Allan Oliver

Probably the best laugh line in the third and final presidential debate came when President Obama joked about “way too many commercials.” What’s less humorous is that this daily saturation of attack ads has left objectivity as its first casualty, especially in the area of energy. So it’s time to clear the air around clean energy in New Mexico.

Myth: The closure of Schott spells the end of the solar sector in New Mexico

Not even close. While intense competition for module sales and resulting low prices contributed to Schott’s decision to exit the soar market, other NM manufacturers are thriving as a result of consumer demand for solar. DPW, Array Technologies, UNIRAC and Sacred Power are each experiencing significant revenue and job growth, despite NM’s overall economic downturn. Moreover McCune Solar Works has already announced plans to resume production at the former Schott facility.

Myth: Clean energy is no longer popular with the public

Not true. According to a 2012 bi-partisan “State of the Rockies” poll, New Mexicans support increasing the amount of energy we get from renewable sources by a wide margin. Seventy-one percent of New Mexican voters support the goal of getting 20 percent of our energy from renewable sources by 2020. Sixty-six percent think the highest priority for meeting America’s energy needs should be reducing our need for more coal, oil and gas by expanding our use of clean, renewable energy that can be generated in the US.

Myth: Clean Energy has not led to job creation in New Mexico

According to a 2011 NMSU study there are approximately 35,800 clean-economy jobs in NM (5.9 percent of the workforce)—52 percent in energy efficiency, 12 percent in clean manufacturing, 15 percent in renewable energy and 21 percent in research and development. By contrast, the Energy Information Administration estimates1263 direct jobs in the coal sector. Clean economy jobs also tend to pay better, at approximately $22 per hour, versus the state average of $19 per hour.

Moreover, future development of renewable energy transmission offers significant new job creation potential. According to an Albuquerque Journal story, “The National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado estimates that NM has enough wind energy potential to generate about 75 times more electricity than the state needs. A recent analysis by Los Alamos National Laboratory also projects that investments in 5,200 megawatts of new transmission capacity could create nearly 25,000 temporary and permanent jobs in NM over 20 years as construction and operation of new transmission projects and wind and solar plants move forward.”

Myth: New Mexico is far behind other states on Clean Energy

The CleanEdge State Clean Energy Index ranks NM eighth in the nation. NM now has over 750MW of installed wind energy generation and over 122MW of installed solar energy generation and is ranked fourth in the nation for its solar energy production. With the research and development from Sandia and Los Alamos National labs and state universities in the area of photovoltaics, geothermal, biofuels and smart grid technologies, NM is a leader in clean energy research. NM also has more than 27,000 MW of developable solar, wind and geothermal energy potential—the highest of any state in the West.

Myth: Clean Energy is heavily subsidized

Subsidies are available for clean energy sources like wind and solar, but much less than traditional fossil fuels. A recent study by DBL investors’ Nancy Pfund looked at the history of US federal energy subsidies and found that the annual federal support for oil, gas and nuclear has averaged 22 times the amount of subsidies available to renewable energy sources such as wind and solar.

Myth: The US Market for solar and wind is weak, and at risk.

False. The Solar US market has grown 78 percent since 2006 and has roughly 4000 MW of cumulative MW installed. In August, wind energy reached the landmark of 50 gigawatts (GW) of electricity in America—enough to power 13 million homes and the equivalent of 44 coal-fired power plants.

And True. However, continued growth is at risk because the US Congress has not renewed the Wind Production Tax Credit, which expires this year, despite bipartisan support. According to the American Wind Energy Association, renewal of the Production Tax Credit is estimated to preserve 37,000 jobs nationally. Moreover, the continued reduction of renewable energy credit payments for solar electric generation slows the growth of rooftop solar in NM.

Myth: The clean energy sector is to blame for the shutdown of coal plants

False. More than any other factor, cheap natural gas is to blame for the significant reduction in the demand for coal.

Moreover, utilities across the US are recognizing that construction of large new coal-fired power plants is a high-risk and expensive investment. A recent study by former Colorado Public Utility Commissioner Ron Binz and CERES ranked every energy source in terms of various risk factors (construction cost, fuel and operation cost, new regulation, water constraints, carbon price, capital shock and planning risk), and coal ranks as the second most risky new investment after nuclear.

Once the silly season passes, I hope our state can get back to serious discussions about how best to rebuild our economy. With the only shrinking economy in the West, we need to recognize that we can create new jobs by aggressively pursuing clean technologies like smart grid and biofuels by building our solar and wind generation and by exporting our renewable energy resources across America.

Allan Oliver is CEO of the NM Green Chamber of Commerce. He served as the NM Economic Development Department’s Secretary, overseeing the Office of International Trade, the Office of Science and Technology, and was also Gov. Richardson’s deputy communications director and policy advisor. www.nmgreenchamber.com

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Raphael Weisman

Do you realize that the hamburger we buy from a fast food joint required 600 gallons of water to produce? Our morning cup of coffee requires 74. On average, in the USA and Canada, we each use about 150 gallons a day per person. The average Kenyan uses only three gallons.¹ Ever so often I catch myself (and notice others) running unused water from the faucet while multitasking in the kitchen! It is crucial to re-evaluate and change our water use habits. Robert Redford writes in the foreword to Blue Planet Run: “Many people in the developed world still assume the global water crisis has nothing to do with them—that it’s a crisis for those poor people, ‘over there.’ The painful truth is the water crisis is now on every continent and in cities large and small.”²

We receive our fresh water from the skies above, the ground below and the rivers and lakes. All are scarcer now, under heavier demand, and are also subject to greater and greater threats of pollution. Here in New Mexico we are in a period of extended drought. Below us, the Ogallala Aquifer that provides most of the underground water for a number of states is being depleted 14 times faster than it can replenish. Some water tables have dropped more then 150 feet. Ten of the world’s major riversrun dry before reaching the sea, our Río Grande being one of them. Populations are growing. Cities in NM are expanding as people are drawn here. The crisis is no longer on our doorstep; it has come to live with us.

Michael Aune (pronounced “on knee”) has traversed the mountaintops and valleys of many of the country’s waterways. He has walked most of the rivers and arroyos that feed the Río Chama, the Rio Grande and the Colorado River. He has been to the reservoirs and headwaters that supply Santa Feans with drinking water. He has seen miles of drought-stressed trees. He has seen Heron Lake at 35 percent capacity, noted the lack of snow, and knows that there’s trouble ahead—that there is not enough water to sustain our current level of consumption, and soon we will be running pretty low.

Santa Fe gets its water from three main sources:

• The Nichols and McClure reservoirs above Upper Canyon Road provide 1.6 million gallons a day. There is not adequate replacement water coming down the river to sustain this usage. According to the statistics published in The New Mexican on Oct. 10, 2012, the Santa Fe Canyon Reservoir is at 28.5 percent capacity.

• 13 wells in the Buckman well fields and a few other wells in Santa Fe supply the rest of the city’s municipal water. The Buckman Field wells have not been used recently.

