3 28 13 boulderganic

spring 2013

Bringing self-sufficiency

and sustainability home

• Future fallout from toxic injection wells • Greener greenhouses for year-round produce • Hemp industry looks to take root in Colorado

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Spring 2013

staff

Susan France

Beth Santistevan is the farm manager for Oxford Gardens in Niwot

Publisher, Stewart Sallo Special Editions Editor, Elizabeth Miller Director of Operations/Controller, Benecia Beyer Circulation Manager, Cal Winn

EDITORIAL Editor, Joel Dyer Managing Editor, Jefferson Dodge Associate Editors, David Accomazzo, Steve Weishampel

SALES Retail Sales Manager, Allen Carmichael Account Executives, Andrea Craven, Joe Fuchs, David Hasson, Chelsea Mack

PRODUCTION Production Manager, Dave Kirby Art Director, Susan France Graphic Designer, Mark Goodman

GENERAL & ADMINISTRATIVE Marketing Manager & Heiress, Julia Sallo Office Manager/Advertising Assistant, Jamie Peterson Circulation Team Dave Hastie, Dan Hill, George LaRoe, Jeffrey Lohrius, Elizabeth Ouslie, Rick Slama 13-Year-Old, Mia Rose Sallo

contents FOOD & GARDEN 7 Intelligent irrigation

ENVIRONMENTAL 13 Injection rejection

SUSTAINABILITY 19 Where the grass isn’t greener

BUSINESS 23

Space for change

HEALTH & FITNESS 29 Yoga for the common folk

4 March 28, 2013

F

or green thumbs everywhere, this may be the most wonderful time of the year. Spring is a moment of possibility, a time for planting and eagerly anticipating those first green sprouts that pop up in response. This spring, we’ve chosen to focus Boulderganic magazine on a few of the issues close to heart and on our

minds — like how to keep our gardens flourishing despite some expectations of limited water use, or, justly, an increasing attention toward water conservation, no matter what happens with precipitation in the coming weeks and months. We’re also turning an early-season eye toward energy conservation and what lies ahead for our forests as wildfire season approaches, and talking with local innovators who are building

community and bridging gaps among disparate groups in our town. It’s an action-packed edition for a season already buzzing with activity. So dig in and get started, get — we hope — a little smarter about your water use and time near creeks, a little more optimistic about our forests and a little fired up to spend some time running in the sun. Respond: info@boulderganic.com

Boulderganic Spring ’13 Boulder Weekly

e co

Intelligent irrigation

Local experts offer tips on using less water for lawns, gardens by Jefferson Dodge

D

Ildar Sagdejev

espite recent storms in the mountains, snowpack around Colorado is still below average, raising the possibility that watering restrictions will force local homeowners and gardeners to pay more attention to irrigating intelligently. Local experts say it’s a lesson we should heed every year, regardless of whether our mountain reservoirs are full. The reality, they point out, is that we live in an arid environment, and instead of worrying so much about keeping front lawns green, perhaps we should adopt outdoor watering patterns that are more consistent with the hand that Mother Nature has dealt us locally. Carol O’Meara, horticulture agent for the Colorado State University Extension in Boulder County, says locals sometimes look at the lush, beautiful gardens and lawns on the covers of national magazines and presume they can create the same thing along the Front Range. “They need to do a head check and realize they are in an arid climate and should go with xeriscape,” she says. According to O’Meara, one of the first priorities in saving water is to check irrigation systems, drought or no drought. “Look at every single sprinkler head and make sure they’re level,” she says, adding that 90 percent of the issues she sees with lawns involve irrigation. “Even a difference of a degree or two can make an impact on the coverage of water.” O’Meara says people sometimes don’t realize that a sprinkler system is “almost like a living thing” that requires periodic fine-tuning. And it goes beyond tweaking lawn sprinklers that might have shifted or been damaged over the past six months. She recommends adjusting water times throughout the growing season to match the conditions. Irrigation should start out light in the spring, be highest in the heat of midsummer, and taper off in the fall. In addition, watering systems should be turned off during periods of monsoonal rains. According to Russ Sands, water conservation program manager for the city of Boulder, residents Boulder Weekly Boulderganic Spring ’13

should also consider waiting a few extra weeks before firing up their sprinklers. “People don’t realize that their grass can lay dormant and not die,” he says, pointing out that, especially in the case of Kentucky bluegrass, it’s OK to wait until June to start watering. He and O’Meara agree that watering lawns less frequently but more deeply encourages grass to sink its roots lower, making it more droughttolerant. When it comes to gardens, they advise using drip lines instead of sprinklers, to reduce the amount of water that evaporates. O’Meara reminds residents to be mindful of trees as well, adjusting watering patterns as they grow, moving drip lines away from the trunk as they mature (to irrigate feeder roots) and increasing the amount of water dispensed. Otherwise, she says, “it’s like keeping a Great Dane on the diet of a puppy.” Sands recommends that residents take advantage of the “Garden-in-a-Box” and “Slow the Flow” programs administered by the Center for ReSource Conservation. This year, he says, the city has contracted with the center to go beyond just offering free inspections of irrigation systems and to start performing minor on-the-spot repairs at no charge. Instead of just giving residents a list of recommended improvements, Sands says, technicians might be able to go ahead and replace that sprinkler head at the time of their visit. One can have the best xeriscape garden in the

county, he says, but a leak in the irrigation system can nullify the positive effects of using native plants that don’t need much water. O’Meara notes that irrigating with exactitude and efficiency has positive side effects, like reducing the incidence of weeds, since “weeds like stressed areas.” When it comes to gardens, she says residents should give careful consideration to how much water their plants are going to need, and “what you want out of a garden that is responsible.” Everybody loves vegetable gardens, she explains, but they use a lot of water. Even when plowing forward with plans for a veggie garden, O’Meara says residents should consider the different amount of water each vegetable will require. “Tomatoes don’t need as much water as people think, but corn likes a lot,” she says. O’Meara recommends applying mulch to retain moisture in the soil — but not too early. She suggests waiting until the end of May or early June, so that soil temperatures have risen enough. O’Meara also cautions about over-fertilizing, not just because it can harm plants but because it can run off into local waterways or leach into groundwater. When asked about the likelihood of watering restrictions, Sands was noncommittal, since precipitation in the coming weeks and months can always change things. “It’s too early to tell, because April is among our snowiest months,” he says, adding that even localized rainfall in the summer can change the approach taken by any given city. Additional tips for smart watering this spring and summer are available on the CSU Extension’s website, www.extension.colostate.edu/boulder. In addition, O’Meara says, www.plantselect. org has compiled an excellent guide to plants that are appropriate for the West, and www.alcc.com features a gallery of award-winning designs for lowwater gardens. “We’ve got to think in terms of living with our environment instead of working against it,” she says. Respond: info@boulderganic.com March 28, 2013 7

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aul Schlagel’s business purchases usually consist of irrigation piping or seeds, so it’s understandable that the farmer is eager to show off his new toy: a GPS-guided John Deere tractor. Though he technically bought it used, the gleaming green piece of equipment is his first new tractor since 1990. With a navigation screen that tracks the tractor’s progress, it doesn’t need to be steered; in fact, if you try to steer it, it shuts off. Schlagel loves operating it, but he says the tool’s fine-tuned precision is imporby Stephanie Riesco tant to a job where efficiency is paramount. “It’s pretty cool, I think,” Schlagel says, sitting in tal groups and food safety groups have criticized the machine’s driver seat as it rumbles toward the Monsanto’s Roundup Ready sugar beets, citing edge of his property. “Especially for the stuff we do, unintended threats to human health and the posit’s smart enough so that you don’t over-spray. It’s sibility of cross-pollination with non-GMO plants. really a money saver. When you talk about being However, the USDA has determined that the green, you do this stuff because it’s economical, but weed-resistant crop is unlikely to pose these risks it makes you feel better because it is saving fuel.” and officially approved it for use in 2010. For the Longmont farmer, being green is someFor Schlagel, whose farm is his business, his thing he can’t help but feel slightly defensive about. planting decisions are based on what is best for Schlagel farms genetically modified organisms production. After years of trying a variety of dif(GMOs) in Boulder County, a place that prides ferent herbicides, many of which he says were like itself on eco-friendly practices and organic living. “chemotherapy” for his crop, he planted Roundup Schlagel is part of The Western Sugar CooperaReady sugar beets. The difference has been gametive and raises Roundup Ready sugar beets. Sugar changing. Schlagel’s team, which currently consists beets have a long history in Colorado, especially of him, two farmhands and his son, used to devote in Longmont, where they once were considered significant manpower to weeding the fields. “white gold.” After growing up on his father’s farm Using genetically modified sugar beets has and managing it for more than 35 years, Schlagel reduced his labor needs, he says, in addition to has had more than enough experience combating increasing his yield enough to surpass his co-op weeds in sugar beets. quota for sugar. Farmers in The Western Sugar “If there was ever a crop for Roundup Ready, Cooperative have to produce one acre for every it’s sugar beets because we struggled so drastically share they purchase, but since Schlagel started with our weeds. Our ditches were full of weeds using Roundup Ready sugar beets, he produces and were miles and miles long,” he says. “But with more sugar than his processing plant can handle. Roundup Ready, it’s perfect. There are issues, He’s scaled back to compensate, and for every 100 I’m not going to say there aren’t, but we grew up acres he used to use, he now only uses 85. With struggling to keep sugar beets clean.” less acreage allocated for sugar beets, Schlagel’s Since their introduction in 2008, environmenbeen able to sell corn that he otherwise couldn’t

