Going green with building soon to be common sense

By Pattie Whitehouse
Goldstream News Gazette
Aug 30 2006

This is the fourth installment in a series of stories about the
‘Eco-Sense Project’ in the Highlands. Through the spring and summer,
we’ve been checking in on the progress, the challenges and the systems
employed in this ‘green’ home.

Ann and Gord Baird’s plans to build a sustainable home on their east
Highlands property is “the innovative excitement of today,” but will
be “the common sense of 20 years ahead,” says sustainability
consultant Guy Dauncey.

Dauncey, president of the B.C. Sustainable Energy Association
(www.bcsea.org) and the author of several books on sustainability
issues, said that the various systems the couple plans for their house
- including solar energy, composting toilets, grey water recycling,
rain water catchment and cob construction - are natural and sensible
things to do.

Moreover, with costs of renewable energy systems dropping while the
price, economic and environmental, of conventional energy rises,
homeowners can expect to see such options become more common.

“The whole concept of a sustainable energy lifestyle seems like
something new and intriguing today to many people, but I believe if we
look back in 50 years, we’ll notice that it became the mainstream for
everyone,” Dauncey said.

BCSEA is a non-profit organization “committed to promoting the
understanding, development and adoption of sustainable energy, energy
efficiency and conservation” in B.C.

Members range from interested citizens to professionals in the
sustainable energy industry.

BCSEA provincial co-ordinator Peter Ronald, attending an open house
the Bairds put on for association members, said that the couple’s
Eco-Sense project fits in with the purpose of the organization “120
per cent.”

“They’re going for a standard of sustainability that truly is laudable
and maybe is what we all need to start thinking about,” he said.

Ronald commented on the care that has been taken in choosing the
building site and planning the orientation of the house for the
purpose of both passive and active solar. The cob structure itself
will act as a thermal mass to store solar energy for heating purposes,
while solar panels will be used both for hot water heating and for
generating electricity.

BCSEA member Bill McCaugherty, currently an occupational hygienist
with WCB, used to engineer design sewage treatment plants. He said
that the “humanure” concept - the composting of human waste -
addresses many of the issues that plague conventional sewage
treatment.

One of the main challenges in designing a sewage treatment plant,
McCaugherty said, is sizing it in accordance with the hydraulic volume
- the amount of liquid that needs to be treated. The less liquid, the
easier the treatment is, and the fewer problems arise.

Separating the solids in sewage from the liquids is very
energy-intensive, as is converting the recovered solids into compost
or fertilizer, while the volume of water that ends up going out into
the receiving environment is a major issue, McCaugherty said.

The humanure system eliminates all those steps and “closes the loop”
when the composted material is returned to the garden, McCaugherty
said.

McCaugherty’s wife Cindy, a draftsperson trained in architectural and
structural design, has drafted the plans for the Bairds’ load-bearing
cob house, which will be built by hand.

Learning about earthen structures has “really changed my way of
viewing homes and what a home means,” she said.

The dominant attitude in our society is that one cannot do something
like build a house oneself; an expert has to do it for you. Building
an earthen home, using materials that are “right under your feet,”
promotes the belief that “I can do this,” McCaugherty said.

In the process, people build connections with community and the land
that sustains us, McCaugherty said.

From an architectural point of view, earthen homes are “so
dramatically different” from conventional structures, McCaugherty
said, because they are often curvilinear.

The Bairds’ house is no exception, which posed challenges when it came
to drawing up the plans with a computer program that was “all set up
to do straight lines,” McCaugherty said.

But building with natural materials is “very elegant, very beautiful,”
McCaugherty said. The walls, with a variety of textures, forms and
shapes, are “almost enticing; they almost want you to come and feel
them,” she said.

Although power lines were already installed right to the building site
when the Bairds bought the property, their intention is to meet as
much of their electrical needs as possible with renewable energy,
primarily solar power.

Kevin Pegg of Energy Alternatives (www.energyalternatives.ca), which
designs and installs renewable energy systems, said that planning the
system at the building plan stage, as the Bairds are doing, is an
“ideal process.”