• The Río Grande provides Santa Fe with water it receives from the San Juan-Chama Project. Through this compact, 5,605 acre feet of water a year gets diverted from the west side of the Great Continental Divide through the Azotea Tunnel into the Chama River via Heron Lake. The Oso Diversion Dam collects water from the Río Blanco, Little Navajo and Navajo rivers on the west of the Great Divide from where it goes through the tunnel. Michael Aune visited the Oso Diversion Dam four times since June 2012 and has been there and to Heron Lake as recently as Sept. 16 and 29. He took the accompanying photos of the lake, which is 45 feet below “normal” and has accumulated 18 feet of silt over one year!

• Says Aune, “The diversion through a tunnel under the Continental Divide hasn’t been working from at least June to the present. The photos I took on September 16^th prove it. Water may go out of Heron Lake into the Chama, but there is no water going into the reservoir. How long can that last? Photos on September 29^th show that Lake Heron is at about 34 percent capacity. This past June, there was no snow in the mountains, hence low flows in the Rio Blanco and Navajo Rivers. Continued drought and reduced winter snowpack means reduced flows through the San Juan-Chama Project. It also means increased risk of forest fire danger in those watersheds as climate change results in more dead trees. Then ash and mud flows to block the diversions and fill the tunnels. This area may end up looking like Santa Clara Canyon. Who is thinking ahead to these possibilities?”

The Río Chama joins the Río Grande North of Española. At the Buckman Direct Diversion site, raw water is pumped towards Santa Fe. A thirsty golf course and the luxury community of Las Campanas receive a share on its way. Eight million gallons a day comes from the Buckman Diversion.

• All these sources of supply depend on rain and snowfall. Santa Fe’s year-to-date average rainfall is 11-1/2 inches. It is now only at five-and-a-half inches. Aune states: “I examined the headwaters of the Río Grande above Creede, Colorado. Flows are extremely low there as well, and I spoke with residents who were very concerned.” He also told me that the Río Grande is currently quite low, and most of the volume reaching the Buckman area is coming from the Red River, which joins the Río Grande in the Questa area.

Before the Río Grande reaches the Buckman intake, it passes a few canyons that drain from Los Alamos, the site of Los Alamos National Lab (LANL). There are hundreds of unlined pits, trenches and shafts on LANL land, many of which date back to the Second World War. There are 2100 sites that LANL self-identified after the Cold War as locations that could release toxic wastes. A shipment of 13 tons of weapon-grade plutonium is soon scheduled to travel on NM roads headed to LANL for the production of MOX Fuel.³

Drought conditions in NM have promoted the recent spate of severe wildfires. The Cerro Grande fire in 2000 burned over 7,000 acres of LANL property. One-hundred-fifty-thousand trees were consumed in the Los Conchas fire, releasing PCBs, radionuclides and metals into the environment. During the summer thunderstorm season, fondly known as the ”monsoons,” toxic ash residue from the fires gets washed down the arroyos and canyons, as there is no longer any vegetation barrier to slow it down. This slurry enters the Río Grande about three miles above the Buckman intake site. An Early Notification System near the mouth of the Los Alamos Canyon is designed to measure high runoff and relay a message to shut down intake during these heavy storm incidents. In a number of reported cases, these warnings were ignored or did not work.

The monitoring of contaminants entering the Santa Fe municipal water system is far too infrequent, and years can pass before testing results are released. The most recentreport available from the Environmental Working Group, for instance, was issued in 2009, presenting data from 2004-2006. It lists 32 contaminants in Santa Fe’s municipal water.⁴ Often, data of toxic presence in the water will be later denied as “mistaken!” Mark Sardella, an engineer who has been monitoring contaminants in the waters for a long time, says that the actual data that last March showed quantities of tritium in the Buckman well field, has yet to be released. Sardella has made numerous attempts to obtain the original data from LANL.

Says Aune, “No one wants to admit that we have an urgent situation on our hands, and we had better do something about it.”

It has become clear to me that a major shift in our consciousness is required, and that there needs to be a critical mass of people who are doing something about the water crisis; people who practice personal responsibility where water is concerned. It is also clear that the solutions will have to come from the people themselves, for the leaders we have elected have so far proved not only inadequate at dealing with this crisis but are the ones mostly responsible for its existence in the first place. The issues belong to us here in Santa Fe and also around the world, for in reality, we are interconnected and therefore interdependent.

How might we be able to fulfill the vision of a world of clean, healthy and safe water for all life? To start, education about water issues is crucial.

Notes:

¹ Water Consciousness, ed. Tara Lohan, AlterNet Books, 2008.

²Blue Planet Run, The Race to Provide Safe Drinking Water to the World, Earth Aware Editions/Against All Odds Productions, 2007. A book of resources, solutions and inspiration with amazing photography.

³ http://nnsa.energy.gov/aboutus/ouroperations/generalcounsel/nepaoverview/nepa/spdsupplementaleis

⁴ Buckman wells and Direct Diversion Project provide drinking water for 80,000 people. See also: Costs, conflicts hinder Buckman water delivery:http://www.santafenewmexican.com/Local%20News/091412buckman

Included in this list are Arsenic, Copper, Lead, Cadmium, Uranium, Radium and Nitrates. Household chemicals, pharmaceutical drugs and birth control pills etc are also present. Also see Environmental Working Group report: http://www.ewg.org/tap-water/whatsinyourwater/NM/City-of-Santa-FE-Water-System/3505126/

Resources and recommended reading:

1. Water Awareness, ed. Tara Lohan, AlterNet Books, 2008. This compilation of 15 articles by leading authors, including Miguel Santistevan and Paula Garcia of New Mexico, with foreword by Bill McKibben, is a veritable treasure trove of resources on water issues and suggested solutions and includes a water footprint calculator. Many of the facts cited in this article are derived from this book.
2. Blue Planet Run, The Race to Provide Safe Drinking Water to the World, Earth Aware Editions/Against All Odds Productions, 2007. Another book of resources, solutions and inspiration with amazing photography.
3. What’s the big Deal About Water, Tonita d’Raye, (revised) 2001, Awieca Publishing Inc. A Quick Read Health Book with lots of good information that covers a lot in 24 pages
4. National Geographic, “Water, Our Thirsty World.” A special issue, April 2010 A very comprehensive treatment on water issues with excellent photography.
5. Be The Change, How To Get What You Want In Your Community, Thomas Linzey with Anneke Campbell, Gibbs Smith, 2009. Resources on Democracy School and water activism.
6. Light of New Mexico newspaper, “Who Controls Your Water?,” Vol. 1, no.1, Sept. 15-Oct 14, 2011

Raphael Weisman is a retired luthier and harpmaker. He founded the Santa Fe Water Awareness Group (www.WaterAwarenessGroup.wordpress.com), is establishing a water resources center, and is planning the first Santa Fe Global Water Festival, to be held on World Water Day, in March 22, 2014.