have grown. Even if he didn’t find the advantages of genetic modification so beneficial, Schlagel says, the small market for organic products would still be a deterrent. He says he may make the switch one day if the demand increases, but going organic isn’t a financially viable option for him yet. “I consider [switching to organic] all the time, but it’s not logical right now, there are no markets for it,” Schlagel says. “If you farm a garden somewhere and go to the farmers’ market and sell your produce, that’s one thing, and there is a market for organic wheat. But man, the cost of doing it and the difference in the price really doesn’t work.” Driving down the road in his white pick-up truck, Schlagel points out the still-brown fields where he grows his GMO sugar beets and corn, conventional alfalfa and conventional barley that he sells to MillerCoors in Golden. His work is spread out over his father’s farm, which he lives on, a City of Longmont Open Space farm, a Boulder County Open Space farm, Pleasant View Farm, a privately owned farm with a conservation easement, and Nelson Farm, which is located east of I-25. While these five properties may sound like they would draw in substantial revenue, Schlagel says that much of their money goes straight back into running the farms. “Once upon a time we might have been looked upon as large-scale agriculture, but we’ve been passed up,” Schlagel says. “It takes a large scale to pay for stuff anymore, everything is getting so expensive. Fuel and fertilizer have gone up. But the price of commodities has been pretty decent in the past few years, and it’s given us the opportunity to do [a few] projects.” During the off-season this year, the big project has been replacing irrigation ditches with under-

A day in the life of a GMO farmer Roundup Ready sugar beet farmer talks about his trade in Longmont

Boulder Weekly Boulderganic Spring ’13

see LIFE ON A FARM Page 10

March 28, 2013 9

LIFE ON A FARM from Page 9

ground pipelines to ensure the crops are watered evenly. Watering in Colorado is already a challenge, but Schlagel has the added difficulty of a hilly landscape. In addition to contending with erosion issues, his fields were cut into irregular shapes to accommodate the natural water flow down ditches. This has made upgrading to a sprinkler system that can reach their entire field an especially costly endeavor. Just last year, they made the decision to invest in one with a swing arm and a computerized memory to track the edge of the farm. Schlagel is used to dealing with the notoriously dry conditions, but the below-average snowpack has introduced a huge element of uncertainty to this year’s planting season. His team is still waiting for word from the Colorado-Big Thompson Project, a federal water diversion initiative. However, Schlagel estimates they’ll only issue about 50 percent to 60 percent of their reserve in case drought strikes again next season. Even more important to his crop is the excess water that the City of Longmont usually releases to agriculture, and the farmer is certain his farm won’t see any of that water this year. Still, he’s trying to stay optimistic. “We’ve grown to depend on that water [from the City of Longmont],” Schlagel says. “We just won’t plant as much. I’d rather something sit idle and not plant it than give it half the water that it needs. We still plan on planting 100 percent today, but we’ll have to wait and see.” As his truck bounces and wobbles up the road that skirts his father’s farm, he passes by his two farmhands working in the field. He enthusiastically notes that the dirt road could really use another grading, and that there’s a combine that needs to be set up to process small grain. Schlagel is always looking for ways to keep the men busy during the off-season, and the farm usually presents them with plenty of jobs to do. But if Schlagel falls on hard times, he’s 10 March 28, 2013

concerned with the tough decisions he may have to make. “I worry about these guys that work for me probably too much. I’m just struggling with what to do, but we’re going to keep going on until we have to make a change,” Schlagel says. “But once irrigating season starts, everybody has a job and you don’t have to wonder what that is every day.” The men are busy planting before they manage their own farms during irrigating season, which begins in midMay. They also run a trucking business on the side, to transport barley for MillerCoors after the crop has been harvested. But in early spring, Schlagel’s 27-year-old son, Scott, uses the trailers to haul barley screenings (impure pieces of barley and substances collected during the barley cleaning process) that they receive from MillerCoors. Schlagel says he’s been thrilled to have his son working for him for the past two years and, despite the various stressful aspects of his job, he says that this kind of family life is one of his favorite aspects of being a farmer. “The best part of it is that your kids grow up to be better kids, just growing up and learning the work ethic,” Schlagel says. “Like just like this morning, Scott knows he needs to load the screenings and he shows up and he’s gone and he never whines about anything. He knows how important it all is.” Though Schlagel knows that his practices as a GMO farmer are not popular in Boulder County, even conceding that genetic modification serves the farmer more than the consumer, he has to consider the finances first in an unpredictable industry. He says he hopes other farmers can understand and accept his choices. “In my book, everybody has a place.You do what you do best and hope to do well,” Schlagel says. “It’s easy to coexist — I think it is.” Respond: info@boulderganic.com

Boulderganic Spring ’13 Boulder Weekly

A greener way to grow Local company cuts energy loss from greenhouses by Elizabeth Miller

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hopping only for local produce, or growing all of your own, sounds great until you remember one thing: avocados.And then tangerines, mangos, papayas, passion fruit — fresh-squeezed orange juice. Banana smoothies. There’s a long list of covetable fruits and vegetables that won’t grow in Colorado’s climate, and in a world where those invested in sustainable living look to decreasing reliance on fossil fuels, trucking them in or even growing them here in greenhouses has a carbon footprint that’s simply too big. But bananas weren’t really what was on Marc Plinke’s mind when he started designing green. “I had this dream that from before I was 18 to be able to live sustainably or live in a way that it wouldn’t take away from our kids — just this idea that we can actually leave the planet better than we found it,” he says. He spent a year and a half remodeling his house, built in 1961, to make it beyond net zero, he says, before starting on other projects. “The idea was, well, the next thing besides making our houses more efficient is to eat more locally and ideally food you can grow yourself, so that’s where the motivation comes from.” In Colorado, eating fresh fruits and vegetables all year round takes some serious intervention — like a greenhouse. But while a normal house heats for $.10 per square foot, a greenhouse often costs more like $3 to $4 per square foot — and consumes a colossal amount of fossil fuels in the process. Greenhouses lose heat through the ground, through necessary leakage and ventilation and convective and radiant heat losses, and consume energy in electricity needed to run fans to move the air and pumps to move water and, in many cases, to add heat. Plinke started dissecting the traditional models of greenhouses — often

all Plexiglas with little insulation, leading to fluctuations in temperature and a shut-down of the growing season in Colorado’s coldest months. By replacing some of the glazing with insulated panels, he stabilized some of the fluctuating temperatures. He’s also created a ground-to-air heat transfer system, a temperature-triggered system for circulating air that makes use of the thermal storage capacity of the greenhouses’ soil. The same principles of using thermal storage, increased insulation and the glazing in the right places have been in discussion for the last 35 years among those looking to create successful passively heated greenhouses, according to a 2003 paper from the University of Missouri-Columbia Southwest Research Center that details the construction of a solar-heated greenhouse in Mount Vernon, Mo.That greenhouse has provided cool-season crops, including leafy greens, vegetables and flowers, since its construction in 1988. Plinke and his team started Ceres Greenhouse Solutions in 2011 to build or renovate existing greenhouses using those passive solar designs with a few of his own flourishes.The end results look more like houses with large windows faced with reflective shutters to maximize light than hoophouses. Plinke mentions some people use them as home offices or simply a refuge from the cold, dry months in Colorado. Even in February, their interiors are a warm, humid environment ripe with the scent of fresh earth and a hint of a breeze from the fan used to keep air circulating — necessary turbulence both for pollen and strong plant stems. A Ceres greenhouse, put to the test at 10,800 feet in Leadville, was yielding summer squash, tomatoes, basil and figs through the winter while temperatures dropped to minus 20 at night. So who says you can’t live sustainably and have your papaya, too? Respond: info@boulderganic.com

Boulder Weekly Boulderganic Spring ’13

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Injection rejection

As science catches up to oil and gas drilling, a disturbing picture is emerging by Joel Dyer

