Local farms embrace Facebook in effort to reach out to customers

Facebook. Almost everyone uses it – college students, baby boomers, businesses, and even pets!

Now, thanks to the wonders of Facebook, West Michigan’s wonderful local farms and farmer’s markets have found a new way to reach out to audiences they just didn’t have before.

Many farms use Facebook to advertise specials. Creekside Garden and Gift Center, which posts something on its Facebook page each morning, recently offered this deal to its Facebook fans:

Freakishly Free Friday! Stop in today and say you saw this on facebook and get something absolutely free! Friday only!

Other farms take advantage of the opportunity Facebook provides to interact with customers. On Creswick Farms‘ Facebook page, you will find plenty of comments from Creswick’s 1,300+ fans. This interaction helps customers feel connected to those with whom they do business.

Robinette’s Apple Haus and Winery has a busier Facebook page than most. Robinette’s 2,800+ fans will find plenty of updates on goings-on at the farm, as well as other items of interest to the Robinette’s team, including articles from like-minded organizations.

These and other farms understand the importance of using Facebook to connect to new audiences. Gone are the days when farms and farmer’s markets depended on word-of-mouth and limitged advertising. Nowadays, social media sites like Facebook offer a new way to reach out for new business among audiences near and far.

So if you’re looking for something delicious and locally grown, check out the aforementioned Facebook pages, as well as these outstanding pages from other great local farms:

Ed Dunneback and Girls Fruit Farm

Fruit Ridge Farm Market and U-Pick

Fruit Ridge Hayrides

Fryear’s Farm Market

Krupp Farms

Rasch Cherries

Schwallier’s Country Basket

Solstice Farms

Steffens Orchards and Market

Wells Orchards

Stabenow bill would increase investment in battery technology; thousands of jobs possible in West Michigan

Metro Detroit has the auto industry, New York has the Financial District, and California has Hollywood and Silicon Valley.

And soon, if Senator Debbie Stabenow gets her way, West Michigan may be the hub of one of the industries of the future.

Stabenow has introduced legislation that, if approved, would substantially increase lithium battery production and make West Michigan a ‘hub’ for the emerging battery industry. The Battery Innovation Act would provide for $2 billion in investment for advanced battery technologies.

The Battery Innovation Act will boost the research and development of advanced batteries and components. The legislation creates an Energy Innovation Hub for advanced batteries, which will bring together universities, businesses and nonprofits to develop new battery technologies and make improvements to current technology. This will not only spur the development of more fuel-efficient passenger vehicles but for light, medium, and heavy-duty vehicles for our military as well. Stabenow’s bill also creates a competition that will provide incentives for researchers to help develop an advanced vehicle battery that can go 500 miles on a single charge.

A number of businesses, environmental groups, and other groups have come out in favor of this legislation, including the “Big Three” automakers, the Michigan Environmental Council, and the United Auto Workers.

Ever Thought to Build a Bat House?

By Caroline Erickson

During the humid summer months in Michigan, mosquitos populations often boom, making it hard to enjoy the outdoors. Bug repellent, citronella candles and screened-in porches provide a little relief from these pests, but bats can also be a huge help in the effort to suppress mosquito populations. According to Bat Conservation International, a single little brown bat can eat up to 1,000 mosquito-sized insects in a single hour, while a pregnant or lactating female bat typically eats the equivalent of her entire body weight in insects each night. Bats’ enormous appetites make them an extremely effective solution to the mosquito problem of balmy summer nights in Michigan.

Hosting bats near your home will not only show your commitment to nature, but it will help relieve the burden of biting insects in your neck of the woods. Bat populations worldwide have been dropping due to habitat loss, and by building a bat house, you provide cover for these dwindling species, as well as a place for them to raise their young. Hosting a bat can also pay off in that bats tend to help pollinate many vital plants and flowers.

When considering building or buying a bat house, it is important to remember four key factors. First, it is crucial that your bat house be well-designed. A good bat house should be tall and wide, with more than one chamber, and it should feature a landing area below the entrance as well as frontal vents. Second, your bat house must be well constructed, with high-quality weather-proof wood that is tightly sealed at the seams. Third, your mounting location is crucial and should be near to readily available freshwater. Houses should also be mounted on poles or on houses so they can be easily found by their new tenants. Fourth, it is important to consider predators and parasites that could threaten your bats. It is important to mount your bat house high above ground, in a place far from branches, or other potential access points for predators. It is also important that wasp nests be removed in the early spring before the bats return again.

Building or buying a bat house is simple, attracting bats can often prove more difficult. Contrary to myth, lures and attractants, like bat guano, will not attract bring into a new house. Bats seek new nesting opportunities while they are feeding at night and can easily find crevices, cracks, and nooks that could provide potential shelter. Your bat house will be most appealing if it is warm and safe. This can be achieved by staining the  house a dark color, keeping it tightly sealed and mounting it next to a house.