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Laurie Trevizo

The National Weather Service recently confirmed that the 24 months between August 2010 and August 2012 were the hottest and driest since recordkeeping started in the 1890s. Despite two years of persistent and severe drought conditions pushing peak daily demands to all-time highs, Santa Feans used an average of 107 gallons per-person per-day in 2011, well below the national average of 150, and lower than the amounts used in most other similar western cities. The gallon-per-capita-per-day, or GPCD, calculation includes not only residential, but also commercial, industrial, institutional and irrigation water use. Santa Fe residential indoor use accounts for 58 gallons per-day per-person, while the remaining 49 gallons is commercial, industrial, multi-family (such as apartment complexes) and public use.

“In the face of these climatic and seasonal challenges, our community should be commended for their progressive and on-going water conservation efforts,” said Peter Ives, city councilor and chair of the Water Conservation Committee. “While our water use statistics are among the best in the Southwest and the United States, we must continue to work together to save water and reduce demand.”

Brian K. Snyder, Public Utilities Department and Water Utility Division director, added, “Through good conservation practices and drought management programs, the city is able to ensure a reliable water supply for domestic use and fire protection.”

Customers can continue to save water by taking advantage of rebates and incentives to help lower monthly water bills. The city has several rebates on high-efficiency toilets, clothes washers and rainwater harvesting systems. For more information about water conservation in Santa Fe, including outdoor/indoor water use requirements, visit www.santafenm.gov/waterconservation

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Earl James

Over-grazing. Flooding. Erosion. Fire suppression. Words that conjure up the thrice-told tales of woe in New Mexico and the greater Southwest, with our rivers and creeks morphing from life-giving, nurturing streams of clear, nutrient-rich water to eroding, muddy flashes that throw riparian ecology out of whack and destroy small-scale local economies that depend upon a healthy river.

It’s not that no one has been paying attention, or that no one cares. In fact, even though it rarely makes for news headlines, protecting, managing and restoring our precious waterways is a major industry, and for years environmental advocacy groups have been fighting watershed degradation from cattle grazing in our national forests to toxic mine pollution of our drinking waters.

But actually restoring our many dozens of flowing waterways in NM is a separate challenge, especially in an era of disappearing government funding at every level. Cost is one major hurdle, but creating long-term effectiveness of restoration has been even more challenging, with some planners hauling concrete and steel across the countryside to install industrial-era solutions to such problems as vertical-bank stability, floodplain connection, inundation frequency and riparian-area soil integrity.

But the city of Santa Fe has done something different, again. This time it’s not a festival or an arts project of the kind the city is so famous for but a bold step toward re-creating a sustainable watershed without any heavy-handed industrial engineering. And it seems to be working.

On a recent Friday afternoon, I spent several hours in the Santa Fe watershed with Dale Lyons, watershed manager, and Dr. Peter Stacey,research professor and conservation biologist at UNM and formerly with the Alamosa Land Institute. They are engaged in restoring the Santa Fe River within the watershed. What I found looks like good news for all of NM’s watershed managers and the budget masters responsible for funding them. First, some baseline facts about the condition of the watershed:

The Watershed and Its Protection Plan

• Santa Fe’s 17,384-acre city-managed portion of the upper river basin watershed provides water for 30,000 households and businesses
• Its two reservoirs hold 4,000 acre-feet of water, or 1/3 of the water used annually in Santa Fe
• The upper 10,000 acres located within the Pecos Wilderness Area are primarily mixed conifer and spruce fir
• The lower 7,384 acres are dominated by ponderosa pine and piñon pine-juniper woodlands
• 5,285 acres of the lower area have been treated with mechanical thinning and pile burns to prevent a major fire like the fire in the Jemez Mountains

Once the majority of the thinning was completed in 2006, the task of restoring the three miles of riparian ecology of the watershed between the two reservoirs became a high priority, and a 20-year protection plan was developed collaboratively by the city’s Water Division, the Nature Conservancy, the city’s Fire Department, the Española Ranger District–Santa Fe National Forest, and the Santa Fe Watershed Association. The full plan is available at http://www.santafenm.gov/DocumentCenter/Home/View/4354, and an interesting overview history of the river can be found on the website of the Santa Fe Watershed Association www.santafewatershed.org/

To evaluate the functional condition of the watershed, Dr. Stacey conducted two years of surveys using the Rapid Stream-Riparian Assessment protocol, a quantitative evaluation of two-to-seven indicator variables in five different ecological categories: water quality, fluvial geomorphology, aquatic and fish habitat, vegetation composition and structure, and terrestrial wildlife habitat (detailed protocol information at http://wildutahproject.org/files/images/RSRA_ug_2010V3_wcov.pdf).

The Restoration Project

We started our tour of the central section of the project area at a recently abandoned beaver dam and pond, so I asked about the value of nature’s own engineers to the watershed, which triggered a discussion about the value of complexity in the system, the very quality beavers create by spreading water out from the channel of the river, supporting native riparian vegetation.

As Dr. Stacey described it, a healthy ecosystem, with healthy grass on the slopes, will absorb rain and snow and then release it slowly. With beaver dams, healthy floodplains and grass in the uplands, the soil comes back and a sponge is created that will hold water and prevent loss to evaporation. So the goal of restoring a healthy ecosystem in the watershed is to better utilize what water does fall on the watershed, and as Dale Lyons pointed out, it means the city doesn’t need to build new dams, as the ecosystem itself is a better storage device. Dammed water evaporates, and the annual loss is 15 percent.

What Dr. Stacey had found in his survey was that the riparian corridor above the upper dam was in good shape, but problems existed between the dams due to the regulated stream flow creating uniform channels with no underbank cover for fish, and sediments being washed downstream into the lower reservoir rather than being deposited along the river. As regulated flows don’t allow water to migrate out of the river’s banks to serve the streamside ecology, there had been an invasion of large numbers of pine trees close the bank, closing out possibilities of recruitment of native cottonwood and aspen.

To address these and other issues, a design philosophy was employed that uses the simplest method possible to re-initiate natural processes, without constructing large concrete and steel structures and lots of pushing the earth around. Dr. Stacey described his approach as “…using current ecological theory to develop restoration methods that promote natural recovery processes with the minimal amount of artificial structures and human intervention. Currently, we are working to restore the natural hydrographic in watersheds using logjams and other wooden structure that slow down peak flows, capture sediments, and promote vegetative re-growth, that are self-repairing and reinforcing, and that are designed to function in ways similar to those of natural beaver dams.”This means that the limited intervention is just enough to start the natural recovery process so nature can do the rest.

So what does that look like on the ground, or rather, in the streambed?

This method uses “digger logs” to mimic what happens naturally when a tree falls across the river at certain angle, creating a pool of backup water that eventually fills with sediment, which in turn creates a shallow water ripple area. Then, water falling over the logs digs out a pool on the downflow side of the digger logs.

The sediment dug up on the downflow side of the log jam is then deposited a few feet downstream, creating a sort of sandbar that bends the stream flow slightly, which in turn slows the flow and—importantly—directs the flow toward the other stream bank. This pressure carves out an underbank shelter for fish and contributes to underground flooding, which means more water is absorbed into the soil and migrates outward where it can support native riparian species such as narrow-leaf cottonwood, willow and aspen.