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hen it comes to the nation’s current natural gas boom, a couple of different strategies have emerged. The oil and gas industry strategy is to drill as many wells as quickly as possible, before oil and gas regulations become more strict and local governments figure out how to stop some drilling activities altogether. On the other hand, for anti-drilling and anti-fracking adherents, the game plan is to stall this tidal wave of rigs until the science regarding oil and gas extraction’s impact on human health and the environment has a chance to catch up to the drillers. Some of the research Joel Dyer that has been done recently reveals that injecting liquids into deep disposal wells at high pressure can and does cause earthquakes. Such disposal wells are used, in theory, for the permanent storage of many toxic liquids, from nerve gas to fracking fluid. And when combined with the results of other studies, this earthquake research paints a picture of a coming environmental and human health calamity that, if unchecked, could threaten our nation’s drinking water supplies within a century. Many citizens opposed to fracking have been claiming that the process causes earthquakes.The industry continues to deny this claim, but the research on the earthquake issue shows that, without question, fracking can and does cause very small quakes. But in truth, many of the activists are a bit misinformed. Most of the larger earthquakes that are being felt and even causing damage in gas country are not the result of fracking but rather the industry’s use of disposal wells to get rid of its produced water and recovered fracking fluid containing on average 632 chemicals, including many that are carcinogenic. When oil or gas is produced, the wells generate far more water than hydrocarbons, at least five times as much, on average.This “produced” water as it’s known is very salty, often radioactive and contains other contaminants such as hydrocarbons and fracking fluid. Depending on the water’s makeup, which varies area to area, the water can be toxic to aquatic Boulder Weekly Boulderganic Spring ’13

animals if dumped into streams and can kill crops and destroy farmland for years if used for irrigation. Some farmland irrigated with this “produced water,” as it’s called, has been rendered effectively dead, unable to even grow grass for years after the tainted water is applied. While it is possible to treat and then release produced water, the industry considers this expensive and usually opts to inject contaminated water into deep formations underground, claiming that the contamination is trapped forever, causing no harm. And it’s not just the oil and gas industry that uses the inner earth as a dump. Chemical companies, manufacturers and other polluting industries have been injecting their contaminated liquids into disposal wells for decades. In fact, it was our government’s decision in the 1960s to use injection wells to get rid of the U.S. military’s deadly waste, including nerve gas at Denver’s Rocky Mountain Arsenal (RMA), which served as the original model for industry to start injecting its contamination underground as well. As a result, according to a recent ProPublica investigation, more than 30 trillion gallons of the most toxic waste known to man has been injected into the inner Earth in the last 40 years or so. While the RMA injection well served as the beginning of disposal well use by polluters, it also sparked the original research that proved that injecting liquids into deep rock formations at high pressure causes earthquakes. At one point, the arsenal’s disposal well was causing hundreds of quakes a year, some large enough to knock down walls 30 miles away and be felt as far away as Laramie,Wyo. The federal government studied the RMA well for several years, intentionally causing quakes before finally shutting down the operation after pulling back liquids to relieve the pressure about 12,000 feet below the surface.The government then began to study the injection well/earthquake connection at another site. Like the arsenal well, other deep disposal wells,

including one on Colorado’s Western Slope, located 110 miles southwest of Grand Junction and known as the Paradox Valley Unit (PVU), have now been studied by the federal government for more than 25 years for their ability to trigger earthquakes.The PVU has triggered more than 4,000 quakes since 1990, and scientists can, to at least some degree, control the quakes’ size and frequency, or eliminate them altogether by adjusting the liquid injection rate and pressure. But the real breakthrough is in understanding how the injection wells cause earthquakes. Scientists believe that injection wells cause earthquakes by forcing apart and lubricating already existing faults in the underground rock formation being injected. It has been described as something similar to an air hockey table, where the puck doesn’t slide until the air creates a space between the table’s surface and the puck.The only way for an injection well to cause an earthquake is for it to be located in close proximity to a fault. For this reason, many states, including Colorado, require that disposal wells not be located near faults. Yet, despite this rule, there are hundreds of earthquakes happening around these wells, from Texas to Colorado to North Dakota to New York and Pennsylvania. It’s not that the law is being disregarded.The truth is that the rock formations that we have been pumping our contamination into are not the perfect barriers we have been led to believe. The main threat exposed by the existence of these man-made quakes is not the tremors themselves but rather that unmapped, unknown faults and fissures exist in the very rock formations that we are counting on to protect us forever from some of the 30 trillion gallons of toxic waste we have pumped into the ground to save money on our contamination problems.The truth is, we have no idea when we drill a disposal well whether the rock could one day release those toxins upward towards the surface. While it’s true that companies conduct pressure tests as a precaution, to find faults, it is not a perfect science and faulting problems may not be discovered for years or ever, for that matter. New high-pressure injections force the older contamination farther out into the formation, where natural escape routes like faults may exist relatively far from the location of the original pressure test. A U.S. Geological Survey report says that the see INJECTION WELLS Page 14

March 28, 2013 13

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14 March 28, 2013

area east of the Rocky Mountains “is laced with known faults, but numerous smaller or deeply buried faults remain undetected. Even most of the known faults are poorly located at earthquake depths. Accordingly, few earthquakes east of the Rockies can be linked to named faults. … In most areas east of the Rockies, the best guide to earthquake hazards is the earthquakes themselves.” Translation:The best geologists in the world can’t know that a fault exists thousands of feet below the surface until there is an earthquake that tips them off. So if contamination is escaping through a fault or crack without exerting enough pressure to cause a quake, we might never know it. This potential for unknown and unmapped faults and fractures in rock formations also helps to explain the findings of the two new studies in the Marcellus shale of Pennsylvania, which discovered that salty brine water suspected of originating from the Marcellus shale formation at 15,000 feet is making its way upward and into groundwater aquifers.This is happening even in areas where there has been no gas drilling, which indicates that the liquid is finding naturally occurring pathways from which to make its escape from the deep rock that, theoretically, according to the toxic waste disposal industry and the EPA, should have been inescapable.The researchers who conducted the Marcellus study can’t say how long this upward migration of liquid takes, but they guess it could be anywhere from a few years to more than a century. So the research on earthquakes from injection wells confirms that the inner earth is riddled with unknown faults, fissures and cracks that we can’t detect from the surface. And the findings of the research on the Marcellus shale study proves that liquids, even those from very deep formations, if given enough time, can eventually find an upward route through such geologic weaknesses and reach groundwater. When taken together, this research means that, given enough time, the toxic waste being injected into deep rock formations for permanent

storage could well find its way into our drinking water supply someday. And this is only one of the ways that contamination can escape from injections wells.The EPA, which is charged with inspecting injection wells, has found that thousands leak or are inadequately cased or cemented to the degree that the contamination can migrate to nearby oil and gas wells and escape or simply come up the outside of the disposal wells casing and enter groundwater formations that way. Mario Salazar, an engineer who worked for the EPA for 25 years helping the agency monitor the nation’s 680,000 disposal wells, says the EPA’s underground injection program does not have enough funding to provide enough oversight and enforcement. He adds that even if contamination is detected, it’s difficult to assign blame and determine what caused the leak. “There are very few people looking, and even if they were looking, it’s almost impossible to, first, find a contamination plume and, second, to attribute that contamination plume to a very specific resource,” he says.“A company can fight that forever, because there’s no way to determine if that [contamination] came directly from them or it came from somebody else, or it was present in the natural groundwater to start with. … When you’re about to lose maybe a billion dollars because you did something wrong, you’re going to fight it, especially now that corporations are people. ... Injection wells could be significant in possibly destroying a lot of potable water, or contaminating a lot of potable water.” Salazar says he believes that within a generation or two, most of our groundwater will be contaminated and that quite a few people will suffer. It’s a dire warning from a man in a position to know what he’s talking about. There are other ways to deal with our nation’s toxic pollution than injecting it into the earth, but they are more expensive. Perhaps it’s time to pay up before its too late for all of us, our children and grandchildren. Respond: info@boulderganic.com Parts of this article originally appeared in Boulder Weekly. Jefferson Dodge contributed to this story.

Boulderganic Spring ’13 Boulder Weekly

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Boulderganic Spring ’13 Boulder Weekly

Boulder Creek’s bacteria battle

What high levels of E. coli actually mean for creek users by Casey Flynn

N

Susan France

ot many sunbathers, tubers or other summer users of Boulder Creek know that for the past nine years the creek has had high counts of Escherichia coli (E. coli). From 13th Street to its confluence with South Boulder Creek, in-stream levels have exceeded Colorado water quality standards and have “impaired” it for recreational use. E. coli bacteria live in the intestines of humans and other animals and find their way into water through human and animal feces. When an animal defecates in the creek, or near enough for surface water runoff to carry it in, E. coli can get introduced, and pathogens that cause illness can be transmitted through fecal matter. Plus, it’s generally less enjoyable to go for a swim alongside a flotilla of feces. Public health agencies have long used fecal indicator bacteria such as E. coli to monitor for fecal contamination of recreational waters. Under the Clean Water Act, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) establishes recommended water quality criteria for the amount of E. coli and other pollutants that can be discharged into waterways, which are then adopted by states as water quality standards.When pollutants surpass the standards, the water body becomes “impaired” and requires clean-up action. But don’t panic. E. coli itself is unlikely to make you sick. “One of the fundamental aspects of recreational water quality criteria that a lot of people probably don’t understand is the difference between fecal indicator bacteria and pathogens,” says Jane Clary, senior water resources scientist with Denver-based Wright Water Engineers. “Pathogens are what actually make you sick — like norovirus, cryptosporidium or a pathogenic strain of E. coli. Most E. coli strains are harmless, but are easier to monitor relative to the multitude of individual pathogens.” The validity and usefulness of E. coli as an indicator bacteria has been questioned by many researchers and water quality managers. For example, when the EPA published its 1986 Recreational Water Quality Criteria, it was believed that there were no significant environmental sources of fecal indicator bacteria, and therefore high counts of E. coli indicated recent fecal contamination. Multiple recent studies have since found that E. coli can survive and propagate for relatively long time periods in the environment and can falsely indicate recent contamination. Bacteria have been shown to incubate in stream or storm sewer sediment and be released later during rain events or disturbances. Nonetheless, the EPA stayed with E. coli as an indicator bacteria in its recently updated 2012 Recreational Water Quality Boulder Weekly Boulderganic Spring ’13

