Sandpoint named one of two U.S. 'Transition Towns'

Group forms to promote local food, fuel independence

SANDPOINT - There is a long-standing joke that describes Boulder, Colo., as “25 square miles surrounded by reality.” Sandpoint, then, might be called “four square miles surrounded by possibility.”

The two communities share a fondness for bike paths, artists and locally grown food. Beyond that, a large part f the population in both mountain towns exhibits a healthy level of environmental awareness.

And as of June 1, each of the cities can claim the distinction of being the only two “Transition Towns” in the U.S.

“Just a few days ago, we got the official word that we had received that designation,” said Richard Kuhnel, a Sandpoint resident working to introduce a community sustainability plan known as the Transition Initiative to the community.

“We were one of the fastest towns to make it through,” added Karen Lanphear, who also is helping to build local interest in the plan.

According to Kuhnel, Sandpoint made the list so quickly because groups and individuals with the same goal already had done much of the groundwork.

“As we started to take this idea out into the community, suddenly, all of these things started popping up,” he said. “We found so many organizations in town that have been active for a long time and have a similar vision - creating a healthy, vibrant and truly sustainable place to live.”

To date, there are 64 Transition Town sites worldwide. Most of them are located in the British Isles, with Australia and New Zealand claiming another eight between them. Each of those communities embarked on a path toward lowering its dependence on fossil fuel by looking within for ideas, answers and innovation.

Lanphear points to the energy use curve over the last 150 years and the technology that had to be developed to consume that much energy as evidence that the needle can be moved in the other direction.

“What we're trying to do is unleash the ingenuity and intelligence that got us to this point to get us back out of it,” she said. “It's an intergenerational process that really does involve everyone. As we're working to preserve the future for our children, we're also looking back for skill sets that honor the past.”

That process - called “re-skilling” - is one of the cornerstones of the 12-step Transition Initiative plan. What re-skilling entails is a willingness to tap into the knowledge of the community's elders to learn how to repair things when they break, build things rather than buy them, or grow food in native soil instead of purchasing it from agricultural conglomerates that ship their harvests from other countries.

“It's a process of reconnecting,” Lanphear said. “This is not a hypothetical exercise - it's very practical and reality based. And it's a commitment.”

As Lanphear and Kuhnel prepare for what they call “the great unleashing” - a roll-out of the Transition Initiative concept and communitywide invitation to help flesh out the details on how it should be put into action - they have compiled a resource list of existing sustainability projects.

“We must have 50 things on the list,” Lanphear said. “The group that calls itself the Panhandle Localvores has already come up with at least two incredible projects.

“One of those is the Six Rivers Cyber Co-op,” she went on. “It expands on the farmer's markets we have now by creating the same thing in cyberspace. People who grow things list them on line, consumers can get on and buy them and then they're sorted into boxes so they can be picked up by the buyers.”

Also underway are two community gardens - one just a few plots in size near downtown Sandpoint and another, several acres in size, in the planning stages.

“It's all part of the transition,” Kuhnel said. “We can't go from point zero to having all of our food produced on a local level tomorrow, but we can take this step in that transition.”

A separate step in the planning process involves “building a bridge to local government.” In England, where the Transition Initiative idea has taken root in 42 towns and more than 130 others are moving toward implementation of community based sustainability planning, government plays a supporting, rather than leading, part in putting the citizens' plans into motion.

That cooperative relationship seems to be panning out in Europe, where hamlets and townships have come to the conclusion that weighty matters such as climate change and skyrocketing oil prices will probably never be solved by presidents or prime ministers. As a consequence, they are beginning to tackle them at the local level, letting good ideas rise like cream during community discussions or over informal cups of tea.

Or, as environmentalist and journalist Paul Hawken wrote: “Life is homegrown, always has been. And so too are the solutions to global problems.”

One member of the European Parliament, Caroline Lucas, has called the Transition movement “the most exciting, most hopeful, most inspirational movement happening in Europe today.”

In Boulder, which received its Transition Town designation about a month before Sandpoint, the process is already in full swing. The group Boulder County Going Local has brought government, business, education and agriculture together for a month-long schedule of events to introduce the process.

From a business standpoint, Boulder sees its transition plan as a virtuous cycle: Support local entrepreneurs by buying local, sustain family farms and ranches by doing the same, create resulting local jobs that stay in the community and increase sales and tax receipts that go finance schools, hospitals, police, arts, transportation and open spaces.

“Our economic vitality liaison has worked with Boulder County Going Local,” said Boulder City Sustainability Coordinator Jean Gatza, “and I think the county staff is also involved.”

Here in Bonner County, Lanphear believes the involvement of local churches will be a strong catalyst for helping citizens get involved in creating their own brand of change.

“It doesn't matter what their faith is or how they approach it, the spiritual component and the idea of individual change is pivotal to this movement,” she said. “Faith-based organizations all over the country are now looking at themselves as an ecosystem and beginning to think about their own energy use.

“It has gotten so strong,” Lanphear added, “that in many places, they've now created faith-based power and light companies.”

The combination of many constituencies and the cumulative power of their ideas create what Kuhnel called “a transition system” that begins to operate under its own steam.

“Transition systems are designed so that the economy is fed, our social system is fed and our environment is taken care of,” Kuhnel said. “I know we have the local intelligence and ingenuity to create those systems.”

“What we're trying to do right now is inspire the community, create a spark and then see where it goes,” Lanphear said.

The organizers said they don't want to duplicate current efforts toward sustainability and have invited anyone with information about existing activities and programs that can be added to the local resource list to call (208) 255-2440 or e-mail HYPERLINK "mailto:raichard@gentleharvest.org" richard@gentleharvest.org

n More information on how the process works in other communities can be found at: HYPERLINK "http://www.bouldercountygoinglocal.com" www.bouldercountygoinglocal.com and HYPERLINK "http://www.transitiontowns.org" www.transitiontowns.org