CalMAX Connections—Fall 2003

Occidental Arts & Ecology Center: Sustaining Reuse, Gardens, Water, Life

by Maggie Coulter, CalMAX Coordinator

Reuse is an implicit part of the philosophy of the Occidental Arts & Ecology Center (OAEC), located near the town of Occidental in Sonoma County. A CalMAX (www.calmax.org) subscriber, OAEC has as its purpose to develop “innovative and practical approaches to the pressing environmental and economic crises of our day.”

Structured for Sustainability
Started in 1993, OAEC followed two similar groups that had previously used the same 80 acres of forest, meadows, garden, and buildings. The first was the Farallones Institute, which acquired the site in 1974. This institute was a rural research organization that focused in the areas of sustainable gardening, water conservation, and green building—all practices that are part of the OAEC community today.

The Farallones Institute sold the property in 1990 to the CM Mott Foundation who wished to continue the experimental nature of the site. In 1993, the foundation decided to sell the property. At this time, a group of friends were looking to start an intentional community whose focus would be promoting sustainability. Although there were other bidders some offering even more money for the site, the Motts liked the group’s proposal and sold the property to them.

Even the structure of OAEC’s land ownership is sustainable. Through the Sonoma County Land Trust, a conservation easement was recorded on the property to run with the deed and restrict the use of the land in perpetuity. This unique easement prohibits the use of herbicides, pesticides, or chemical fertilizers on the site’s organic gardens.

The property is also structured as a no-equity cooperative. It is owned in equal shares by the ten original owners. Nine of those owners still live on site in addition to four children, four staff that aren’t partners, and six interns. If and when any of the owners decide to sell, they will receive only what they originally paid for their share, with no increase in equity. This provision is intended to encourage only future buyers who would be interested in long-term preservation of the land.

“Making Do”
OAEC’s site maintenance director, James Wilson, advocates and practices maximizing resources and minimizing waste. Trained as a carpenter, Wilson acknowledges that he is as much guided by his sense of “making do” with what is available as by what he’s learned in professional trade environments. “I have a strong sense of being able to use what is around me because my parents came from farming backgrounds and I also worked over ten years on farms. While I do seek out donated materials, bargains, and non-traditional materials, it is the ability to use everything up that really takes pressure off the supply side.

“When I see a pile of wood covered in leaves that may not have been touched for a number of years, I sort through it and maybe make three or four piles out of it, sorting by quality. Some of the wood is good enough to be used in a situation where appearance is important. I look to see if the grain is visible, if it is, then often you can shave off the surface and you’ve got new looking wood. Some wood can be used for functional support; some could be used for fencing; some just for kindling.” Wilson and OAEC’s commitment to reuse is readily apparent. Wilson works out of the OAEC office, a former chicken coop that was rehabbed.

The site’s guest bathhouse and the largest barn were partly built with wood recovered from a pier that was being dismantled in Oakland in the mid-1970s. An outdoor hot tub frame, site sink counters, and benches are also made of used redwood.

Wilson, who teaches carpentry, explains to the students that “their first two steps to becoming more self-sufficient in their abilities is to set up a simple work station and to identify resources already in reach. One can start by looking at that proverbial stash of wood that has been sitting under the tree for five years.” He acknowledges that “sometimes people think it’s too much trouble to store materials. But when you start to add up the costs of time spent shopping and the cost of new stuff, it quickly makes sense to look deeper into available resources. When I was on the farm, not only were the closest lumber and hardware stores forty miles away, but money was always a bit tighter. With a little bit of practice I quickly learned how old pallets could become produce washing stations or storage bins.” Wilson also makes beautiful doors and windows from used wood, noting that “while ‘making do’ is practical from a time and money sense, it also sparks creativity and brings out originality.”

The site has used wood cut from “sinker logs” to make benches, tables, and interior shelving. Hundreds of sinker logs have been recovered from the bed of the Big River in Mendocino County. The logs sank more than a hundred years ago when they were being floated down from the old growth logging of the forests. These logs settled below the oxygen layer, so they have not deteriorated. While the milled lumber from these sinker logs is expensive, OAEC has bought the cut-off edges, or “flitches,” for a more reasonable price.

This summer OAEC used a lot of reclaimed materials in its newly constructed stage. The walls are about 75 percent reused wood. The wainscoting at the base of the walls is 130 year-old Douglas fir retrieved from a demolition job in Forestville and the framing is mostly reused redwood. On the back of the stage is a mounted chalkboard, which is a single piece of slate that was donated to the Farallones Institute about 20 years ago. The wood siding above the chalkboard is made of “flitches” from nearby Camp Meeker. Some new materials were also used. The platform framing is pressure-treated wood that has no arsenic or chromium and the plank flooring is new construction grade redwood from a local family-owned mill.

Wilson has developed many community contacts to help keep the wood flowing; he regularly gets calls with wood offers. One woman paid a few hundred dollars extra to have the wood from her old deck carefully removed to facilitate its reuse at OAEC. OAEC also gets referrals from Creative Re-Use, a regional non-profit that takes donations of reusable business discards and makes them available to schools and nonprofits.