Criteria since epidemiological studies did not support selection of an alternative indicator. Another implicit assumption is that research conducted in coastal regions applies to inland flowing waters, like those found in Colorado. Much of the research informing EPA criteria focuses on marine coastal and Great Lakes regions with known human wastewater inputs. For the most part, that’s not what we deal with in Colorado. “In the metro Denver area, the source of elevated E. coli is typically not direct discharges from our wastewater treatment plants,” says Clary. “Most have UV disinfection or chlorination that reduces bacteria to very low concentrations. Sometimes I think there’s a stereotype that we have untreated, filthy wastewater being discharged into streams, and that’s really not what’s happening under most circumstances.” Where’s the contamination coming from then? Potential origins include faulty septic systems, plumbing errors or leakage from wastewater piping into storm sewers, agriculture, domestic pets and wildlife. It requires advanced and expensive techniques to determine whether E. coli measured in streams is from animal or human sources, but it’s an important distinction. According to a 2009 report by the E. coli Work Group of the Colorado Water Quality Forum, “Expert panels convened by EPA and the Water Environment Research Foundation have generally agreed that human sources of bacteria are expected to pose a greater health risk than animals and environmental sources, but have also recommended additional research to better quantify this risk.” Due to the complexity of the issue, EPA did not recommend national-level alternative criteria in 2012 for streams affected primarily by non-human sources of bacteria. All E. coli contamination will continue to be treated as a public health risk unless the source can be definitively determined as non-human and not pathogenic. The EPA is working on tools and guidelines to allow states to develop site-specific standards that take into consideration various sources of bacteria.

Despite the debate around E. coli, the City of Boulder has been trying to comply with Clean Water Act standards since the creek was identified as “impaired” for E. coli in 2004. “We know that E. coli isn’t such a great indicator of pathogens,” says Donna Scott, stormwater quality manager for the City of Boulder. “But we know that nobody really wants to have raccoon poop or dog poop in the creek, and there might be some indications of other pathogens associated with that.” In 2007 the City of Boulder received an EPA grant to investigate pathogen sources and persistence in Boulder Creek.The city partnered with the Colorado School of Mines and U.S. Geological Survey to conduct source tracking experiments using a variety of tools to discern potential sources and identify storm sewer outfall locations that were discharging high levels of E. coli into Boulder Creek. In 2011 the city completed a Total Maximum Daily Load, which was required by the Clean Water Act and represents the maximum amount of E. coli that the creek can receive and still meet water quality standards.The Total Maximum Daily Load allocates allowable loads to various sources of pollutants, such as “point sources” with state discharge permits and “non-point” sources such as agricultural lands. Wildlife and domestic animals — namely raccoons and dogs — are suspected to be the primary sources of E. coli in Boulder Creek. “In the urban environment, we’ve created this perfect habitat for raccoons,” Scott says. “It offers them shelter and food from trash cans and whatnot and protection from predation because all they have to do is run into the storm sewer system.” Last summer, the city conducted a pilot study to determine if raccoon waste was contributing to high levels of E. coli coming from a small basin into Boulder Creek. Researchers blocked off entry locations to the sewer system so raccoons couldn’t get in, then washed out the system and monitored bacteria levels. E. coli plummeted to almost zero and has stayed there since. City officials are looking into further efforts to reduce the appeal and accessibility of storm sewers for raccoon habitat. E. coli may or may not mean pathogens, but the city still wants to clean up the creek, and they’re using a full tool box to do so. “We know it’s high, we know it exceeds standards,” says Scott. “We don’t know if it’s a public health risk, so we’re doing what’s smart — managing pet waste and wildlife impacts and educating people.” Respond: info@boulderganic.com March 28, 2013 17

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Boulderganic Spring ’13 Boulder Weekly

Where the grass isn’t greener

Indoor marijuana growing can consume large amounts of energy by Steve Weishampel

I

ndoor marijuana grow operations aren’t as green as the weed they produce. According to data from Xcel Energy and estimates from those familiar with indoor growing, a single light used to grow 16 square feet of pot consumes about half as much energy as the average Colorado house in a one-month time frame. That’s according to the average electricity usage of a home in the state, which is 632 kilowatt hours (kWh) in a month, according to Xcel. A single grow light, meanwhile, uses 360 kWh a month, according to Don Ellis, a salesperSusan France son at Boulder’s Way to Grow store, which sells gardening and greenhouse equipment. A 2011 scientific study by California researcher Evan Mills reached a similar conclusion on a nationwide scale. Mills, who works as a scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory but performed the pot study independently, found that a single 4-foot-by-4-foot “module” — not just lighting but ventilation, air conditioning and all other electricity uses — consumes as much electricity as an average U.S. home. Mills writes in his study, published in April 2012 in Energy Policy, “indoor cannabis production results in energy expenditures of $6 billion each year — six times that of the entire U.S. pharmaceutical industry — with electricity use equivalent to that of 2 million average U.S. homes.” Ellis says Way to Grow simply sells indoor gardening equipment and doesn’t cater specifically to pot growers, but the store’s lights and climate control equipment are appropriate for growing weed. He says the most powerful and most commonly used bulb is one kilowatt (kW), or 1,000 watts. While Ellis tries to avoid speaking specifically about marijuana growing, he says a one-kW bulb for 12 hours a day is standard for growing most things indoors. Other sources confirmed that’s the usual Boulder Weekly Boulderganic Spring ’13

amount of time to give light to marijuana plants indoors. In one hour, that one-kW bulb will use one kWh of energy. In a day, it will use 12 kWh, and in a month, 360 kWh. At that point, that single bulb can be compared to the average residential power use in a month. Mark Stutz, a spokesperson for Xcel, says the company’s average residential usage in Colorado is 632 kWh per month. A spokesperson for Longmont Power & Communications says the 2012 residential average was 738 kWh in that city. Thus the comparison: one light uses 360, one Colorado house 632. But how many lights are in use in a warehouse marijuana growing operation? Ron Richardson of Victory Hydro Gardening, which also sells lights, hoods and other growing equipment, estimates an average Boulder warehouse runs 50 lights. He says 100 in Boulder would be a mediumto-large operation and would be “considered small” in Denver. So, if two lights equal one Colorado house, an average Boulder County marijuana warehouse uses the energy of 25 Colorado homes on its lights alone. Among the arresting facts in Mills’ study was a comparison to indoor greenhouses: Mills says an average greenhouse spends $5 per square foot on energy, and indoor marijuana growers spend $55 per square foot. As for residential growing operations, not much is known. But in one arrest in 2011 in California, police found that a growing operation inside a house was using 4,676 kWh of power in a month — more than seven times Xcel’s Colorado average. By the way, home growers: Stutz points out that Xcel doesn’t share residential power usage with law enforcement without “some legal documentation for the need for the information.” That

myth about Xcel catching you using tons of energy and telling the feds is just that — a myth. But growing marijuana requires more than just lights. Ellis says the lights are “probably the most predictable thing, since those are running for set amounts of time.” He also lists heating and air conditioning, fans to circulate air, air filters and pest control as energy consumers. “Absolutely, the lights would be the biggest cost,” Ellis says. “From there, a fan isn’t pulling near a thousand watts. It’s maybe pulling 50 to 100 watts on a fan. Air conditioners might be up there, if you’re running several lights and you can’t use the outside air to cool your room.” A single air conditioning unit can use as much energy as a light bulb, but can have less impact if air can be circulated in other ways. “Air conditioning might be in the range of 1,000 to 1,500 watts,” he says. “So it’s not uncommon for an air conditioner to be drawing as much as a light, but those aren’t as frequently used except for planning a professional system.” Mills’ study says 33 percent of the carbon footprint of indoor-grown marijuana is the lighting, with ventilation and dehumidifying equipment accounting for 27 percent, air conditioning 19 percent and vehicles 12 percent. The energy use of indoor growing “corresponds to 1 percent of national electricity consumption or 2 percent of that in households,” Mills writes. “The yearly greenhouse-gas pollution (carbon dioxide, CO2) from the electricity plus associated transportation fuels equals that of 3 million cars.” The study also tackles solutions, though Mills says it’s not as simple as legalizing the drug. Pot’s criminal status has led to “energy inefficiencies in the process,” he writes, as some growers keep their plants inside to hide from cops and use “noise and odor suppression measures that undercut ventilation efficiencies.” He also notes that off-grid generators that run on diesel or conventional fuel can be extremely inefficient. The study suggests that growing marijuana outside can drastically cut or even eliminate the plant’s huge imprint on the energy grid. Unfortunately, as he notes, marijuana is grown indoors for year-round yields, higher potency and greater control, not just to hide the plant from law enforcement. Respond: info@boulderganic.com March 28, 2013 19

The brighter side of wildfires

Scientists recognize importance of ‘black carbon’ in Colorado forests by Cecelia Gilboy

