Sunday, May 27, 2007

Food & the Environment

I am reading a Barbara Kingsolver book "Animal Vegetable Miracle" - her first non-fiction book. It's about her family's year of living as close to the land as they could - raising their own food, and making the decision to buy only local food (with a few exceptions like coffee, flour & chocolate).

I'm not far into the book yet, but I like what I have read.

The family decided to move from Arizona to the family farm in Virginia (in the Appalachians) - they had grown increasingly concerned that living in Tucson was unsustainable. Not only was their food imported from who knows where, but their water was brought in from the Colorado River - a River that supplies water to millions of people before reaching Mexico where it is little more than a brackish trickle. One alarming thing was when they were told by the local government not to use their tap water in fish tanks because it would kill the fish. Presumably, the problem was high mineral content not chemical pollution, but even so, I know that would give me pause. Another stunning fact was that the average product item in the grocery store has travelled 1500 miles. How else do you think we get tomatoes in January?

While reading along, a recent conversation with one of our board members came to mind. While talking with Haje Black, owner of Saulte! Farm & Vineyard in rural Woodstock, I said something about the price of organic produce being a deterrent for some folks. She quickly replied that the cost of one chemotherapy treatment is $25,000 - in other words, it's all about priorities.

Another recent news story also came to mind: the high rate of human food imports from China that are rejected by the FDA -- even though the FDA only inspects about 1% of shipments. Some of the items rejected in April included apple juice, apple concentrate and frozen fish (which was deemed "filthy").

To me, the lesson learned from the story was that other nations do not have to meet our standards for food products that they ship here. They can use chemicals that are banned in the US because they are known to cause cancer. We have no control over their production processes, so for instance, fish often contain high levels of antibiotics that are illegal here. Why? Because the fish are raised in such polluted waters that they are sick, and need the antibiotics (and anti-fungal) medication to live long enough to get to market.

Think about the recent tragedy where many family pets died after eating pet food that was manufactured with a contaminated ingredient shipped from China. They were deliberately adding an industrial chemical to a pet food ingredient to increase the protein content of the product to boost the sale price. We only found out because dogs and cats became ill and died.

So, where is this story leading? It leads me to one simple conclusion: buy local food. Know where your food comes from - not just the country of origin, but the actual farmer.

We do that with beef, buying what little beef we eat at the Woodstock Farmer's Market from Michele Aavang of Willow Lea Farm. Sure, it costs more, but I know that it doesn't have steroids or pesticides or hormones in it. I also know the cows are treated humanely. How do I know this? Because I know the farmer.

It's the same idea with the CSA farm share from Salute! (which should start in a couple of weeks). I know Haje. I have been to her farm and met Michelle the full-time farmer. I have toured the fields. There is no doubt in my mind that the produce we receive each week for 20 weeks (June-October) is fresh & organically raised.

There was a great statistic in Kingsolver's book: if everyone in America ate one meal a week that was comprised of all local ingredients, our nation would save millions of barrels of oil EACH WEEK! That's just from the reduced transportation of our food.

One meal a week. Any one meal. It could be breakfast on Wednesday!

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Imagine & McEnvironmental Summit

I just realized why I haven't posted anything in two weeks. Every time I would open up the blog to start a new post, I would see the cute picture of the tiny toad, and think "how cute!" - then whatever I was going to write about would mysteriously evaporate from my brain!

We had a committee meeting outside on a picnic bench last night - it was very pleasant. We heard a couple of different frogs in the pond, or maybe it was a toad and a frog. The mosquitoes weren't bad until the sun set - which was when we promptly ended the meeting!

The committee - our Outreach Committee - had a couple of important issues to discuss:
1. what is the status of the Imagine McHenry County project, and
2. what is the purpose of our Outreach Committee! (The second item was resolved quickly, while the first prompted quite a bit of discussion!)

Imagine McHenry County, for those who do not already know, is a project that was started about four years ago by the McHenry County Economic Development Corporation (MCEDC) to bring stakeholders together from the many interest groups in the county for the purpose of developing a shared vision for the county's future. Imagine conducted a communitywide survey in March 2006, followed by a community workshop in May 2006. The results were compiled and circulated, presentations were given to community groups like the County Board and the Council of Governments, and then on May 8, 2007, the Imagine board held a strategic planning session to determine where we go from here.