A key design element of this logjam is that the logs are laid across the riverbed at a slight angle, with the downstream end of the logs slightly lower than the upstream. If the logs were laid straight across the riverbed, they would be blown out when stream flow is rapid. Dr. Stacey’s design allows rapid flow to escape over the lower end of the logjam. With this design, you are not really trying to stop a bunch of water as a dam does, just trying to slow it down.

In a healthy stream, about 50% of the stream is made up of an alternating ripple and pool sequence. To mimic that with logjams, the frequency of placement depends on the grade of the stream. If you put them too close together you will create only a sequence of pools, without the crucial ripple patterns in between, where sediment drops out and invertebrates thrive.

As the bottom of the stream channel behind a set of logjams built up through sedimentation, the upstream pool is deepened, which is very attractive for fish habitat. As years progress, there is a chance that the rise of the sediment stream bottom will lift the stream flow back up to where the top edges of the banks are now, allowing for more overbank flooding, supporting a healthy vegetation corridor.

Phase One Structures and Present Outcomes:

Three systems were installed in the river between the two dams about 18 months ago, with each system having between four and seven digger logs. The logjams are being monitored and evaluated for improvements in water quality and the structure of streambed itself, in terms of its ability to filter water, and to create in-stream aquatic habitat for fish and invertebrates. The productivity of the riparian area with regard to vegetation that provides food for wildlife is also a measure of the interaction between the vegetation and the stream.

Each structure is labeled and photographed periodically, and modified SRSA surveys are conducted to document how each logjam works over time.

Both Dale Lyons and Dr. Stacey seemed pleased with the outcomes of this restoration work so far, and the improved diversity of stream flow, sedimentation buildup and healthy ripple and pool sequences were very easy to observe. What had been a uniform, narrow channel was now moving rapidly toward once again becoming the kind of healthy stream that you can find in protected wilderness areas.

As we quietly watched the area around one digger-log installation, a small, gray American Dipper bird appeared, perching briefly on a rock in the stream and then disappearing underwater, searching for invertebrate prey. As it feeds on aquatic insects and their larvae, including dragonfly nymphs and tiny fish or tadpoles, the bird’s appearance confirmed in a beautiful way that this river was indeed coming back to life.

In answer to my question, “Could I do this myself, without your expertise in knowing where to place the logjams, which themselves are quite simple to install?”, Dale Lyons said, “The placement here was quite obvious, where long sections of channel were relatively straight, without a lot of turns or twists or woody debris, and fairly uniform bed material and uniform depth across the channel.

Dr. Stacey added, “We try to take advantage of existing vegetation to anchor the logs instead of bringing in a cement truck to pour pylons, taking advantage of the existing biological structure to provide strength. It’s not rocket science but it’s helpful to know how to take advantage of what you’ve got to work with, including logs from deadfall if available.”

Then I inquired about the cost of installing and monitoring, and Dr. Stacey said, “If you take advantage of natural materials, don’t bring anything into the forest, the bottom-up approach, you can count on no more than $5,000 per installation of 4-6 individual digger-log placements in series.”

This sounded so incredibly reasonable to me that I asked if anyone else in NM is using this technique. He replied that he and a former student who now runs his own firm, Christian LeJuene of Wetwater Environmental Services in Albuquerque, are proposing a big digger-log project in the Jemez National Forest, but that’s the only other one he is aware of at this time.

I then asked if there were an opportunity to run a boot-camp training project to teach people to do this and Peter’s eyes lit up. He said “Hey, if we could do this as a WPA-style project…” and then he looked off in the middle distance, dreaming.

You can follow the progress of this project by contacting Dr. Peter Stacey at pstacey@unm.edu, and Dale Lyons at dwlyons@ci.santa-fe.nm.us. 505.955.4204.

Earl James is nonprofit fundraising consultant and the author of the award-winning eco-novel Bella Coola: The Rainforest Brought Them Home. Read excerpts at www.earldjames.com and contact him at earldjames@gmail.com

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Jack Loeffler

Imagine that you are aloft, gently drifting in an early autumnal breeze a half mile above the Earth, the jagged scarp of the watermelon mountain to the east, the dark finger of the Southern Rockies pointing from the north, the great super volcano of the Valles Caldera profiled to the northwest, another volcano known to the Navajo as Tsoodzil rising from the west, the broad stretches of high-desert flatland that cradle these ranges extending endlessly to the south, this flatland bisected by a long ribbon of riparian lushness nurtured by the muddy waters of the Río Grande. You stand in a basket suspended from a hot air balloon.

What is that below, that patch of color flashing from the barren wasteland of what was once a golf course, now an enormous sand trap?

Slowly you descend to get a better look. Gradually, you perceive an irregularly shaped multi-hued patchwork that seems to have sprouted from the land like a giant flower to which you are attracted as if you were a great bumblebee. You continue to descend until you actually land near this strange quilt. Standing a few yards away from this patchwork are a man and a woman garbed in work clothes who obviously tend this garden of color. They are Tony Anella and Cara McCulloch, two architects who are devoted to homeland and celebrate their devotion in many ways, including the creation of this beautiful rendering of art that they call the Land Quilt. However, this is more than art. It is creative expression of restoration ecology.

On closer examination, each of the 50 patches is lashed to a metal framework, and each patch is a funnel that opens over a square foot of Earth. Cara and Tony have taken a major cue from Aldo Leopold, the great 20^th-century ecologist who initiated the practice of restoration ecology on the depleted 80-acre Leopold family farm in Sand County, Wisconsin.

Tony tells us about the Land Quilt: “The idea of a quilt as something of a nurturing relationship with whatever it covers, and the idea of a quilting bee, something that involves community spirit, community engagement, is the inspiration behind the Land Quilt, that and the inspiration of the Leopold family restoring an abused farm in Wisconsin. We considered how to make that into an art form and how to engage other people in doing the same thing in face of all the discouraging news and evidence about climate change. One understandable response would be to throw your hands up in the air and say, ‘I can’t do anything about it.’ Another less reasonable one is to stick your head in the sand and pretend that it doesn’t exist. But what we tried to do with the Land Quilt is to inspire hopeful engagement in doing our small part in taking care of our planet.

“Just the idea of the Leopold family coming together, making their shack into a weekend retreat, and making their project into restoring what had been an abused piece of land is a total inspiration to me. Just Cara and me walking around this golf course, this abandoned UNM golf course where they’d stopped irrigating after they had scraped the land, these were barren fairways. This place is special for Albuquerque. Twenty years ago they built berms that created water-catchment basins where plants had colonized. Cara and I thought if we could maybe concentrate with these fabric funnels that make up the individual patches of the Land Quilt—if we could concentrate eight square feet of water on one square foot of land, that maybe that would give these native seeds that we planted a toehold. It remains to be seen if this is going to work. This has been an extremely low-monsoon season.”

