GreenClips.53 08.14.96 CHELAN COUNTY RESISTS GROWTH PLANNING Rural Chelan County, Washington produces nearly 30 percent of the nation's apple supply. The county is rebelling against a six-year-old state law that forces counties to develop a plan to manage growth. So Governor Mike Lowry is withholding the county's share of the state's motor vehicle fuel tax revenue- $140,000 per month. In 1990 the legislature passed the Washington Growth Management Act after outsiders - particularly Californians - surged into Washington raising fears among residents that a bigger population and uncontrolled development would despoil their state. The act requires strategies to define urban growth areas, conserve agriculture land, protect critical areas like wildlife habitat, and establish development regulations. But County Commissioner John Wall and a fellow commissioner complain that the state's regional hearing boards set up to approve the plans take away local control. Many Chelan County residents back the commissioners, but some - primarily orchard owners - fear unmanaged growth will destroy their orchards. - The Christian Science Monitor, August 5, 1996, p. 3, by Tom Brune. DOE'S CENTER OF EXCELLENCE FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT After the 1993 Mississippi River flood, the US Department of Energy (DOE) helped plan two new Midwestern towns - Valmeyer, Illinois and Pattonsburg, Missouri. DOE assembled teams of experts who held town meetings with each community to help its citizens design new sustainable towns. Valmeyer, for example, incorporated renewable energy technology in its new community building and several of its homes. To offer knowledge gained from these and related sustainable development efforts to other communities, the DOE last March launched a Center of Excellence for Sustainable Development. Visitors to the Center's Internet site at http://www.sustainable.doe.gov will find a sustainable development tool kit including workbooks, manuals, and articles on sustainable communities. The site also hosts a database of more than 800community programs, model codes and ordinances, case studies of successful community projects, and downloadable scripted slide sets. For more information contact DOE, 1.800.357.7732. - Environmental Communicator, May/June 1996, p. 14, by William S. Becker. MANUFACTURED STRAW BUILDING MATERIALS While building homes of straw bales is catching on, US manufacturers are also using this agricultural by-product to make building panels and composite board. Europeans and Canadians have made and used rigid straw panels for over40 years. Now Agriboard Industries in Fairfield, Iowa [515.472.0363] will produce a straw panel system of compressed wheat straw covered in a stressskin of oriented strandboard (OSB). The panels, as large as 8 by 24 feet, are four inches thick including their outer two layers of OSB. Exterior panels are eight inches thick and carry an R-28 rating. Soon panels will be available individually, but Agriboard will introduce its first mass-produced panels this month as a building shell kit for pre-designed homes. Buyers then finish the interior and exterior with materials of their choice. And Meadowood Industries of Albany, Oregon [541.259.1303] manufactures one-eighth inch thick compressed straw boards from rye straw. The company makes panels for cabinets, among other uses, in a variety of shapes and densities from lightweight corkboard-like material to heavier construction grade materials. - Home Energy, July/August 1996, p. 30, by Alex Jaccaci and Steven Bodzin. BIG CITY FOREST REUSES AND RECYCLES PALLETS Making new shipping pallets consumes forty percent - 4.6 billion board feet -of the hardwood lumber harvested in the US each year. Until recently pallet users and suppliers have considered them disposable after one trip, but are now partnering to set up pallet retrieval systems and pallet pools to reuse them. Besides repairing and selling used pallets, Big City Forest, Inc. uses pallet wood to build butcher block-style furniture, hardwood flooring, architectural woodwork, planters, and plaques. Now in its second year, the Bronx, New York-based company dismantles used pallets, re-mills the wood into strips, and glues them together. Because pallets come from more than 100different tree species, a Big City Forest conference table may feature oak, pine, mahogany, cherry, poplar, or birch. [For more information contact Big City Forest, Inc., 718.731.3931.] - The Christian Science Monitor, August13, 1996, p. 10, by Matt Schwartz. JAPAN'S ECOLOGICAL DOWNSIDE Lonely Planet Publications' travel guide "Japan: A Lonely Planet Travel Survival Kit" says that Japan is the world's largest consumer of rainforest timber. Destroyed forests in the Malaysian states of Sabah and Sawawak have supplied wood primarily to Japan. Japanese trading companies conduct most of the logging activity there. Seventy to 80 percent of the timber becomes plywood used mainly for concrete form work and then discarded. The Japan Tropical Forest Action Network (JATAN) is working to raise awareness about tropical rainforest destruction. - EcoDesign, Vol. IV, No. 2, p. 19.