KEXP Presents Mind Over Matters; Sustainability Segment: Jenny Heins, Julia Field, and Eric Thomas

this is diane warren your host on the sustainability segment of mind over matters and katie xt seattle ninety point three of them an online k x p fado archie my guests this morning or jenny hines julia field and eric thomas a sustainable ballard journey is president of sustainable ballard julia is the founder of and driving and eric bleeds a green building series and as the owner of a net zero energy home which you heard about on the sustainability segment last winter jenny gillian eric are here today to tell us about three sustainable ballot campaigns ballard in motion go solar seattle northwest and realize spell a basin they also announced the ninth annual sustainable ballad festival to take place sunday september thirtieth from eleven am to seven pm and ballard common spark welcome to you all i can think you have to be next week you want to begin by saying a few words about sustainable ballard sustainable ballard is an all volunteer local nonprofit and we are working together with the community to help people connect with each other to try out new things related to sustainability

we started in two thousand three and we've grown to a membership of over thirteen hundred people and were all about action so we try things out were finding out what we as a community can do to address the great economic societal and environmental challenges that are coming up for community sample ballot is focusing on three different campaigns this fall let's start with ballard in motion what is valid in motion and what is the goal this is a program of king county metro that focuses in different neighborhoods whether the time and this fall it's running in the ballard crown hill area and i'm driving dot org is partnering with that emotion team and the program as a whole is geared towards encouraging people to make a pledge to drive less and in exchange for that they get it free work occurred that you can refill through november twenty four second news the west for all of your trips this is also coinciding with the launch of rapid

write that the line it's going through ballard and this is can be a great new development for people in our community the buses are going every ten to fifteen minutes of a long skinny be faster than the locals and the bustles are going have a wife i am most well known at the festival and i really syncing station is gonna be there and marina be partnering with emotion to help them get more people registered for the program and that there are kurds and often like to say more about the un driver's license or search services our program is growing into its own organization you can find out more and writing dot org but we started with insisting all ballard five years ago thirty five years ago this very festival it's our fifth birthday and we have been issuing and i realize it's us to people make a pledge to release her use in the coming months and we've done this at seventy five different events all around the region and licensed over ten thousand and i ripped out so another campaign

is wayne wise stellar days and to help property owners and allard install rain gardens insistence would you remind us of the benefits of rain gardens insistence absolutely there's a lot of benefits actually probably the primary one is to help keep toxic runoff out of the sound in puget sound the proms even worse because hard sewage system here in seattle is combining storm water runoff with raw sewage and so when it rains here that toxic mixture goes directly into the sound because there's sewage treatment plants can become overwhelmed and so it's really important to stop that rainwater from entering the system and unimportant to do that is for homeowners tinsel rain gardens in cisterns and so still public utilities there the rain was program to pay for these installations essentially and we're thrilled to be promoting and working with them a few of the other benefits for people

who actually install the rain gardens aren't just i cannot beautify your landscape implant these with lots of native species edible plants like blueberries and strawberries herbs and they look really nice sensor installed most people who have done them are really really happy with how they turned out another benefit is a patriot local jobs right here in our neighborhoods installers working you're never heard will work with you to fill out all the paperwork plan out the rain garden install it do the testing and so that helps create jobs right there and another important thing is that it it helps avoid constructing additional sewage treatment plants which are very very expensive and thin and ballard our sewage treatment plant is right there in discovery park and if we are to have to expand that that would probably closed on the parker course the park for a while and this is not a very desirable something to do so by diverting water from there to begin with and we can avoid that cost and that is for the homeowner the city is covering up to one hundred percent of the cost of installation

of rain gardens insistence i think the average is about four thousand dollars at the city will rebate so it's a significant savings rate there would you elaborate on my ballot was chosen for the program certain right now there is about one hundred and fifty rain gardens listen to them gone and with this program and most of them earn ballard of louis ballard as one the most critical areas because we produce or runoff and as i said this toxic runoff and sewage goes directly untreated and the sound and the system is overwhelmed so i think they're starting with alluring fruit and ballard what other neighborhoods are currently included in this program right now del ray age is included winder mayor is included north union barry and next year the city is talking about expanding the program to everyone almost an encouraging to go online because it's always changing so if you just desert rain was that's seattle bag of you can into your address and it will tell you if your property is eligible and they will

