Sustainable Williston will be gathering this Thursday for a facilitated workshop to identify our priorities for 2023. No prior experience with Sustainable Williston required, only interest and a desire to make Williston more environmentally sustainable. Details:
Where: Dorothy Alling Memorial Library Meeting Room
When: Thu December 8th, 7:15-8:50 pm
What: 2023 Planning Workshop
Bring: Open mind, creative thinking, a snack to share
The Williston Master Naturalist program has been working on a series of events and projects around town. This Tuesday, May 21st is the next event!
Come view Hometown Habitat, Stories of Bringing Nature Home, a documentary on how and why native plants in your own garden or yard are critical to the survival and vitality of local ecosystems. Tuesday, May 21 at 6:30. Dorothy Alling Memorial Library. Sponsored by Williston Master Naturalists.
Hometown Habitat, Stories of Bringing Nature Home_Trailer from Catherine Zimmerman on Vimeo.
Sustainable Williston encourages Williston residents to attend this Repair Cafe event, recently announced at CVU:
“CVU EnACT is working with Transition Charlotte to coordinate a Repair Cafe here at CVU on Saturday, 5/18 from 10-2. A repair cafe is a community event where community volunteers offer no-cost repair of clothing, jewelry, electronics, small appliances, furniture and more! You bring the broken stuff and our volunteer fixers will use their skills to help you fix your stuff so we can keep it out of the landfill and learn from important skills from one another. At this point, we are continuing to recruit volunteer fixers — this is open to students, faculty, staff and CVU families. We especially need repairers who can help with: skateboards, lacrosse sticks, bikes, and small appliances like radios, cd/dvd players. We also especially need more fixers who know about computers, laptops and smartphones. Also, if you know how to mend clothing by hand or sewing machine, repair lamps–replace switches and cords, tighten wobbly lamps, sharpen garden tools, replace wooden handles, repair trimmers/weed-wackers, repair jewelry (no soldering), replace watch batteries, fix watch bands, repair furniture, sharpen knives or scissors, or tune chainsaws, we want you! If you can join us as a volunteer fixer for part or all of the event, please contact EnACT adviser Katie Antos Ketcham @ kantosketcham@cvsdvt.org or Jamey Gerlaugh with Transition Town Charlotte at Gerlaugh@gmail.com.
Please start by joining us Thursday, May 2 at 6:30 pm @ the DAML. We will discuss “Drawdown” by Paul Hawken. No need to read ahead! Learn the most effective ways to reverse global warming. Books available for check out at the front desk if your interest is peaked. Beverages and dessert provided. Sponsored by Sustainable Williston and SunCommon.
RSVP via Facebook here: Drawdown Book Discussion: Local Solutions, Global Change
This year, Sustainable Williston is a Button Up Vermont community partner. This means that Williston is one of 18 Vermont towns whose residents are eligible for a free home visit from a professional energy contractor who can identify opportunities for home weatherization. Buttoning up your home is the best way to conserve home energy and reduce heating and cooling costs. Sustainable Williston has a few upcoming events where Williston residents can get more information and take action.
We’re pleased to announce our second sustainable solutions tour of 2017, this Saturday, October 14th, from 1-3:30! Plus, we’re partnering with Button Up VT this fall, so come out to receive information and a cool give-away!
Climate change got you feeling down? Come lift your spirits on this Solutions Tour hosted by the Sustainable Williston community group. Your neighbors will welcome you to their homes to show you what they’ve been doing to reduce their carbon footprint and protect our natural environment. Enjoy good company, good ideas, and get inspired!
Meet at 1PM @ 50 Spruce Lane off of N. Williston Rd. The group will carpool to the other tour stops together. Or feel free to drop in at the locations you are most interested in.
Schedule, locations and features listed below:
1:00-1:20 @ 50 SPRUCE LN: Deborah will show off her rain barrel, solar, organic gardening, composting, DIY solar heater for pool! Bonus: This bike commuter will share the best bike route into Burlington!
1:35-2:00 @ 413 BUTTERNUT RD: Living sustainably isn’t easy! Check out a mix of successes and failures with Steve.
2:15-2:35 @ 137 VILLAGE GROVE: Thinking about roof-mounted solar? Ben and Lori will show theirs off as well as perennial gardens, raised beds, and a rain barrel.
