Tempers flared as residents demanded the fuel that they know was non-existent. The previously daily routine of delivery trucks rolling into town had become an erratic affair, best described as disappointingly infrequent. Store shelves lacked the variety they’d once sported and demand for goods had grown among the apathetic population to the point where people had taken to just sitting down at the highway overpass waiting for a truck to roll in, watching for an indication of which store was going to get the delivery. The gas tanker-trucks were the most prized, gas station owners had been forced to tow cars left waiting at the pumps and barricading the entrance to the shop to prevent angry customers ramming the store.

Winter had made things even more of a challenge, with trucking companies less inclined to make the journey across the mountain passes just to deliver a load of gas. The profit margins were good, but it wasn’t worth the risk on a heavy snow day. There were times now, when the rumble of trucks on the highway was so unexpected, that people stopped what they were doing and peered across the valley to see what deliveries there might be today.

There were rumours that truckers up north had taken to traveling in convoys to protect themselves against highway bandits. Traveling alone with a truck full of goods was getting to be a dangerous proposition for even the toughest of the drivers.

The façade of normalcy was fading fast, how much longer could people deny that the problem was systemic?

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This post was written by Mike Thomas for UrbanWorkbench.com © 2008.

Technorati Tags: fiction, peak oil, remote communities, Rural, rural living, stories, Transportation, trucks, vignette, Winter

Where I grew up, water meters were a fact of life.

I remember sitting under the Liquidambar tree in the front yard playing in the dirt listening to the tick-tick-tick of the water meter down by the front fence. My parents had paid for water in this way since before I was born. Despite this fact, and the knowledge that even the lush green lawns of the North Shore region of Sydney were part of the great continent known as the driest on earth, it wasn’t until a truly persistent drought hit in the 90’s that Sydney understood the limitations of their water supply.

News articles and video footage of massive, ancient looking above-ground pipelines with leaks flowing into perpetual puddles below were damming evidence against the management of the water utilities, especially considering how “water conscious” they expected their customers to be.

Living in the Kootenays, a region of BC, Canada that is surrounded by mountains, glaciers, lakes and rivers, it seems odd to have to reference many of my experiences in Australia. But for the community where I work, Rossland, the water supply relies heavily on snow melt and two storage reservoirs. Water has value beyond the price we pay, experience has shown that without a critical drought emergency situation, most people rarely consider the importance of their water sources or a continuous supply.

This week I wrote a report on water meters and conservation for Rossland, it was presented, with few questions, at Council on Monday night, and can be found here.

The report was longer than I had anticipated, as I got started there just seemed to be so many parts to consider, with detail on the conservation statistics from literature, and summaries of many of the issues we face in a small alpine community.

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This post was written by Mike Thomas for UrbanWorkbench.com © 2008.

Technorati Tags: Business, dam, Drought, Energy, Utilities, Water, Water Supply

Public spaces should be respected and kept clean for the enjoyment of all; and around here, there is a group of people who are not all pulling their weight – Dog Owners.

Now, I’ve got animals that produce extraordinary amounts of excrement, but our dwarf bunnies could hardly be pinned as the culprits for depositing steaming brown mounds, often strategically located on walking trails around town. What is even worse, is when these piles are left behind in the winter, covered up by the owner or the next snowfall – out of sight, out of mind. That is, until Spring rolls around and walking these trails becomes an agility trial as one maneuvers through the minefield of semi-frozen doggy doo.

I guess what I’m saying, is that I understand the physics and the biology of it – but honestly, the psychology of it baffles me. An owner waits while the dog does it’s business – cause you know, the dog is on a leash of course – then the owner ignores the deposit and strolls on, presumably having to avoid the mess left by other dogs and their owners.

I hate to say it folks, the dogs are innocent in this – I know, I know, this seems to be a change of heart for me, but please don’t get the opinion that I’ll be signing any Canine Rights petitions anytime soon. The owners are entirely responsible for cleaning up their dog’s deposits, where ever they may be.

If you were wondering if there was an engineering or environmentally related point to this article, pet waste does contribute to elevated phosphorus levels as well as fecal bacteria in waterways. From a study conducted in North Carolina, reported in 2006…

Research shows cat and raccoon wastes actually pose larger microbial threats than pet waste, but until these species are routinely guided on walks over impervious surfaces near or surrounding water bodies, the focus remains on man’s best friend.

