MRJ 9/8/06 Record-Journal 09/08/2006, Page 7 Sustainable Connecticut Expo hopes to tap folkie activism Event to be part of New Haven weekend festival By Ralph Hohman Record-Journal staff Folk music has a long associ¬ation with activism, peace and the environment. So the organ¬izers of the New Haven Folk Festival figured the first Sus-tainable Connecticut Expo would fit in fine. The Expo runs from noon until sundown Saturday at Edgerton Park on the corner of Whitney Avenue and Cliff Street in New Haven. It will feature exhibits and demon-strations about all kinds of en¬vironmentally conscious re¬sources, from hybrid vehicles to organic gardening — about 40 businesses (Ikea is a spon-sor), government agencies and nonprofit groups in all. In case of rain, the Expo will move in¬side Wilbur Cross High School. “We felt the time was per¬fect, with all the warnings about global warming and pol¬lution,” said festival organizer Bob Wall. The Al Gore docu¬mentary, “An Inconvenient Truth,” drove home the ur¬gency of conservation, Wall said. “The idea is to help people find solutions.” Exhibitors include the Northeast Organic Farming As¬sociation, the state Department of Environmental Protection, the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies and the Connecticut Clean Energy Fund. The Sustainable Connecticut Expo is free to attend, and billed as Connecticut’s “first statewide expo for clean ener¬gy and sustainable living.” “This is sort of a calling to¬gether of the tribes,” Wall said, “pulling together all of these disparate subjects that all relate to our ability to transition to a sustainable lifestyle.” Joe De Risi plans to be there, representing the Southwest Conservation District, a Wallingford-based nonprofit group that does environmental field work with cities, towns and landowners, helping with projects such as repairing stream banks and reviewing site plans for projects that in¬volve wetlands. De Risi also has an Internet business, urbanmineres, in which he sells building salvage (he used to sell it at an urbanmineres store in Wallingford). Sometimes that means the con¬tents, sometimes the building materials themselves. Siding from an old house can be reborn as floors in a new one. Sometimes, De Risi said, “you can reuse about 80 per¬cent of the material from that Please see Expo /8 Chris Angileri /Record-Journal Joe De Risi will be representing the Wallingford-based Southwest Conservation District at the Sustainable Con-necticut Expo in New Haven Saturday. Record-Journal 09/08/2006, Page 8 From Page7 † Expo to accompany folk festival house.” Less is wasted and more is reused — that is the goal of many of the groups coming to the Expo, whether the resource is electricity, fossil fuel, water or food. Wall is New England region¬al director for Smart Power, a nonprofit group that promotes clean, renewable energy sources such as solar and wind and hydroelectric power. Cheshire and Meriden are each enrolled in Smart Power’s 20% by 2010 program, pledging to get 20 percent of their munici¬pal energy needs from clean sources by that date. “This sill be something the city will be pursuing, particu¬larly with our big energy users, like the waste-treatment facili¬ty,” Meriden City Councilor George Mc Goldrick said. Individuals can sign up for the program, too, and in doing so help their towns and cities earn free solar panels to gener¬ate more clean energy. Details are at w¬ww. s¬martener-gy. o¬rg. Other groups will be at the Expo promoting their special¬ties. Metro Pool promotes car pooling, taking public trans¬portation, walking — anything to conserve fuel and decrease emissions. The Re CONNstruc¬tion Center is a nonprofit that also re-sells used building parts for new construction. Save the Sound is an advocacy group that promotes understanding of and care and appreciation for Long Island Sound. For most of the day there will be free music and enter¬tainment in the park, too, in the New Haven Folk Festival’s Ikea Family Folkapalooza. The schedule includes a children’s concert with Robert Messore and Kim and Reggie Harris be¬ginning at noon, Roger’s Barn Circus at 1:30 p.m., Thomasina at 1:45, Last Fair Deal at 2:30 p.m. and Walkabout Clearwater Chorus at 3:25. The Sustainable Connecticut Expo will clear out at sunset, though, to make way for the New Haven Folk Festival’s tick¬eted main attraction, a Satur¬day night show with Bruce Cockburn, Eliza Gilkyson and the Arrogant Worms. rhohman@record-journal.com (203) 317-2212