Now, a little background: I tried for two years to get appointed to the Imagine board. The former director of the MCEDC fought my appointment as the representative for the "Environment" special interest group. She wouldn't even return my phone calls - not even when I offered to take her to lunch to get to know her, and to talk with her about Imagine! Well, in November 2004, I was finally appointed.

So, once the board positions were fille, we had to figure out what we were going to do. We had some meetings with Ron Thomas, former director of NIPC (Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission), who talked with us about a similar effort he had been involved in up in Racine Wisconsin before coming to NIPC. He also had information on other similar programs around the country.

The gist of all the programs was that they included diverse stakeholders in a project to promote quality of life in the community - in terms of affordable housing, environmental quality, open government, good schools, traffic congestion, air quality, etc. A common theme was that the projects sought to involve many people from the community in crafting a vision for where the community wanted to go, and then kept them engaged in working on figuring out how to get the community there. They were all grassroots in that they did not look to the powers that be for approval - rather they sought to reflect the community will, and to engage the community.

Well, this is where Imagine has had a hard time getting traction. While we gathered information through a survey, and held a community workshop, we did a horrible job of following up with the participants to share the results with them, and to keep them engaged. It has been a year since the community workshop, and I feel like the board is no closer to having a shared vision, or in knowing how to move forward.

In the meantime, while Imagine has been spinning its wheels, the McHenry County Environmental Summit has emerged to bring all of the county's environmental groups together. We met in March and May, and came up with an agenda. We even started a blog to help us share information with each other, and have created three subcommittees to work on an environmental scorecard, conservation ordinance development, and communication.

And it isn't like the people working on the Enviro Summit don't have other jobs - it isn't like we aren't squeezing this "one more thing" into already full lives. The big difference is that we have a shared passion - a shared commitment - reflected in the mission and principles that we are developing together. And we all genuinely believe that we can make a difference by working together - that rising waters float all boats, and that the community of enviro organizations is stronger when we unite around the things we can agree on.

Maybe that helps explain why Imagine has had such a hard time. What unites us? Why do we all sit at the table other than because we were asked (or in my case, pushed our way on)? The mission was written before anyone was asked to join the board. The composition of the board was determined by the MCEDC who then sought to control the board membership - to the point where some early appointees actually dropped off before they even had all of the positions (23 spots) filled.

I think there is a lesson to learn here.

Monday, May 7, 2007

TLC's land protection efforts continue

At the May 7th TLC board meeting, permanent protection will be granted to nearly 94 acres of McHenry County land! Both project have been in the works for a couple of years.

Dutch Creek Conservation Area, a 37.5 acre TLC easement at Dutch Creek Estates subdivision in Johnsburg adjoins property owned by MCCD and another Dutch Creek easement held by the District. The easement comes with a long-term management agreement for the wetlands, riparian area along Dutch Creek, and the upland buffer areas. Funding for the management will be paid through the Homeowner's Association.

Haligus Road Sedge Meadow (I just came up with the name), a 56.4 acre wetland and upland buffer area in Lakewood at the Woodland Hills subdivision will be preserved forever by TLC through a permanent conservation easement combined with a long-term management agreement that will be paid by the Homeowners' Association.

Dutch Creek is considered one of the highest quality headwater streams in the Chicago area. Uncommon fish species like the Orangethroat Darter and various types of minnows are found there. While the development will have road crossings at two creek branches, the US Fish & Wildlife Service, Army Corps of Engineers, and US Environmental Protection Agency made sure that the construction of the road culverts would not disturb the fish during their spawning season which started about April 1.

The Haligus Road Sedge Meadow had not been thoroughly studied until a wetland delineation report was prepared for the subdivision proposal. With management, TLC expects to see this site flourish, much as the Prairie Ridge Fen in Woodstock dramatically rebounded over the last 10 years through our on-going management.

Both projects will provide excellent opportunities for local residents to experience what I like to call "Neighborhood Nature." Frogs, toads (like the baby American Toad in the above picture), turtles, and an abundance of birds will reside at and visit both sites. Dutch Creek will continue to provide a home for many uncommon fish species, and together, people and nature will thrive!