Respondents who said they walked their pets were asked how often they picked up their pet’s waste. A significant relationship exists between proper waste disposal and dwelling area. While urban and suburban dwellers reported more pet-walking than their rural counterparts, respondents who stated they “rarely” or “never” picked up pet waste made up 47% of urban pet walkers, 49% of suburban pet walkers, and 59% of rural pet walkers.

Respondent age was significantly associated with pet-waste pickup. North Carolina’s youngest (18 to 24) and oldest (65 years and older) residents are most likely to report they “always” or “often” pick up pet waste. Gender was also found to be significantly associated; 35% of women stated they “always” or “often” pick up pet waste compared to 28% of the men.

Source: Outreach by the Numbers | stormh2o.com

Wondering what other communities around the world do to combat this, I was drawn to this article on Treehugger, and the linked articles from Germany and North Caronlina . It seems that little flags that can be stuck into the offending piles are becoming a popular solution to shame people into cleaning up after their dogs; in the German case, the tiny flag sports a witty, “Pile looking for Owner” message. Perhaps cities like Castlegar should invest in some doggy-doo flags to clean up our natural spaces, we could even come up with a competition to create the slogan – somehow I don’t think “Happily ever after” will make the cut this time. For a City that is so hung up on appearances, (don’t get me started on the Communities in Bloom program), our level of responsibility as pet owners is pretty dismal.

No wonder the City is so resistant about chickens – we can’t even look after our dogs.

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This post was written by Mike Thomas for UrbanWorkbench.com © 2008.

Technorati Tags: Biology, Business, Castlegar British Columbia, Communities in Bloom, Dog, environment, Feces, Germany, North Carolina, pets, public space, Recreation

Smart Growth is slowly being recognized as having benefits outside of the usual talk of walkable neighbourhoods and streetscapes. This book, The Smart Growth Manual runs through the principles from the Regional context, the Neighbourhood, the Street, down to the Building design. If you are interested in New Urbanism, this is a book worth checking out – also, you can check out some related books in the links below the main image. If you are in Canada, click here for amazon.ca

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Technorati Tags: Articles and Commentaries, Building Types, Business, environment, Green building, Growth and Sprawl, Neighbourhood, New Urbanism, Smart growth, Sustainable Architecture

With the first frost comes the need to harvest most vegetables. Our cold room is stacked with fruit and vegetables chilling out till it’s time to be eaten. Some vegetables can be overwintered in the garden , but there are a few steps to managing the crops that are left out in the cold. This year we are overwintering carrots, beets and rutabaga in the garden.

Prepare the Beds

These root vegetables are pretty hardy if you protect them from heavy frost or deep freeze, but the first step is to prepare the beds for overwintering – and honestly, this is the hardest step – weeding. That’s right, no one wants to weed the garden beds in the fall when you are thinking about the winter that is coming, but if you don’t weed it, you are protecting not only the crops, but some of the weeds as well. (We didn’t do such a great job of weeding this year – I’ll let you know in the spring how bad it is!)

Mulch Mulch Mulch

We had a delivery of straw bales a few weeks ago, and these have been put to good use as mulch around the gardens, but one of the main uses is to overwinter our vegetables. In addition to this, we have a number of Birch trees around our property that drop piles of leaves and a number of these are used for garden mulch as well, the rest get mixed into one of our various compost piles.

When you mulch over these vegetables, the tops will typically still die down, but the roots will go dormant and be protected from freezing. I’d suggest doing the mulching in two stages, the first to get a layer down that covers the vegetables before the first heavy frost or snowfall, the second soon after to add additional coverage as the mulch flattens out the vegetable greens. We have rabbits, so we like to harvest some of the greens before mulching to add to their feed. The thicker the mulch, the better the protection, I’ve read that at least a foot of protection above the soil is adequate in most milder winter areas.

Mark Out the Rows

We get about two feet of snow on the ground here in winter, if you don’t mark out the extents of the rows, you’ll never find the vegetables again. We use the 6′ wooden stakes for this purpose, one at the centre of each row that is being overwintered. As the tops will have died down, it is important to remember where you are up to as you pull out vegetables over winter, if the ground is not too hard I’d suggest moving your row markers along  as you go.

This is just one way to enjoy fresh vegetables over the winter months, it requires a small investment of time and some planning, but I think these efforts are worth it for the results.

