Klamath Sustainable Communities Newsletter
Fall 2013 ** Vol. 15, No. 2
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In this issue:
Fall Harvest Fundraising Dinner
New Multi-family Recycling Program
Changes to KSC Newsletter
Beef Grading
Food Waste & Emissions
Gardening for the Disadvantaged
Join the Clean Plate Club
The Story of Solutions
Happiness and the New Simplicity
Is Peak Water a Threat to our Future?
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KSC Fall Harvest Fundraising Dinner
November 20 * * * 6:30 pm
Community Meeting Room * * * 133 No 4th St
Board meeting after dinner
The dinner will be prepared by Sherry Cox and Ken Robley. They love cooking with
produce from their garden and are looking forward to sharing their harvest with Klamath
Sustainable Communities folks and other community members.
Menu: Chicken cordon blue, stuffed manicotti, green salad, and banana
cream or apple pie for dessert. Remember to bring any table service you will need for
dinner as the meeting room does not have these items.
Cost is $20 per person. Send a check by November 15th (made to KSC) to "KSC
dinner/Leslie" at 409 Pine # 211, 97601. We are hoping for up to 25 and need a minimum
of 10 people by November 15th.
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New Multi-family Recycling Program
Beginning around the end of October, managers of apartments and condos will be able to
order free recycling bags and educational materials for tenants. The bags are for
distributing to tenants so they can collect their recyclable materials. This is expected to
increase recycling at multi-family housing by making recycling more convenient and
providing information to tenants about what can be recycled.
This program was made possible by a Waste Management Think Green® Grant. The
grant is from Waste Management and Keep America Beautiful (KAB). According to Ben
Hirengen District Manager, Waste Management supports KAB on numerous programs
designed to increase recycling and support community sustainability. Nationwide, 50
grants were awarded. The Think Green® Grant is part of the environmental services
company’s nationwide effort to improve community environments through cleanups,
beautification, recycling and educational programs.
There is an order form to fill out to request the bags, recycling door hangers, property
manager recycling guides and recycling container stickers. To obtain these resources, fill
out the form (available on the website) and email it to recycleoregon@wm.com or mail
it to Brian Silva at the WM office – 1812 Greensprings Drive KF 97601. He is handling
recycling outreach in Klamath County. There is also a phone number: 1-800-808-5901
and a website: click on “Order free materials”.
http://www.wmnorthwest.com/klamathfalls/aptrecycling.html
The funding has allowed Waste Management to get about 1,000 bags. They will be filling
orders for the bags and other materials until they are gone. Waste Management will track
where the bags go and any recycling volume increases the bags may provide. KAB is
interested in the results of their investment.
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Changes to KSC Newsletter
The winter 2014 issue of the KSC newsletter will be the last to be printed on paper and
sent through the mail. After that, newsletters will only be available via email or viewed
on the KSC website. If you wish to receive future issues, contact Leslie Lowe at
inharmony46@charter.net
This change has been under consideration for several years. In past years KSC shared a
bulk permit with another non-profit. Last year they stopped mailing their newsletter and
KSC paid the full permit cost. It expires in February 2014 and the return on investment is
marginal.
We hope to upgrade the e-newsletter to contemporary standards. Advice on what
programs are available and how to use them would be useful and appreciated. If you
know about good programs please contact Dwight Long at 541 884-9942 or
oh_otter@charter.net
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Beef Grading - What Is It?
There are lots of terms out there to define food and to make it enticing to the consumer.
So what is the difference between all the terms? According to USDA and other online
sources, here are the definitions in reference to beef products:
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What does "finished" mean? - The term "finished" refers to how the cattle were
managed prior to harvest and specifically, to the type of diet the cattle consumed.

Grain Finished vs. Grass Finished -While most cattle spend the majority of
their lives in pastures eating grass before moving to a feedlot for grain-finishing,
grass finished beef cattle remain on a pasture and grass diet their entire lives.
Feeding cattle a grain-based ration for a small period of time helps improve meat
quality and provides a more tender and juicy product for consumers. However, it
has a higher fat content.