J

ust five days before the High Park rado history. As black carbon’s potential uses are Fire hit his home last summer, uncovered, Boulder County officials say they are Mark Palke had signed official considering producing it to add to soils where fires papers to buy the land he and his can’t be allowed to burn. partners had been farming, renting In Colorado, where many homes are near and building alternative homes on for two years. forests, last year’s fire season caused record de“The first feeling I had was helplessness,” he says. struction. More than 300 Colorado Springs homes “The geodomes all burned. One didn’t, but a burned burned to the ground in the Waldo Canyon Fire last tree fell on it a few days later.” June alone, breaking the record set a week earlier Then the insurance company balked over techni- when more than 250 homes were lost in the High calities. The team began rebuilding anyway. Park Fire. This summer isn’t predicted to be any “It was nonstop stress and work and smoke better, says Chad Julian, senior resource specialist on and ash for a month and forestry and fire at Boulder Michelle Haddix a half, with no electricity,” County Parks and Open Palke recounts. “But we got Space. June is the most pretty lucky, compared to concerning month for the our neighbors.” Front Range again, he said, Some of the farm’s based on modeling weather structures survived, while patterns in early March. the neighbors’ homes were “In the past several burned to the ground, thousand years, we’ve never stranding one family with had three wildfire seasons 5-year-old twins. like this, back-to-back like As a farmer, Palke found this,” he says. “Patterns are a silver lining: the fire’s starting to show effects of ashes. Inside his partially climate change.” melted greenhouse, tomato Boulder County is plants were nearly buried in conducting “restoration wet ash when rain rushed projects,” including mechanin. ical removal of some trees Weeks later, the tomato to reduce fuel for fires. plants exploded in a frenzy Preventing and fighting of growth. Now, the team wildfires is necessary to At a field research site burned by the High Park Fire, a Colorado State University researcher uses the ash deposited in save lives and homes, but it collects data for a new study. basins on their land. They interferes with the natural mix it into their soil, like fire cycle, other experts say. compost, for added nutrients. “Fire is the primary driver of organic matter The devastating wildfires that rage through cycling in our Western forests,” Licata says. “From a Colorado produce this sooty black stuff that’s getfire ecologist standpoint, in the absence of humans, ting scientists excited. Black carbon, which includes we need to let those fires burn. … If you can’t let charcoal and other matter, as well as other burned a fire burn, the only answer is to mimic Mother material, has been “overlooked for many years,” Nature through the use of chainsaws and things like according to Christopher Licata, who has a Ph.D. in prescribed fires to reduce fuel.” biology from the University of Denver. Boulder County foresters do use chainsaws in “It was just something that blackened the Open Space forests, reducing fuel for fires, accordlandscape,” says Licata, a regional expert on wildfire- ing to Julian. But when trees are felled, not burned, produced charcoal. Now, it’s the subject of a new the natural charcoal is never created. And in forests, study by Colorado State University in Fort Collins, charcoal matters. A 2011 study compared patches of near where, in 2012, the High Park Fire burned the burnt ground:The more charcoal present, the more second-largest area of any fire in recorded Colopine seedlings germinated there, suggesting that char20 March 28, 2013

coal plays a significant role in forest regeneration. “We’re finding relationships every day in terms of the importance of charcoal,” says Licata, who studies charcoal produced by Front Range wildfires. Charcoal allows soil to store nutrients that could otherwise be washed away, he says, and makes nutrients available that are needed for new trees to germinate.Those nutrients are usually made available by the teeming mosh pit of underground organisms that scientists call the “soil community.” And charcoal helps that productive soil community grow, scientists agree. When charcoal was added to soil samples in Senior Scientist Francesca Cotrufo’s lab at Colorado State University, it increased the size of the microbial community, she says. Cotrufo’s new study, according to a Feb. 7 press release, aims to discover the portion of a wildfire’s burned material that becomes black carbon in the soil instead of being washed away or released to the atmosphere, and what that black carbon does in the soil. “Understanding black carbon can be significant for management,” Cotrufo says. Her interest in black carbon in soil was inspired by her research on the ancient, rediscovered land management tool called “biochar.” Biochar is a type of black carbon that’s produced by smoldering organic material without letting much oxygen get involved. Ancient Amazonian civilizations charred their waste and buried it to increase soil fertility. The scientist most often credited with bringing biochar into mainstream research is Johannes Lehmann, a soil science professor at Cornell University. “Biochar can be a game-changer because it improves the ability of soil to retain nutrients,” Lehmann says. Black carbon produced by wildfires could similarly help soil, he says, by helping soil communities grow and by keeping nutrients from washing away. Black carbon also sticks around after settling down in soil, Lehmann explains, and resists getting converted to carbon dioxide, one of the greenhouse gases affecting the atmosphere. How that could affect climate change is a question raised by Cotrufo’s study. Knowing how much charcoal lingers after a fire, she says, will help scientists understand its role in the global carbon cycle. Its role isn’t necessarily positive for climate change, Lehmann says, because a burning tree produces far more carbon dioxide than black carbon. Boulderganic Spring ’13 Boulder Weekly

But given black carbon’s longevity in soil, where it keeps that carbon out of the atmosphere, it’s hard to determine the net effect on climate change. “That jury is still out,” Lehmann says. But one type of black carbon, biochar, also traps carbon safely in the soil, he says — and can be made without releasing nearly as much carbon dioxide as burning wood. “Managers are burning trees affected by pine beetles,” he says. “Maybe we should be charring it rather than just burning it.” Boulder County officials are considering it. Julian and Parks and Open Space Natural Resource Manager Therese Glowacki visited a biochar company called Biochar Now on March 8, and Glowacki says they’re interested in it as a way to use wood that isn’t “suitable” for the biomass energy that heats county buildings and a way to reduce the wood that’s being burned in slash piles or in the county’s “air curtain burner,” where some trees are sent after they’re removed to reduce fire risk or beetle infestation. “But you can’t just go buy a biochar maker,” she says. It’s not commercially available yet. But making biochar isn’t impossible. “The difference between fire and charring is practically to put a lid on it,” Lehmann says. If county officials decide where and how to char, biochar could enter our soils. “Biochar is a great soil amendment, and not a chemical,” Glowacki says. “It has been shown to be pretty effective on hard-to-reclaim sites.” Her first choice would be using it on Boulder County’s agricultural land, she says, but she would also consider putting it on the forest floor. The studies on biochar’s effects on forests are happening now, according to other scientists. Licata is working on research that, when published, will help guide foresters hoping to mimic natural fire cycles through additions of charcoal. “Looking at the big picture,” Glowacki says, “forests used to burn and leave char.” Now, when they do burn, they burn intensely. The 2012 Waldo Canyon Fire burned so hotly for five square miles that no roots survived in the top four inches of soil, wildfire experts say.

“There’s the idea that biochar might actually be able to be used for remediation for soil after fire,” says Cotrufo, who may soon collaborate with the Forest Service to test this idea, pending funding. Additional black carbon could theoretically help forest recovery. If heavy rain follows the fire, like it followed the Waldo Canyon and High Park Fires, land managers could

Boulder Weekly Boulderganic Spring ’13

potentially rehabilitate areas by adding black carbon after the fire’s soot washes away. But the feasibility of applying black carbon in the field remains unclear, Cotrufo says. Licata agrees. “Conceptually, that works great on paper,” he says. “In practice, charcoal or biochar can actually be very difficult to handle. It can embed itself in the tissues of lungs. We’ve tried making a

slurry out of it, almost like a mud, and using a conveyor belt. We haven’t quite talked about it at a landscape level.” But it has been successfully applied near Aspen, he says, where it has absorbed toxic chemicals from mine tailings in water. “It’s still an open question,” Cotrufo says. “But it is promising.” Respond: info@boulderganic.com

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Boulderganic Spring ’13 Boulder Weekly