also give you list of contractors who've gone through training to install rain gardens and you can contact them and stempel process takes about two weeks more or less for the actual installation you have a rain garden yourself i do yes and we firmly planted it's looking really good now in harrison lots of blueberries astronomers this year anyone else and that every noise installation this summer and you know have actually a lot of water spirit like seventeen hundred gallons and i'm looking forward to next season being able to just water my whole burden whole darn good for bonner and the ring buried in as a really nice addition to that frontera it's very distinctive and it's a great progress but their campaign is go sellers seattle northwest would you tell us about this campaign says they will baude is partnering with another local nonprofit called community energy solutions to put on go solar seattle northwest and it's a community based campaign that makes going solar easy and more

affordable terrible purchasing an easy financing options and synergy system says ballard installer that's been chosen as an installer on account of its expertise capacity price competitiveness and because it is located in ballard in those local sourcing you can find out why washington state is one of the best places in the country to go solar when you come to a free education a workshop this fall the campaign ends from september through december and after attending a workshop a participant is eligible for a free site assessment the goal of the program is to add two hundred kilowatt sport football tech capacity or solar electric to the campaign area which includes ballard crown hill fannie greenwood anne wallingford so it's the whole northwest seattle all those neighborhoods and for every solar installation lego isn't under this program sustainable valerie souza hundred and fifty dollar donation and you

can find out more about the program and signed up for workshops that go solar seattle and w dot com so how many homes are likely to have solar and edits the goals of the program are now i believe it's about forty homes is the goal it depends on the course the size of the roof in the size of the installation and you mentioned that you're partnering with community energy solutions which is in just a few words about their role in overall workers at work in washington state as a whole there'd been doing these campaigns does go solar washington and they'd have done a campaign ad on bainbridge island they did one and gets up town ain't they did one in bellingham david london wouldn't know the bainbridge island campaign was their most successful campaign where they didn't steal a billy rose forty four solar installations an addition they did our community solar project there where they installed solar on love city hall and then local neighbors to live in condos are whose houses and don't

qualify because there's too much at her for whatever reason can actually invest in solar and get financial benefits back from being part of the community solar program there were looking at that possibility after this campaign for ballot as well so you already have solar on your home has that been working out and it's been working out really well actually improves conover a question whether it would work in this climate here because we were the first notes are housed still the leno so we don't really have much information to go on but we actually net zero about three months early forties a huge well surprise that the mackinaw guests and so right now it has been you know those summit has been producing surplus power that were feeding back to other political customers in the city and we could actually if you wanted to power an electric are about fifteen hundred miles with the power producing just on top of what we're doing for our house so we're

thrilled with content i'm diane horn and my guests are jenny hines do you field and eric thomas a sustainable ballard our topic is current sustainable ballard campaigns ballot in motion go solar seattle northwest and ray rice baylor jason and also the ninth annual sustainable ballard festival which takes place sunday september thirtieth from eleven am to seventy emma ballard common spark and you're tuned to the sustainability segment of mind over matters on k e x p ninety point the fm and on the web at atx tea dad archie what additional programs is sustainable ballard going to be working on an addition to your campaign so we just talked about well we've actually had a few new program start over the past year and one of them is called bugged inspired urban gardeners that's a group of gardeners the get together and share resources and share expertise or questions gardening but it's a really nice social group as well as an informational educational one thing we have a new local economy

group within sustainable diet that slipping an operative lending options potentially for ballard we started in st patrick's day festival for families last year we started years or the homeless right after the sustainable ballard festival last year and that's a really popular program a brief first friday people meet at a local cafe in net and learned to knit some of them and then the b grain rebuilding innovation talks that eric has started doing with us in those bring together homeowners and experts in the green building field will bring in an expert to talk about a topic the last one we did was filtering rain water for drinking we showed an insulation where it honors filtering rainwater and provide one hundred percent of his drinking water that way and irrigation water for islam and these talks take place in houses that have been renovated are built in a green way and the attendees can tour the house after the

talk let's talk about the sustainable ballard festival what is the purpose of the festival and purpose of their stores to celebrate sustainability with a hearty dose of fun and creativity its hands on it how to it's a human powered event and we get thousands of people attending from around the city but a good majority come from the ballard neighborhood in the sear were highlighting green building and transportation options with also these three different campaigns that we've just talked about kicking off at the festival would you give an overview of the festival highlights you've said a few words about that already but let's say as i said we're highlighting green building so a number of green home displays so actually where you can see and touch and feel solar panels green roofs rain gardens says turns rain barrels and merkel gardening and then the green home exhibitors albee everything from home cleaning to sell which materials to energy efficient windows and of course because of all these campaigns there are lots of opportunities for saving discounts and