Natural: Beef with a USDA certified “naturally raised” claim comes from cattle
that have never received growth or supplemental hormones, have never been
administered antibiotics and were not fed animal by-products.
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Organic - Beef labeled and certified "organic” must be from cattle that meet
USDA National Organic Program livestock production requirements. Grain-fed
beef naturally raised or grass-finished beef are eligible but are not necessarily
considered "organic" unless they meet specific standards.
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Food Waste Results in More Emissions
Food that the world wastes accounts for more greenhouse gas emissions than any country
except China and the United States, a recent United Nations report said. Every year about
a third of all food for human consumption, around 1.3 billion tons, is wasted, along with
all the energy, water and chemicals needed to produce and dispose of it.
Read more at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/11/global-food-waste
emissions_n_3904687.html
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Gardening for the Disadvantaged
The Klamath-Lake Food Bank, Gospel Mission, Senior Center and other organizations
improve their food offerings with produce grown by local groups and individuals. During
the past few years more groups have been growing produce for these organizations. The
food bank encourages people to grow produce to donate.
Last year the KSC community garden grew some produce for them. This year 560 square
feet of raised bed space were used to produce 419 pounds of produce, less than expected,
but more than last year. Most of the produce went to the Gospel Mission. Next year’s
goal is to increase production once again.
Rotary First Harvest has grown a production garden for a number of years. They have
developed many partners and grow several acres at the OSU Extension research station.
Field prep is done by extension personnel using their tractors. Work crews from the jail
and people doing community service as part of their criminal sentence help also. Several
other groups also help plant and harvest. They always welcome helpers.
In 2013, 12,625 pounds (over 6 tons) of produce came from their production garden.
Many Rotary Clubs in other cities and towns have First Harvest programs.
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Join the Clean Plate Club
For more than 25 years my wife and I have carried empty containers in our cars to use for
leftovers when dining at restaurants. Almost without fail wait people and often nearby
diners make positive comments when we clear our plates. Food we don’t want to use
goes into the compost; bones and fat go in the container in our freezer kept for making
stock.
Recently we have made a point of not leaving anything that can be eaten, reused or
recycled. Paper napkins usually get reused and place mats recycled. Wood chop sticks are
used in the garden or used for kindling – ditto toothpicks.
It takes a while to train oneself to remember to put containers in your car and take them
into restaurants. The positive comments are rewarding.
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The Story of Solutions
The Story of Solutions movie explores how we can move our economy in a more
sustainable direction. It starts with orienting ourselves toward a new goal.
In the current ‘Game of More’, we’re told to cheer a growing economy – more roads,
more malls, more Stuff! – even though our health indicators are worsening, income
inequality is growing and polar icecaps are melting. But what if we changed the point of
the game? What if the goal of our economy wasn't more, but better – better health, better
jobs and a better chance to survive on the planet?
Shouldn't that be what winning means?
Check out The Story of Solutions at the following link, it’s clever and poignant.
http://act.storyofstuff.org/page/s/growing-solutions
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Happiness and the New Simplicity
By Cecile Andrews
Simplicity is about much more than "cutting back." It's "the examined life," asking
ourselves what's important and what matters. But still, what people hear is: “Deprive
yourself! No more fun!”
It’s the cry of a desperate population—one that doesn’t understand what happiness is. But
this is where the “new” simplicity comes in. When we first began talking about
simplicity, it seemed obvious that Americans were confused about happiness—we have
believed that if we get rich, we’ll be happy.
Common sense and the wisdom of the ages have always argued otherwise, but now the
research has come pouring in—it’s very clear that, after a certain point, more money
doesn’t bring happiness.
More about Cecile Andrews' New Simplicity, books and activities at:
www.newdream.org/blog/happiness-and-the-new-simplicity-the-living-room-revolutionof-community
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Is Peak Water a Threat to our Future?
By Lester Brown
Peak oil has generated headlines in recent years, but the real threat to our future is peak
water. There are substitutes for oil, but not for water. We can produce food without oil,
but not without water.
