Appalachia--Science in the Public Interest

Summer 1998 Number 56

The Mount Vernon Wildscape has come in its full glory this summer and is admired by local residents and visitors alike. Corn poppies, Evening Primrose, Cornflower, Perennial Lupine, Purple and Clasping Coneflower, Blanketflower, Scarlet Flax, Catchfly, Dwarf Red and Plains Coreopsis, Cosmos and 19 other flowers add to the multicolored ground cover -- a true ornamental lawn alternative which encourages wildlife as well.

A Solar Cooker Workshop was held near Berea in late April by Joshua Bills and Mark Schimmoeller, our consulting experts in the field of solar applications. ASPI was a co-sponsor for the event.
The 1998 Rockcastle River Day was a good time for all attendees and graced by the presence of talented musicians Dan Bond & Veryl Durhan, along with canoeing, tours and conversation. The attendance was curtailed by the closure of U.S. 25 due to rebuilding the bridge over the Rockcastle River (out until early autumn).

Virtually Wild Ginseng Workshops. ASPI is helping to launch the Appalachian Ginseng Cooperative, working in cooperation with the Boone-Sang Cooperative. This first gathering will be held on the birthday of Daniel Boone, November 2nd, 1998 at Mount Vernon. If you are interested in attending please write to ASPI for more information. A modest fee will be charged for lunch and literature. This is meant primarily for potential Kentucky and neighboring state growers. If further grant money is forthcoming the workshops will be held in other Appalachian states in 1999.

Solar Home Tour-98. Joshua Bills is again organizing the 1998 Kentucky Solar Home Tour, which will occur all day Saturday, October 17th. It will start at the Solar House on the Rockcastle River and include a number of other places on the I-75 corridor. Write for further information.

Resource Assessment Service

Talks. Two talks were given at the Earth Spirit Rising Conference in Cincinnati by Al Fritsch and Paul Gallimore on environmental resource assessments. Al will give another talk to a similar type conference at Bloomington, Indiana in late September.

Overseas Solar Work. Mark Schimmoeller is spending a portion of this summer in Malawi in Africa conducting workshops on solar cookers for the National Park Service of that country as part of the ASPI overseas programs which we have sponsored for the past five years and funded by the Kentucky Jesuit Mission.

The Environmental Resource Assessment CD-Rom is available at mid-summer as mentioned in the Spring Newsletter. It can be purchased from ASPI Publications for $25 for the first copy (which includes postage and handling). Additional copies can be purchased for $20.00 each.

RAS Meeting. The biennial RAS consulting meeting will be held this year on August 7-8, 1998 at the ASPI Mount Vernon Office. Topics will include the opening of two regional offices (in the Southeast and West Coast) with representatives present. Also to be discussed are possible environmental training workshops for professional grounds and physical plant managers.

ASPI Publications

Earth Healing programs are viewed weekly at prime time on Saturday night immediately after WOBZ-tv's most popular musical program. Our program is as ideally located as any environmental program in America -- and we get good audience size in south central Kentucky. This station is a rarity -- woman-owned, obtaining a cable placement through citizen action with no legal or communication consultant assistance, and (if a grant is received) the first solar-operated station. We are proud of what Andrea and Joey Kesler have done and are now welcoming Andrea as an ASPI Board Member. Recent late spring shows include: David Kennedy of AMERC and "Leaf for Life," Paula Gonzalez, solar expert, John Seed & Ruth Rosenhek, forest activists and musicians, Fritz Schindler of the Berea College Appalachian Museum, and Michael Dean, attorney.

A first: In this issue you will find a Technical Paper going to all the 4,400 Appalachian Alternatives mailing list. We hope you like it and suggest our technical papers to others. Home Page http://www.kih.net/aspi selections include solar applications by Joshua Bills, forestry and water issues by Dan Bond, Eastern Old Growth Clearinghouse information by Mary Davis, waste management by Jack Kieffer and still others as time goes on. Al Fritsch has contributed a chapter entitled Touching the Earth to the forthcoming book Ecology and Religion: Scientists Speak, by John Carroll and Keith Warner (Franciscan Press, Quincy, IL).

General

ASPI and the Resource Assessment Service were honored separately with certificates of environmental achievement by the Renew America 1998 Environmental Success Index as part of the National Awards for Environmental Sustainability.

