Images of Permaculture in Washington County

According to the Washington County Farm Bureau, our county is home to some of Oregon's most precious and productive farmland - a result of the nutrient-rich soil and crop-friendly climate in this area. Add to that the fact that this rich land is located right next to the largest urban center in the state, and the potential for providing a large block of Oregon's population with local, sustainable food becomes obvious. Of course, all is not perfect in Washington County's current farmland arrangement: we need more of these local foods to be produced without petroleum-intensive fertilizers and pesticides, and for giant monocrops dedicated to growing ornamental lawn grass to be replaced with land dedicated to actual food production. However, an often-overlooked facet to our region's struggle for sustainability is the need to preserve what farmland is left as a safeguard that will ensure our area's ability to feed itself for decades to come.

There are several important models of sustainable food production in Washington County already. However, the one I'm most familiar with is the Pacific University B. St Permaculture Project, located a twenty-minute walk from the Pacific campus in Forest Grove. The constantly-evolving Project, certified as organic by Oregon Tilth, produces vegetables without synthetic fertilizers, and uses only natural methods of pest control. To prevent weeds from encroaching into B. St's vegetable beds, we farm workers have dug shallow ditches along the edges of some beds, providing a simple barrier to the underground roots of grasses attempting invade. Meanwhile, vegetable beds are readied for planting in spring with a "chicken tractor" - a portable device containing several chickens, who do a great job preparing the soil by devouring weeds, scratching through the dirt, and fertilizing it chicken droppings.

Below are a few images of B. St in late winter. I know that for me, an hour of weeding thistles at the Permaculture Project, smelling damp earth and listening to the Canada geese and occasional group of tundra swans fly overhead, always serves to restore my belief that humans and nature can co-exist peacefully. Let's preserve Washington County's farmland to provide food for people in a way that complements natural landscapes and preserves ecosystems for the future.

Fighting LNG in Washington County

Washington County has two major factors on its side when it comes to creating a new and greener future. One is our county's plentiful farmland - the perfect base for local, sustainable food production in our area. The other is our proximity to Oregon's burgeoning clean energy economy. By protecting and utilizing these two assets effectively, our local leaders can position Washington County to become a true leader in sustainability. And yet both are threatened by a project summed up in three words: Liquefied Natural Gas. Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) represents the largest fossil fuel energy project proposed for the state of Oregon. I don't have space in this post to go into all the many reasons why LNG is a bad idea for our state, but you can find a good summary at http://oregonfirst.net/. What I want to do here is explain what LNG means for Washington County specifically, and how you can help stop the project in its tracks.

Oregon is already fast-becoming a leader in renewable energy, and this has meant the creation of new jobs in communities like Washington County. Considering the state-level commitment to investments in renewable energy and reductions in global warming pollutants, our area seems poised to continue drawing the solar and wind industries to set up shop here. But all that will change if large energy corporations are allowed to flood the market with imported LNG fuel. The minute a giant new fossil fuel project manages to take possession of the Oregon market, our state will become less attractive to renewable energy investors. Renewable energy has the potential to continue bringing hundreds of new jobs to Oregon, as facilities like SolarWorld have already done in Washington County. But to see these jobs materialize, we need to keep LNG out of the state.

Second, one of the proposed pipelines for LNG, the Palomar Pipeline, would cut straight through Washington County, devastating prime farmland in the Forest Grove area. Farmers like Anne and Rene Berblinger, owners of the Gales Meadow organic farm, could be put out of business, their land seized by private companies making use of "eminent domain" laws. At a time when we desperately need Washington County's farmland to produce local, organically grown foods for our community, sacrificing farms for fossil fuel infrastructure is not only counter-productive - it's nonsensical.

So what's to be done? This Valentine's Day, students from Pacific University took part in a "Lovers Against LNG" rally at the Portland headquarters of Northwest Natural - corporate backer of the Palomar Pipeline - organized by Cascadia Rising Tide. After taking public transportation into Portland, we set up across from the MAX line, and got lots of interested looks from folks getting off at the station. If you missed the rally, though, there's plenty of time to get involved. Next month will see such groups as the Columbia Riverkeeper and the Cascade Climate Network organize host a bicycle ride along the proposed route of the Palomar line, which will inform participants about the threat of LNG while attracting media attention to the issue. You'll have the chance to talk to local landowners whose livelihoods will be affected by the pipeline, and to visit some beautiful areas in Washington County who are organizing against LNG. I'll post details about the bike ride on this blog as soon as they're finalized. Stay tuned for more!