We drink on average a gallon of water per day, in one form or another, but the food we
eat each day requires 500 gallons of water to produce, or 500 times as much. Getting
enough water to drink is relatively easy, but finding enough to produce the ever-growing
quantities of grain the world consumes is another matter. Grain consumed directly
supplies nearly half of our calories. That consumed indirectly as meat, milk, and eggs
supplies a large part of the remainder.
Roughly 40% of the world grain harvest comes from irrigated land. Irrigation expansion
has played a central role in tripling the world grain harvest over the last six decades.
During the last half of the 20th century, the world's irrigated area expanded from 232m
acres in 1950 to 706m in 2000. This tripling of world irrigation within 50 years was
historically unique. But since then the growth in irrigation has come to a near standstill,
expanding only 9% between 2000 and 2010.
Irrigation water comes from either rivers or underground aquifers. Beginning with the
Sumerians some 6,000 years ago, irrigation water came from building dams across rivers,
creating reservoirs to divert the water through canals. By the mid-20th century most
surface water was being used for irrigation and farmers then turned to drilling wells to tap
underground water.
In doing so, they learned that there are two types of aquifers: those that are replenishable
through rainfall, which are in the majority, and those that consist of water laid down eons
ago, and thus do not recharge. The latter, known as fossil aquifers, include two
strategically important ones, the deep aquifer under the North China Plain and the
Ogallala aquifer under the US Western Great Plains.
Tapping underground water resources, which got seriously underway in the mid-20th
century, helped expand world food production, but as the demand for grain continued
climbing, the amount of water pumped continued to grow. Eventually, the extraction of
water began to exceed the recharge rate of aquifers from precipitation, and water tables
began to fall. In effect, over-pumping creates a water-based food bubble, one that will
burst when the aquifer is depleted and the rate of pumping is necessarily reduced to the
rate of recharge from precipitation.
Today some 18 countries, containing half the world's people, are over-pumping their
aquifers. Among these are the big three grain producers – China, India, and the United
States – and several other populous countries, including Iran, Pakistan and Mexico.
During the last two decades, several of these countries have over pumped to the point that
their aquifers are being depleted and their wells are going dry. They have passed not only
peak water, but also peak grain production. Their grain harvests are shrinking. Among the
countries whose use of water has peaked and begun to decline are Saudi Arabia, Syria,
Iraq and Yemen. In these countries peak grain has followed peak water.
Grain production in Iraq peaked in 2004. By 2012 it had dropped 33%, forcing the
government to turn to the world market to feed its people. In addition to aquifer
depletion, both Syria and Iraq are also suffering to a lesser degree from a reduced flow in
the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, as upstream Turkey claims more water for its own use.
The world has quietly transitioned into a situation where water, not land, has emerged as
the principal constraint on expanding food supplies. There is a large area of land that
could produce food if water were available. However, water scarcity is not our only
challenge. Two huge new dustbowls are forming, one in northwest China and the other in
the Sahelian region of Africa. These giant dustbowls dwarf the US dustbowl of the 1930s.
Just as harvests are shrinking in some countries because of aquifer depletion, they are
shrinking in other countries because of soil erosion. Among the more dramatic examples
are Mongolia and Lesotho, which have both seen their grain harvests shrink by half in
recent decades as a result of soil erosion.
The bottom line is that water constraints augmented by soil erosion, the loss of cropland,
a shrinking backlog of unused agricultural technology, and climate change are making it
more difficult to expand world food production. Is it possible that the negative influences
on future food production could offset the positive ones during this second decade of the
century?
In looking at water and our future, we face many questions and few answers. Could the
world be facing peak water? Or has it already peaked?
Lester Brown is president of the Earth Policy Institute and author of Full Planet, Empty
Plates: The New Geopolitics of Food Scarcity (WW Norton 2012).
The complete article is at the following link.
http://peaceworker.org/2013/07/the-real-threat-to-our-future-is-peak
water/?utm_source=Copy+of+Copy+of+July+19%2C+2013+PeaceWorker&utm_campai
gn=This+Week%27s+PeaceWorker+Articles&utm_medium=email