally, not vertically. Farmer’s markets, though successful, remain a weekly recreational activity.

The vision of localism’s trailblazers hasn’t moved communities to embrace sustainability. Society has yet to commit to its prime objectives- achieving greater self-sufficiency, revitalizing the local economy and awakening grassroots energy. Self-sufficiency aims to make the most of local resources. By reducing consumption of resources, minimizing dependence on outside goods and services, communities maximize local resources and shield from disruptions caused by outside scarcities and cost increases. In other words, the community takes control of both value chain and supply chain.

The Blacksmith Model- Without taking an anachronistic step backward, communities should revisit 19th Century models of self-sufficiency. Self-sufficiency is an individual lifestyle choice. Purchasing from local shops, minimizing transportation, energy management and community investment are not radical ideas, only bygone ideas. They were laid to bed by an era of unbridled energy and resource consumption. Having reached the ceiling on wasteful consumption, it is time to re-stake claim in prudent life-style choices. The 19th Century community model centered on the blacksmith who produced locally and repaired locally- not depletion. The legacy of the throw-away societies of the 60s and 70s is landfills. When that generation considered durability and value, they found themselves antique-hunting.

21st Century localism cannot deny its place in the global setting, but must adapt community systems for survival in a stressed system. Mitigating the stressed system demands self-sufficiency in terms of managing consumption of energy and other depleted or costly resources. Communities must recognize resources at-risk and develop management systems. Management systems must involve significant participation by members of the community. Community members have to be shown benefit before investing in management that requires altering their life style.

Every day, nine million New York City residents contribute 1.5 billion gallons of liquid waste to their sewer system. The waste then navigates 6,000 miles of pipe towards decontamination at one of 14 treatment plants or discharge into New York Harbor via overflow outfalls. New York like other older cities are decades behind meeting federal clean water standards. System demands overwhelm the capacity of 19th century sewers that combine storm water and sewage in the same pipes. A sewage overflow can be triggered by as little as a tenth of an inch of rain- essentially every time it rains. Sustainable South Bronx, a key member of the Storm Water Infrastructure Matters (S.W.I.M.) coalition, has taken the initiative to promote green roofs. In addition to advocating green tax credit eligibility the group launched its own green roof company. A green roof is partially or completely covered with a growing medium and vegetation planted over a waterproofing membrane. The vegetation cools buildings, lowering energy costs while reducing storm runoff that would enter the sewer system.

South Philadelphia’s Herron Playground like many city parks was essentially paved over. When the park was due for renovation in 2007, new guidelines required storm water management. Instead of just complying, city officials decided to make Herron Playground into a showpiece of sustainability. A rubber safety surface made of ground, recycled tires was installed in conjunction with a drainage system that directed storm water to a rain garden. By capturing that initial inch and keeping it out of the drains for 24 hours, the playground design prevents overflows that send untreated waste water into the Delaware River.

Philadelphia also employs green infrastructure: street trees, green roofs and restored wetlands around the city to augment expensive “grey” infrastructure- typically employed for storm water management. Philadelphia’s policy shift was possible, in part, because federal regulators with the Environmental Protection Agency agreed to flexibility in compliance with the Clean Water Act. Similar flexibility has been afforded NYC. EPA Region 2 that covers New York and New Jersey approved the innovative approaches that could save the city billions of dollars on traditional upgrades to the sewer system.

20% of the stimulus package awarded for infrastructure upgrades was earmarked for green projects. $2.5 million was set aside to fund pilot projects in Brooklyn and Queens. Gum trees are being planted along streets in swales capable of capturing 950 gallons of storm water.

Another project developed by Sustainable South Bronx is the Fab Lab (Fabrication Laboratory). The lab was established as a community partnership with MIT and serves an incubator for green manufacturing and design. Responding to the demands of community waste disposal, the MIT collaboration encourages creative solutions to waste and how to reuse it. The Fab Lab has manufactured furniture made out of recycled wood and cardboard.

Fab Labs provide widespread access to modern tools of invention. They began as an outreach project from MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms (CBA). Fab labs comprise roughly fifty thousand dollars in equipment and materials that advance local design potential to cutting edge fabrication.

Fab Labs have spread internationally, accommodating technological empowerment, peer-to-peer project-based technical training, problem-solving and small-scale high-tech business incubation. Projects being developed and produced in Fab Labs include solar and wind-powered turbines, thin-client computers and wireless data networks, analytical instrumentation for agriculture and healthcare, custom housing, and rapid-prototyping.

Blacksmith Model revivalism is evident in community undertakings such as urban gardens, farmer’s markets, local energy production, and local currencies. Resistance to such initiatives comes down to motivation. The obstacles are clear: benefits appear marginal, there are costs and sacrifices, and old habits die hard.

