RiverLink's August 2010 Newsletter

RiverLink Newsletter

September 2010

Mission Statement: RiverLink is a regional non-profit spearheading the economic and environmental

revitalization of the French Broad River and its tributaries as a place to work, live and play.

In This Issue

The exec speaks out

Join us for World Rivers Day

New Americorps duo comes aboard

RiverFest 2010 wrap-up

Volunteer and learning opportunity

CTS makes Superfund list

Notes on buying "green"

Letter from RiverLink
Executive Director Karen Cragnolin

Dear River Lovers,

Fall is in the air. I can feel it getting just a little cooler and less humid each day. Have you noticed that already the days are getting shorter? Well, we still have plenty of great things going on outside to help you enjoy and become more involved with water issues and the river. We have a full plate of activities and choices. There are loads of choices from learning some low tech home owner tricks to capturing runoff in your yard to. Celebrating world rivers day with a community pot luck, float trip, and drawing event on September 26. Read on for all the information about how you can join the fun.

Please help us welcome our two new AmeriCorps members, Joyell and Laura. When you read their bios you will be as impressed as we are that they will be with us for the next 11 months working side by side with all of us to make the river better for the whole watershed Its full stream ahead.

See you on the river!

Karen

Join us -- and the world -- for a day of celebrating moving water

RiverLink is having a picnic by - and a float on - the French Broad River to mark World Rivers Day, September 26. The public is invited to take a canoe trip on the French Broad, enjoy a potluck luncheon and participate in the Neighborhood Big Draw. The celebration starts at 10:30 a.m. at the RiverLink Sculpture and Performance Plaza, 119 Riverside Drive, just across from the Cotton Mill Studios.

Revelers are encouraged to drop off a covered dish, lawn chairs, a picnic blanket and perhaps a bottle of celebratory bubbly at the Sculpture Plaza starting at 10:30. At 11:00, the Asheville Outdoor Center will shuttle partygoers upstream to the AOC, where for a $10 donation ($5 goes to RiverLink), they'll canoe downstream to the Plaza. At 1:00, lunch begins while RiverLink Executive Director Karen Cragnolin gives a short speech on the River District and its history.

Everyone is invited to take part in RiverLink's "Neighborhood Big Draw, The River: This Is Where I Live!" and draw a river or local Asheville scene. RiverLink will provide supplies for The Neighborhood Big Draw, a national non-profit annual event designed to promote drawing and build community, aimed at getting everyone drawing.

World Rivers Day is a worldwide celebration of waterways observed the last Sunday of September. Established in 2005, it highlights the value of rivers and increases public awareness while encouraging river stewardship.

This is the timeline for the event on Sunday, Sept. 26:

· 10:30 a.m. -- People from all across WNC arrive at the Sculpture & Performance Plaza with a covered dish of some sort, shuttles take participants to the Asheville Outdoor Center on Amboy Road.
· 11:00 - 1:00 p.m. Float from AOC to Jean Webb Park, take short hike to the Plaza.
· 1:00 -- RiverLink Executive Director Karen Cragnolin gives an informal talk on local architecture and history while families, friends and neighbors eat and make drawings of River District houses, shops, landmark buildings, RiverLink Parks, and other river scenes illustrating how you are a Voice of the River!
· 3:00 Drawings are submitted, organized and exhibited
· 3:30 Non-competitive awards decided and awarded

For more information contact Dave Russell of RiverLink at 252-8474, ext. 11.

On the Web:
http://www.drawingamerica.org/
http://commons.bcit.ca/worldriversday/

www.riverlink.org

RiverLink welcomes some new faces

RiverLink is please to welcome two new Americorps members. Joyell Smith and Laura Barry will be with us for the next 11 months, serving as education coordinator and assistant volunteer outreach coordinator, respectively.

