Editorial 11.11, November 2009, by Deirdre Helfferich A Sustainable Ester As climate change accelerates and the consequences of dependence on the Outside in matters financial, agricultural, and otherwise smack us once again between the eyes, Alaskans are looking for ways to improve the local economy and provide better energy, food, and job security. Anchorage, Angoon, Anuktuvuk Pass, Bethel, Chena Hot Springs, Chickaloon, Girdwood, Haines, Homer, Igiugig, Juneau, Kasilof, Kodiak, Kotzebue, Nome, Ruby, Sitka, Skagway, and many other communities in the state are working toward reorganizing their economies and landscapes on a sustainable model. Some are moving at speed, most are taking it slow. Even Fairbanks is, in a somewhat piecemeal fashion. Ester, however, is not. This is a peculiar thing, given that there are a lot of people from the Ester area who are interested in sustainability issues, such as Borough Assemblyman Mike Musick and the staffs of Calypso Farm & Ecology Center, DogWood Gardens, and Rosie Creek Farm. We’ve got people driving trucks that run on veggie oil, numerous year-round bicyclists, gardeners up the wazoo, builders and designers who are into green construction, and, of course, more than our share of mad recyclers. But individualism is strong in Ester, so—despite our long-lived and active community association—sitting around and discussing things as a group and making plans for the whole area over the long term seems to feel a bit, well, organized for local tastes. Esteroids are all for community spirit, but deeply suspicious of anything that smells of government. (Hence the cheerfully unofficial bent to Ester Community Association meetings, for example.) We have repeatedly and successfully fended off ill-conceived attempts by the borough to sell land any old way without regard to the needs or wishes of the locals, but then, we haven’t come up with a plan for our fast-growing republic that would keep it from becoming the stripcity sprawl that now characterizes Berry (also known as the Ester Industrial Zone). We fight sprawl and bad design on a case-by-case basis, and a lot slips through that way. The ECA has a community planning committee, but, after the Emma Creek East subdivision development fracas was resolved in 2005, the committee more or less dwindled into quiescence. Roy Earnest, Bruce Jamieson, and others are reviving the committee, and, as Earnest wrote in last month’s Republic, creating a comprehensive plan for Ester would nip out a lot of potential development problems. There are other options, of course. We could decide not to plan for the land sales the borough will undoubtedly nominate in our area and the resultant deluge of people who will move here. Or we could incorporate a municipal government and then do our planning accordingly. The latter is the option that North Pole chose back in 1953, and it gives them much more say in what happens in their area, along with much more responsibility—and much more—but local—government to worry about. Personally, I think preparing a comprehensive plan that strongly incorporates consideration of sustainability would be a good idea. There are several ventures already in progress that focus on keeping/making Ester (and vicinity) a livable, pleasant, sane place to live. We’re getting left behind, and I think that if we don’t start taking these ideas and making them work together in an organized way, Ester will suffer. Ester institutions: the Ester Post Office has long been a social center of the village; keeping it around means using it and taking care of it, as well as making sure the other institutions in Ester that support its existence are kept going. The Ester library is on its way to a new building with grounds that will serve as a small park; libraries also serve as support to the community at large and provide yet another social center. Museums (another possibility being mulled) also serve these functions. Long ago the idea of a local school was posited, and there is plenty of borough land in the area that could be dedicated to such a use. Two summers ago, the Ester Community Association (itself a venerable local institution) started the Ester Community Market, providing local farmers and artisans with a nearby retail outlet. The market was held in the Ester Community Park, a very important gathering spot and again, a social focal point. The Ester Volunteer Fire Department, of course, provides essential services to the district. The department recognizes the impact of the area’s population growth, and is already planning for remote water storage in other parts of the fire service district, which may eventually evolve to satellite stations. Another longstanding idea has been that of a local cemetery. Local media: an important feature of many communities are their communications. May people in Ester live in broadcast shadows; still, we don’t want to have a cell phone tower, for example, sprouting up in our back yard. Fairbanks Open Radio wants to get a broadcast license and keep its offices in the Ester area. (And of course, we have a local newspaper.) The Ester Mercantile Village: Todd Hoener and Don Meares have been tossing around ideas for years on how or if to develop their property along the south side of the Old Nenana Highway between Village Road and the Ester Community Park. One idea that appeals to me is that of creating a second village square, surrounded by buildings that are used in a typical European/New England manner: businesses at ground floor, rentals or condominiums on the upper floors. This mixed use of business and residential helps keep downtowns from becoming lifeless, vandal-prone zones after hours, and enables a walkable village-within-a-village, reducing costs for businesses and residents alike. The Ester market could take place here, local farmers and gardeners could sell produce, office space for various businesses could be had, and so on. The difference between something like this and the mini-malls one sees around town, such as the Campus Corner Mall, the Geist Road Plaza, and the Chena Pump Plaza, is that the center space is not devoted to car storage. That square is an integral part of the public—pedestrian—space. Artificial wetland: constructed wetlands, or modified natural ones, can be used to clean community sewage and discharge clean water into the local waterways. Examples of towns in Alaska that use this method are Nulato and Talkeetna. It’s a lot better than a stinky sewage lagoon or an expensive wastewater treatment plant—and after a certain point, our water table will be overwhelmed by all the outhouses and septic tanks going in. Discussion of this idea for the village were held a few years ago, but there are other population concentrations in the Ester area that might benefit from this. Local agriculture: we have several small farms in the area, and myriad gardeners, but we don’t produce enough food to feed ourselves. Demand for shares at our three Ester-area CSAs far outstrips these small farms’ ability to provide—more such farms or commercial gardens in the area could easily find customers, and a couple more did at the Ester Community Market this summer. Agricultural land is an important part of any community, from farms to community gardens to greenhouses. Natural resources: Ester’s a good example of how a community can live with mineral extraction in its midst. We have had a few close shaves, however, with big Outside companies that may not care so much for local quality of life. Wood is a valuable local resource, and there’s some evidence that coppicing might be feasible with Alaska shrubs like willows and alders for biomass harvest. Low-impact transportation: the marvelous new bike path on the Parks Highway took many long years of agitation to achieve, and it is a well-used transportation route. The proposed Gold Hill Road bike path is yet another important possibility that will affect pedestrian and bicyclist safety, but also the landscape of the road. The possibility of a bus line to town or the university has been raised. Like it or not, Ester is no longer the small mining village it once was. If we are to prevent the community from becoming an unrecognizable mess in the next few years, we need to think about how to bring all these and other ideas together, and to create a plan for our community—or else have our community change beyond all recognition, without any say-so in how it evolves. Development is going to happen. We just have to decide how it will develop. | ||
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