Star, North Carolina created an eco-industrial park in a vacant industrial building. 15 years of development, a combined effort by six counties in the central Asheboro/Rockingham area converted a donated textile mill into an incubator for arts and green businesses: a glassblower and glassblowing equipment company, a ceramics company, a clay production operation, a geothermal installer/equipment manufacturer, and a biodiesel production facility. The site also features a garden and greenhouse. The project plans to “go off the grid,” capturing excess heat from the glass blowing operation, skylight provided natural lighting and other innovative redevelopment technologies.

UMass Dartmouth has a goal of saving $650,000 in energy costs. The energy conservation campaign started with outreach to students, staff, and faculty to share ideas on how to make the campus more energy efficient. In the long-term, there are plans for examining renewable energy including biomass. Plans involve senior design students determining the feasibility of solar power. The campus installed a tower to gather accurate wind-speed data to determine whether wind power is viable and cost effective. Dartmouth is also accelerating research in the renewable energy and clean technology fields to address sustainable energy and climate challenges.

Brockport High School installed a geothermal system in 2001 to replace a gas-fired system. 1/3 of the high school building, 300,000 sq feet, is served by the new system. The savings resulting from the conversion amount to 9,000 dekatherms or $94,000 annually.

The town of Totnes, in the UK, launched their Energy Descent Action Plan in 2006. The plan aims at pathways for reducing the current 9 barrels of oil per person per annum (current UK average use) down to just 1 barrel (or less) per person by 2030. The change requires dramatic energy reductions. The EDAP framework weaves together different themes- food production, economics, travel, home heating, resource use, building, biodiversity, education and citizenship. 39 projects are active. With a population slightly less than 8,000, nearly half have signed on. The Totnes project includes a local currency.
Initiatives to revitalize local economies aim at stimulating the economy, putting people to work and creating prosperity. Largely this amounts to minimizing dependence on the outside economy or outside investment.

Local Exchange Trading Systems (LETS) are community programs for exchanging goods and services using currency or credit. A number of New York communities have LETS- Brooklyn Greenbacks, Buffalo Hours, Capital Area Self-Sustaining Hours, Chenango Hours, Columbia County Hours, Stoneridge Hours.

Michael Linton coined the term "Local Exchange Trading System" in 1983 and brought the idea to practical fruition in British Columbia. His system was intended as an adjunct currency, although some versions of LETS actually replace national currency. Ithaca Hours, original to Ithaca, New York, represents the first LETS initiative in the United States. Started by Paul Glover in November 1991, the system hearkens to local currencies that proliferated in America during the Depression. While researching economics, Glover discovered the British "Hour" note issued by 19th century industry to be exchanged at the company store.
Ithaca Hours hour-units are worth the equivalent of $10, equated to the average hourly amount that workers earn in Ithaca/Tompkins County. The exact rate of exchange for any given transaction was to be decided by the parties themselves. A local co-op market, a massage therapist and toy store became the first partners in the Ithaca Hours LETS. Today, there are over $100,000 worth of Ithaca Hours in circulation.

Local funding holds immense promise for economic stability. Credit unions are member-owned with a mission to serve membership rather than maximize profits. They tend to offer better terms on loans and savings accounts than commercial banks. Since credit unions don’t make speculative investments, they survive financial collapse.

Banks can support community development. The Bank of North Dakota is owned by the state of North Dakota, rather than private investors. As with credit unions, this bank came through the financial collapse in very good shape. In terms of community development, the Bank of North Dakota funds the state’s bond initiatives. New York State is $120 billion in debt, mostly owed to commercial banks.

In Mondragon, Spain, the Mondragon Co-operative Federation Bank was established specifically to develop the local economy by funding worker-owned production co-ops. The bank provides capital investment and acts as a management team, sponsoring entrepreneurial round-tables to develop business plans.

The Grameen Bank in Bangladesh engages in microcredit. The bank offers small loans to people in poverty, promoting self-employment and housing. Similarly the Common Good Bank supports democratically-managed community development. With divisions of the bank in participating communities, depositors decide the bank invest plan. Bank profits support schools, non-profit organizations and micro-loans.

Another community-based economic tool is the cooperative. Co-ops can be worker-owned, consumer-owned or include members comprising other enterprises, such as farm production marketing co-op. Co-ops represent a collaborative investment for community benefit.
Consumer co-ops are a means of leveraging buying power, getting goods at wholesale prices, being able to control the quality of the goods, and being able to choose the suppliers. Co-ops can also increase buying power or marketing budgets, depending on which side of the supply chain the co-op is operating on. Enterprise co-ops can increase competitiveness by reducing overhead and providing broader access to suppliers and markets.

The Evergreen Cooperative Laundry (ECL) is a worker-owned, industrial-size operation in Glenville, a neighborhood with a median annual income of $18,000. ECL represents just one of ten such enterprises scheduled in Cleveland, where the poverty rate is more than 30 percent. The Evergreen model is based on the Mondragon Cooperative Corporation in Spain that employs 100,000 workers in a network of over 120 cooperatively owned businesses.

