EcoEKY: Green News from Eastern Kentucky

A Dozen Good Ideas

Healing Appalachia is the first book to apply “appropriate technology,” or the most basic technology that can effectively achieve the desired result, specifically to the Appalachian region. The authors examine thirty low-cost, people-friendly, and environmentally benign appropriate technologies that are concerned with such issues as food preservation, land use, shelter, and transportation. Some examples include:

• Microhydropower
Producing 5 to 100 kilowatts of power, microhydropower generator systems are easily placed on low-flow streams. Hydro power is by far the cheapest form of electricity generation, a technology that suits the limited incomes in Appalachian communities.

• Edible Landscaping
Because of chemical fertilizers and manicuring time, grass lawns are not economical. Growing vegetables, fruits, grapes, nuts, and herbs produces a form of economic payment resulting from hard work. Low maintenance beekeeping helps edible landscapers pollinate plants and enjoy honey year-round.

• Wood Heating
Burning wood, a renewable resource, emits far fewer ozone-depleting chemicals than more popular fossil fuel competitors. New government regulations and wood heater designs have increased the effectiveness and manageability of wood heaters. Wood heaters should be used as supplements to existing heating elements to avoid depleting living forests.

• Nontimber Forest Products
Native foods, fuels, medicinals, seeds, and other nontimber tree products abound in Appalachian forests. As many Appalachia residents own tracts of forest-covered land, harvesting economic products while keeping the land scenic and available for tourists carries double the profit of cutting trees for timber.

• Solar Photovoltaics
Solar panels and shingles combined with today’s energy efficient lighting greatly reduce reliance upon fossil fuels for generated electricity. Net metering feeds surplus energy back into the community’s electric utility grid to be used by others.

• Retreat Cabin Sites
A far cry from formal five-star resorts, the mountains of Appalachia provide an idyllic retreat from hectic schedules. The mountains and valleys are full of coves, lakes, streams, waterfalls, and other tranquil, yet accessible, spaces for tourist relaxation.

• Cordwood Structures
Building with cordwood: cutting debarked logs to desired stacking length and cementing them into place with a windproof, thermal insulator. Cordwood buildings retain desirable summer and winter indoor temperatures, do not harbor mold, and are surprisingly fireproof.

• Yurts in Appalachia
Yurts, circular dwellings common in Mongolia, are cost-efficient, durable and require little maintenance. The Woodlands Mountain Institute has built a system of yurts used for community centers and student housing.

• Regional Heritage Plants
Losing regional plants, particularly food plants, to new technology and hybrids is detrimental to the natural balance of the earth. Reducing our reliance on a monoculture based on mass produced seeds and genetically altered plants will help ensure biodiversity in the region.

• Composting Toilets
Installing sewer lines in rural and mountainous areas can be expensive and inefficient. Relying upon the technology of hunter-gatherers, human waste in a composting toilet becomes devoid of water and bacteria. It then can be used as a natural fertilizer.

• Cisterns and Water Catchments
Cistern water is naturally soft and generally used for pets and for washing hair and clothing. Drier climates benefit from the storage of clean filtered water. Water collected in cisterns is often cleaner, better-tasting, and cheaper than municipal water.

• Food Preservation
Old-fashioned food preservation techniques—root cellars, canning, preserving, and drying—are more economical than buying produce year-round. Today’s technology allows for deep freezing and solar drying, speedier takes on ancient preservation practices.


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Thirty Environmentally-Friendly Ways to Save the Mountains

Lexington, KY—

America’s interest in and concern about environmental protection has never been higher, as illustrated by director David Guggenheim’s recent Oscar win for An Inconvenient Truth. His documentary of former Vice President Al Gore not only brings to the forefront the statistics about ozone depletion and already-documented changes in worldwide weather patterns, but it also serves as a warning of what could happen to the Earth if no immediate change was made to halt the hazardous effects of global warming.

Coinciding with this warning, the citizens of Appalachia, known for their strong ties to the land, have taken the first steps to end the worldwide crisis between nonrenewable and renewable resources. In Healing Appalachia: Sustainable Living through Appropriate Technology, Al Fritsch and Paul Gallimore offer thirty examples and explanations of environmentally-friendly technology. Each chapter systematically examines the definition and origin of a given technology, its application to Appalachia, and the best methods for implementation.

Healing Appalachia covers a broad range of topics, including electrical energy, energy efficiency and conservation, food, land, forest, shelter, waste water, and transportation. Among the most innovative ideas are the use of solar greenhouses, expanding the prominence of silviculture, and constructing artificial wetlands. Solar greenhouses offer the farmer a way to cut the price of propane used in many traditional greenhouses, and also provide a source of healthy food during the winter months. When attached to another building, a solar greenhouse can provide space heating by reducing the amount of cold-air exchange with the environment. Silviculture, the care and maintenance of forests, is necessary to produce and maintain a healthy forest environment. Not only must one select the proper species of tree to plant by taking into account the ecological environment, but the removal of exotic and invasive species must be managed and maintained in order to ensure the survival of these native trees. Human-constructed wetlands can be built on difficult, rocky terrain at a low cost by using local materials and benefit the environment by naturally processing gray water from activities such as bathing and washing dishes.

With Healing Appalachia, the authors hope “to ease the hesitancy at matters of technological innovation by giving down-to-earth solutions to frequently raised problems,” as well as to instigate the necessary reform within the communities. Not only do they offer their audience extremely detailed explanations of the technology, but the conclusion suggests methods for implementation, both for mass-expansion in Appalachia and throughout the country as a whole.

Al Fritsch is the founder of Appalachia-Science in the Public Interest and co-author of Ecotourism in Appalachia: Marketing the Mountains.

Paul Gallimore is the founder and executive director of the Long Branch Environmental Education Center in Leicester, North Carolina.




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