This meeting will feature the following folks talking about Solar Domestic Hot Water (SDHW) grants and installations:

1) Chris Burkett on the Montezuma County version of the Governor's Energy Office (GEO) grants for SDHW installations
and
2) Eric Walker of 3D Hydronic Contracting, LLC, talking about what these SDHC systems are and the practical considerations when planning for one of them.

Chris is administering the grants (through the City of Cortez) for all of Montezuma County and Eric's firm is one of four firms working in Montezuma County that are certified by the GEO to do these installations. Eric's firm worked with 4Core and Laplata Electric during the pilot program leading to the active grants. He is based in Bayfield. None of the four firms is located in Montezuma County.

Phone Jodi Foran at 882-2401 for more information.

Join this presentation and public forum to explore the need and possibilities of developing renewable energy in Montezuma County.

Co-hosted by:
    Montezuma Climate Action Network (M-CAN)
    Mancos Valley Sustainability Initiative
    Mancos Valley Chamber of Commerce

Here's your opportunity to STEER the M-CAN ship. Everyone is invited to a status review and celebration followed by a brainstorming session to bring our county's future into focus by refining M-CAN's goals and providing new direction for 2009 and beyond!

Please reserve this date and plan to follow our new President's advice.

Hosted by M-CAN

Representatives of various Green and Sustainability organizations in Montezuma County will meet to find networking and collaboration opportunities.

Hosted by M-CAN

The LCC team is currently conducting its "Beta Testing" of the club procedures and computer aids. The LCC Green Team members have formed their own Low Carbon Club and are meeting regularly. Once the procedures are ready, we will accept requests to come to your business, organization meeting or your home to present the LCC concept to your group.

For more information email Sue Whitehead at simma.w@gmail.com or Rebecca Whitehead at rivkah_rose@yahoo.com.

Agenda and Minutes

You'll find the minutes of our first meeting as well as the agenda for the upcoming meeting on our website. The plan is to have the minutes online much more quickly in the future.

Member Pages

We now have a good beginning toward real member information exchange on our website including several member project pages.

In particular, Larry Hartzke has his 'hot off the presses' request for quote (RFQ or RFP) online. He's negotiating with contractors as we speak and there may still be time for modifications. If anyone has suggestions, email Larry at hartzke@msn.com.

Stephanie Wood has a very nice article about the passive solar house she built in Montana.

First Meeting

Here's a summary of our first meeting. It was attended by more than 50 folks, overflowing the Cortez Journal conference room.

After introductions, we discussed when and how often to meet and some folks voiced their preferences for emphasis of our meetings. We talked about what we might expect from this group. It was decided we would meet the 1st and 3rd Wednesdays at 4:30pm. (Note that the end-of-year holidays have thrown us off for our second meeting, but we expect to get onto that schedule quickly).

Those present filled out an information form,. Information on the form will help us keep track of how many of us are interested in what kind of renewable energy and who has experience to share. If you haven't filled out the form, click this link to do so.

The Community Food and Farms team is hibernating for the winter. We will come out of our dens hungry in the spring.

Movie Night

On October 22 we showed the video "How to Save the World" featuring Peter Proctor, "Father of modern bio-dynamics". The attendance was good and there was a lively discussion afterward about what we can do locally to supplant food raised via the Monsanto "Green Revolution" with organically raised foods.

Website

We now have considerable information on our website... not only a large collection of links to news articles regarding greenhouse gasses and global warming, but pages dedicated to our new Hands On! Renewable Group including several member project pages. Check them out!

A new public recycling bin is now open to all residents of Dolores. You can drop off mixed metal, mixed paper, and corrugated cardboard at the bin, located at North 14th Street, next to the Dolores High School complex. The Four Corners Recycling Initiative wants to thank the Dolores School District and the Town of Dolores, as well as area residents, for supporting recycling and making this possible.

The Four Corners Recycling Initiative just completed its sixth month of existence, which culminated in the second recycling stakeholders meeting, held on January 13, 2009. At this meeting, the second of four stakeholder gatherings, the Initiative presented on its goals and accomplishments to date. During the meeting, the Initiative also sought comment from stakeholders such as area schools and towns, the City of Cortez, the Montezuma County Landfill, Mesa Verde National Park, Aramark, and M-CAN members about future directions for the project and where to direct funding priorities if the Initiative were to seek a second grant from the state of Colorado.

General stakeholder consensus was to move forward with increasing recycling options in Montezuma County, primarily through developing a cardboard or paper route throughout the county where area businesses can have their recyclable commodities picked up on a regular basis. Stakeholders agreed that focusing on commodities such as paper, metal, and cardboard, which are easily recyclable within a 200-mile radius of the Four Corners, are a priority. Another long-term goal is to work with area gravel and construction businesses to see if glass could be recycled and re-used locally for various road-building and construction activities.

To date, the Four Corners Recycling Initiative, in conjunction with the Montezuma County Landfill, has diverted 37.75 tons of material from the county landfill. Public recycling containers, accepting mixed metal, corrugated cardboard, and mixed paper, are available at the Dolores School, the Dolores Public Lands Center, the Montezuma County Landfill, and the Mancos School. See our Web site: www.4cornersrecycles.org for more information.

The landfill manager, Deborah Barton, has been an invaluable resource in supporting the baling and diversion of recyclable materials in this process. If you see Mrs. Barton when you take your waste or recyclables to the landfill, be sure to thank her for her hard work!

Although we are proud of recycling 37.75 tons of materials since September, when we opened our recycling stations, this quantity remains far below our goal of 138 tons of recyclable materials diverted per month from the landfill. In order to come closer to our goal of diverting more recyclable materials, we need to capture additional paper and cardboard waste. Paper and cardboard make up the majority of recyclable waste that typically goes un-recycled.

The Initiative plans to implement a survey of area businesses to determine their willingness to pay for cardboard and paper recycling pickup at their place of business. We are recruiting M-CAN members to support in distributing and completing this survey. If you would like to participate in surveying area businesses, please e-mail stephanie@stephanieogburn.com.

The Initiative will be applying for a second grant from the State of Colorado to support recycling in 2009-10; the deadline for the grant application is March 13, 2009. We hope to use the next grant application to support a potential cardboard or paper route to greatly increase the quantity of materials diverted from the Montezuma County Landfill.

As always, the Initiative welcomes feedback and support from M-CAN members. You can find out more about recycling on our Web site: www.4cornersrecycles.org, and by e-mailing Stephanie at stephanie@stephanieogburn.com.