Trying to “’solarize’ as an afterthought is not anywhere near as
effective as when it’s thought through with the whole building as an
integrated system,” he said.

Using solar energy as the primary source of power is “absolutely”
achievable, Pegg said, although it’s “unrealistic, given their budget,
that they’re going to meet all their needs from renewable energy.”

Backup power is going to be required for times when there isn’t much
sunlight. Although the Bairds had originally hoped to avoid tapping
into the power grid, Pegg said that he had persuaded them to install a
grid- intertie system.

The system will allow them not only to get power from B.C. Hydro when
required, but to sell power back to Hydro when they have a surplus.

It’s a “far more elegant way to go about it,” Pegg said.

And because energy from the solar system is stored in
permanently-installed batteries, the Bairds will still have lights
when power lines go down and their neighbours are in the dark.

http://www.goldstreamgazette.com/portals-code/list.cgi?paper=12&cat=23&id=717701&more=

A hot summer on Compton hill has matured to later sunrises and dew on my work shorts in the morning with the evening breezes wafting scents of dry grasses and sweet blackberries. The beginning of unpaid employment has sprouted a roof on the cob workshop and evenings spent relaxing with kids and parents. Boo our little puppy has started to grow up (finally), and the kids have settled into a summer routine full of giggling, helping, and just ‘hanging about kid stuff’; this is home.

My morning routine starts with rolling over Ann’s curled up body, attempting some gentleness despite my stiff back and sore hands forcing me into a steam roller. As my feet hit the floor with the feeling that I haven’t interrupted her sleep, I fumble through what seems an entwined ball of fleece pants trying to find a pair that fits. Then quiet as a mouse I grind open the rolling door of our sleeping compartment, fill the kettle, and just to rub it in, grind the coffee. Before I catch trouble for getting up too early, I tromp out the trailer and watch the sunrise peacefully. Ten minutes later out walks my coffee complete with a fluffy red headed thing that looks a lot like a sleep deprived sheep, but instead of a BLEAT I just receive the look. Coffee leads to a quick breakfast then to work. As I walk down the driveway, past the car, I am excited about what the day ahead brings. The sun beats down and the sweat turns today’s dust to mud and I get lost in creating something wonderful… a reasonable life.

Two years prior, after reading “A Reasonable Life” by Ferenc Matte, we vowed to challenge ourselves to live a reasonable life. This meant evaluating what was important, healthy and rewarding for us. Our goal was… to live as sustainably as possible on half our income within five years. This is the month where I truly felt I was leading a reasonable life. I was meeting new people, talking about our project and discussing the reasons why we are doing this, feeling healthy, doing rewarding work, and not in need of a tremendous amount of income. I love it.

Here in the Highlands we have a new building inspector. The reason why the prior building inspector left and what the requirements were for the new replacement I do not know, but our new building inspector is wonderful; a professional with great ideas, willing and ready to learn and full of helpful and informative insight and interest in our endeavors. He has been involved in and learned about cob and straw bale through his own interests… WOW. The inspector was even interested in reading “The Humanure Handbook” by Joseph Jenkins so we fired off an email to Humanure headquarters and have been corresponding with Joe regarding the Eco-Sense project. Joe has sent off a free copy to our new inspector and if you check out the Humanure webpage at http://jenkinspublishing.com/toilets.html you will see a picture of our Wise Island and Victoria bathrooms.

Back to cob…we have had several samples of cob tested here and at the University of Manitoba, the beginning of some educational research data. The results have been very positive and meet the engineering requirements for our workshop. The cob house plans have been submitted to Kris Dick at the University of Manitoba to begin engineering the load bearing cob house with, we hope, an inner wall grid system made of locally grown bamboo. Cindy McCaugherty, a structural steel detailer, drew up our cob house plans (no steel here) and has done an absolutely amazing job taking into account our wishes, functionality, passive solar design, and blending in many of her own creative and practical solutions.