Space for change

Coworking spaces sustain entrepreneurial community by Erica Lindberg

C

Erica Lindberg

offee shops have long held with the agility and the momentum and abilthe independent worker ity to work with profits that came from the captive to promises of for-profit world,” says Lauren Higgins, lead caffeine-induced productivhost and community curator at HUB Boulder. ity and a sense of social HUB members attack tough questions interaction, but perhaps fall short of being a together, like, “How do I pay my bills while sustainable work space. “Coworking” offices doing good?” which invites an open conversaare popping up across town as professiontion on finding sustainable work that feeds als recognize a need for collaborative work the soul and creating businesses that do good, spaces in one of the densest entrepreneurial Berry says. cities in the country. “We know, as a community, that we’re Coworking spaces are not your typical on edge, that we’re simultaneously envisionoffices. You won’t find any cubicles and there ing a world we want to live in, but have to are no bosses. A mobile application developbuild the infrastructure for that at the same er might work at the same table as a natural time,” Higgins says. “Exposure to a comfoods marketer, both sharing one common munity grappling with similar problems and denominator: a sense of a professional comchallenges allows people to get to work Annie Waterman works from her laptop early on a Friday morning munity. on these problems and figure out solutions from HUB Boulder’s coworking office on Walnut and Broadway. Boulder has a thriving start-up commutogether.” nity because people want to help each other A study done by a group of independent out, but entrepreneurs need to know each have the fastest Wi-Fi, the coolest Ikea furniture scientists from Carnegie Mellon University other before they can collaborate, says Greg Berry, and hip art on the walls, but none of that really and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology co-founder of HUB Boulder, a coworking space matters,” says Bruce Borowsky, co-founder of shows that when people work in groups, their established last year in downtown Boulder. Boulder Digital Arts, established in 2004. “What collective intelligence nearly doubles compared to One in three U.S. workers meet in a third matters is the community you build.” the average member intelligence. work place, neither an office or at home, accordAnd a professional looking for a co-working Traditional corporate offices are looking for ing to Berry. office may find that one suits his needs or desires access to spaces stimulating collective intelligence “That’s why we’re seeing a blow-up in cowork- for a certain kind of community better than the instead of cubicles. ing spaces,” Berry says. “It’s because more and other, Borowsky says. “They realize having just a few desks in a more companies are hiring temps, there are more Colab, Co-Motion, Fuse and Scrib are open to coworking space offers them incredible access and more consultants out there. ... There are entrepreneurs from a wide variety of industries. to a vibrant community when looking for new more and more people that need a community.” Boulder Digital Arts coworking space is specifiapproaches on their products, services and invenCoworking is a way to make real-life, profestions,” Higgins says. cally designed for digital creatives. There are corporate offices — such as Google sional connections for people whose work may “I might come in here to do some work on in Boulder — modeled much like a coworking make them feel isolated. one thing and end up meeting someone who will space, with a focus on innovation, sharing and creCurrently, six different coworking spaces exist later design a website for me ... What works for ativity, but it’s different when you de-centralize, in Boulder: Boulder Digital Arts, Colab, Boulder us is keeping it for creative digital professionals,” Higgins says. Co-Motion, Fuse, HUB Boulder and Scribs. The Borowsky says. “It would be diluted if you had “When you have a community that is deSpaces Co-Working Alliance network connects all that bigger picture thing.” centralized, that chooses to work together, you of the coworking spaces in Boulder County and Working around like-minded people encourinherently have a much deeper diversity of ideas helps potential coworkers find the right space. ages people, according to Borowsky. and projects that are not specifically centralized, The alliance also hosts collaborative events to “You have to think, when you’re at home, what and that really changes the dynamic,” she says. raise awareness for networking and coworking. are your distractions or motivations?” he says. Community dynamics and collaboration are Each coworking space focuses on building its At HUB Boulder, the focus is on building comthe driving forces behind coworking, both Berry own unique coterie. Some coworking spaces offer munity based on an idea — not a profession. The and Borowsky say. other perks with a membership. Colab and Scrib founders of HUB Boulder are trying to be a sup“The potential for people to collaborate has include bus passes with some membership opport system for people doing impactful work. tions, while HUB Boulder and Boulder Co-Motion “Unique to HUB is this movement of what we always been there,” Borowsky says. “It’s just a boast active calendars full of a variety of events. call impact or for benefit, which means companies matter of how you make it work.” Respond: info@boulderganic.com “To be a good co-working space you could are hybridizing the best of the non-profit services Boulder Weekly Boulderganic Spring ’13

March 28, 2013 23

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Boulderganic Spring ’13 Boulder Weekly

Anndrea Hermann

W

hile marijuana advocates celebrated the success of Amendment 64 in the November election, other cannabis aficionados began focusing on something new: farming hemp legally. Hemp industry leaders are starting to discuss opportunities for growing hemp in Colorado as state officials continue to plan how it will be regulated. Hemp is a fibrous material extracted from the stem of a cannabis plant that can be used for a wide variety of products like food, oils and building materials, according to Tom Murphy, national outreach coordinator for Vote Hemp. Under current regulations, hemp must be imported by Erica Lindberg into the United States, which is not sustainable or cost-effective, he says. “It would be much better to grow hemp close of materials and does not contain high levels of to a building site and process it locally,” Murphy tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). says. “We’re talking about cultural diversification. Unlike marijuana, which is typically cultivated There is a large market that is to be had on the through cloning, hemp is propagated by plantfiber textiles side, on the human product side and ing seed and through pollination, according to building application,” Hermann says. “This would Anndrea Hermann, president of the Hemp Indusbe an opportunity for diversification of farming tries Association. Hemp is grown to have large, systems and the opportunity to cultivate a crop fibrous stalks that can be processed into a variety that is, as of now, only allowed as an import.”

The fiber side of cannabis

Amendment 64 legalizes industrial hemp farming in Colorado

Boulder Weekly Boulderganic Spring ’13

Growing hemp alongside marijuana might boost the farming industry, but the two don’t play nicely with each other. “Cross pollination is a risk because hemp has pollen,” Hermann says. “Leaving male plants in the fields does pose a risk where industrial hemp could pollinate the female marijuana plants.” A potential cannabis clash is a risk hemp industry leaders are considering. “As far as hemp pollen goes, it does travel a reasonable distance, but I believe most marijuana is grown indoors, so it won’t be a major factor,” says Eric Steenstra, executive director of the Hemp Initiative Association. “If marijuana growers are growing outdoors, they will be pollinated and it is something we’ll need to look into.” The possibility for industrial hemp farming has never been more realistic. Amendment 64 concertedly addresses marijuana and hemp by declaring the two should be regulated separately and mandates that the Colorado General Assembly set up regulations for industrial hemp farming no later than July 1, 2014, according to Ron Carleton, deputy commissioner for the Colorado Department of Agriculture. see HEMP Page 26

March 28, 2013 25

HEMP from Page 25

Currently it is against federal law to grow any derivative of cannabis, including hemp, containing less than 0.03 percent THC, the psychoactive chemical in cannabis. “Under federal rules, hemp and marijuana are treated exactly the same,” Carleton says. “What [Amendment 64] has done is it declares industrial hemp should be regulated separately.” According to the definitions set by Amendment 64, “‘marijuana’ or ‘marihuana’ does not include industrial hemp, nor does it include fiber produced from the stalks, oil or cake made from the seeds of the plant, sterilized seed of the plant which is incapable of germination, or the weight of any other ingredient combined with marijuana to prepare topical or oral administrations, food, drink, or other product.” The distinction is key. “It is important for the public to understand that the market cannot develop properly until federal law is changed, allowing domestic sources of pedigreed seed, crop insurance and support and research from Colorado agriculture universities and the U.S. Department of Agriculture into hemp varieties which will grow well in Colorado,” Steenstra says. Drawing a line between hemp and marijuana can allow for new industry in the United States — starting in Colorado. Carleton, who serves on the Amendment 64 implementation task force, says rough drafts for regulation of the hemp industry have already begun and the task force has urged the General Assembly to make a decision this session and not wait until 2014. “What the final provisions are going to be is still unclear. We’ll 26 March 28, 2013

have to wait and see how that bill proceeds,” Carleton says. “But I think that we’re all moving forward with hemp ... [hemp industry standards] will be implemented and put into place.” The federal response to industrial hemp growing in Colorado is unclear, but if regulated strictly and appropriately, Carleton says he doesn’t think it will be a big issue. “In the case of marijuana, the federal government has approached it in different ways depending on how strictly regulated it is in a particular state. They have pretty much left Colorado alone because we do have a fairly rigorous system of operations,” Carleton says. “I don’t know that there is a 100 percent fool-proof system, but I think Colorado has always been very good at being strict and careful.” Federal legalization of hemp may not be too far behind Colorado. The Industrial Hemp Farming Act was first introduced to Congress in 2007 by Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, and again in 2009. Both times the bill was assigned to a committee but never received a hearing or floor vote. The Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2013 was introduced to the House of Representatives and the Senate in February. If passed, it would exclude industrial hemp from the definition of marijuana and allow people to grow it legally in the United States. “While support is growing, it is unlikely to pass this year,” according to Jen Clanahan, an aide to Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Denver, a cosponsor of the bill. The bill was referred to committees as of late March. Respond: info@boulderganic.com

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Boulderganic Spring ’13 Boulder Weekly

Yoga for the common folk

Local yoga teacher takes yoga to needy, low-income populations by Meredith J. Graham