Tony and Cara started this project in the spring of 2011. They met with and convinced University of New Mexico administrators that this formerly irrigated, now abandoned golf course was the perfect site for an artful expression of restoration ecology. Tony Anella and Cara McCulloch, daughter of Patsy and Frank McCulloch, himself a well-known artist and folk musician, designed the Land Quilt. Cara designed the pattern of colors.

“We responded to the temporary public Art Program sponsored by Albuquerque,” said Cara. “[The Land Quilt is comprised of 50] four-sided 3’ by 3’ steel wire frames that have stakes that go into the ground with additional re-enforcing rebar to keep them firm during winds. Then onto that frame is lashed a fabric funnel that funnels down to a 12” square opening just above the ground. On the ground we’ve placed a seed ball made of native seeds, clay and compost. Two days after installation we had a nice rain and those seed balls started to decompose.

“It’s worked in one sense in that of the native seeds that we planted in seed balls, four or five different plant types have taken hold. But the stress of so little water for such a long time is showing.”

The Land Quilt is not a permanent piece of art. It is to be disassembled at the end of each growing season and re-installed elsewhere the following year. What is intended to be permanent is the patch of native vegetation that is nurtured into existence when the seeds in the seed balls sprout, and the seasonal rains pass through the funnel catchments and drain onto the seed balls—a jump-start to re-invigorate native plants in their proper habitat. In a word, the Land Quilt is a temporary work of art intended to result in permanent restoration ecology, a work of art that can be re-cycled time and again involving a growing level of community involvement and recognition that as the keystone species, we have a responsibility to our homeland.

Cara and Tony selected colors that complement the landscape, complement the existing vegetation, complement the Spirit of Place. In its first iteration on the abandoned UNM golf course, the positioning of the Quilt made “reference to the cardinal directions, the hotter colors tending toward the south and west, and colors reflecting the mountains situated on the north and east sides as they were placed in the context of the site.”

Tony Anella goes on to say: “It’s 450 square feet, and our hope is that this installation will be the first of many. School groups or neighborhood organizations might adopt this for local projects. It’s a good way to get school-kids and neighbors involved. In this case, we met with the UNM landscape architect and the people at Native Plants of the Southwest, who advised us which seeds would have the greatest chance of succeeding. Then pick a piece of land, pick the seeds that would work on that piece of land, make the seedballs, plant them, monitor how much rainfall you get, what the temperatures are, the germination rate. It could become a science project that re-connects those kids to the land. It could work for neighborhood associations. The fundamental idea of this is that when you take care of a piece of land, your relationship to that land changes.”

Tony and Cara hope that the Land Quilt can be rented and thus installed on patches of barren but beloved land throughout Albuquerque.

The overall cost of the Land Quilt was $12,377.50 and included the costs of the metal frame, fabric funnels, rope for lashing, structural engineering, website design, aerial photography, postcards and incidentals. Cara and Tony received no fiscal recompense for their many hours of labor. Rader Awning in Albuquerque produced the fabric funnels, and Joe Doyle of Iron and Stone down in the South Valley constructed the metal jigs for the wire frames. Funding was provided by the McCune Charitable Trust, and the FUNd from the Albuquerque Community Foundation. Audubon New Mexico served as their fiscal agent.

The Land Quilt was first put in place in July 2012 and was disassembled in late October—a time period that spans the traditional monsoon season. Where before was barren land, there are now clusters of plants, a quilt of vegetation.

“Cara and I, as a matter of principle have not supplemented the water. We’ve seen these plants distressed, and we keep looking up at the sky hoping that we’ll get some rain. But just the experience of doing this Land Quilt, two urban dwellers, has put us in a different relationship with the vagaries of weather and the mercy of climate change.”

Art is frequently intended to inspire fellow humans but rarely used as a temporary means to nurture vegetation to burst into life. To me, the Land Quilt, a creation of the minds of Tony Anella and Cara McCulloch, is a call to everyone to respond to the flow of Nature in this time of bio-jeopardy—the grim by-product of our species’ incessant demand on our planetary homeland.

Restoration ecology is itself an artform where the artist dives, jumps or slithers into the flow of Nature with every sense and intuition attuned to the needs of homeland, and then responds in creative fashion, whether by replanting native seeds, restoring endangered species to habitat, writing poetry, conversing with ravens, listening to the dawn chorus of birds, inhaling the wind, learning the bio-geographical characteristics of homeland, turning children loose out-of-doors, absorbing the Spirit of Place, opening one’s mind to the night sky—re-sacralyzing the landscape, understanding one’s true place therein, and acting accordingly with humility and gratitude for one’s life and consciousness, the greatest gifts Nature can bestow. That is true restoration ecology. There is no higher calling.

Jack Loeffler is the author of numerous books, including Healing the West: Voices of Culture and Habitat. Jack Loeffler and Celestia Loeffler are contributors and co-editors of Thinking Like a Watershed, an anthology of essays published by the University of New Mexico Press. For more info, visit www.loreoftheland.org

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Courtney White

According to the United Nations, there will be nine billion people on the planet by 2050, which raises a serious question: How are we going to feed them without destroying what’s left of the natural world, especially under the stress of climate change?

Australian farmer Colin Seis has an answer: intensify food production by managing land in nature’s image. That might sound like a mouthful, but consider the heart of this issue. If humans can’t find enough food, fuel, fiber and fresh water to sustain themselves, they’ll raid the environment to secure them, pushing all other values that we place on nature, such as wilderness and endangered species production, down the priority list. Perhaps way down.

It’s not about poor people and starvation either. The food well-fed Americans eat comes from a global production system that is already struggling to find enough arable land, adequate supplies of water and drought-tolerant plants and animals to feed seven billion people. Add two billion more—of all income levels—and you have a recipe for a devastating raid on the natural world. Where is all this extra food and water going to come from, especially if the climate gets hotter and drier in many places as predicted?

Industry has an answer: more of the same. More chemicals, fertilizers, GMOs, monocropping, heavy fossil fuel use and land ownership consolidation. A second “Green Revolution” is required, they say, even though the consequences of the first one have been decidedly mixed, especially for the environment. Of course, Industry is more than happy to continue profiting from these “solutions”— which is why it insists on keeping its hand on the steering wheel.

Fortunately, there is another way, as I was reminded while visiting Colin Seis’ farm in New South Wales last fall. Colin pioneered a regenerative agricultural practice called pasture cropping, and I went exploring to learn his story.

In 1979, after a wildfire burned nearly all of Colin Seis’ farm and sent him to the hospital with burns, Colin decided to rethink the way he had been practicing agriculture. His new goal was to rebuild the soil’s fertility after decades of practices had unwittingly depleted it. Colin and his family raise Merino sheep (for wool) on their farm, so Colin decided first to take up holistic management, which is a way of managing animals on pasture that mimics the graze-and-go behavior of wild herbivores. It’s perfectly suited for central New South Wales, whose rolling grasslands, decent rainfall and lack of native predators make it ideal for raising sheep—lots of sheep. But it is what Colin did next that really caught people’s attention.

