Speak Out, Organize & Teach says Tanna

Actress, surfer and passionate earth-lover Tanna Frederick knows there’s more to being a celebrity than the red carpet. The flame-haired star of Irene in Time, who once declared to her parents that she wanted to be a garbage collector to pick up other people’s trash, is using her platform to get her environmental messages out to the masses.

Solar Power Can Serve Entire Neighborhoods

I know of solar power systems that people can put on their roofs to generate electricity or heat water. Are there systems that serve whole neighborhoods? — Lee Helscel, via email

Collective bargaining is a good strategy when looking to get the best price on a given product or service. Solar power is no exception, and dozens of neighborhood-wide installations in the U.S. and Canada have created a new model whereby going solar can actually start to pencil out for individual homeowners.

One of the first neighborhood-wide solar installations in the world was at the master-planned community of Drake Landing in the town of Okotoks in Alberta, Canada. The entire community, now with more than 50 homes built and occupied, is heated by a neighborhood-wide “borehole thermal energy” system designed to store abundant solar energy underground during the summer and distribute it to each home as needed for space heating throughout the winter. The system, which launched in June 2007, now fulfills some 90 percent of each homes space heating needs, with any slack taken up by fossil fuels.

While some planned communities like Drake Landing incorporated neighborhood solar power from the get-go, others decided it made sense after they were first built. One example is the deal that homeowners in Marin County, California can get in on, thanks to the hard work of the nonprofit GoSolarMarin. The group negotiated discounted group rates with several photovoltaic solar panel providers, and eventually signed on with SolarCity, a Silicon Valley based solar provider that operates some 30 different “community solar programs” across California, Arizona and Oregon.

GoSolarMarin was able to negotiate a rate some 25 percent lower than what a typical solar installation would cost for Marin County residents willing to participate. And best of all, homeowners can lease from SolarCity instead of having to pay tens of thousands of dollars out of pocket to buy equipment that may become obsolete in a few years. SolarCity monitors all clients installations online to ensure that they are running at peak performance, and also makes house calls for maintenance as needed.

While California is no doubt a leader in residential solar power, the concept is spreading. Neighborhood Solar, for instance, is a Colorado-based nonprofit formed to accelerate the adoption of residential solar power in the Denver Metro area. The group organizes homeowners into collective solar purchasing groups, and negotiates significant discounts accordingly. “We act as an independent buyers agent,” the group reports on its website, “with the goal of providing the best value to residential solar purchasers while helping installers put up more solar at reduced overhead costs.”

Community-based groups like GoSolarMarin and Neighborhood Solar are springing up all over the country, and dozens of solar companies have now adopted the community installation model. Community leaders interested in neighborhood-scope solar programs should shop around for the best prices and service guarantees before signing with any one solar provider. Theres a lot individuals can do to be part of clean energy solutions; theres even more a group working in concert can accomplish, and community-based solar is but one bright and shining example.

CONTACTS: Drake Landing Solar Community, www.dlsc.ca; GoSolarMarin, www.gosolarmarin.com; SolarCity, www.solarcity.com; Neighborhood Solar, www.neighborlysolar.com.

EarthTalkTM
From the Editors of E/The Environmental Magazine
SEND YOUR ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTIONS TO: EarthTalk, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881; earthtalk@emagazine.com.

Pharmaceutical Drugs in Your Drinking Water

Is there any truth to the rumor about high levels of birth control chemicals being found in some cities drinking water? If so can these be filtered out? — Elizabeth Yerkes, via email

It is true that trace amounts of birth control and other medications-as well as household and industrial chemicals of every stripe-are present in many urban and suburban water supplies around the country, but there is considerable debate about whether their levels are high enough to warrant concern.

In 2008 the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) tested water in nine states across the country and found that 85 man-made chemicals, including some medications, were commonly slipping through municipal treatment systems and ending up in our tap water. Another report by the Associated Press found trace amounts of dozens of pharmaceuticals in the drinking water supplies of some 46 million Americans.

But according to USGS, such chemicals and medications are so diluted-at levels equal to a thimble full of water in an Olympic-sized swimming pool-that they do not pose a health threat. But others arent so sure. Researchers have found evidence that even extremely diluted concentrations of drug residues harm fish, frogs and other aquatic species, and have been shown to labs to impair human cell function.

One of the common culprits is estrogen, much of which is inadvertently released into sewers through the urine of women taking birth control. Studies have shown that estrogen can wreak reproductive havoc on some fish, which spawn infertile offspring sporting a mixture of male and female parts. Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh found that human breast cancer cells grew twice as fast when exposed to estrogen taken from catfish caught near untreated sewage overflows. “There is the potential for an increased risk for those people who are prone to estrogenic cancer,” said Conrad Volz, lead researcher on the study.

What may be more troubling is the mixture of contaminants and how they might interact to cause health problems. “The biggest concern is the stew effect,” says Scott Dye of the Sierra Clubs Water Sentinels program. “Trace amounts of this mixed with trace amounts of that can equal what? We dont know.”

With such contaminants proving elusive to municipal filtration systems, the burden of protection often lies with the end user. But getting traces of birth control and other drugs out of your tap water isnt so easy. Of the many different kinds of in-home water filtration systems available today, only those employing reverse osmosis have been shown to filter out some drugs. Some makers of activated carbon water filters claim their products catch pharmaceuticals, but independent research has not verified such claims.

“The best choice,” says Cathy Sherman of the natural health website Natural News, “would probably be a combination of a reverse osmosis filter augmented by pre- and post-activated carbon filters.” Installing such a system just for drinking water is sufficient, she says, given that water used for cleaning and plumbing doesnt typically get ingested. As to prevention, the non-profit public health and safety agency, NSF International, urges individuals to not use their toilets or sinks to dispose of unused medications and to opt for the garbage instead; most modern landfills are lined to keep such contaminants inside.

CONTACTS: USGS Water Resources, water.usgs.gov; Sierra Club, www.sierraclub.org/watersentinels; NSF International, www.nsf.org; Natural News, www.naturalnews.com.

Photo: Getty Images

EarthTalkTM
From the Editors of E/The Environmental Magazine
SEND YOUR ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTIONS TO: EarthTalk, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881; earthtalk@emagazine.com.

Risky Runoff: Fish-Roe to Ritalin

By Michael DeJong

“Like the resource it seeks to protect, wildlife conservation must be dynamic, changing as conditions change, seeking always to become more effective.” –Rachel Carson, Silent Spring

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