T

abitha Farrar places her hands “We also offer yoga therapy, and those classes and feet on her mat in the are private to the organization we’re working with, downward-facing dog position and tailored to them,” she continues. and releases a deep breath. For instance, when she’s in front of a class of When her face appears again, a teenage boys at Boulder’s Family Learning Center, smile breaks out. Her co-worker and, for the moshe finds her traditional style of slow, meditative ment, yoga classmate, is squirming next to her while teaching doesn’t quite work. Ted Nugent plays in the background and the sound “The first time I taught at the Family Learning of glasses clinking and laughing rings out from the Center was for a class of 14-year-old football players. brewery bar in the next room. I walked in the room and they were literally leapFarrar is no stranger to unconventional yoga frogging over each other — their energy level was classes.The laid-back 31-year-old has been teaching through the roof,” Farrar recalls. “At first I thought, in various unconventional places around Boulder ‘I don’t know if this is going to work.’ Then I went County for the past year and a half.That’s when she straight into power yoga, and after about 20 minutes started her nonprofit, Angel Organic, with a mission their energy dropped way down, and by the end I to offer yoga to underwas able to do a threeserved populations — in Meredith J. Graham minute meditation and other words, not just they all actually did it.” middle-class women That moment that with gym or studio sticks in Farrar’s mind as memberships. an early success story. “Sunshine brought Her goal of reaching me to Boulder,” Farrar people through movesays in her native British ment and meditation and accent. “And I saw that bringing about a positive Boulder was so full of change seemed possible. yoga studios and yoga “I was gobsmacked,” teachers, but no one was she says. “I mean, I know teaching to those people yoga works and I was who need it most.” shocked.” From left, Tabitha Farrar and Stacey Mulvey participating in the beerasana class taught by newcomer and So Farrar, who says That moment was Outlaw Yoga founder Mark Stefanowski. yoga saved her from a followed by others, and devastating exercise disFarrar was quickly able order, came up with the idea of starting a nonprofit. to grow her organization from offering just a few She reached out to other community organizations classes to 18 classes a week. with a similar goal of healing: those working with the One of those classes is offered to the Rocky homeless, veterans, cancer survivors, the disabled, Mountain Team Survivor Group in Boulder, a group victims of domestic violence and at-risk youth. Many of women who have either survived cancer or are among these groups either don’t seek out yoga or currently going through treatment. Dora Briegleb, may not have the financial means to take classes. volunteer executive director of the nonprofit’s “We do community yoga classes that are open board and a cancer survivor herself, describes it as a to the public and free,” Farrar says over a beer after support group that unites through physical activthe hour-long “beerasana” community class at Asher ity.The group meets each week for a walk along Brewing Company in Gunbarrel. Angel Organic Boulder Creek and then on to the senior center for hosts beerasana there the last Tuesday of each their yoga session. month. Farrar jokes that she got the idea to hold a “What it does for us is, after we go on a vigorclass at a brewery after her husband, Matt, said he ous walk, it relaxes us, it stretches us, it complewouldn’t take a yoga class unless he could combine ments what we’re doing,” Briegleb says. “As a it with beer. survivor, you have concerns about your well-being, Boulder Weekly Boulderganic Spring ’13

your mortality; recurrence is possible.With yoga you get the benefit physically but also mentally, emotionally and even spiritually. It has been a very positive experience.” Briegleb says it’s not uncommon to be approached — like she was by Farrar — by someone who wants to offer a free class or service to her organization. Many times, though, those interactions turn out to be ploys for potential paying clients and the experience rubs her the wrong way.That was not the case with Farrar. “I’m just thrilled with her generosity of spirit, not only to us but to other needy groups who might not have the money and time to take yoga in this town,” she says. “She’s very generous. She’s never asked us for anything. She has this vision of how yoga can transform your life.” “I volunteer because of the mission — movement transforms and adds value to your life, and access to that should not just be for the privileged,” says Stacey Mulvey, who teaches weekly classes for Angel Organic at Prana. “I used to be completely sedentary. I worked at a desk. And I went through my own journey to find movement.That’s what inspired me to be a teacher.” Mulvey also had the opportunity to teach at Camp Paradox, near Ft. Collins, which was geared toward underserved populations and included a mix of disabled adults, veterans and their families. “We camped together, we did a ropes course together and did trust exercises,” she remembers. “And then I was teaching them yoga.” What resonated the most for her was the transformation among the veterans, most of whom had never done yoga before. “At the end, we talked about our experience, and one guy said it was the first time since coming back from Iraq when he’d been in a group of people and hadn’t gotten into a fight with anyone,” she says. Farrar says she hopes to have more opportunities for classes, like one for people in wheelchairs. She’s fundraising to buy special equipment. Of course, Farrar adds, she would also like to be able to afford a studio and office space. But for now, she’s content to let the organization grow organically. What it really comes down to is reaching people. “If we can heal people on an individual level,” she says, “we will have a happier community.” Respond: info@boulderganic.com March 28, 2013 29

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Boulderganic Spring ’13 Boulder Weekly

Road race training for the green, lean and seasoned Experts offer advice as the running season gets under way by Jessie Lucier

A

s spring moved in with warmer temperatures and budding flowers, it also brought a noticeable increase in runners hitting the trails and roadways to up their endurance, pace and distance.Yes, Boulderites, the first wave of 2013 road races is upon us. You may be a newbie to running, or a somewhat seasoned runner with a few long races under your running shoes, or perhaps you are a veteran runner looking to develop a new personal best. Regardless of fitness level and running prowess, tips from experts can help runners of all levels better their performances. Here, three local personal trainers offer some solid advice on training and nutrition to help up stamina and hit personal goals.

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ALL RUNNERS TAKE HEED Whether you’re preparing for your first race or have been training for years, coaches and trainers consistently repeat the same fundamental advice — be mindful about nutrition and calorie intake, ensure that you’re allowing for proper rest and recovery time and, regardless of level, spend time working with a coach or personal trainer. Following these recommendations can help prevent injury and improve performance. “Treat yourself like an athlete,” says Michael Cancilla, personal trainer and group instructor for the city parks and recreation departments of Boulder and Longmont. Cancilla explains that eating well and getting proper rest are essential to performance. In fitness, the “window of opportunity” to eat occurs 30-60 minutes pre- and post-workout, says Cancilla. Within these windows, consume foods high in protein and quality carbohydrates, such as apples, bananas, almonds, yogurt, peanut butter and whey protein shakes. Disregard hype about carb-loading and, instead, eat wholesome and healthy portions of carbohydrates, fat and protein, says Jerry Hernandez, health and wellness coordinator for the YMCA of Boulder Valley Mapleton Center. Protein, particularly, is important for athletes, as cardio depletes lean muscle mass and protein helps to repair and build muscle and supports bone health. Learn your basal metabolic rate — the amount Boulder Weekly Boulderganic Spring ’13

of calories you burn daily by just sitting idly — and then tack on the calories required to meet the energy needs of your training, says Matt Hoskins, performance fitness coach and owner of Cheetahfit Training & Wellness Center. Hoskins explains that many athletes blow it on calories, and inefficient calorie intake can lead to the body depleting rather than building muscle. “Many athletes think we can eat like normal people and still train and compete well by maybe throwing in a gel,” says Hoskins. “But we really need to up calorie intake to meet energy needs.” Stay hydrated to avoid cramps, and maintain consistent water intake throughout the day, not just within the hours before and after a workout. All trainers stress the importance of avoiding or aggravating injury and explain that recovering properly is an important part of the training process. Cancilla recommends increasing the quality of resting periods and sleep and staying off the feet when not training. He also suggests periodic spans of “active recovery” after weeks of peak training. “You ramp up for a few weeks and then reduce your activity for a week — this is called active recovery, which means you give your body a breather while it’s still actively working,” he says. “Recovery time is key,” agrees Hoskins, who recommends prioritizing hours and days off. He suggests athletes identify minimal recovery time before considering training volume and creating their training schedule. “Recovery is so important,” says Hoskins. “With-

out it, you are constantly breaking down and stressing the system.” Finally, all three trainers emphasize the value of working with a trainer or coach. For beginners, an expert provides the guidance needed to develop proper form, running gait and technique, all of which can maximize performance and help avoid injuries. People new to fitness can also learn a wide variety of exercises. At intermediate and advanced levels, a trainer provides a more structured program that focuses on workouts with real intention and purpose, explains Cancilla. A trainer can also be imperative to helping an athlete (re)discover proper technique and form. People begin running, and some realize they enjoy it and have an aptitude for it. They begin training more often and harder and may end up participating in elite races without any formal coaching. It takes 500 repetitions of a movement to engrain a pattern into the nervous system, says Hoskins, but it takes roughly 5,000 repetitions of a new movement to correct an old pattern. This is where a trainer becomes vital in helping an athlete pinpoint and correct inefficient and potentially harmful mechanics. Every individual is different and is going to need a specific training regimen, says Hoskins. It is rarely so simple as a couple of weeks — if the pattern has been engrained for many years, a body may need a total rebuild.

RUNNING GREEN You’ve been saying for years that you’re going to get in better shape and run the Bolder Boulder — the difference between past years and today is that now you really mean it. Beginners should focus on long-slow duration training and run at an easy pace twice a week for at least 45 minutes. This creates a baseline for all endurance athletes as their bodies adjust to running long distances, explains Hernandez. It’s the least intense mode of training, but it’s the foundation needed to get a body used to the stress of more advanced, subsequent training. Developing a strong core and engaging in resistance training is essential. “Your core is your foundation,” explains Hersee TRAINING Page 32

March 28, 2013 31

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TRAINING from Page 31

nandez. “If you don’t have a strong core, you’re likely going to be weak at everything you try to do. It affects the performance of all athletes, from baseball pitchers to football players to cyclists. And it certainly affects runners.” While Hernandez says that basic crunches and sit-ups are important to core health, he suggests incorporating other exercises into workouts, such as planks, bird dogs and reverse bridges. He also stresses the importance of working the obliques and using slow, controlled movements. For resistance training, hit the gym a couple of times a week to engage in exercises such as dead lifts and squats.

