Sustainable Bainbridge

July, 2010
In This Issue
Positive Energy
Green Drinks
Sustainable First Monday
Shoreline Master Program
Zero Waste Initiative

Meet Positive Energy, SB's newest initiative.
Look for Green Drinks coming right up!
August's Sustainable First Monday examines aspects of a local food system and how we might create that here on Bainbridge Island.
There's  information about Zero Waste's  composting success at the July Fourth Celebration.
And you can be a part of the Shoreline Master Program update process.



Summertime is here at last!  This month we're delighted to welcome Positive Energy and the Watershed Council into the Sustainable Bainbridge tent.  Look for exciting news coming from both these groups.  And read on for a report from our Zero Waste initiative.  The Sound Food Ferry Farm Stand is in full swing on Wednesdays, Green Drinks promises a lively social evening this month, and the August Sustainable First Monday (SFM) is gearing up to chart a path to a local food system. 

If you have a sustainability issue that inspires or interests you, please let us know!   Sharing our ideas strengthens relationships, weaves a community together and becomes the heart of sustainability.  You can contact us at info@sustainablebainbridge.net.  We look forward to hearing from you!
Positive Energy logo
Positive Energy: SB's Newest Initiative



The growth of an energy movement for Bainbridge Island

In just over a year, a group of interested citizens has put into action a program to move toward an on-going energy reduction through conservation, demand management and eventually distributed energy production.  Beginning as the Community Energy Task Force, the group developed working relationships with Puget Sound Energy and the City of Bainbridge Island to enroll over 500 households in a demand response program, gained grants totaling over $5 million for the community for energy retrofitting measures in island homes, and have created the Bainbridge Island Energy Challenge.  The Challenge will work with neighborhoods and the commercial sector to encourage enrollment in an energy audit program, and implementation of the recommendations.

Positive Energy has chosen to become an initiative of Sustainable Bainbridge, and we welcome the focus they bring to an important issue in our community.

A new website is being constructed for Positive Energy.  In a future issue a link will be provided.  If you are interested in volunteering with Positive Energy, please contact Jaco ten Hove.


Green Drinks BI
Bainbridge Green Drinks on Friday, July 23


Sustainable Bainbridge is pleased to sponsor our third monthly Green Drinks - hope you can join us!  This month, our hosts are Chris and Julie Mills at the Island Art Center (aka the Bainbridge Underground).  You'll be amazed at what goes on there - art, music, movement, and more!  We'll feature locally made wine and regional beer at our cash bar (with wholesale prices) and a spread of complimentary snack food from some great purveyors of local food.

We strongly encourage carpooling--it saves parking space and it's better for the planet.  This is a Zero Waste event!  We use only cloth napkins and real glasses, compost as much as we can, and minimize trash.

FRIDAY, July 23
6:30 - 8:30pm
Island Art Center
9463 NE Business Park Lane

Directions
:  From Sportsman Club Road, across from Sakai School, look for the "copper tops," and turn EAST on Business Park Lane.  Go straight down the hill (past the "copper tops" on the left and Olympic Glass and Bainbridge Disposal on the right) to the end of the road.  Please carpool; there are only a few parking places by the Island Art Center - please use parking spaces by the "copper tops" and walk down the hill.) 

Please RSVP by going to our Green Drinks Facebook Event Page - Green Drinks Bainbridge Island - or e-mail Kat Gjovik

Thanks to our Co-Sponsors: YES! Magazine, Bainbridge Island Land Trust, and the Zero Waste Initiative
Contact:  Kat - kmgjovik@aol.com


PSRF logo

Sustainable First Monday

Monday, August 27 p.m to 9 p.m.
at the Commons on Brien Drive 

What would a local food system look like on Bainbridge?  Join the conversation on Monday, August 2, from 7 - 9 p.m. at the Commons on Brien Drive.  You'll hear Sound Food, Friends of the Farm, Global Source Education, the Park District and the City share information about the current state of our food system. Then we'll talk about ways to chart a path to a vibrant and resilient food network for our community.  Don't miss this opportunity to share your ideas and be part of the conversation!
Bi Shore
Shoreline Master Program Participants Sought!

You have an opportunity to work on the Bainbridge Island Shoreline Master Program update.  Over the next year, the city is completing a mandated update of the Shoreline Master Program for the island.  "At large" participants are sought for several work groups:  

Native Vegetation Zone, Environmentally Sensitive Areas, Environmental Impacts, Public Access, and Associated Definitions

New and Existing Development, Nonconforming Uses and Structures, and Associated Definitions

Shoreline Modification, Bulkheads and Shoreline Armoring, Piers, Floats and Docks, and Associated Definitions

Each of these issue groups will contain seven members. Once the issue groups have completed their work, each group will be asked to select three members to be members of a Citizens' Task Force.

If you are interested, please obtain an application from the City and submit it by July 28th.  Contact: Ryan Ericson

Making July 4th a (closer to) Zero Waste Event!         Zero Waste logo

We composted fourteen 96-gallon toters of compost from the July 3rd and 4th events.   Ten of the toters went into the high school's composter at 6:00 am Monday and the rest, composed overwhelmingly either of paper or beer garden compostable cups, went off with the BI Disposal crew to Emu Topsoil.  Chris Miller, Chamber organizer of the July 4th garbage for the past twenty years, was hugely impressed with the trash reduction due to the composting set-ups.  He said that they started with 285 garbage bags, and each year he always worries that they won't have enough at the end.  Well, on Sunday he had 179 left (as opposed to 50 or fewer in other years).  You do the math!
 
To join the Zero Waste group, contact Diane Landry

Sustainable Bainbridge's Website
is undergoing revision.  We apologize for the outdated information on some of the pages of the current site.  Please bear with us through this reconstruction process -- we know it is a bit messy.  We are happy to report that the end is in sight, and you will soon see and experience our new, vastly improved website!

Thank you!  Sustainable Bainbridge thanks a generous supporter for donating to us a light box projector for use at our Sustainable First Monday presentations.  Wishes do come true!
 
Sincerely,
 
Sustainable Bainbridge