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This post was written by Mike Thomas for UrbanWorkbench.com © 2008.

Technorati Tags: beets, carrots, Castlegar, gardening, harvest, produce, Rutabaga, urban agriculture, urban farming, Winter, winter harvest

As the snow falls outside and most of the leaves have fallen, I’m reminded of all the things that were not accomplished on the to-do list. Despite this, we have a cold room full of apples, pumpkins and squash, preserved fruit and vegetables in canning jars, dried goods in the kitchen and a handful of other goods including seed-saving efforts in different nooks and crannies around the house. In the coming weeks we’ll receive our grain and lentil shares from the second year of harvest in the Kootenay Grain CSA, grown in Creston, about a hundred and fifty kilometers east of us. Our shares should provide wheat and oats for the year, and lentils for a number of months, we still have some wheat remaining from last year’s crops but that was really a function of milling power. Out in the garden, we’ve sown our garlic for next year and have prepared the carrot, beet and rutabaga beds for overwintering in the ground. The straw bales we received from Creston through the Castlegar Gardening Club have been instrumental in getting this to a stage we have confidence in.

This winter, I’m hoping to rig up a bike power-train to the grain mill and will move the milling operation down to the basement. This should be less athletic than the current hand-crank method of grinding our grains for flour. Some tips on how to do this are at the Country Living Grain Mill site. If you haven’t seen this mill in action check it out.

We are far from self sustaining. We are totally on the grid for natural gas heating, hydro generated electricity for cooking, lighting and technology solutions, and City provided water and sewer utilities – but we feel more prepared for winter than we have been before. To round out our urban homestead, we’d like to have chickens (for eggs) and goats (for manure and milk), but we are waiting on the City of Castlegar to consider a proposal to allow these animals to be rasied for food production in the residential zones of the City.

Already we are planning for next spring, seeds, new garden beds, crop rotations; it feels somewhat premature, but it gives us the winter to roll these ideas around for a few months before we really need to get onto it. We’ve had guests for the past two weeks and are getting back into our normal routine as the weekend approaches. Hopefully, I’ll be able to sift through my inbox, feeds, and thoughts and make a concerted effort to output some relevant posts for next week!

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This post was written by Mike Thomas for UrbanWorkbench.com © 2008.

Technorati Tags: Business, Castlegar, Cereal, Fall, Field Crops, food, harvest, Oat, Vegetable, Wheat

This weekend I took my sister for a walk along the lovely Waldie Island Trail on the Brilliant side of the Columbia River in Castlegar. This time of year, the colours are stunning along the trail if you can get a sunny day.

Although a beautiful trail, it also represents an historical site for the settlement of Castlegar. As can be seen in the photo to the right, and read about in the Trails in Time page on Waldie Island Mill, this was a hub of industry on the river for many years, and was only replaced in the late 1950s with the current pulp and saw mil operations upstream by the Hugh Keenleyside Dam.

But the walk, and the current season, made me consider how we tend to hang onto things. The history of this area is interesting, and I am fascinated with the changes that have happened, whether modes of transit, industries, population or culture. As we make the transition to a lower carbon economy and the society that grows out of these changes, we must remember that nothing is static, everything changes, the way we travel, the industries, the places of work, and the means of a society.

In the past fifty years, we have witnessed and participated in the greatest misallocation of resources the world will ever see. Here in Castlegar, that has been on a relatively small scale compared to larger cities around North America, but the dominance of the automobile on society has left it’s mark for decades to come.  We need to treat this time and the culture we’ve participated in as a season, and we must move on from it. The supposed linear society we’ve come to expect isn’t playing out in many parts of North America. Communities are shrinking, wealth is diminishing by the day and unemployment statistics are on the rise. It feels like we should be better prepared for change with these stats on our horizon – but we are preoccupied with business as usual, even though most all of us would admit deep down that we can’t carry on like this forever.

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This post was written by Mike Thomas for UrbanWorkbench.com © 2008.

Technorati Tags: Area, Automobile, Columbia River, Industry, Outdoors, Recreation, River, Technology

Many municipalities have small engineering or public works departments that are not staffed by engineers or other professionals who might be able to write up a construction consultancy contract. Even those municipalities that do have professional staff will find this agreement and the associated guide published by the Association of Consulting Engineers of Canada a useful tool. This is a “fill in the blanks” type of agreement with flexibility to cover most small to medium engineering consulting projects, whether private or municipal. Municipal Engineering Consultancy Agreements

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This post was written by Mike Thomas for UrbanWorkbench.com © 2008.