TREADING TO TRANSITION You’ve run a few races longer than a 5K and hit a trail or treadmill for a 5-mile run at least three or four times a week, but have you advanced to the status of intermediate runner? To be classified as intermediate, a person should have a basic fitness level that includes running 5 miles at least three to four times a week, a longer 10-mile run at an easy pace once a week, should be easily hitting 15-20 miles a week and must be coachable, explains Cancilla. The primary focuses of intermediate runners are to increase mileage, pace and endurance.To do so, Cancilla suggests not only training harder, but also smarter. He recommends increasing mileage no more than 10 percent a week and sprinkling in some speed work to slowly get used to a faster pace for longer periods of time. Most important for this level, though, is to increase the long run. Cancilla suggests working within an 18-week training program that starts with a 10-mile-long run and gradually increases distance to 20 miles around week 11. He also suggests peaking at a total of 50 miles a week and to get there by strategically adding a mile or two weekly. “The idea is to get time under your feet,” explain Cancilla. “But, you want to do it gradually so your body gets it and you don’t end up overwhelmed.” Also, be prepared to cut your mileage and training way back in the

weeks just before a long race, says Hernandez. This allows for necessary muscle repair and body recovery. For about half of your training regiment, one day should be reserved for some type of cross-training that keeps you off your feet, like swimming or cycling, says Cancilla. Stay focused on straightforward, linear movements. At about week nine, Cancilla recommends replacing the day of crosstraining with either rest or a 3- to 4-mile run to increase weekly mileage. He suggests returning to cross-training during the off-season to shore up weaknesses and imbalances.

THE VETERAN ROAD RUNNER You’ve racked up impressive times and mileage and may have won an elite race or two, but that alone may not be enough to qualify you as an advanced runner, says Hoskins, who coaches world-class athletes.A runner must pass a biomechanics test — meaning that there is synergy between mind and body and that the body is performing economically and efficiently.They must be able to learn new movements and make changes.A key attribute of an advanced runner is coachability. At the advanced level, efficiency, economy of motion and a focus on compensating for weak areas of performance are key. “Focus on proper running mechanics in a meaningful way,” Hoskins says. He explains that it’s imperative that athletes train their brains to dial into their own biomechanics and form moment to moment. Doing so makes it possible to create better running economy and efficiency of motion and enables athletes to develop the ability to run faster using the same energy expenditure once used to produce a slower time. “Focusing on the brain-to-body connection to achieve running economy also leads to less injury and better recovery,” Hoskins says. “If the advanced runner is biomechanically efficient, several things occur. The body is in alignment, creating less stress on the muscles and joints. Power leaks are eliminated, particularly in the hips, and that leads to better power and stability.” Respond: info@boulderganic.com

Boulderganic Spring ’13 Boulder Weekly

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The earth friendly choice ExpEriEncE ExpEriEncE AnD AnD ExpErtisE ExpErtisE JUST JUST For For YoU YoU

We’re We’re much much more more thanthan just just a flooring a flooring store. store. From From the moment the moment youyou set foot set foot inside inside our our showroom, you’ll discover prompt, professional, experienced service. From freefree showroom, you’ll discover prompt, professional, experienced service. From If you If don’t you don’t love love it, it, Greystone Trussville Vestavia Did you your flooring choices can help make our world a better place? flooring estimates to know expert flooring installation, our team is always available to offer flooring estimates to expert flooring installation, our team is always available to offer we’ll we’ll replace replace it. it. 2827 Greystone Comm. Blvd. 1465 Gadsden Hwy. 1432 Montgomery Hwy. PHONE: 991-1082 PHONE: 655-8777 PHONE: 822-4334 G u a G r u a n r t a e n e t d e . ed. friendly, dependable service you can relyrely on for flooring questions. friendly, dependable service can onall foryour all your flooring questions. Look for floors with ouryou GREEN SELECT LABEL, including naturally renewable cork,

Did you know your flooring choices can help make our world a better place? beautiful bamboo, tile, hardwoods and carpet that meet our earth-friendly standards. For aSELECT free room measure andincluding financing pre-approval visitrenewable CarpetOne.com. THREE EASY WAYS TO for SHOP. Look floors with our GREEN LABEL, naturally FrEE FrEE Pre-Measures Pre-Measures And And Estimates Estimates Follow Follow us: us:cork, GUARANTEE A Green Commitment beautiful bamboo, tile, hardwoods and carpet that meet earth-friendly standards. * onour In addition to providing of Green Select ® ® products, we are for our customers with a wide selection any new floor FLOOR FLOOR also committed to taking action in our stores and communities to actively make the world a & HOME & HOME * cleaner responsible any floor CARPET • HARDW O O Dand•healthier V I N Yplace. L • We T Ifeel Lfor E this • isLan A important M I N ATpart E •of being A N Don M O Rnew E citizens. 6367 6367 arapahoe arapahoe ave. ave. ◆ Boulder ◆ Boulder ◆ 303-449-0011 ◆ 303-449-0011 ◆ www.carpetone.com ◆ www.carpetone.com IN-STORE

1.800.CARPET.1 1.800.CARPET.1

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LIFETIME INSTALLATION †

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NOMcDonald PAYMENTS ONE YEAR McDonald CARPET CARPET ONE ONE NO PAYMENTS ONE YEAR

*On all products. Subject to credit approval. Financing provided by CitiFinancial Retail Services Division of Citicorp Trust Bank, fsb. Finance charges begin to accrue at the time of purchase. No monthly payments required during the promotional period. Payment of amount financed in full must be received prior to the expiration of the promotional period in order for accrued finance charges to be waived. Otherwise, accrued finance charges will be assessed to the account. Standard rate 24% APR. Default rate 26.99% APR. Minimum finance charge $.50. See Cardholder Agreement for details. Available for a limited time only at participating dealers. See store for details. Not responsible for typographical errors. Not all products available at all locations. Photos for demonstration purposes only. †See actual warranties at store for details. ©Carpet One Floor & Home 2007

Green Flooring Half Page 11.625X10.5

4c ALTERNATE

We are making a green commitment in our9:30am-5pm stores and offices by focusing on educating our ◆LSunday C A R P EMonday-Friday T Monday-Friday • H A R D9:30am-6pm; W 9:30am-6pm; O O D • Saturday V ISaturday N Y L9:30am-5pm • T I L E ◆•Sunday A M11am-4pm I N11am-4pm AT E • A N D M O R E employees and business partners; conserving resources and reducing waste; and encouraging At participating At participating storesstores only, not only,allnot products all products at all locations. at all locations. PhotosPhotos for illustrative for illustrative purposes purposes only. Not only.responsible Not responsible for typographical for typographical errors.errors. offersoffers cannotcannot be combined be combined with other with other discounts discounts or or recycling and green practices. promotional promotional offersoffers and are and not arevalid noton valid previous on previous purchases. purchases. ©Carpet ©Carpet onemaintenance Floor one Floor & Home®. & Home®. *See store *See for store details. for details. Subject Subject to credit to credit approval. approval. †See actual †See actual warranty warranty at store at for store complete for complete details. details.

Greystone

Trussville

2827 Greystone Comm. Blvd. PHONE: 991-1082

1465 Gadsden Hwy. PHONE: 655-8777

Greystone

2827 Greystone Comm. Blvd. PHONE: 991-1082

EE EASY WAYS TO SHOP.

Vestavia

1432 Montgomery Hwy. PHONE: 822-4334

Trussville

1465 Gadsden Hwy. PHONE: 655-8777

Vestavia

1432 Montgomery Hwy. PHONE: 822-4334

For a free room measure and financing pre-approval visit CarpetOne.com.

IN-STORE

ONLINE

IN-HOME

LIFETIME INSTALLATION

GUARANTEE

†

ect to credit approval. Financing provided by CitiFinancial Retail Services Division of Citicorp Trust Bank, fsb. Finance charges begin to accrue at the time of purchase. No monthly payments required during the promotional period. Payment of amount financed in full must be received prior to the otional period in order for accrued finance charges to be waived. Otherwise, accrued finance charges will be assessed to the account. Standard rate 24% APR. Default rate 26.99% APR. Minimum finance charge $.50. See Cardholder Agreement for details. Available for a limited time only at ee store for details. Not responsible for typographical errors. Not all products available at all locations. Photos for demonstration purposes only. †See actual warranties at store for details. ©Carpet One Floor & Home 2007

THREE EASY WAYS TO SHOP.

For a free room measure and financing pre-approval visit CarpetOne.com.

IN-STORE

ONLINE

IN-HOME

LIFETIME

GUAR

*On all products. Subject to credit approval. Financing provided by CitiFinancial Retail Services Division of Citicorp Trust Bank, fsb. Finance charges begin to accrue at the time of purchase. No monthly payments required during the promotional period. Payment of amount financed in full must be receiv Page 11.625X10.5 ALTERNATE expiration of the4c promotional period in order for accrued finance charges to be waived. Otherwise, accrued finance charges will be assessed to the account. Standard rate 24% APR. Default rate 26.99% APR. Minimum finance charge $.50. See Cardholder Agreement for details. Available for a limite participating dealers. See store for details. Not responsible for typographical errors. Not all products available at all locations. Photos for demonstration purposes only. †See actual warranties at store for details. ©Carpet One Floor & Home 2007

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