As for media, the CBC program “Subcultures” aired an interview where four hours was condensed into ten minutes. This was a show on the people who choose to live off-grid and not really on our philosophies of sustainable energy. It did however achieve nation wide coverage that portrayed our personalities well. Then we had our first full on TV interview with Global Public Media’s show “Peak Moment” that airs in the US from coast to coast. These interviews and links will be on our web page soon. The Vancouver Sun and a local freelance photographer were also here interviewing us a couple days ago and this story will be out in a few weeks. The kids loved getting their pictures taken.
We continue to be amazed at the level of public and media interest in our project. Our neighbors have been wonderful arriving with fresh veggies from their garden as well as horse hair and dog hair to experiment with as natural fiber additions to cob and plaster mixes.

This month we hosted an open house for the Victoria Chapter of the BCSEA. It was a beautiful sunny afternoon where 25 or so like minded individuals gathered to discuss the different energy aspects of our Eco-Sense project. Dad made up a beautiful welcome sign and visitors had a good look at our cob workshop with some posters, construction cost spreadsheets, and books inside. Many people commented on how beautiful and sustainable this method of construction is. The other highlight of the tour was the cob model of our 1550 sqft cob home which we set up on the building site. Check out the pictures of this model on our web page at www.eco-sense.ca. Pattie Whitehouse from the Goldstream Gazette was also in attendance and has written an article on the different energy aspects of our project after speaking with many experts on the different systems. This article will be out shortly.

Our energy budget was completed to work out our power system components. We will be running 6 solar panels (125 watt), wired in an array to become 72 volts to the inverter and broken down to 24 volts DC and 110 volts AC for the house systems. A new top secret inverter not yet out on the market will likely serve our needs for a grid intertie system. Yes we will hook up to BC Hydro! Very few people are aware of this established grid intertie technology used extensively in other more energy developed nations (EDN’s). The folks at Energy Alternatives made a very good argument that we would need a source of high voltage power occasionally to service the batteries and keep them healthy. For this back up power we could run a generator which is 100% dirty power or we could use the grid system (BC Hydro) which is 60% clean. Makes sense! In addition if we are generating excess power and have to shunt it off we are wasting a resource, and it would make better sense to put it back into the grid to share with our neighbors. Essentially the BC Hydro meter will run forwards when we draw power and backwards when we have excess power. Another fact that few people are aware of is BC Hydro will cut us a cheque…yes pay us money… at the end of the year for our power, though at a VERY nominal rate. We hope that the BC government brings in the same policy as in Ontario and other EDN’s, where emerging industries are supported by higher payout rates for power from solar and wind as well as premium prices for peak demand times. I wonder if you can get farm tax credit for energy?

Do you know what global warming is? Apparently the average person doesn’t have a clue. These are the findings of the David Suzuki Foundation. We assume that anyone who is reading our monthly update probably does but here it is in a nut shell. It’s a human-made problem caused by the heat-trapping gases we are putting into the atmosphere from our manufacturing of everything as well as our energy used in cars and homes etc. These gases act like a blanket, keeping more heat near the earth’s surface. More heat also means more energy in the atmosphere, which means more frequent or severe extreme weather events like droughts, storms and floods. The result is rapid climate change and mass extinction. This was a scary finding because if we don’t understand than we don’t care. If we don’t care we won’t change. All this misinformation is amazing despite global warming being front page and getting huge amounts of media coverage in the last few months. Here is the link. http://www.davidsuzuki.org/about_us/Dr_David_Suzuki/Article_Archives/weekly08180601.asp

We are posting new pictures on our website all the time. The roof for the workshop is going up quickly and interior plastering will begin shortly. We have been experimenting with and learning plastering techniques on the log bathroom. Earthen plasters are amazing and fun to work with. The recipe we created consists of fine sifted dirt (with a beautiful colour), clay, arbutus bark pigment, 1% linseed oil for water repellency, a bit of Borax to inhibit plant and fungal growth, and to give strength and texture we used lots of thistle down. It worked beautifully and was quite easy to apply. The success of this mix will be tested over time. We have yet to come up with a recipe for the inside plastering of the workshop.