The ECL aims to capitalize on an expanding demand for healthcare laundry services representing 16 percent of GDP and growing. After a six-month initial "probationary" period, employees can buy into the company through payroll deductions of 50 cents an hour. After nine years, an employee-owner can earn an equity-stake of $65,000.

Thoroughly green in all its operations, ECL has the smallest carbon footprint of any industrial-scale laundry in northeast Ohio. Most industrial-scale laundries use three gallons of water per pound of laundry; ECL projects eight-tenths of a gallon per pound.

Ohio Cooperative Solar (OCS) is a second green employee-owned enterprise, part of the Evergreen effort. (OCS) plans to install large-scale solar panels on the roofs of the city's largest nonprofit health, education and municipal buildings. In the next three years it expects to have 100 employee-owners working to meet Ohio's mandated solar requirements. OCS is also becoming a leader in Cleveland's weatherization program, thereby ensuring year-round employment.

Also on the horizon, Green City Growers will build and operate a year-round hydroponic food production greenhouse. The 230,000-square-foot greenhouse is designed to produce in excess of 3 million heads of lettuce and nearly a million pounds basil and other herbs a year. It will be the largest urban food-producing greenhouse in the country.

The challenging aspect of localization initiatives, how to involve community members in determining community direction and policy? Dialog-based processes represent the most productive. Creativity typically occurs in discussions where multiple ideas merge into action plans. Community dialog provides for establishing common ground, generating sensible plans and focusing energy of participants.

Developed in the Pacific Northwest, Wisdom Councils are one way to involve people in non-partisan community action. People come together to share thoughts and feelings about the things that matter. A trained facilitator helps the group arrive at statements that are later shared with the larger community for the purpose of discussion.

Four times a year, a dozen or so randomly selected citizens form a Wisdom Council. They meet for a couple successive days. Immediately afterward, the Wisdom Council presents its conclusions at a public meeting. Everyone listens and then discusses the presentation.

Citizens who participate in the Wisdom Council are untrained. Their qualifications: caring about issues. Wisdom Councils demonstrate that creative conversations are possible. They are non-partisan and random in membership. The disappointment average Americans hold for their elected government cannot be denied. People who admit to not voting are not apologizing. New Yorkers live in a state that epitomizes dysfunctional government. We have to decide to get things done. State government should not be an obstacle.
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This essay is largely-based on one article, The Emergence of Localism by Richard Moore. Here is the complete list of sources:

http://www.countercurrents.org/rmoore190710.htm
http://www.dailygazette.com/weblogs/hartley/2009/mar/04/transition-town…
http://communitysustainableenergy.org/?p=938
http://www1.umassd.edu/sustainability/resources_energy.cfm
http://totnes.transitionnetwork.org/edap/home
http://www.co-intelligence.org/P-wisdomcouncil.html
http://www.hancockpermaculture.org/courses.htm
http://permaculture.org.au/
http://www.ithacahours.org/
http://fab.cba.mit.edu/about/faq/
http://swimmablenyc.info/?p=582
http://www.observer.com/2008/sustainable-south-bronx-helping-bronx-beco…
http://www.thenation.com/article/cleveland-model
http://www.saratoga.com/ecolocal/2009/03/intentional-living---in-a-new-…
http://www.buffaloreuse.org/Media/BuffaloReUsePeople

That's a pretty impressive essay Mr. Barons but shouldn't you give credit somewhere to the author that actually wrote most of it?

Local currency since 1991 in Ithaca NY. It's a great way to support local businesses. Keeps dollars in the community instead of sending profits to Bentonville Arkansas and the likes.

http://www.ithacahours.org/

Most of what is in the essay comes from one article, The Emergence Of Localism By Richard Moore. Here is the complete list of sources:

http://www.countercurrents.org/rmoore190710.htm
http://www.dailygazette.com/weblogs/hartley/2009/mar/04/transition-town…
http://communitysustainableenergy.org/?p=938
http://www1.umassd.edu/sustainability/resources_energy.cfm
http://totnes.transitionnetwork.org/edap/home
http://www.co-intelligence.org/P-wisdomcouncil.html

It may sound like putting the genie back in the bottle. I used three browsers while researching and was short on time to relocate all of my sources. Apologies for the apparent misrepresentation. I have added an addendum of appropriate credit.

I noticed this description of one of the businesses visited by the Assemblyman, "Willow Specialties produces baskets and packing supplies.." If I'm not mistaken, most of these baskets woven from willow, seagrass, rattan, etc. are baskets imported from China. The company may employ quite a few people in marketing and distributing these products, but it does not produce the products here in the US. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
There is a history of willow growing and basket production in New York. Why not create jobs and economic development by investing in these types of agriculture and value-added products?