Joyell loves to inspire students to think about the various ways living and non-living things are connected in our environment. Her favorite thing is to get kids outside.
Joyell grew up in Indiana and has degrees in Geology and Philosophy from Hanover College. She has a passion for international travel and exploration of developing countries, including some expeditions funded and focused on river research and biodiversity.
In Joyell's free time she enjoys cooking, hiking with her dog, and reading the science section of the New York Times. Her aspiration for this year includes continuing to develop the education curriculum, become more active in stream restoration and spread awareness throughout Western North Carolina about the importance of a clean French Broad River. She can be reached at 252-8474, ext. 18.

Laura Barry hails from the great state of Ohio. She graduated in 2009 with a BFA in studio art from Miami University, concentrations in painting and ceramics. After 22 years in Ohio, Laura moved to Brevard, North Carolina this past summer to work as an environmental educator in the Pisgah National Forest. Within the first month, she fell in love with the mountains and decided she had to make Western North Carolina her home.
Laura is thrilled to join the RiverLink team as the Assistant Volunteer Coordinator and work with the many talented RiverLink volunteers.
She can be reached at 252-8474, ext. 17.

RiverFest 2010 was a roaring success!

Saturday, Aug. 14 was a good day for River lovers in Asheville. RiverFest 2010: Save the French Broad offered a full day of rafting, face-painting, disc golf, cornhole, dancing, hula-hooping, dining, and more.

Attendance was about 800

The floating pizza raft from Marco's won the raft race

people, and the day went off without incident -- no one was arrested or even stung by a bee.

The music was superb, as were the performances by the Baraka Mundi Bellydancers, Asheville Aerial Arts, Asheville Dance Revolution, and the Fines Creek Flatfooters.

We had about 43 entries in the Anything that Floats Raft Race (it's more like a parade than a race) -- almost twice as many watercraft as last year.

Gravity-defying Asheville Aerial Arts is always a hit at local festivals

We've said it before and we'll say it again -- we could not have done it with the volunteers who came out to help. Thank you, thank you, thank you! We promise not to start with the e-mails and phone calls again until June 2011.

To see more pics from RiverFest, visit www.riverlink.org, click on the media tab, then on "photos."

Volunteer opportunity: Free training offered as part of Linking Waters project

The Linking Waters project involves installing a series of best management practices at the home of Michelle Smith at 124 Choctaw Street in the Chicken Hill area. The goals of Linking Waters are:

To demonstrate safe, effective, easily accessible methods and materials that a large portion of a community can use to increase the amount of water stored in the soil.

Measure the water-related parameters like reduction in storm-water run off and contaminating sediment, the increase in ground water infiltration and the cost savings to residents.

Demonstrate the potential for creating green jobs and building community connections by restoring health to an urban stream watershed.

In addition, we hope to attract at least 10 more residences in the neighborhood water-shed to participate in Phase 2 of the project and to attract interest from a broad base of local, county and state stakeholders to participate in planning and implementing Phases 2 and 3.

Our hope for the Linking Waters project is that the solutions we demonstrate and learn from will be adopted in other neighborhoods in Asheville and throughout the U.S. We believe real solutions for urban jobs, environment and food are possible at the local neighborhood level. As a matter of fact, we strongly suspect that real solutions will be impossible otherwise.

There is no charge for this training. Please bring your lunch, some gloves and any tools you may have that are good for digging and raking. We'll have some tools as well.

Linking Waters training schedule:

Friday, September 10
9:00am - 11:30 Classroom training at RiverLink office
12:00 - 2:00 On-site training at 124 Choctaw Street

Sunday, September 12
1:00pm - 3:30 Classroom training at RiverLink office
4:00 - 6:00 On-site training at 124 Choctaw Street.

Saturday, September 25
9:00 am - 1:00pm - on-site training.

Hope to see you there! Call Nancy at 252-8474, ext. 14 or email nancy@riverlink.org for more information.

