Our community needs great contingency plans....

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Our Northern California county/cities have yet to begin making contengency plans. We realize that time is running out for a full scale approach to implementing what needs to be done, but we feel something still needs to be drawn up so we have some way to proceed if things get rough. A small group of us are trying to organize a late-on-the-scene plan to present to our county Board of Supervisors, a simple, one-do-this, two-do-this, three-do-this. We would appreciate your ideas and URL's of towns or county contengency plans that you think are REALLY good and appropriate here, keeping in mind that we are talking about the highest priorities. Thanksalot all!! LuLou

-- Luana Alika (luana@walkon.net), July 22, 1999

Answers

Hi, I too, share most of your concerns and feelings. As some of you may know, I have been working on a project to help neighborhoods and individuals on a global scale, thru the internet, become more self-sustainable thru low-tech sustainable ideas/methods (see bagelhole, under construction) for almost a year. Now, I finally, feel confidant enough to try to make my own home a model/example for San Francisco of a low-tech relatively sustainable home. We have started in the backyard to make a fishfarm/greenhouse using the leading edge technique for growing organics (vertical structures made from 2 liter plastic pop bottles to hold the plants and for a tube to feed the plants fishwater and then back to the fishwater, oxygenated and cleaned by the plants). This is ambitious to the edge of foolhardiness, I realize, because one mistake and all your fish (tilepia) are dead. I have been learning as fast as I can to avoid any mistakes thru my god (the internet). Hopefully this will be the beginning of a means to "community food security" for urban dwellers everywhere. I had initially hoped to see schools doing this as obviously, it would bring organics to the children both to eat and study at a very low price (virtually free after setup). The maintenance for this kind of synergistic protein production is light. The water will be pumped by a solar powered pump with battery in the trench. But the bureaucracy has been too formidable to get this going in schools in time (for winter harvest in the face of y2k and its possible consequences). Though there is still a small hope that this still can happen. After that, I hope to retrofit my toilet (San Francisco can't even figure out if its legal yet) for composting and draining greywater to the side yard for underground watering. And getting off the sewer system. I have a flat roof, which I hope to use for water catchment, setting up filtering materials in a pipe as it comes down to a storage tank, to be pumped back to the roof to where it can become solar heated (thru black tubes under glass) to another hot water storage tank to be used in my shower and sink thru gravity. I had Anna Edey (author of Solviva) consult me on this about a month ago. But still feel a little shaky about this. The worms from the toilet may be fed to the fish (if they like them, I don't know yet). All of this to make me relatively self-sustainable (there is more that I hope to do yet), and prepared for any future disasters (resilient). I believe that if this can be accomplished soon, the credibility of urban self-sustainability will be greatly enhanced, that people will be able to come and see for themselves what and how to do the same or similar things cheaply and quickly, the media interest, the internet, will all be ways to promote and make self-sustainability a viable movement. Don't forget, that these methods are viable with or without y2k, and not only make people resilient, but saves them money, and in some cases could even make them money (fish farming/organics, depending on the scale). I live in a poor section of town and have high hopes for the reasons above that my neighborhood will lead the way. Already my neighbors on both sides are waiting to see, with the idea of doing the same thing. I just wanted to bring this to your awareness, as I read where someone stated that being models is one way to achieve our aims and I for one, agree wholeheartedly. Kind Regards, Tom O (bagelhole1)

-- Tom Osher (bagelhole1@aol.com), July 22, 1999.

Hi Luana,

For a neighborhood-based contingency plan that provides a simple means of communication without jamming up phone lines, prioritizes needs from household to household, identifies emergency support sites, encourages resiliency in communities, and easily locates volunteers and other resources --- all with simply a glance --- check out Cygnus Emergency Response Triangles at www.CERTriangles.com

Wayne Schumacher PO Box 3425 Ashland, OR 97520

ps Congratulations to Glendale, Oregon for being the first community to order Cygnus Triangles!!

-- Wayne Schumacher (wschumac@mind.net), July 22, 1999.


Luana,

Click the link at the top of the forum's main page that says, "Publisher." That will take you to the home page of the Millennium Salons (http://home.ica.net/~njarc/msalons/main.html). From there go to the "Tools You Can Use" section. You might want to take a look at a few of the things there, especially those things under the "Preparation" heading (Capers Jones guide, Gary Halonen's Y2K Contingency Basics, Cynthia Beal's "Lane County Project," Wayne Schmacher's contributions, etc.

You might also want to take a look at some of the stuff in the "Shared Resources" section of the Millennium Salons...

You may also want to check out the Sonoma County (your neighbors?) forum/web site located at

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a.tcl?topic=Sonoma%20County

Relatedly, click the link on the Millennium Salons home page that says, "Directory," and then click California. You may find other groups or people near by...

Good luck!

-- Bill (windrow@mediaweb.gr), July 28, 1999.


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