Sustainable, Self-reliant Energy Production

Last week we talked about urban farming as an easy, healthy way for us to create a more self-reliant and locally centered community. This week, I want to continue this theme a bit by discussing another area of self-reliance – sustainable development policies. No, this is not some lecture about global warming or climate change, but rather about development policies that promote a sustainable way of life. Just like with our urban farms, a way of life that is focused on producing what we need and use locally.

Solar panels are an excellent example of sustainability. According to the Tennessee Valley Authority, “[solar] production ranges from four to 50 kilowatts. On average, a 10-kW [photovoltaic] system located in the Tennessee Valley will generate between 12,000 to 14,000 kilowatt-hours (kWh) a year, or a little more than the total amount of electricity used in a typical home.” Solar panels can also serve as water heaters circulating water through the panel heating up the water and circulating it back to your insulated water heater. When the electricity goes out, you’ll still be taking warm showers unlike the rest of us!

Locally, Security Federal has solar panels on the top of their building, which provide electricity back to the electric grid. Most people don’t even know they’re there because they cannot be seen. The Elizabethton Veterinary Clinic also has solar panels that help support the power usage in their building as well.

Another source of energy sustainability is wind energy. We’ve all heard of wind turbines that produce electricity. At a residential level, they are commonly small and typically rise just above the tree line. In some cities, policies have allowed commercial buildings to install turbines in order to capture the wind that might be just above the building line so long as they do not extend above a maximum height.

Looking at their application in conjunction with these sustainable techniques, energy efficient buildings magnify the self-reliance. Green buildings attempt to make the resources it uses extremely efficient. Milligan College has recently constructed the only green building that we have in the city. These buildings utilize LED lighting and occupancy sensors to reduce electric consumption, collect rainwater from the roof to use for landscape watering and commodes to reduce the amount of water consumption, and choose the placement with windows facing the southern sun to provide natural daylight and additional heat.

Some of these ideas can be expensive and some may sound a little crazy, but it not only makes your home and our community more self-reliant, it can also save you a lot of money! We may or may not be ready to move in this direction, but let’s start the conversation. Let’s talk about it!

What is Urban Farming and is it for Elizabethton?

Urban farming – a term probably not heard by many around here, but it is something that many in this community have been doing for decades. Urban farming is, well, farming, but in an urban environment under an acre. This typically includes growing fruits and vegetables, and can include raising chickens or even a pig or two, processing the grown food, and distributing it for consumption. The concept of the Victory Garden, with its large growth area and sometimes fruit trees, is the basis for modern urban farming.

Urban farming can have a variety of pros the impact the entire community. One being urban farming creates a more self-dependent community. Communities with active urban farmers are much less dependent on getting their produce, chicken, and pork from the supermarket because they grow or raise it themselves!

While they still have supermarkets, urban farming creates a community that could survive should a natural disaster occur or resources from other communities cease to be possible.

Urban farming also provides a community with easy access to healthy food. Some communities (and Carter County is one of them) have what we term food deserts where a grocery store or a place to access healthy, fresh food is too far away from where people live. Because urban farming is on such a small scale, this method of producing food spreads the access to food throughout a community instead of centralizing them in one location.

There are some downfalls to urban farming. Urban farming may cause problems with neighbors, especially if the urban farm includes animals. While many urban farming friendly communities restrict the number of animals permitted per acre, there still can be some problems with smells or noise from time-to-time. Moreover, of course, not everyone wants to live right next to someone who is raising a pig or chickens.

Another major concern to urban farming communities is the soil. Not all soils are ideal for growing various types of produce. In order to grow certain types of produce, soil amendments may be necessary. Another concern with the soil is the potential for contaminants to exist. Many types of produce will absorb contaminants that exist in the soil such as hard metals. These contaminants become a serious concern when urban farmers go and sell their produce to others who may not know where it was grown.

Please don’t mistake me for encouraging you to go out and start an urban farm today. Elizabethton currently prohibits raising unapproved chickens and raising pigs inside the City Limits, but this is something for us to consider. Is this something our community should pursue? Let’s talk about it!

Regional Collaboration

When you hear the word collaboration, the last thing that pops into your mind is local governments – or any type of government on some days. This is a weakness for us local governments. We worry about losing our control, losing our identity, or, worse yet, losing our government completely to a consolidation. Yet, when we look at examples of local governments collaborating, we commonly see great success -- Silicon Valley, Napa Valley, the Research Triangle, and recently the Opportunity Initiative in Southwestern North Carolina.

Regional collaboration can be highly effective in a number of ways, including comprehensive transportation, economic development, and comprehensive land-use. By ensuring that roads, bikeways, and pedestrian infrastructure are in place regionally allows residents, businesses, and tourists to flow more easily through the entire area.

This additionally helps economic development throughout the region, making commuting and doing business easier and more fluid. What’s good for growth in one government or community is good for the other communities.

Tying land-uses together through collaboration is also beneficial to ensure that regulations are similar throughout the region and that each community’s growth will be well matched with the other community's growth.

Collaboration can also help provide a regional identity. Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge, Sevierville and Sevier County consistently collaborate with each other on projects and have developed an identity as an access to the Smoky Mountains with beautiful vistas and became a vacation destination. This regional identity has catapulted the all the governments and communities into economic success.