Press Release: EPA to Consider the CTS Site for Proposal to Superfund's National Priorities List

ATLANTA - On Sept. 1, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that it is moving forward with the process to propose the CTS of Asheville, Inc./Mills Gap Road Groundwater Contamination site to the National Priorities List (NPL) list of hazardous waste sites. This decision is based on a series of groundwater studies conducted over the past three years. A formal decision to propose the site may be made as early as March 2011, the date when a number of other sites across the nation are expected to be proposed to the NPL as part of the federal rulemaking process. Consideration to propose the site to the NPL does not guarantee that the site will be proposed, or, that the site will be listed on the final NPL. A community meeting will soon be announced to discuss the NPL listing process.

EPA continues to conduct private well monitoring within a 1-mile radius of the CTS site. The results for the June 2010 sampling event show that there were no new trichloroethene (TCE) detections in private wells. Results are being mailed out to local residents this week. The next sampling event is scheduled for the week of September 20, 2010. A website for the CTS site is expected to be launched by September 30, 2010. Site-related documents will be posted to the website.

The CTS site is interrelated with the Mills Gap Road Groundwater Contamination site (Mills Gap site). The sites are located in south Asheville, near the Skyland Community. Operations occurred at the CTS site from the early 1950's until 1986. CTS Corporation manufactured electronic components at the facility from 1959 to 1985. The chemical compound TCE was used by CTS to clean and/or degrease metal objects prior to electroplating. In 1987, the original 57-acre property was sold to Mills Gap Road Associates (MGRA) who developed a residential neighborhood on approximately 48 acres, leaving a fenced 9-acre site where the manufacturing had occurred.

Contact: Dawn Harris-Young, (404) 562-8421, harris-young.dawn@epa.gov

Buying Green

The following Sustainability Update was in the City of Asheville's August newsletter.

As you walk the aisles of grocery stores and your

What are green or sustainable products? A true green product has minimal environmental impact throughout its life cycle

·             Life cycle means the start and end of the product; design, manufacturing, packaging, transportation to store, use by consumer and disposal
·             Sustainable products contain recycled parts and energy efficient components and have minimal packaging that often can be recycled
·             Manufacturing uses natural and/or renewable resources with no toxic chemicals used in production
·             Once the consumer is finished using the product, the product can be recycled, reused or disassembled into parts that can be reused

How to Be Smart when Buying Green
·             Confirm that the product is certifiably green; not green washed by looking for 3rd party verification logos on the product
·             3rd Party verification is where an outside organization tests the products to ensure it is sustainable
·             3rd party verification organizations include Green Seal, Eco Logo and Energy Star. Green Seal and Eco Logo focus on consumer products including office and cleaning products and Energy Star specializes in electronic products.

How does 3rd Party Verification work?
·             3rd party verification organizations will receive an application to certify a product
·             Organizations will review the product including product performance, materials, packaging information, labels and how it is marketed
·             Certifier conducts an on-site audit of the company to analyze the manufacturing process
·             Product is certified if it passes all the review stages
·             3rd party certifiers will continue to monitor the product and its manufacturer to ensure compliance and track product changes

Other Green Tips for Purchasing Green:
·             Look for the following words in product descriptions and confirm by looking for 3rd Party Certification Logo:
* Post Consumer Recycled Content/Recycled/Recycled Material
* Remanufactured
* Energy-efficient i.e. CFL light bulbs
* Refillable i.e. pens & pencils
* Biodegradable / Compostable i.e. plates & utensils
* Purchase products in bulk i.e. 3 ink cartridges/1 box versus 1 cartridge/box = save packaging
* Buy refillable pens and pencils = less waste

Resources:
·             Green Seal - Consumer Products http://www.greenseal.org/
·             Eco Logo - Consumer Products http://www.ecologo.org/ one-stop-shopping stores, you may see bright green labels saying organic or eco-friendly. While some of these products may truly be sustainable, some may be green-washed. Green-washing, as defined by TerraChoice Environmental Marketing Inc., is the act of misleading consumers regarding the environmental practices of a company or the environmental benefits of a product or service. To avoid the green-washing trap, below are some tips when purchasing sustainable products.