Casey Sterr has accepted the position of Development Director at ASPI. Casey has a Masters Degree and a decade of non-profit experience including 6 years in development with the Christian Appalachian Project. Welcome aboard Casey for being willing and highly qualified to fill a vital ASPI need.

Lawsuit. ASPI is a party in a citizen initiated lawsuit to force the Governor to enforce waste disposal laws in our littered Commonwealth. Michael Dean of London is the lead attorney. The State is now using cameras to catch litterers, a procedure ASPI has advocated for some years and now hopes that the legal action will accelerate the cleanup momentum.

Forest Certification: A Case of "Green-washing" The Forest Stewardship Council Draft Appalachian Regional Standards for a Certified Forest (comments due July 1, 1998) is a carte blanche permit to continue the rape of Appalachia. In comments to MACED in Berea, KY which is conducting the process we note the draft's failure to address the 10 major areas of Appalachian concern:

1. Specific Plan. Any certification should be regionally specific and respect the culture and practices of the people. Appalachia is never mentioned in the Draft Plan as such. Instead, this generalized "apple pie/motherhood" plan is worded to apply anywhere and nowhere.
2. Inclusive. A viable plan should include and even favor small forest harvesters, the great majority of Appalachian foresters. Actually this is a thin veneer in favor of large companies and a burden for smaller businesses.
3. Harvesting on Public Lands. Appalachian forested public lands, though far smaller in total area than private lands, are key to the rich biodiversity of the region and the preservation of valuable old growth stands. The failure to consider this important issue was one reason 2 of the 18 working group members (Than Hitt of Heartwood and Buzz Williams of the Chattooga River Watershed Coalition) resigned.
4. Organic/Pesticide Free. All certified forest products should be organically grown.
5. Forbid Clear-cutting Practices.
6. Black-listing. A company that uses unsustainable forest harvest practices in one region should be refused certification in Appalachia. Partial certification or "split-estate" certification should be refused.
7. Economic Justice. Certification should include value added operations generally within the local forest area.
8. Discourage poaching. Native non-timber forest products (NTFPs) could be certified only when conforming to regional standards requiring regulated marketing cards possessed by authentic growers of NTFP products. This card addresses poaching, a major Appalachian malpractice.
9. Assisted NTFP only. Only rarely would a commercially wild non-timber forest product (NTFP) be certified in Appalachia and then only with strict production control. A major exception to this restriction is the harvesting of exotic species that have invaded forest areas.
10. Forest Plantation companies should be excluded from certification in the Appalachian region as well as pulp, paper and chip companies.

While drafters desired line and paragraph fine-tuning, how does one fine tune a "green-washing" operation, that is, one appearing environmentally friendly but is really the ticket to corporate pillage. The only certainty is that this process appears nice and involves mega-bucks.

THANKS(Mid-February to May, 1998) Ray Graves, Detroit Province of the Society of Jesus, Joseph Netherland, Glen E. Quiggins, Mary Ann Smith, Eric & Deborah Meissner, Mr. & Mrs. Aldric Belchak, Kasey Moulton, Andrew & Elizabeth Elmlinger, Ed Pigott,SJ., Paul Rothkurg, George & Mary Lu Kuhl, Patricia Wallington, Stephen & Julie Thorn, Margaret Crellin, Daria Gere, Bruce Carter, Nancy Acara, Barrington Jesuit Community (donation and vehicle), Bridgid Clifford/Sisters of Charity Center, Sister Bernadine Baltrinic/Sisters of St. Dominic, Mark & Joni Morgan, Mrs. Mary E. Fritsch, American Grassroots Unlimited, Albert & Elizabeth Seely, Kris Peterson, Julie Barnes, Barrington Retreat House, James Morgan & Teresa Maurer.

Wish List - books and periodicals for our library and for the new Long Branch Environmental Education Center now risen from the ashes of the disastrous fire of a few years back. Also ASPI could use wild flower seeds, heirloom varieties of trees for the Mount Vernon center and mural painters to decorate our cistern this autumn.

Take Note. Our Research with Public Citizen information shows that the Kentucky delegation to the U.S. House of Representatives has the worst cumulative environmental voting record on 11 bills of this Congress of any state in the Eastern half of our country.

ASPI Publications

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