| Spring 2001: Erin Shew, Maggie Forrestal, Sonja Johnson, Anne Elizabeth Washburn
Water resources around the world are decreasing, while demands for water are
increasing. A large contributor to the decreasing water supply is the heightened
need for and popularity of travel. In order to accommodate the huge numbers
of travelers, the hospitality business uses incredibly large amounts of water
each year. It is becoming more and more important that we do all we can to balance
human and environmental needs, including making the best use of our diminishing
water supply.
Our group chose to target the hotels that Lewis & Clark promotes and encourage
them to consider more environmentally friendly methods of operating their business.
We feel that it is important that our LC community is affiliated with others
in Portland who are environmentally conscious in order to be as "green"
as possible. Not only would we be encouraging our community of students and
parents to choose green hotels, we would be providing green hotels for other
Portland visitors.
The program that we chose to promote is the Water Alliance for Voluntary Efficiency,
also known as WAVE. This program was started by the Environmental Protection
Agency in 1993 and is an opportunity for businesses and institutions to partner
with the EPA in hopes of reducing demands on the nation’s water supply.
WAVE partners agree to monitor water usage and choose the most economically
and environmentally advantageous conservation methods. Partners also agree to
design all new facilities with water efficient technology. WAVE provides all
members with free software that allows businesses to compare water efficiency
methods, such as different water faucets, showerheads, toilets, etc. Since the
program is still fairly young, they are focusing on the hotel industry because
they feel that it will be a successful effort. In the future, they hope to expand
to a wide array of businesses and industries, such as schools and manufacturers.
We called the EPA and talked to the founder and director of WAVE, John Flowers.
He encouraged our effort to make hotels "greener" and sent us a packet
of WAVE booklets to distribute to area hotels. We made a door-to-door visit
to the hotels that Lewis & Clark suggests in order to make them aware of
the WAVE program, with hopes of helping the environment and also reducing their
water costs. Each one accepted our suggestion warmly and said they would give
consideration to becoming partners. Although it was great to present the information
to all these hotels, we do not feel that there was enough time to get much feedback
from them as we had wanted. There was really nothing more that we could do in
the time allotted, besides introduce them to the information and hope that they
would become partners. We did ask the managers to contact us if they did decide
to join, but as of now, we have not received any calls.
Although this program targets water conservation, it also has other environmental
benefits. By reducing water use and implementing water recycling and reuse methods,
hotels are reducing waste water discharge and energy use. Less wastewater and
reduced water consumption means less energy is needed to heat, pump and treat
the water, which in turn cuts power plant emissions. Cutting emissions such
as carbon dioxide and other green house gases with help the effort to reduce
global warming, which is just as important as conserving water.
The four of us are glad to have been able to present this information to the
hotels and hope that future groups will continue with the effort. One of our
hopes was to have green hotels recognized on the Lewis & Clark website.
Perhaps there could be a "green hotel" label beside the hotels that
try to conserve water. We introduced this idea to the Publications Department
on campus, but unfortunately, we did not have time to work with them as much
as we would have liked. We suggest that future groups continue with this effort
and give green hotels the proper recognition they deserve. We also thought that
it would be great for the appropriate footprint group to try and get LC to become
a member of WAVE.
Spring 2002: Ann Calamai, Ben Bradford, Anna Rossinoff
Since local environmental issues change so rapidly, it is important to get involved with local activist/environmental groups in order to both maintain an awareness of what is happening in the area, and to build a community of people who will work on projects of environmental concern. Since Portland is in such an ecologically-conscious part of the country, we have found that there is definitely not a shortage of these organizations here.
For our project, we worked with City Repair, a group that focuses on urban environmentalism, to organize and plan an Earth Day Celebration for the city of Portland. This event was held on April 20, 2002 at the Environmental Middle School in southeast. The theme of this event was “Localization: The Village Roots,” which was decided on in order to focus on the community, an idea which has lost its place in today’s high-tech society of globalization, consolidation, and conformity. This event was for the people, to the people, and by the people, meaning there were no corporate sponsors. Localization forces us to look at where we live on much more of a micro-level, to focus on where we can more easily hear others and be heard. Here is a link to the City Repair website: www.cityrepair.org
Working with this group offered an interesting challenge. We attended meetings at member’s houses on Thursday nights, and all of these meetings were fairly informal and to-the-point. Over the course of the meetings, (which usually lasted about 3 hours) we made decisions based on consensus, and if someone had a problem with what the group had decided, we would talk about it and work it out. It was important that everyone had a voice as we were making decisions. We also broke up into smaller sub-commitees that met separately in order to plan specifically one or two aspects of Earth Day that we were interested in. This process was a lot of work, but it was worth it when we saw the final product.
The event itself was spectacular. It kicked off in the morning with service projects throughout Portland. Participants planted trees, worked on bikes with the Community Cycling Center, pulled ivy and built gardens. Then came the festive event itself. Upon entering into the school grounds, one was enticed with art, music, and color. There was a Kids Village, where children could participate in activities ranging from coloring in a chalk mandala to building wind chimes and kites to face painting. The organization Food Not Bombs was there, serving up delicious (and free!) food under the T-Palas, a truck modified with large “wings” sticking out in order to create shade. There were many different diverse styles of music performed on three different stages throughout the day. One could walk through the festival and go from hearing a folk singer strum a guitar to a DJ scratching turntables in a hip-hop show. There was also a lot of political representation from groups like the Pacific Green Party, Cascadia National Forest Alliance, Oregon Citizens for Campaign Finance Reform, and others. There were vendors selling clothes made from organically-grown cotton and hemp, a better transportation fair featuring bicycles of all styles and a Tri-Met electric bus, and other innovations to bring environmental-consciousness into the minds of everyone there. At about 4 in the afternoon, the Lions of Batucada, a 50 piece marching samba band, led a march/dance around the whole park, and everything went crazy in this high-energy atmosphere. The band played for about 2 hours, after which the Dancing Trees Marimba Band led another dance. All of the festivities ended at about 10 after all the exhausted but truly contented people joined in a closing ceremony. It was truly a remarkable day and we were fortunate enough to have good weather all day during the celebrations.
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