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Earth Day 2008: Tahoe Truckee Earth Day Foundation |
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Written by By Paul Raymore
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Tuesday, 22 April 2008 |
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 The Tahoe Earth Day Foundation, a 501 (c) 3 non-profit organization, was created to educate the general public about the Lake Tahoe and Truckee region’s unique beauty and how to preserve and protect it.
The means of providing such education includes, but is not limited to, regional Earth Day Festivals that will include environmental and educational booths with focus areas on watershed health, forest health, pollution prevention, alternative energy and waste management. It has also been created to recognize and celebrate the work of Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin who's creation of the first Earth Day, on April 22, 1970 eventually lead to national legislation such as the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act.
For more information, visit the foundation’s Web site at www.tahoetruckeeearthday.org.
Tahoe World Online Editor Paul Raymore spoke with Beth Ingalls — co-chair (along with Suzanne Wilkins and Nichole Dorr) of this year’s North Lake Tahoe/Truckee Earth Day Festival, local environmental activist, founder of the Truckee Climate Action Network and former Truckee mayor — about what Earth Day Festival attendees can expect to see at the festival this year.
Tahoe World: Can you tell me a little bit about what you’re looking forward to at this year’s festival?
Beth Ingalls: It’s great to have all the music, but we really wanted to focus the event more on eco-education, rather than just having a big party. So the zero-waste effort is a big effort that Madonna [Dunbar] and Whitney Parks are heading up this year.
A lot of time and energy goes into that: Working with the vendors at the Village at Squaw to make sure they’re all using compostable or recyclable servingware and everything. So that part of the event has been there from the very beginning, and each year we try to improve it. And, as you can imagine, zero-waste anything is a daunting task. Basically we get rid of all the garbage cans in the Village and substitute them with recycling bins and compost bins and try to manage the waste stream very carefully.
And this year we’re striving toward being carbon-neutral as well. So that’s new. It’s challenging: We want to have an event that we draw a lot of people to, but when you draw a lot of people to one place you create a lot of emissions and a lot of waste... But it’s sort of a balancing act between the environmental education benefit and the fact that people can come and visit all of the non-profit that are involved in environmental work in the area in one place and really learn a lot or become active in things... So it’s kind of like a one-stop shop. And that kind of balances out the fact that people do travel to the event.
We are offsetting this year by purchasing carbon offsets from the Carbon Fund. And that will help build a renewable energy infrastructure. So that’s a new thing.
TW: Is environmental education the biggest goal of the festival?
Ingalls: It’s easy to educate the people who already know what to do. The challenge is to get the people who maybe don’t know what to do to come to the event. So the good thing about having the event at Squaw, and especially since people will still be skiing this year, is we do get a lot of people from outside the area. And they’re already there, they’re a captive audience, so they get to learn a lot about all the efforts that are going on in the Tahoe Basin, which is a great outreach tool for the organizations...
There’s a lot going on, and we’ll see how it works, but we’re really hoping to have a much stronger focus on education this year. We want people to come and have a good time, but we also want people to stop by the booths and chat with the people and learn about the [environmental organizations] and understand the issues. And they certainly have the chance to do that at Earth Day.
TW: The Earth Day Festival has been a very family-friendly event. Can you tell me a little more about what kids and families can look forward to?
Ingalls: The biggest thing that’s the most fun for the kids is the [Push, Pull or Pedal] Eco Parade. That’s something that’s getting bigger each year and everyone loves to bring a float. The first year there were just a few people in it and now we have lots.
I really thing people are going to be pleasantly surprised by the Earth Capades performances. They’re going to perform twice during the day and the performances are an hour long. So that’s something that’s going to be really fun for families this year.
And then the Boys & Girls Club of North Lake Tahoe is doing our kids area. They did it last year and there is going to be even more in it this year — there will be a lot of hands-on stuff for kids to do.
And we’ve really tried to involve the student population more this year. So we have a coordinator who’s only working with the students... There will be a lot of middle school involvement from Alder Creek. And obviously the kids are a huge part of this, so we’re really hoping to get as many of them as possible to the event.
TW: How much work does it take to put this event on? And what does the Lake Tahoe Earth Day Foundation do other than plan the Earth Day Festivals?
Ingalls: We started meeting back at the end of the summer. It’s almost a year-long process in a way. We’re fundraising, grant writing... it’s sort of an ongoing process.
Right now the Lake Tahoe Earth Day Foundation primarily does this event [at Squaw] and then helps with the South Lake event [April 19]; so it’s just sort of the Earth Day event itself. I’m not on the board or anything, but I see a value in the foundation becoming more involved in school education and maybe getting out in the community more, doing outreach programs, things like that. The one yearly event is great, but I think there could be a lot of room for growth there.
TW: What are you most looking forward to at this year’s North Lake Tahoe Truckee Earth Day Festival?
Ingalls: We have a committee of about 15, and everyone has a particular role and everyone has done an amazing job taking on their specific task. I have nothing but good things to say. Lots of kudos to everyone involved in it. And I think we’re all just going to get there and realize that it’s happening, and it’s fun, and people are having a good time, and it’ll be a great event.
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