2:50-3:10 @ 497 TALCOTT RD (Allen Brook School): Did you know ABS has a wind turbine!? Principal John Terko gives us the scoop!
Tour Map: https://goo.gl/maps/
RSVP for our event and like us on Facebook: https://www.
Have questions or interested in being a stop on a future tour? Contact: ReedCarrGS@gmail.com
Learn more about our group at www.sustainablewilliston.
In a recent post, we reported that Green Mountain Power customers could participate in a program that gives a $10,000 discount on a 2017 Nissan Leaf. More recently, Vermont Electric Co-op has worked out a partnership with Nissan to also offer a that $10,000 discount to all its customers.
There’s more information in the previous post, but to recap: the Nissan Leaf is a reliable, well-reviewed, all-electric vehicle with an estimated 107-mile range between charges. EVs like the Leaf have much lower fuel cost than the average gas car (on average, just over 1/3 the cost) plus much lower maintenance costs. The batteries have proven durable and lasting, and by some careful estimates an EV like the Leaf will last twice as long as a gas car. The biggest limitation, of course, is that you have to recharge, and that takes longer than pumping gas. However, you can charge at home overnight, and there are a lot more charging stations in the area than you might guess:
Interactive charging station map available at ChargeHub
In addition to the $10,000 discount, most taxpayers can qualify for a $7,500 tax credit (note that this is a credit deducted from your tax liability, not just a deduction from your income calculation). Vermont Electric Co-op also offers a $250 bill credit to customers who buy an electric car.
Not all Nissan dealerships are participating, but there are three in the region where you can get a Leaf with this discount, so you can comparison shop. You don’t have to pay sticker price minus the discount: you should be able to get a better price from your dealer. The three participating dealerships are:
Every retailer that Generation 180 contacts will be invited to join our campaign. As retailers commit to keep their doors closed, we’ll recognize them on our map.
Check the map periodically to watch the progress of the Keep It Cool project as it spreads across your community—and across the country.
Green Mountain Power has just announced a new program for its customers in partnership with Nissan, giving buyers of the 2017 Nissan Leaf a $10,000 discount. This is in addition to a $7,500 tax credit for which most new Leaf buyers will qualify. The base MSRP for a Nissan Leaf is $30,680, meaning buyers who take advantage of the discount and who qualify for the tax credit can get a new Leaf for $13,180.
In addition to savings on purchase of the car itself, electric car buyers enjoy much lower fuel costs and much lower maintenance costs, with no oil changes and few moving parts to wear out.
You may have heard that electric cars aren’t really any better for the environment than gasoline cars. That story has gone around the Internet a lot, but it’s not true. You can read some of the details here.
Transportation is the single biggest factor in most individuals’ and families’ carbon footprints, and cars are the biggest part of the transportation carbon problem. Buying an electric car is one of the very best ways you can reduce your carbon footprint.
The 2017 Leaf has an estimated electric range of 107 miles on a full charge. This goes down a little in winter, but it’s also a conservative number; careful driving can get better range. Many families have an electric car for local transportation and a gas car or hybrid for longer drives. Other electric cars currently available have a greater range: for instance, the Chevy Bolt has a range of 238 miles, and the Chevy Volt (yes, it’s ridiculous that they have two cars with such similar names), while it has only a 53 mile electric range, has a backup gasoline engine that kicks in automatically when the battery runs out of power.
In this deal sounds too good to be true, I can explain Nissan’s motivation here: in a few months they’ll start selling the 2018 Leaf, which has much greater range and some other advantages. Discounting the 2017 models so steeply offers them a change to generate interest in the brand and get the old stock off the lots before it’s eclipsed by the new model.
Questions or concerns about electric cars? Check out the information at Drive Electric Vermont, comment here, or contact us.
Sustainable Williston will meet Thursday evening at the Dorothy Alling Library at 7:15 PM. Becky Tharp, Manager of the Green Infrastructure Collaborative, a program of Lake Champlain Sea Grant and the Dept. of Environmental Conservation, will give an educational talk on storm water issues effecting our region. Becky’s presentation will be followed by a brief Q&A session. Come join the conversation!