Alternatives to BP Oil

Friends:

Today the world announced the Oil Crisis in the Gulf has eclipsed even Valdez as the worst Oil Spill in US History. This is absolutely devastating for the habitat of the Gulf and the local human comunities that live near and depend on the Gulf for their livelihoods. In a matter of minutes the entire ecosystem of the Gulf has been changed--perhaps forever and in the wake of this crisis, rises a huge swatch of environmental injustice brought on by this accident. It makes me feel really proud of what we have accomplished in BVHP to build a place that will showcase sustainable alternatives to petroleum by featuring a stand alone solar array with no interconnection to Petroleum based energy inputs which we are using to teach our community about solar power and alternatives to petrol.

On this memorial day the Ecocenter team pays respect to the citizens of this world that are trying to stop the flow of oil from this accident and save the Gulf.

We were voted the "Best Trip Back to the Primitive Future - 2010" this week in the SF Weekly, which is a nice irony considering what we are dealing with in the Gulf.

Stay tuned!
Laurie

Ecocenter selected to be a Sustainable Site!

Freinds:
We were selected out of a competitive pool of national applicants to be a "sustainable sites" pilot project. The Sustainable Sites Initiative is an interdisciplinary effort
by the American Society of Landscape Architects, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at The University of Texas at Austin and the United States Botanic Garden to create voluntary national guidelines and performance benchmarks for sustainable land design, construction and maintenance practices. I stated in our application that we represent a model for an urban sustainable site if only because we are sited in the middle of a distressed environmental zone in San Francisco. I think this pilot project will afford us the opportunity to have positive impact on the USGBC as well as other communities interested in greening up their communities.

Stay tuned.
Laurie