After a late night of beer drinking at the local pub with a friend, an idea struck Colin: what if he no-till drilled an annual crop into his perennial grass pastures? Meaning, could he raise two products from one piece of land—a grain crop and an animal product? This was a heretical idea. Crops and grazing animals were supposed to be kept separate, right? But that’s because the traditional practice on cropland is plowing, which eliminates the grasses. But what if you no-till (no-plow) drilled oat or wheat or corn seed directly into the pasture when the grasses were dormant? Would they grow?

Colin decided to find out. Fast-forward to the present—and the answer is a resounding “yes!” Pasture cropping, as Colin dubbed it, works well and has spread across Australia to some 2,000 farms. Today Colin produces grain and wool—and, if he wanted, a harvest of native grass seed, which was an original food source for the Aboriginals of the area. It’s all carefully integrated and managed under Colin’s stewardship.

Pasture cropping is just one example of regenerative practices that build topsoil, increase yields, and conserve the environment. There are many others, involving soil, seeds, water, plants, livestock, trees, organics—and people, as the stewards. Building topsoil, for instance, stores more water, grows healthier plants that feed more people while sequestering carbon, which is good for nature too!

Is this pie-in-the-sky stuff? Perhaps, but consider the alternative: more of what got us into trouble in the first place. With two billion people to feed, clothe, house, warm and slake thirsts, contemplating alternatives is crucial if we’re going to have our natural world and eat it too. Fortunately, answers exist, if we’re willing to go exploring.

Courtney White is executive director of the Santa Fe, NM-based Quivira Coalition, a nonprofit organization dedicated to building economic and ecological resilience in western working landscapes. www.quiviracoalition.org

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Event Honors New Mexican Activist Nadine Padilla on 50^th Anniversary of Silent Spring

Staci Stevens

On a sunny September morning at the Randall Davey Audubon Center and Sanctuary in Santa Fe, more than 100 people gathered for the annual Southwest Women in Conservation conference, hosted by Audubon New Mexico. The crowd was composed mostly of women from varying backgrounds, all brought together by a common purpose—to celebrate the accomplishments of women in the conservation movement.

Now in its third year, Audubon’s Southwest Women in Conservation event was established as a platform to recognize and honor the diversity of work being done by women in the field of conservation locally and beyond. This year’s event brought together educators, conservation advocates, policy makers, scientists, writers and students, among others.

The forum honored well-known writer, scientist and ecologist Rachel Carson on the 50^th anniversary of her 1962 book Silent Spring, in which she challenged the practices of agricultural scientists and the government and called for a change in the way humankind viewed the natural world. Carson was attacked by the chemical industry and some in government as an alarmist, but courageously spoke out to remind the public that they are a vulnerable part of the natural world, subject to the same damage as the rest of the ecosystem. Testifying before Congress in 1963, she called for new policies to protect human health and the environment. Rachel Carson died in 1964 after a long battle against breast cancer. Her witness for the beauty and integrity of life continues to inspire new generations to protect the living world and all its creatures. [NOTE: FIND PHOTO OF RACHEL CARSON]

Acknowledging the role of women in conservation is nothing new to the Audubon Society, as women have long played a leading role in the environmental movement and were instrumental in the organization’s beginnings. In fact, Audubon’s roots can be traced back to the late 1800s when Boston society women gathered over afternoon tea to save birds from being slaughtered for the hat trade.

“Our annual Southwest Women in Conservation event is a way for us to honor our roots and celebrate the work of some amazing women, while hopefully inspiring the next generation of conservation leaders,” said Karyn Stockdale, executive director of Audubon New Mexico.

Guest speakers at this year’s gathering were Nadine Padilla and author Elizabeth Grossman. Padilla, of Navajo and Pueblo descent, began working with the Sacred Alliance for Grassroots Equality (SAGE) Council as a community organizer in 2006, focusing on Native American healthcare and environmental issues. She currently serves as the coordinator for the Multicultural Alliance for a Safe Environment, a coalition of grassroots organizations working to address the uranium legacy that still plagues many communities.

“The devastating legacy of leaving hundreds of abandoned mines and radioactive waste after companies left town and refused to clean up their mess continues to haunt our communities, resulting in sky-high rates of various cancers, kidney disease, birth defects and miscarriages,” said Padilla.

Grossman has been described as an“eloquent scientific muckraker” and is the author of several books including Chasing Molecules: Poisonous Products, Human Health and the Promise of Green Chemistry; High Tech Trash: Digital Devices, Hidden Toxics and Human Health; and Watershed: The Undamming of America. Grossman, whose work has appeared in numerous scholarly publications, writes extensively about the widespread use of synthetic chemicals in our everyday products and the harmful consequences of these chemicals to our bodies and our environment. Additionally, she’s been a Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and, like Carson, a fellow at the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory.

During the forum, Audubon surprised Padilla by awarding her the first Fellowship for Southwest Women in Conservation. Established to encourage more women to become involved in conservation and remain committed, the fellowship was created last year in honor of long-time Southwest native and conservationist Eleanor Wootten, who lives on the Gila River. The award is a cash gift to help a woman in the Southwest pursue her ambitions in the field of conservation.

While the many environmental challenges facing today’s society may be overwhelming when added together, Audubon’s gathering demonstrated the positive change that individuals can make within a movement. “My hope is that people left our event feeling inspired and optimistic,” said Stockdale. “There are many people on the ground like Nadine doing important work and Audubon New Mexico wants to help reinforce their commitment to working for a better tomorrow.”

Staci Stevens is the Communications and Policy Manager with Audubon New Mexico. 202.294.3101, sstevens@audubon.org, http://nmaudubon.org

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The Energy of Agriculture: Calories and Community

Miguel Santistevan

The growing interest in renewable energy often overshadows the most basic relationship we have with energy: the energy that comes from our food. This is the energy that ultimately provides the wherewithal for us to even think about renewable energy, develop its infrastructure and advocate its application. Our current national food system provides the “low hanging fruit” for understanding and addressing our energy consumption patterns. As all of us have to eat, through the food choices we make we can lower our “ecological footprint,” or the impact our food choices have on the Earth’s resources.

An interesting aspect of agriculture is that energy can be harvested and refined for use in future food production and for other purposes. Understanding the dynamics of energy in agriculture requires creating a “budget” of all of the sources of energy, its expenditures and relative impacts. This exercise demonstrates that agriculture brings us closest to the purest transformation of energy: the conversion of solar energy into life.

Looking at calories spent to calories gained is a useful exercise in measuring sustainability. Calories are usually measures of energy expenditures in animal metabolism, but can also be used to measure energy dynamics in terms of a truly sustainable energy economy that can be made affordable through the use of renewable resources. If one evaluates contemporary agricultural practices based on energy expenditures as measured in calories, we find that for every calorie produced by the industrial food system, approximately 10 were expended through the underlying costs of mining, refining, processing, refrigeration and transport, among others. This inherently unsustainable equation is made possible by government subsidies in the Farm Bill (our tax dollars) that are supporting the large industrial farms. A traditional agricultural system, in contrast, creates 10 calories for every calorie expended. This stems from judicious and innovative uses of the land and water, animals, local materials, local seed, local markets and manual labor. However, given many constraints, such as land availability, labor potential and the availability of time (not to mention our attitudes), we are not geared toward actualizing these traditional agricultural dynamics.

