[Terrapreta] feeding char residents

[Dick Gallien]

That 2 from the Mn. Pollution Control Agency would come 50 miles from their
Rochester office to officially tell me, followed by a letter stating that I
had been warned, that paper towels are a solid waste that must be
landfilled, is an example of what I can expect when we start charring the
large volume of tree waste at this farm.  Two full time county employees,
who have been well paid for over 25 years, to shuffle papers, go to meetings
about  protecting the environment,  but not rock the boat,  did find time to
notify the MPCA about my intended violation.  As expected, I didn't hear
from any public schools, but a WSU prof has started it. He brought a summer
class out 2 wks. ago, with paper towels and took pictures of students giving
them to the hogs, for bedding. I told the students how their prof was
defying the MPCA rule and the prof, recently from Italy, laughed and said,
"Civil Disobedience" Henry David Thoreau.

Two years ago the same county officials came to the farm to say that I
couldn't heat with waxed cardboard boxes, followed by a letter from MPCA
about the rule I was violating. Hot Log extimates 650,000 tons a yr. of
waxed cardboard boxes go to land fills.  I bought a box of Envirologs from
Home Depot at Rochester, made from 100% waxed boxes in Ga. and shipped to
Rochester, suggesting that MPCA start with Home Depot.  Haven't heard from
them.

All this organic matter, that in Winona, goes 75 miles to the hell of
eternal death in a Wisconsin land fill, is needed to provide food for the
exploding population of little beasties, when we improve their habitat with
char.


Guest View--Winona Daily News 3-24-08
++++++++++++++++++

Are we mostly PR, with little substance?



Take the eagerness of schools and municipalities, to board the Green
Bandwagon.   A wind turbine on campus, tops the PR list.  A few million to
have it erected; administrators for the ribbon cutting photo op and blades
lighted with school colors.  A Bio Diesel campus bus, is a distant
second.  Changing
light bulbs and tossing the toaster, leaves little to connect with.



However, schools, like all living organisms, have a back door, which
produces organic matter, which the Maker intended to complete the cycle and
enrich the soil.  But The U of Mn, it's Extension Service and the USDA,
following the Monsantoes money trail, systematically belittled the fact that
soils are living organisms and branded organics as quackery.  As a result, over
95% of the soil producing the foods we consume are "CHEMICALLY DEPENDENT"
and wouldn't produce half a crop without a "TOXIC, FOSSIL FUEL DEPENDENT
FIX".

Chemical addictions are not healthy for humans or soils. Human illness and
food scarcity will increase awareness.



Our lives are being inconvenienced, by higher energy costs. Our decreasing
food supplies, will be more than an inconvenience.  Other societies have
crashed, because they abused their soils; however, some "living soils" have
been healthily cropped for 1,000 years and more US farmers are surviving
organically..



Winona schools pay a flat rate for waste removal.  There is ZERO incentive
to reduce.  Only Bluffview Montessori, Riverway, WSU, Winona Health,
Rochester Fruit and Bluff Country Co-op recycle their waste food.  Bluffview
collects 300 lbs. from 200 young students per week, so 5,000? Winona
students send over 7500 lbs. per week, 75 miles to a Wisconsin landfill.



School dumpster contents,

PAPER TOWELS are 90% of  volume

WASTE FOOD is 90% of weight



The Winona Community Foundation offered students an opportunity to connect
as philanthropists by choosing grant recipients. The Winona Farm, Inc's
"Greenest of the Green", asked for $100 to be given to each of 5 Winona
schools, to purchase waste containers.  The proposal was chosen by a WSU
class—the "PR part".  The "substance-tough part" of the proposal was that
the selecting students contact 5 schools and follow through.



Is there even one Winona school that would follow through?



Every student, after using the restrooms, who properly washes and dries
their hands, contributes to reducing landfill waste and completing the
organic cycle if/when----



They are made aware of the Purpose for this VERY MINOR CHANGE.  A  "PAPER
TOWELS ONLY" sign, placed above the used paper towel receptacle.  A small
container for plastic, etc. is placed below.  Whoever cleans the restrooms,
are made aware that the used paper towels go in the grant purchased
container.  The Farm will pick up the used towels once a week for one year
at no charge.  The towels will be composted or used for bedding, just as
City trucks have brought all Winona street leaves to The Farm, for the last
8 years, at no charge.



Imagine on national TV, a Winona School's experiments:  plants grown in
river sand vs. river sand, plus waste food and paper towels after red worms
have turned them into rich soil.  Students watching a 350 lb. sow and her
litter, grown totally on their schools waste food and bedded in their used
paper towels.



An entire school, physically and emotionally connected with the organic
cycle.  Now that's PR with substance!!


Letter to the Editor:

Thanks to The Daily News for Guest Viewing my effort to make those who use
paper towels in school restrooms, aware that used towels have as much right
to enrich soil, as fallen leaves and should not be landfilled.

No schools responded, but two from the MPCA office in Rochester, found time
to personally visit The Winona Farm and state that paper towels are classed
as MUNICIPAL SOLID WASTE and must be landfilled.  So I'm guilty if I accept
your used towels and you are guilty if you give them to me.

Used paper towels cannot be "recycled" into more consumer products, because
their fibers are too short; however,  they are ideal for livestock bedding,
composting and enriching soil, which is encouraged in some other
states. That they must be landfilled would seem to be a rule from the dark
ages.

 In asking about penalties, I was told the first consideration is whether
the violation is "willful".  I will "willfully" accept this dance, but it
takes two to tango and in that most of us, especially those who
administer schools, have endured 12 or more years of "Apathy 101",  I'd be
pleasantly shocked to find a partner.

The MPCA visitors did name a colleague in their St. Paul office
who is "thinking" about changing such questionable regulations.  So many
good people start their careers with dreams of making this a better world,
only to be bogged down by rules like this, to where their only dream is of
retirement.  Maybe, with a little encouragement, this state employee would
make "paper towel dancing", the soil enriching activity that it was meant to
be.


-- 
Dick Gallien
22501 East Burns Valley Road
Winona MN 55987
dickgallien at gmail.com [507]454-3126
www.thewinonafarm.com
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