Reuse on the site is not limited to wood. The 500-square-foot seasonal green-house is made from reused PVC pipe; its 6 mil clear plastic covering came from a dismantled greenhouse. The 12,000- and 18,000-gallon storage tanks for the site’s drinking water are used wine barrels. The local community donates used 4-inch and 1-gallon plastic pots for the three annual plant sales. The dinner bell is an old propane canister.

The residents of the site also practice reuse by trading materials they don’t need for those that they do. For example, they had a composting toilet that was not being used and traded it for a small solar generator.

Green Building
The site’s two dozen structures reflect a variety of green building techniques. Most existed or were built when the Farrallones Institute owned the property. Some had experimental features that were successful in some cases (interior rock walls for thermal gain and domed ceilings for better circulation) but others, like the roof ponds, were unviable and were abandoned.

Use of natural building materials is also key. The large shed for the “mother garden” is made from rammed earth construction. This technique involves mixing clay, straw, and water to form an adobe-type material that is then tamped down into wooden slip forms. The forms are raised as each layer is added and finally removed when the material has dried enough to stay firm.

While the research on-site done by the Farrallones Institute often resulted in complex solutions, OAEC seeks to develop sustainable practices that are simpler so they can be more easily replicated. OAEC also works closely with the county planning department.

“One of the things we want to do is to have these natural building practices be legitimized as part of the building codes so that they can be readily incorporated by others,” explains Wilson. “If these techniques are going to be used, we need to get local governments, the banks, insurance companies, developers all on board.”  OAEC worked closely with the county to create the code applicable to the poured adobe floor with radiant heat that was put into an addition to one of the houses.

The county also approved the use of light straw clay construction for the walls of the expanded section of the same house. In this method, straw is dipped into a clay slurry with a higher straw-to-clay ratio than rammed earth. The walls are then covered with a natural plaster made from sand and clay, with wheat paste and lime as binding agents instead of cement; it is colored with earthen pigments.

“In a building with adobe-type material, the walls do need to continue to get air circulation, unlike standard construction in which paint acts as a vapor barrier,” notes Wilson. “Allowing air to circulate prevents mildew. In addition, some people do add borax to the straw/clay mixture as a fungal inhibitor.” The walls are finished with earthen plasters and natural pigments.

Several benches around the property are made with cob construction in which a clay/straw mixture is formed by hand into whatever shape is desired, like a giant sculpture. The cob material is treated with linseed oil to protect it from being dissolved or damaged by water.

It is also important that the building materials be geographically suitable. “Wood is an appropriate building material for this site because of the thick clusters of Douglas fir on our land,” says Wilson, “but for the Central Valley, straw/clay would make more sense because it is more available locally than wood.”  OAEC is now evaluating the soundness, location, and energy practices of all structures as part of a master plan to inform future construction, expansion, and demolitions.

Energy Conservation
South-facing solar panels on the building house the OAEC’s meeting room and art studio. The energy produced from these 650 sq. feet of solar panels goes into the local utility grid, generating about 50 percent of the amount of energy used on-site. Overall it has reduced OAEC’s energy costs by about 80 percent. All buildings are heated with wood stoves. The fire wood comes from selective thinning of forest on the property as does wood for some on-site building and garden projects.

The site has four vehicles that run on biodiesel (see the Spring 2003 CalMAX catalog for more about biodiesel). The biodiesel comes from Yokayo Fuels (www.ybiofuels.org), a small company in Ukiah.

Water Conservation
All OAEC’s water needs are met on site. Water for the gardens comes from a 2-acre pond. Two vernal pools near the garden are not directly used for irrigation but do help maintain the water table so that less water is needed for watering in the summer. Water runoff from surfaces like parking areas and roadways is directed to plants by use of swales. Planting in the garden is also done with water conservation in mind. Bare dirt is kept to a minimum to reduce water evaporation and runoff. Paths are planted with grass, and multiple crops are planted in beds.

The site’s drinking water is from a well. OAEC wanted to avoid the use of chlorine, which, Wilson notes, kills everything including algae. The algae is a natural filter. And, once killed, the dead algae add a bad taste to the water. Instead of chlorine treatment, they have added ultra violet filters to kill any harmful bacteria. The water is tested monthly to assure that it is safe to drink.

Composting and Gardening
OAEC has six worm bins outside the kitchen for composting food scraps. Garden materials are also composted, although they do have to bring in manure for fertilizing since the site does not produce enough compost or manure (the site has one horse and one goat).

The site has 2½ acres of gardens that include 150 cultivated fruits and more than 3,000 varieties of heirloom, open-pollinated annuals and 1,000 types of edible, medicinal, and ornamental perennials. One of the unique fruits is the medlar, a progenitor of apples and pears. “You eat it when it gets soft, like pudding,” says Wilson, noting, “it is an acquired taste.” The residents don’t try to grow all their food as the garden’s purpose is to demonstrate the importance of bio-diversity and organic farming methods.

Tours and Course Offerings
OAEC offers regular tours and courses in gardening, permaculture, and many other sustainability-related topics. For details, contact OAEC or visit their website:

Occidental Arts and Ecology Center
15290 Coleman Valley Road
Occidental, CA 95465
www.oaec.org
inquiry@oaec.org
(707) 874-1557I

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Last updated: August 01, 2008