There has been so much interest that we may start having a monthly open house. Details have not yet been determined but once the workshop is completed we are considering opening up for public tours. Since we no longer have an income we will be accepting donations for these tours.

Life without an income means that we do without many things…but our focus is not about what we give up but what we are getting. This life we have chosen offers freedom, time, and the joy of building our own home. What it may lack in materials things is more than made up for with these basic luxuries. However saying this it does take money to live and things happen. Our big expense this month was for Boo our eight month old blackberry eating puppy who sliced his tongue in two from tip to tonsil. The surgery went well and Boo is left with only a small fork at the end of his tongue.

Ann and Gord

British Columbia’s Coastal Environment: 2006
Executive Summary
Six technical papers constitute the key deliverables for a project reporting on the coastal
environment of British Columbia. The project started in 2004 and was planned and
funded in collaboration with Fisheries and Oceans Canada, the University of British
Columbia Fisheries Centre, and the University of Victoria Geography Department, with
key contributions from Environment Canada. The reporting focused on a region
extending westward from the height of the Coast Mountains and included the marine area
within Canada’s 200-mile limit.
Each paper provides an overview of the issues, a set of indicators, and a summary of
results. Each paper also contains a section describing what is currently being done to
address the issues and a section with suggestions for what individuals can do. The
indicators in the reports were selected and developed in consultation with scientists and
technical experts as well as representatives of target audiences. Each indicator includes
background information, data sources, and a description of the methods of analysis,
including caveats and assumptions.
All results, including the full text of the papers and the data sets underlying the graphs,
are available to the public on the project website (www.eng.gov.bc.ca/soe/bcce/). The
website provides accessible summaries of key information and links to other information
sites for further reference. A folding poster brochure was also produced as a means of
interesting the public in going to the website to learn more.
SUMMARY OF KEY RESULTS
Population and Economic Activity
Over the next 20 years, the coastal population is projected to increase by a million
people, increasing pressure on the environment through land-use changes and water
demand, discharge of sewage and other waste, and emissions of pollutants. Industries
such as forestry, fishing, and tourism depend on healthy ecosystems, yet most economic
activities have some kind of impact on those ecosystems, either temporary or permanent.
• •
•
Population pressure on the environment is greatest on BC’s southwest coast, where
76% of the population lives.
Only 2% of the land area of the province as a whole has been permanently altered by
human uses (such as housing, transportation, agriculture). In the Greater Vancouver
Regional District, however, more than 40% of the land area is occupied by such uses.
The rate of land use change in the GVRD was lower in the period 1998 to 2002 than
in the previous 5 years, during which there was a large increase in urban area and loss
of forests, agricultural land, and some wetlands. Currently, standing forest covers
about 40% of the GVRD.ഊ• • • •
• • • •
The highest volume of sewage is discharged in the Georgia Basin; daily volumes
increased by more than 60% between 1983 and 1999. Closure of coastal shellfish
harvesting areas due to sewage contamination continues to increase; in 2004, more
than half (58%) of the shellfish harvesting areas in the Georgia Basin were closed.
In 1999, the proportion of population served by secondary sewage treatment more
than tripled (to 54%) when the Annacis Island Wastewater Treatment Plant in the
Fraser Valley was upgraded.
Since the 1800s, about 20% of BC’s coastal land area has been disturbed by human
activity (logging, agriculture, and urbanization) and natural events (fire and insect
outbreaks). In the mid-1990s, 41% of the coastal land area was covered by forests
over 140 years old and 7% was covered by forest that had been logged or burned
within the past 20 years.
More large estuaries on the coast have economic tenures in the intertidal area than
conservation tenures, but conservation tenures cover a larger total area (29% of the
total) than economic tenures (8% of the total).
Climate Change
The climate in British Columbia has changed over the last 50 years, with average air
