COMMANDA – Rusty Perkins is on a mission and the 43-year-old dynamo isn’t going to slow down until she has ensured that area businesses and residents take a more serious look at conserving natural resources.
“I think everyone has to start somewhere,” she said, “and if we can convince people to reduce their use of hydro for just one hour a week that’s a good start.”
Perkins started her Powerdown Friday campaign after the March 29 Earth Hour saw many home owners and businesses make an effort to shut off lights and reduce power usage for one hour.
“I think it was a great idea, but we have to take it further than that,” she said. “If we can get everyone to do this on a weekly basis, especially businesses, then it will start people thinking about other ways they can help reduce our use of fossil fuels and valuable resources.”
She has already been in contact with a number of business owners in the Powassan area and is delighted that many have already agreed to participate by shutting down some lights and other unneeded electric equipment on Fridays between noon and 1 p.m.
“I’ve spoken to the Scotiabank, the post office, Moore’s furniture store, Paul’s Funeral Home, Pro Hardware and the Powassan municipal office,” Perkins said, “and they are all interested in participating. When I was in the bank on Friday a customer came in and asked why some of the lights were off. That’s all part of getting the message out there that we really don’t need to be using as much electricity as we are.”
Powassan deputy-clerk Nicky Kunkel is already working on a list of ways the municipal office can participate.
“We’re bringing a recommendation to the April 15 council meeting and should council approve it, we’ll proclaim Powerdown Fridays,” she said. “One of the obvious things we’ll be looking at is turning off our computers and office lights when we are on our lunch hour, as well as keeping phantom power to a minimum by turning off things like the shredders and coffee pots when they’re not needed.”
During its April 1 council meeting, Powassan councillors voted to participate in an energy audit.
“It was decided to pick the municipal building that consumes the most energy,” said economic development officer Andrew Busch who has been charged with applying for the audit. “The Sportsplex is our biggest power user and I’m very excited about the project,” he said. “I think it’s a very proactive challenge for the municipality and sends a very positive conservation message to our residents.”
Powassan will be applying for one of 42 free audits being conducted by the Local Authority Services through the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) under the Municipal Eco Challenge Fund.
“With council already committed to trying to decrease our municipal power usage, Powerdown Fridays would be a great way of showing Powassan’s dedication to decreasing energy consumption on a broarder basis,” said Kunkel. “I’m sure that, if council approves the recommendation, we’ll find there are lots of ways to save on energy costs, not just one day a week but on a regular basis.”
Perkins hopes that everyone she talks to will be as receptive.
“People just need to start small and get used to it,” she said, “and before long they find there are all kinds of things they can do and lots of things they can do without.”
The Perkins family has been living off the grid at their Alsace Road log home for eight years, but true to her own advice, they took on the challenge gradually.
“We started making a conscious decision to use less power two years before we moved here,” Perkins said. “We knew this was what we wanted to do, but we also knew it would take some getting used to, so when we still lived in Powassan, we started shutting off the hot water heater every other day and took out some of the lights in our lighting fixtures. Before we knew it we’d cut our hydro bill from $160 a month to $63 a month.”
Before moving to the country, in what was once a hunt camp, the Perkins family had reduced its hydro intake to $12 a month.
Today Rusty, her husband Brent and 12-year-old son Jesse live quite comfortably with no running water, using an old-fashioned kitchen sink hand pump, a small back yard solar panel that runs a minimum of low energy lighting and use a propane fridge and stove, though most of the heating and cooking are done on a high energy wood stove.
“Jesse gets to use one hour of power a day,” said Perkins. “So when he comes home from school, he has to decided how he wants to use that hour. He can watch TV, or talk on the phone, but once the hour is up, he has to find non-energy using sources of recreation.”
The family does have a generator as an emergency back-up, “but we don’t use it very often,” she says. “We’ve all gotten use to this way of life, and we have everything that everyone else has in their home, we just don’t use them as much as other people. It’s been challenging, but it’s been a lot of fun too.”
Water is heated in the reservoir in the wood stove, and showers consist of putting this heated water into a plastic water bag which is hoisted up in the shower stall. “Once the bag is empty, your shower is over,” Perkins said.
Delighted with the success of her Powerdown Friday campaign so far, Perkins intends to continue her crusade throughout the community and is expected to make a presentation directly to Powassan council later this month.
“I’m trying to be realistic about this,” she said. “I don’t expect everyone to live the way we do, but if we can just get people to turn off a few lights, to be aware of phantom energy use and turn off those appliances, and to think twice about some of the ways they waste energy, then we will all be better off, and our children will have a more energy saving future.”
Editorial
