THE MEADOWCREEK PROJECT

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STARTING WITH A SAWMILL

Of course, the brothers and their families — plus the few others who joined them early on in their venture — needed some source of income in order to support themselves. At the same time, they strongly believed that any economic activity that might go on at Meadowcreek should be closely tied to the ecosystem of which it would be a part. Therefore, Wil immediately put his business experience to work in planning a wood products complex based on the land's abundant forest resources.

The community's main objective, in managing the timber operation, is to avoid the traditional rural economic situation, in which landowners ship out high-grade raw lumber (and, of course, usually deplete the native forests while doing so) for very low prices. To break the vicious treadmill of declining profits and resource quality, the Meadowcreek lumberjacks first harvest the forests carefully (to preserve species diversity and insure sustained yield), then add as much value as possible to the timber be/ore it's sold . .. by seasoning the raw lumber in a solar wood-drying kiln and converting it into handsome tables, shelves, chessboards, and other finished products.

At present, the Meadowcreek lumber business includes a sawmill, which is powered by a refurbished 1902 steam boiler and engine and turns out an average of 4,000 board feet per day, plus the solar kiln and a large woodshop. The directors plan to soon begin construction of an adjacent mechanical and metalworking shop, which will further increase the community's level of self-sufficiency.

Once the wood products business has developed to its full potential, it'll run entirely on renewable energy. Water for the boiler will be preheated by rooftop solar collectors .. . the steam engine will burn the mill's own waste material . . . and excess heat from the boiler will help run an alcohol fuel still and a wood gasification plant.

DOWN ON THE FARM

The strategy of adding value to products at the production site is also applied to the project's other economic leg, an organic farm that's just now being established. This 300-acre setup will—when completed—include orchards, vineyards, intensive gardens, tree crops, and large greenhouses. Already, project members have put in experimental aquaculture ponds, planted cover crops and blueberries, and purchased 27 head of cattle (which are currently grazing at the far end of the valley). Poultry, bees, and (possibly) dairy goats will join the Meadowcreek livestock population later on.

The community plans to employ biological pest controls, extensive composting, and permaculture design techniques in order to make the agricultural operation as environmentally "benign" as possible . . . and the co-op food processing center—which should be erected later this year—will be heated by solar energy. There, project members will take produce from Meadowcreek's farm (such as berries and grain) and turn it into finished products (such as jams, jellies, and flour) to enable the operation to bring in as great a return as possible from the raw materials.

As the community continues to grow, its founders hope to be able to pay more attention to the finer details of life. A proposed "village green" area—to be located near the existing office building—will include a general store, a community meeting hall, and a visitors center.

Housing, which will likely be built in cooperative "barn-raising" sessions, will follow the example of Meadowcreek's office (the first structure erected at the site): That 2,100-square-foot building is chiefly sunlit and -heated, and generates its own electricity from a panel of photovoltaic cells on the roof. Gray water from the shower and sink of an apartment adjoining the office is recycled to irrigate the basement greenhouse where—you guessed it—vegetables are grown year round. Future Meadowcreek dwellings will make use of similar features, in addition to solar water heaters, attached greenhouses, and composting toilets . . . making them essentially self-sufficient "bioshelters".

Although there are now about 20 people living and working at Meadowcreek (in addition to a few affiliate members who are employed by the project but, as yet, live several miles away), the Orr brothers expect the village to accommodate about 25 families eventually. David and Wil are not really interested, they say, in populating Meadowcreek to its maximum . . . but rather in bringing into the valley only as many residents as are needed to achieve the project's mission, and they stress that the population must also fit into the valley's physical carrying capacity in terms of land, water, and food production. The brothers are selling a few parcels of land near the property's southern boundary, allowing individuals interested in establishing a "sister community" to own threeacre tracts there.

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