temperature becoming higher in many areas. The climate changes reported for British
Columbia are consistent with broader trends in North America and the type of changes
predicted by climate models for the region.
With the exception of the North Coast, winters have become drier throughout most of
the province.
Sea surface temperature has risen along the entire coast, with the North Coast and the
central Strait of Georgia showing the largest increases. Deep-water temperatures have
also increased in inlets on the South Coast.
With the exception of areas of the coast being pushed up due to geological processes,
relative sea level has also risen along the coast.
In BC, the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions comes from transportation,
including commercial and private vehicles. From 1990 to 2002, greenhouse gas
emissions in BC rose an average of 2.1% per year, which is less than the Canadian
average of 2.8% annually.
For BC, the changing climate is expected to alter freshwater and hydroelectricity supply,
affect productivity of freshwater and the ocean, change ecosystems, and increase risk of
forest fires, pest outbreaks, and damage from extreme weather and flooding.
Industrial Contaminants
A wide range of contaminants originating from a variety of human activities are
detectable in BC’s coastal environment. Overall, environmental concentrations of PCBs,
dioxins and furans, mercury, DDE, and other organochlorine pesticides have fallen as aഊdirect result of regulatory controls on release of these substances to the environment
instituted in the 1970s–1990s. Except at contaminated sites, concentrations of these
substances in air, water, and the general environment are low.
• •
• •
• • •
Dioxin and furan levels in pulp and paper mill effluents have dropped to non-detectable
levels since 1990. Environmental monitoring shows a corresponding 95%
decrease in dioxins and furans in the tissue of crabs and an 85% decrease in sediment
contamination near mill outfalls.
Concentrations of PCBs, dioxins, furans, and organochlorine pesticides in the eggs of
great blue herons have dropped markedly since 1980; PCB concentrations in double-crested
cormorant eggs show the same pattern of decrease.
More than 46% of the area of shellfish beds closed to harvesting due to dioxin and
furan contamination by 1995 has been reopened.
Cleanup of coastal contaminated sites has been completed for half of the sites listed in
the BC Contaminated Sites Registry; remediation is in progress for another 46% of
the sites.
Persistent contaminants, such as PCBs, dioxins and furans, already in the
environment continue to circulate and accumulate in animals near the top of the food
chain. PCBs remain the most toxicologically significant contaminants for BC killer
whales and seals, and the contaminant levels reflect regional differences in
contaminants in their diet. Southern resident killer whales are among the most
contaminated marine mammals in the world.
New industrial contaminants continue to emerge as issues, as exemplified by a new
class of persistent contaminants—the PBDEs. They have become a focus of concern
over the last decade as levels have been rising rapidly in the general environment and
in the tissues of animals and people.
Despite controls, there are still continuous, low-level inputs of contaminants to the
provincial environment. These come from local activities such as burning wood and
waste, from soils and sediments that continue to release contaminants from past uses, and
from accidents and spills. Some contaminants are transported through the atmosphere to
BC from parts of the world where they are still in use.
Ecosystem Protection
As of January 2006, BC and Alberta had the largest proportion of land dedicated to
protected areas in Canada—12.5% compared to 7.3% average for Canada (with recent
announcements, the protected area for BC is 13.8%).
Indicators developed to assess how effectively ecosystems in coastal BC are protected
show that BC coastal terrestrial ecosystems are better represented than marine
ecosystems. Along the coast, 11.7% of land is protected in 444 terrestrial protected
areas that occupy 2.4 million hectares. Of the terrestrial ecosystems, the rugged and
mountainous parts of the Central Coast are best represented.ഊ• • • • • • •
• •
There are 130 marine protected areas, encompassing 240,000 hectares of marine
habitat. Although this protects less than 0.5% of Canada’s Pacific Ocean, it is nearly
five time more area than existed in the 1970s. Most marine protection is in the zone
less than 20 m deep, while the deep sea is the least represented area.
Results of a risk assessment survey showed that experts considered that more than
one-quarter of coastal protected areas were subject to high impacts from forestry,
mining, and agriculture activities outside of the protected area.