rebates were various government programs that you can come and learn about in the transportation segment we are going to have an internet cafe on one of the new rapid ride buses it's a sixty foot long bus and the cafe will be hosted by equal exchange cafe and the beginning of fair trade samples and talking about a small farmer campaign on the bus as well as when they have some other community discussions their first endeavor licensing station only their bike works is bringing their family bike expo you get the opportunity to test different family bike sentence and there's a list of them have these things i don't recognize the import of finding out what they are an electric assisted madsen buy an extra cycle a big dummy a trailer by a front mounted child seat a bike trail are attendant entering coming trailer if i wanted to see what all those kids are her family and then of course you can test drive

electric bikes and there'll even be a solar car there and then speaking of families will double man doing a show it to thirty and then afterwards he'll teach folks that make a bubble once with six pack ring ranger it will be their own national wildlife federation making trades that gets the pieces the kids pick low male will be their kids can rate pieces the products and then those items are marked in the stores get approved so after they've come and sample than given their thumbs up they can do their products in the store will have a petting zoo thanks to seattle farm co op solar car races will in mood scraps and games all that stuff for the kids and we've been working with ballard community taskforce her hunger and homelessness word and i have the voter registration there but we'll also have civics jeopardy and make your own buttons say you can come up with your own civic slogans and make your own buttons they're in we're calling it the citizen activation station and then to top the whole thing off the whole

festival will be solar powered except for food carts so in the main stage awful day of music with a cafe and lounge area and then we'll have food carts with winds here are some of the goodies sweet and savory stuffed waffles vegetarian tamales gluten free that the balls and pete so it's fresh local ingredients from the farmer's market you website mentioned that there would be rewards for people who want to make positive changes in their life would you like to give an example of those well the emotion driver licensing stationary when you sign up for the emotion program you'd be eligible to receive an orchid hardwick three bus transportation into november so that's one about an actress lorraine wise program offers another huge incentive for thousand dollar rebate you'll learn all about it in the meantime you can go to red rice elect of the city for eligible but the union address and of course the solar campaign has also a good

incentive and money saver for people are interested in ready to do solar installations what's the message you'd like to leave our listeners went oh i want to say first of all that sponsorships of the festival keep us afloat throughout the rest of the year so we really want to thank our biggest sponsors of the festival go solar settlement last night mr been ballard market equal exchange puget sound fuller northwest wind and solar greenhouse solutions so it on energy see there are a lot of them and they're all supporting us throughout the year reign wise pc see natural markets had your nation king county metro in motion and i'm driving and then my parting thought is that our innovation is all about community building so we really encourage people not just to attend these events but to get involved and we're always looking for people to come to our events and to volunteer with us and in order to volunteer for a test or any of our ongoing projects you can email

volunteer at sustainable mahler dot org or you can always to show up and lend a hand my parting thought we'd just be to invite everyone to come to the festival and to be curious and just explore and see what you might find there's a new idea that you could try and with an engraving an emotion i really believe there's always more about each of us can do to drive less matter of getting start to see new possibilities for herself and we have new ways we can contribute and it's really empowering thought and it is my point out has been to remind people that if they'd like to get involved with the rain was program and telling their neighbors about the rebates are available and how to protect the sound we would love to hear from them and they can email us that rain at sustainable ballard dot org and we'd be happy to put them to work will thanks so much for being here and do you have just been listening to johnny hines do you field and eric thomas a sustainable ballard the three ninth annual sustainable ballard festival takes

place sunday september thirtieth from eleven am to seven pm and bella common spark and you're invited to attend for more information check on the web at sustainable ballard dot org again that's sustainable ballard got orgy the sustainability segment of mind over matters program you've just heard will be on the streaming archives section of k x keys website a k e s t dot org chief for the next fourteen days in addition sustainability segment interviews are available as podcasts along with katie excuse music podcast thirty k e x fidalgo it clicked on demand and then podcasting i'm diane warren thanks for listening and be sure to turn into the sustainability segment again next week on many points the fm and k x p fado it