When buying a bat house you should be wary of houses that lack groves on the inside for the bats to cling to. Store-bought houses often tend to have a single chamber, which is not conducive to protection or trapping heat. You should also be aware of the woof being used to build your bat house, and try to avoid heavily treated woods.

Check out Houses For Bats, a Bat Conservation International certified bat houses vendor.

Find out how to build your own bat house here.

Rain Barrel workshop coming to Rosa Parks Circle August 1

Picture this: It’s raining heavily outside, and the meteorologists on TV say it’s going to continue for the next several hours (or even days). You say to yourself, “I wish we could just save all this rain for the next time we need to water our plants.”

Well, you can save that water after all!

One of our favorite programs here at WMEAC is the Rain Barrel program. Rain barrels help conserve water by allowing residents to cut down on water usage.  Normally, when rainwater falls on a roof, it travels into a gutter, through a downspout, into the ground. When a rain barrel is installed, the stormwater travels from the gutter into the rain barrel, where it is stored for later use in watering plants and lawns.

WMEAC is hosting a rain barrel workshop on Monday, August 1, 2011, from 6:30-8:30 p.m. atRosa Parks Circlein downtownGrand Rapids. You will be able to build a rain barrel and learn how to install it in your yard.

Cost is $20 per barrel forGrand Rapidsresidents and $30 for non-residents. All barrels and supplies are provided. After a short informational session, barrel construction will begin.

Those who would like to attend are asked to reserve a barrel in advance by emailing rainbarrels@wmeac.org or calling Kristi at 616-451-3051 ext 25.

Sustainable Grand Rapids website launched

The City of Grand Rapids Office of Energy and Sustainability has launched a new website designed to cover everything about sustainability in Grand Rapids.

Sustainable Grand Rapids is designed to be a ‘one-stop shop’ for news and information regarding efforts to make Grand Rapids a more environmentally friendly place to live, as well as hopw residents and businesses can help. The website also features the City’s five-year Sustainability Plan.

So go check out Sustainable Grand Rapids and learn all about the City’s efforts to go green!

NRC Handles Nuclear Plant Violations by Changing What Constitutes a Violation; Palisades Plant Affected

Photo by Paul J Everett

The nuclear Regulatory Commission has a novel approach toward dealing with aging nuclear power plants that violate standards.

Their solution? Lower those standards!

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission recently eased standards on aging nuclear power plants at a time when many such plants were violating those exact standards.

Records show a recurring pattern: Reactor parts or systems fall out of compliance with the rules. Studies are conducted by the industry and government, and all agree that existing standards are “unnecessarily conservative.”

Regulations are loosened, and the reactors are back in compliance.

“That’s what they say for everything, whether that’s the case or not,” said Demetrios Basdekas, an engineer retired from the NRC. “Every time you turn around, they say ‘We have all this built-in conservatism.’”

As a result, the minimum standard was relaxed first by raising the reference temperature 50 percent, and then 78 percent above the original — even though a broken vessel could spill its radioactive contents into the environment.

How convenient for plants such as the Palisades Nuclear Plant. Palisades has been the source of much concern because its reactor pressure vessel has become more brittle in recent years. These concerns date back to 1993. The NRC recently extended Palisades’ permit to 2031 despite these concerns.

This puts us at risk in many ways. In addition to the danger of a meltdown, toxic  radiation would leak into Lake Michigan, threatening the rest of the Great Lakes region and eventually the Atlantic Ocean.

In recent months, Fukushima has become as much a household name as Chernobyl and Three Mile Island – and for the same reason.

Do we really need Palisades to one day join that infamous list?

Report: Old Coal Plants Cost Michigan $1.5 billion in Healthcare Costs

Michiganders pay an extra $1.5 billion per year in healthcare costs due to the harmful effects of aging coal-fired power plants across the state, according to a new report released by the Michigan Environmental Council.

The report looks at the health issues faced by the nine oldest power plants in the state, including the JH Campbell plant in West Olive and the BC Cobb plant on Muskegon Lake.

The report shows that families living near these coal plants spend an average of $500 per year due to doctor and hospital visits from asthma, heart problems, and respiratory ailments.

“Keeping these plants limping along is expensive – both in the cost of increasing electricity rates and in health insurance premiums, copays and other expenses related to the damage they do,” said MEC President Chris Kolb in a press release.

That is hard-earned money that families could instead spend elsewhere, thus giving our economy a much-needed shot in the arm. Instead, these health effects are hurting Michiganders’ health and wallets.

These costs are in addition to the human costs of Michigan’s aging power plants. Michigan suffers 180 premature deaths, 68,000 asthma attacks, and 233 hospital visits attributable to these coal-fired power plants.

What can we do about the harm done to our economy and our health? The answer lies in replacing these aging plants with renewable sources of power, which have been shown to be both economically and ecologically better than nonrenewable sources.

(Note: West Michigan Environmental Action Council is a member of MEC.)