Press Release from the Washington County Sustainability Summit

Urgent Calls for Action Delivered at Sustainability Summit

FOREST GROVE – During the Washington County Sustainability Summit at Pacific University, a tangible feeling of urgency permeated the words of speakers who ranged from community organizers to locally elected officials. They touched on issues as diverse as peak oil, permaculture and sustainable food, Liquefied Natural Gas development, and nonviolent civil disobedience as employed by the climate movement. The Summit, organized by a group of Pacific students with support from faculty members Deke Gundersen and Terry O’Day, took place over the weekend of February 7th to 8th and was designed to bring together some of the most significant environmental movements in the County.

Saturday’s keynote speaker, Peter Lunsford of Washington County Peak Oil, urged County residents to prepare for a future in which energy will be more expensive and availability of liquid fuels will decline sharply. Lunsford called on local government officials to do much more to curtail energy use, pointing to a German city that now requires all new buildings to be energy neutral as an example of the kinds of steps our localities should be taking. “Now that’s what I call serious curtailment,” Lunsford said, referring to the city in Germany.

A panel of local government representatives from Metro, Washington County, and the cities of Beaverton, Hillsboro, and Forest Grove were quick to agree that they have a long way to go to satisfactorily address our energy problems. “But each of us is only one person on a board,” said Metro Councilor Kathryn Harrington, hinting that for every local official committed to sustainability, there are multiple others for whom peak oil and global warming still do not signify as priorities. On the issue of the Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) fossil fuel project, County Commissioner Dick Schouten said, “I am probably one of two members” of the five-person Board who would stand up for the environment by opposing LNG development. Beaverton City Councilor Cathy Stanton, Hillsboro Sustainability Manager Peter Brandom, and Forest Grove Mayor Richard Kidd each spoke about energy-saving projects going forward in their cities, while acknowledging that much remains to be done.

Other speakers at the Summit focused on citizen activism as a way to jumpstart the government. Olivia Schmidt of Columbia Riverkeeper highlighted the coalition of environmentalists and landowners that has come together to defeat LNG in Washington County and across the state by pressuring government officials. Chuck Riley, who represents the County’s District 29 in the Oregon House of Representatives urged citizens to contact state officials who are still undecided on the LNG issue, as a means of turning the tide against this project.

Meanwhile a delegation from the climate activist group Cascadia Rising Tide pointed out how such tactics as street theater and nonviolent civil disobedience are being used call out companies like Northwest Natural Gas which are bottom-lining the LNG project. Rising Tide’s website states that “We believe climate change can only be addressed by exposing the intersections between oppressions of humans and the earth,” and this connection was apparent in the discussion of LNG. Washington County farms like the all-organic Gales Meadow Farm owned by Anne and Rene’ Berblinger are threatened by massive LNG pipelines that would render much of their land unusable. The Palomar LNG Pipeline “would wipe us out,” said Anne Berblinger at the Summit. Berblinger’s keynote speech on Sunday highlighted the role of organic, localized agriculture plays in reducing global warming emissions and preparing our community for energy instability.

Though Washington County’s plentiful farmland and the burgeoning clean energy economy in Oregon means our area is well-positioned to take on the challenges discussed at the Sustainability Summit, our community’s struggles were seen by many speakers as a microcosm of the nation as a whole. Peter Lunsford praised President Obama’s efforts to make the new clean energy economy a priority of his Administration.

However, Lunsford pointed out, it will take thousands of ordinary citizens changing their own lives and becoming politically active if Obama’s plan is to succeed. “We are allowing President Obama to fight, unsupported, against half the government to do what we should be doing ourselves,” Lunsford said. As one speaker after another confirmed as the Sustainability Summit, solutions to our most pressing problems will come ultimately from ordinary citizens in places like Washington County.