Technorati Tags: ACEC, Business, Canada, Civil, Construction, Consultant, Consulting, Contract, engineering, Industrial Goods and Services, municipal

Fall – This time of year and this weather makes me feel restless. Writing becomes harder, it’s as though my philosophy becomes cloudy – as the rain falls and snow graces the peaks, my mind wishes for hibernation.

Part of this may be just the extreme information overload that is associated with the blogosphere and media in 2009 – bombarded feels like a suitable word some days. Like turning a fire hose of information on and trying to soak in every last drop. Or it may be the fact that the days are getting shorter and I realise that the list of tasks around the house over the summer grew rather than shrunk. Then again, perhaps it is the threat of imminent snow, again presented by the ubiquitous Weather Network website, each time you call up the website, a glimmer of hope exists that the snow will hold off for another week or so.

Does this malady have a name, and if so does it have a cure? Some would feel the need to call it Early Onset Seasonal Affective Disorder, if there is such a variety. I’d rather just work through the emotions related to the impending cooler weather, shorter days, and less sunlight with the wisdom of the ages to guide my thoughts.I really don’t think the weather gets me down any more than others, but it seems that the nature of writing about how you feel, is that it makes those feelings sound more dramatic than they really are. Whatever the answer, I think we’ve got to do a better job of respecting the seasons.

Genisis 8:22 ESV – “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.”

Ecclesiastes 3:1 ESV – “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven”.

I don’t often blog about the fact that I am a Christian – I used to, on a different blog, but feel that it is somehow inappropriate on UrbanWorkbench as the reader expectation is that the posts will be about my professional interests. But deep down, this is a blog about sustainability for life. We cannot divorce our beliefs from the causes we support. A sustainable life respects the simplicity of previous generations, and the cycles of life that we need to stop and observe, whether in the forest, in our garden, or in our families.

Lots of hot chocolate seems to be keeping the brooding feelings at bay, and rugging up and listening to a good story. Having an action plan helps too, now is the time to build lists and plan out the books to read, the topics to study and the issues to write about.  I’d like to say there is a happy ending to this story, and well it is simply that I love much of winter in the Kootenays. Getting out tobogganing and skiing with the kids and cross country skiing through the forest or on the golf course, and enjoying the months of cooler weather and hopefully lots of snow makes the dreary days seem worth it. Eventually spring comes around too, and with it, the promise of a new garden and vitality.

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This post was written by Mike Thomas for UrbanWorkbench.com © 2008.

Technorati Tags: British Columbia, Fall, garndeing, Information overload, Kootenays, Seasonal affective disorder, seasons, Weather Network, Winter

If you’d seen my desk lately, you’d understand how I feel about organization – I need it, but it doesn’t come easy. I’ve written previously about Xobni, another Outlook addin that helps sift through email madness, now it’s scheduling time.

Plans, proposals, phone call slips, reports, budgets, business cards – it’s all there – and the dream of the paperless office looks like a farce. Email is easy, and hides the disorganization that is inherent in Microsoft Office. For personal email, Google Apps rules the roost.And then there are the meetings. I have lots of meetings and need to stay on top of the when, where and what it;’s about, but also the scheduling – I don’t have a personal assistant to do that for me – and that is where Tungle comes in.

Setting up meetings with multiple attendees can be a challenge at the best of times, but with people using different email and calendar clients and leading busy lives, it only makes sense to use an online scheduling service like Tungle to ease the meeting timeslot troubles.

It sits as a link on the Outlook Toolbar, or in Google Calendar and when scheduling is needed, click the button and tungle walks you through the process, looking at your contacts as you type in their names, pulling the existing information from your calendar, and once you’ve sent out the information, updating the calendar view with the availability of suggested attendees.

Tungle works with my existing calendars, both home and work, pulls contact information and provides an easy interface for respondents as well. Also, if you’re into publishing your free/busy status, this ties into LinkedIn, Facebook and other scoial networking sites, and you can even pop a widget on your blog too!

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This post was written by Mike Thomas for UrbanWorkbench.com © 2008.

Technorati Tags: Calendar, Facebook, Google, Google Calendar, Microsoft, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Outlook, Tungle