The field of ecology provides some tools to measure and understand the energetic dynamics of agriculture as a potential source for the renewal of resources. A given area of land will receive so much sunlight. This sunlight is converted into biomass: roots, stems, leaves and seed. Energy will be embodied in all of these plant parts, some of which are particularly useful to us as consumers. We eat the seeds, the fruits, vegetative parts and roots for sustenance. When we feed the biomass to animals, as in grass or alfalfa, we can expect that roughly 10 percent of what they eat will become biomass in their bodies, while the other 90 percent is lost to metabolic processes that generate heat and waste, such as manure and urine.

However, the metabolic processes of animals can be directed to create work such as tillage or to just maintain grass levels while providing us with meat, dairy products and eggs. The animal waste can be combined with other organic materials such as fresh and dry weeds, wood chips, bark and fallen leaves to create compost. The compost can then amend soils to increase soil fertility and yields. Diversity can be incorporated into the long-term biological character and development of the landscape in the form of trees, bushes and other native plants as well as animals (especially beneficial insects), thereby enhancing ecological processes. Many of these plants can be self-perpetuating and can move the landscape into a more perennial character that over the long-term just needs to be maintained and harvested.

As the process of working with diversity and the landscape continues on for season upon season, many aspects of the energy embodied within the harvest can be utilized for multiple purposes. For example, ears of maize can be harvested for food, while the cobs and stalks can feed animals or even be inoculated with edible mushroom spawn and turned into more food while also becoming substrate for compost. Almost any crop can be thought of as having multiple purposes that serve different functions that can increase and support diversity, which ultimately results in biological character and food sources.

With all the sunlight and caloric energy embodied in a diverse and sustainable agricultural landscape, there have to be biological components that can be intercepted to generate power while still being able to provide food. The first priority has to be to have energy in the form of work to maintain and enhance the landscape to perpetuate the process of diversity. As stated earlier, animals will only incorporate about 10 percent of what they eat into their own biomass. So by utilizing their work, we can intercept some of the 90 percent of their consumed biomass that is lost as heat to do work. And later, we can manage the other waste products to generate other forms of energy.

The most efficient way of maintaining the landscape is by the management of grazing animals. The landscape evolved over millennia with grazing animals, and their return can mean great benefits, including tillage (herding), planting (stomping), fertilization (manure), irrigation (urine), water harvesting (hoof divots) and seed dispersal. Seed dispersal can be a problem, however, if the plant seed being dispersed is an invasive species. Invasive species can also have their purpose in this type of agricultural system where “the problem is the solution,” however, where the mass of invasive species is a substrate for energy production, be it for biomass, ethanol production or even feed for goats. The use of animals for this kind of work is efficient in that if the animals have a food and water source nearby and no other infrastructure except fencing, their natural activity can convert solar energy into animal power that manages the landscape. This approach just directs the natural behavior (and desires) of the animals to accomplish tasks.

But not everyone has the land land base or wherewithal to manage animals. This is where mutually beneficial networks of ranchers and farmers would be a great social component to managing vast areas of the landscape. But a small farmer thinking of energy security has many options. The first is to look for waste streams in the agricultural operation that can be converted into useable energy. This is where animals (including humans) can be beneficial. Where waste, a.k.a. “bio-solids,” is often a problem in cities and large-scale dairies, it is actually a solution to our many of our energy challenges. An anaerobic digestion process will produce methane, which can be burned in almost any propane-burning application. Bio-solids can be isolated from oxygen in some kind of tank or barrel, heated up, and the gas that is produced (methane) can be collected in something like a tractor tire tube. This gas can then be burned in anything that burns propane (with a simple conversion), including stoves and other appliances. Even a tractor can be converted to run on propane and, thus, methane. What is left in the tank or barrel from the process can still be composted in an aerobic process to augment soil fertility.

Another great opportunity for fuel sufficiency is to grow a crop that produces vegetable oil such as canola or sunflower. A diesel engine can run on vegetable oil if it is heated to a certain temperature. Many diesel engines run on vegetable oil today, but actual diesel gasoline is needed to start the engine and heat up the oil so it can combust in the engine. I have often thought that passive solar energy could be used to heat up the vegetable oil for combustion in a diesel engine. There is a 13-horsepower tiller at Red Willow Farms at Taos Pueblo that runs on vegetable oil or biodiesel, so there is at least one place this model is already somewhat in operation.

I have heard that an acre of sunflowers can yield 100 gallons of sunflower oil. All that is needed is some kind of oil press that is something like a small corn grinder with a candle under it. The nice thing about using sunflower or other oils for fuel is that they could be used for cooking first, then saved and filtered for use as a fuel. If we were to look at other uses for the biomass of sunflower, such as growing mushrooms from it, then we can have pearl oyster mushrooms sautéed in sunflower oil, for example, while we save the remaining oil for fuel needs. The question then is how much oil is needed to till how much land, and how much tillage is even necessary. Another potential source of “free” oil is to press the oil out of the garlic seed in the mature scape. In this way we can have both garlic and garlic oil, while only minimally affecting our ability to harvest garlic or her scapes.

With thoughts of optimization of diversity and its potential uses, we find many opportunities in agriculture that could support an innovative energy economy. This economy could be decentralized in a way that allows farmers and collaborators to innovate and work together to take care of our basic energy needs. This kind of economy will necessarily be defined by conservation, as there will likely not be enough energy to habitually leave on lights and appliances that are not in use. As we are currently being challenged to understand the limits of our activities that require energy, the good news is that there are vast incidental sources of energy in a diverse agricultural landscape. Since one of the tenets of Permaculture states “the yield of a system is infinite,” we need to get started in managing the diversity of our landscapes towards maximum optimization. If we start thinking of all the potential uses of living things under our care besides just the yields, we will find that our imagination and concept of priorities are the main limiting factors to our success in developing a sustainable energy economy.

Miguel Santistevan is executive director of the nonprofit Agriculture Implementation Research & Education. Email: solfelizfarm@gmail.com, www.solfelizfarm.org

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Rural Water Pumping

What if we could create a local photovoltaic industry in rural communities?

Robert G. Hockaday

Our engineering company, Energy Related Devices, has developed and patented inventions to be incorporated into the home: solar water pumping, solar skylights, attic vents and insect repellants. In December 2011, because of an invitation from the city, we moved from Los Alamos to Tucumcari, New Mexico to get closer to our customers: ranchers and farmers.

Ranching and farming in NM, because of the 13-plus -year drought, has been devastating. Our community needs to adapt and diversify. This may seem like an economic development dream, but we need to establish an industry that can utilize our plentiful local resources, use little water for product production and support our community.

For our company to make an impact we thought we should get out of the ivory tower and live and work with our customers and products. So we purchased a rural house with a deep water well and three acres of land to test and demonstrate our products.