Regional collaboration allows us to take the best elements from each government or community and bring them to the table. What one community’s weakness is may be another’s strength. One community may have better housing, another a better industrial base, another better quality of life, and yet another a more beautiful city. Each of these communities must not have every element, but it allows all of the cities to offer something unique to the entire region.

Locally, Elizabethton is a part of the Johnson City Metropolitan Statistical Area. The US Office of Management and Budget creates this area. A standard they use is that of an area containing a large, populated city and adjacent communities that have a high degree of economic and transportation integration with that large city.

We have already been defined as having a high interaction with Johnson City, Jonesborough, and Unicoi. When a large new business or industry moves into one of those communities, Elizabethtonians benefit. When a major new state highway is built in one of those communities Elizabethtonians benefit. What could we accomplish if we started collaborating? Is it time for us to join with our surrounding communities to begin collaborating regionally? The answer may be yes, the answer may be no, but either way let’s start talking about it!

Adding Bike Lanes to Our Streets

The Kingsport Times-News recently published an article about Kingsport’s reconfiguration of Center Street in downtown. However, much of the controversy is about what the configuration did to Center Street. The City of Kingsport and the State of Tennessee Transportation Department narrowed the street from four travel lanes to two travel lanes, a middle turn lane, and two bike lanes.

The addition of the bike lanes has been very controversial. Many downtown businesses are excited about the new transportation options and see it as an economic opportunity. Others in the community see this as a nuisance and bad transportation engineering.

When we talk about downtown revitalization and mixing residential, retail, and restaurants, having multiple modes of transportation is important. People need to be able to get to their destination safely regardless of their personal conditions. Maybe they are unable to drive anymore, or a young person cannot yet afford a car. Providing bike lanes and sidewalks along streets helps to ensure that people safely gets to where they need to go.

This is a conversation that we haven’t had here in Elizabethton, but are we ready to take the next step? Should we be looking to create additional modes of transportation? Already we have many streets with sidewalks, but we don’t really have any bike lanes in our community. The Riverfront Linear Path and the Tweetsie Trail both have contributed a lot to the biking atmosphere in Elizabethton and have helped provide safe routes through the city. Adding bike lanes to our existing streets will expand out biking infrastructure, encouraging citizens to bike and create opportunities to be healthy. Bike routes can be added to many of our local streets for only the cost of paint and they can be added to our collector routes when they are repaved.

Bike routes can also have an economic impact. An example is Austin, Texas, where the city started adding bike lanes to their entire local, collector, and minor arterial street network. This network is projected to increase the city's traffic capacity by about 25,000 trips per day. This means more people traveling past businesses with minimal expense to add these lanes to the City’s infrastructure. New York City is another example where a redesign of Union Square included the addition of protected bike lanes resulted in 49% fewer commercial vacancies in the area.

What role should bike lanes play in transportation in Elizabethton? What else should we be doing to encourage people to choose a car alternative form of transportation? Let’s talk about it!

Helping Elizabethton’s Economy with…Toilet Paper?

Toilet paper is something everyone uses and, unlike food, can be found in almost any location from the grocery store to the convenience store off of a random Interstate. Doing some research on toilet paper (and you would be surprised at how much is out there), I found the average American uses approximately 57 sheets per day! A representative from Kimberly Clark (one of the largest producers of toilet paper) was quoted as saying the average roll contains 352 sheets and an average 12 pack costs about $6.99 which means a person spends just over 34 dollars and goes through 59 rolls per year in toilet paper.

But how does this help Elizabethton? Well, what if everyone who lived, worked, or shopped in Elizabethton bought their toilet paper in Elizabethton – the economic impact of one person’s yearly toilet paper use is approximately $5.35. Taken together with the people who live, work, and shop in and around Elizabethton and Carter County, and the local economic impact could be $309,580 created just by buying toilet paper at local stores. Who would have thought that buying something so simple and so inexpensive could have such a big impact? Wherever you purchase your toilet paper, that community gets your $5.35 of impact and all you have to do is choose to purchase there.

The same thing can be done with a few other common goods that are easily available right here in Elizabethton and Carter County. It is estimated that the average family in Carter County spends approximately126 dollars per year on milk. Wherever you purchase your milk for the year, that community get’s your $24.76 of impact; if everyone purchased their milk in Elizabethton that would generate approximately $470,440 in impact every year. All you have to do is choose to purchase it in Elizabethton or Carter County!

The next time you plan to go out to eat, think about where you would like to go in Elizabethton rather than driving to Bristol or Johnson City. We estimate a Carter County household will spend $1,810 per year on eating out. The yearly economic impact of eating out is $895.78 per household if they choose to eat locally. Obviously, we want that $895.78 to stay in Carter County and Elizabethton not Bristol or Johnson City. If we all went out to eat in Elizabethton, the economic impact would total approximately $17,019,820.

I want to challenge you this year to choose Elizabethton and Carter County whether it’s milk, eating out, or just toilet paper. Simply by choosing where you purchase your products helps make our community’s economy and businesses stronger. What other local products or services can we take advantage of? Let’s talk about it!