A critical issue for protected areas is maintaining connections to other undisturbed
habitats.
As of January 2006, 46% of the land on the northern and central coast was
ecologically intact (at least 2000 ha in size and 5 km away from roads), compared to
the south coast, which had only 2.8% of the area ecologically intact.
Roads are the largest source of habitat disturbance, particularly in the Georgia Basin
where almost all of the land around protected areas has roads, isolating them from
other intact areas.
A preliminary analysis found that less than 25% of the continental shelf ecoregions
remains undisturbed by human activity.
Biodiversity
The rugged BC coast, with its complex geography of deep fiords and countless islands, is
home to animals that live nowhere else. It is one of the most biologically diverse areas in
Canada. Of all the species in BC, two-thirds of the mammals and three-quarters of the
freshwater fish live only in the coast region. One-quarter of all remaining coastal
temperate rainforests in the world are found in BC.
In 2005, 86 coastal BC species were listed as locally extinct, endangered, or
threatened by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada. Of the
21 known species that have become extinct or extirpated from the province in recent
history, 15 used to occur on the coast. One extirpated species, the sea otter, has been
successfully reintroduced.
Indicators show that the status of coastal vertebrates as a group has declined over the
past 14 years; 4 new species were added to the red list, and there has been no
improvement in status for most coastal vertebrates that were on the red list in 1992.
Killer whales were added to the provincial and federal lists of species at risk after a
period of population decline.
Rare and sensitive ecosystems mapped on eastern Vancouver Island lost nearly 1400
ha (or 5%) over the past 10 years. At that rate, they could be gone in 20 years.
At least 629 species of alien plants occur on the BC coast and about 65% of these
have become widely established. Forty-one species of vertebrates have been
intentionally or accidentally introduced to coastal BC. Alien microorganisms, insectsഊand other invertebrates, including ballast water organisms, are not well documented,
but are likely abundant.
Many of BC’s ecosystems are relatively intact, particularly in the northern and central
coast. Ecosystem loss is greatest in the South Coast where the human population is most
concentrated. This area formerly contained some of the highest levels of biodiversity in
the province, but it has been severely altered ecologically. It is likely that climate change
will create additional pressure on ecosystems that are already stressed.
Fisheries
Overall, the indicators in this paper show that, although there are conservation concerns
for some populations or stocks of fished species in BC, many appear to be doing well.
• •
• • • •
•
An estimated 81% of the salmonid populations in BC (outside of Strait of Georgia)
and the Yukon, are at no risk or have a low risk of extinction. Just over 13% of BC
and Yukon populations were either extinct (2%) or at high risk of extinction.
Stock assessment outlooks for 2004 classed 49% of managed salmon stocks in BC as
stable, increasing, or well above target abundance, and about 13% of managed
salmon stocks in the category of greatest concern.
All assessed stocks of Lower Mainland steelhead trout were classified in 2005 as of
conservation concern or extreme conservation concern.
Other important commercial species, such as Pacific halibut, Pacific ocean perch,
Pacific hake, geoduck clam, Dungeness crab, and herring, among others, have levels
of abundance sufficient to sustain current harvest levels.
Many inshore rockfish species are at low abundance levels or are experiencing poor
recruitment, and 89 areas were closed to fishing at the time of writing.
An international indicator of marine ecosystem structure, calculated for Pacific
commercial fisheries, showed no trend in the trophic levels of fish caught since 1982.
This means that there was no visible indication of changes in the structure of
underlying marine ecosystems according to this measure, whether from fishing or
other pressures.
Estimates of the impact of regulatory and technological changes on reducing illegal
and discarded catch in the salmon and groundfish fisheries showed that the
regulations have had a positive effect.
Marine ecosystems are complex, and determining definitive causes for observed changes,
whether positive or negative, is rarely straightforward. Whether the decline or low
abundance of many of the species discussed in the indicators is related to overfishing, or
to unfavourable ocean conditions perhaps related to global climate change is not known.