Our first of these inventions, installed in the field at the end of September, is a photovoltaic (PV) power system for water-well pumping. A critical need in a drought is to provide a steady source of water for livestock. Ranchers have fine windmill-powered pumps from as early as 1854, but the problem is that the leather (or urethane) pump valves in these systems wear out due to the abrasion of sliding with sand in the well tubes. They need to be replaced periodically, which means pulling up the steel sucker rods, replacing the “leathers,” and sliding them back into the wells. This chore can be as frequent as every six months, so it is a pesky and expensive problem. Even with regular maintenance, wind-powered pumps can still fall behind demand if there is little wind in the summer.

Solar PV well-water pumping is a new, alternative way to pump wells that could alleviate these problems. The electric submersible pumps can run without servicing for over 10 years. Solar-powered pumping systems tend to follow the water demand by producing more water on sunny days. The current PV systems on the market typically use aluminum racking and concrete footers. These are nice systems and have worked well for some, but there are things we can do locally to make solar water pumping an even a better fit for the ranchers. Particular complaints that we have heard: solar pumping systems are not capable of deep well pumping, are too expensive, can run dry and damage themselves, need monitoring to see if they are running, and they need to be moveable by a single rancher.

Our company is customizing the PV panels for local conditions with four new technologies:

Reinforcing—We are reinforcing the back of the PV panels and replacing the frames with galvanized steel beams. Galvanized steel is roughly three times the strength of and many times less expensive than aluminum. Ranchers need tough panels if they are going to be moving the water pumping system with the herd. This reinforcing also permits the option of bolting panels directly to existing windmill towers. Our reinforcement of the PV panels is enough to withstand even hurricanes.

Cooling—We are building in cooling fins, which we call BlackTip™, on the back of the PV panels to keep them cool, strengthen them to withstand wind and hail, and cool the panels for better performance and longevity in the hot NM sun. Our first prototype averaged over 3 percent better performance than a conventional PV panel by keeping them on average 10°F cooler.

Tire Mounts—We use discarded truck tires for ground-mounts. Discarded truck tires are plentiful at many local repair shops due to the heavy transportation flow across our state. These tires have sufficient mass and area to make an effective ground-mount for NM wind conditions, even without filling the tires. They can be rolled in and out of a pickup truck by a single person on-site. If the tires are filled with dirt, the system can even withstand hurricanes. The soft, wide base of a truck tire enables us to be ”brownfield ready,” meaning we can place solar panel systems on the ground with little to no ground penetration. They can be placed on landfills or available vacant land with minimal disturbance. This new use for discarded rubber tires makes up by weight (without dirt) 70 to 80 percent of the total mass of the system. Their biggest benefit is in saving the time and energy required to prepare the site with concrete footers or ground penetrations, which are required for conventional mounts.

Smart Pumps—The fourth technology we have added is the new pumping systems that use electronics to sense whether or not there is water to pump. They can also optimize the pumping speed to match what the PV panels can deliver. These submersible pumps can pump wells as deep as 820 feet at flow rates of 4.5 gallons per minute. For a deep well this translates to water service for 57 cow-calf pairs. These new water-pumping systems come with a radio transmitter to allow the rancher to remotely monitor the performance of the well pump.

The Bottom Line—We can produce a solar water pumping system for ranchers modified with local materials to be more robust and portable, for about 30 percent less than conventional systems.

Robert G. Hockaday is president of Energy Related Devices, Inc., based in Tucumcari, NM. www.energyrelateddevices.com

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School Wins Fruit Orchard Contest

Anthony Dorame Jr.

In modern society, the concept of sustainability and ideas about being “green” have become buzzwords used by people to suggest a “new” way of thinking about the ways we interact with the world around us. For Pueblo Indians, principles of sustainability have always informed the way in which we live our daily lives. Pueblo ways of understanding make it clear that we are only a small part of a complex system of relationships. The foundation for this understanding is sustainability on all levels.

This philosophy is being used at the Santa Fe Indian School (SFIS) to teach students important concepts about environmental and agricultural sustainability and Pueblo Indian core values. These values, combined with modern technological and scientific advances, give students a unique perspective as they prepare for their futures as leaders within their respective Pueblo communities.

Under the direction of instructors Mark Ericson, Tony Dorame (Tesuque Pueblo) and Matt Pecos (Cochiti Pueblo), students are given a rare opportunity for learning through the Community Based Education Program (CBE) at SFIS. Within this program students engage with local pueblos to assist tribal environmental and agriculture programs to complete sustainability projects. The CBE curriculum allows students to actively participate in projects that have been initiated by their respective pueblos. This allows for hands-on learning which models the way students are taught important lessons within their pueblos. Upon graduating, many CBE students return to their pueblos to work within the programs they assisted as students. This community-driven learning process allows students to explore unique ideas that will advance their pueblo communities.

The CBE Program is a prime example of how student learning can be enhanced when they are given the opportunity to conduct hands-on projects that are rooted in their core values. These types of experiences create opportunities that allow for meaningful learning to occur that requires students to integrate many different subject areas to make informed decisions for their communities.

SFIS Orchard Project

In the spring of 2011 SFIS entered into a national contest held by the Dreyer’s Fruit Bar Company’s Communities Take Root Program to win funding and technical support to plant a fruit orchard. Contestants were required to submit ideas on-line that showed how an orchard would be used to promote healthy eating and sustainability among students and the local community. The general public across the nation was then given the opportunity to vote for projects that accomplished those goals. Students, teachers, family members, staff, friends and entire pueblo communities voted to support the CBE program. Months after voting came the news that SFIS’s program had been selected as one of the winners.

On October 10, 2012, the school held an orchard planting event. Over 150 students, staff, parents and community members came out to help plant. Forty heirloom varieties of apple, plum, cherry and pear were obtained from master arborist Gordon Tooley of Tooley’s Trees in Truchas, NM. Tooley gave a presentation on orchard care and maintenance. Rico Montenegro of the Fruit Tree Planting Foundation gave an overview of the plan for the orchard and demonstrated the best technique for planting trees. The Fruit Tree Planting Foundation is an international organization dedicated to planting fruit trees and food plants in places that benefit communities throughout the world. Dreyer’s Fruit Bars, in partnership with the foundation, has facilitated the planting of 62 orchards across the US.

The CBE operates a state-of-the-art greenhouse equipped with solar panels and automatic watering system. The fruit tree orchard will be part of the SFIS’s community garden/greenhouse/outdoor classroom project, where students will learn about the importance of a balanced, locally sourced food system. The school’s agriscience program, greenhouse and developing farmers’ market have become increasingly important in establishing agriculture in the curriculum. The orchard will also provide fresh fruit for the Healthy Living Culinary Arts classes, which work with the school’s cafeteria food program, and allow students to learn methods of fruit preparation and preservation.

Anthony Dorame Jr. is the Agriscience instructor at Santa Fe Indian School and a councilman at Tesuque Pueblo. Email tdorame@sfis.k12.nm.us

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