Dear GAzette Readers: Here at the Green Alliance, we've met a lot of new people this summer. With all that's gone on this busy summer, it's worth reiterating a few important points for folks who have just become aware of the Green Alliance, and even for our longtime members or those of you who are not card-carrying members but are in the GA orbit.   If you don't own a Green Card, you're missing out!! Even if you're receiving our emails and newsletters, that doesn't mean you're a Green Alliance Member! You're missing out on discounts, free offers, and other benefits not available to the general public! For instance, did you know that we recently gave away 100 free subscriptions to Taste of the Seacoast and Coastal Home magazines, free tickets for the Isles of Shoals Steamship Company, free gondola rides at Wildcat Mountain, and gift certificates to businesses like Green Maids and Earthtec Outfitters? You can't get these offers if you're not a Green Cardholder! If you're a member, use your Green Card! Even if it's not about the discount, use your Green Card at our participating Business Partner locations; that way, they'll understand the purchasing power of citizens who want to spend their money with businesses who care about the environment. And, if you're watching your wallet during these tight economic times, use the Green Alliance as your most trusted resource to make green buying easy! Help us create better communities for ourselves and our kids!  By doing both of the things listed above, you're helping to keep and create jobs in our communities, supporting the various nonprofits we're associated with, and building better, healthier communities for our children.   Sincerely, Sarah Brown GA Project Director

  

Isles of Shoals makes green headway

For more than 20 years, the Isles of Shoals Steamship Company’s M/V Thomas Laighton has been connecting Seacoast residents and visitors with the ocean environment. On a typical cruise from Portsmouth Harbor to Star Island, passengers may be treated to sightings of Great Blue Herons, Harbor Seals, and even the occasional whale.

“A lot of kids have their first experience with the ocean on board our ship,” according to Rich Ryzman, Marketing Manager for ISSCO.

But one doesn’t need to stray far from shore to enjoy close encounters with marine life. Each summer, ISSCO plays host to a dockside touch tank run by the Blue Ocean Society at its Market St. location in downtown Portsmouth, NH.

This year, visitors got up close with lobster and hermit crab while also learning about more obscure marine life like the periwinkle and mummichog. The touch tank closed a bit early this year in preparation for Hurricane Irene, but that hasn’t put a damper on ISSCO’s efforts to protect these natural resources.

“We’re always trying to make an effort to be as green as possible,” says Ryzman.

Litter remains a big problem for Seacoast communities – and for ocean life. Volunteers participating in last year’s New Hampshire Coastal Cleanup picked up more than 6,000 lbs of trash. At least 267 marine species are impacted by plastic pollution, according to a 2008 study published in the journal Environmental Research. Oceanographer Charles Moore of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation found that 44 percent of all seabirds ingest plastic discarded by humans, as do sea turtles. .....read more in our blog here!

Green Alliance members Save $5 off a steamship tour, or buy one "Party Ship" ticket and get the second one FREE with Isles of Shoals Steamship Company! Click here to learn more!
 

With over 93,000 visitors annually, the Children’s Museum of New Hampshire is striving to use its position as the state’s most visited cultural attraction to help make paper waste history.

“As part as our effort to go green, we have been asking people to please consider receiving our newsletter via email instead of mail as a way to save paper,” according to Heidi Duncanson, Director of Marketing for the Museum.

When the initiative was first launched a few years ago, only about one percent of the Museum’s subscribers made the switch. All that changed last year, when the Children’s Museum teamed up with local tech guru Roddi Chambers Smith, who owns the Dover-based firm ar•tech•u•late.

“We made it easier to shift paper subscribers over to the Museum’s e-newsletter,” says Smith. “Before it was a cumbersome process. Now it just takes a mouse click.”

“Today, more than 25 percent of our subscribers opt to receive information via email,” Duncanson is happy to report.

With results like that, it’s easy to see why Smith is so fond of saying, “If you use technology wisely, you are by default green.”..... read more here!

Green Alliance families of 3 or more get 1 FREE admission at Dover Children's Museum, save 20% off everything in the Museum store, and get 10% off a reciprocal membership, which gives you access to hundreds of museums across the country! Additionally, Green Card holders receive 10% on all services with ar•tech•u•late! Click here!

New Englanders love their wood, and for good reason: it’s a renewable resource that can provide us with a heat and cooking source without the use of fossil fuels.

But there’s a downside. When wood is burned either inside a furnace or a wood stove, it releases emissions that harm air quality, such as carbon monoxide and creosote. Some New England towns, as well as some states in the western United States, now have restrictions on wood stoves and boilers because of the problems they create, as wood smoke can be as harmful to air quality as second-hand cigarette smoke.

However, Les Veilleux’s new product, the Eco Firebox, is allowing area residents to leverage our abundance of wood through a European combustion technology that’s actually been around for centuries. But to call the Eco Firebox a technology is misleading; it can be a magnificent work of art that not only heats homes with extraordinary efficiency, but also turns an ordinary fireplace into a home’s gorgeous epicenter that consistently amazes friends and family.

Veilleux, who has been installing Eco Fireboxes for the past 2 years in New England, is one of those people who succeeds at just about everything he touches: at various times in his career, he’s been a software executive, masonry business owner, as well as a commercial photographer. Now, he’s combining his technological acumen with his masonry roots to tap into the enormous potential the Eco Fireboxes offer.... read more here!

 

GA's first law firm helps seniors beat the heat

It was a busy Labor Day weekend at Hampton Beach as a wave of humidity and 80+ degrees temperatures hit the Seacoast region, driving local residents and tourists to seek relief in the cold waters of the Atlantic Ocean.

For many elderly and chronically ill seniors, escaping the heat is not so easy. Too often, seniors at risk of heat related illness or even heat related death forego the luxury of an air conditioner because they can't afford it, or simply don’t know where to turn for assistance.

It’s a problem that one Green Alliance Business Partner is helping to solve.

“We donate money to a group that buys energy efficient air conditioners for the elderly,” according to Bradley Lown, an Attorney at Coughlin, Rainboth, Murphy and Lown, P.A.

The group is Area Home Care & Family Services, a nonprofit organization that has been providing non-medical services to help the elderly and disabled stay in their own homes longer since 1972. Launched in 2000, their Project CoolAir program has provided air conditioners to over 500 individuals in need living in Southern New Hampshire.

It’s just one of the ways the partners at Coughlin, Rainboth, Murphy and Lown, P.A. are giving back to the local community. The firm is represented on the boards of a number of local nonprofits, including Birchtree Association for Children, Cross Roads House, and Prescott Park Arts Festival......read more here!

Join the Green Alliance and save hundreds or even thousands of dollars at nearly 100 Green Alliance Business Partners with your Green Card! Click here to learn more!


This Spud's For You: Robert's new potatoes a huge hit

It’s not often that a Valentine’s Day gift ends up being one that keeps on giving.

But that’s exactly how Robert’s Maine Grill General Manager Chef Craig Spinney sees his restaurant’s new crop of organic, Maine-grown potatoes.

The local love story began last winter, when Spinney began eagerly looking for a way to incorporate a better, greener potato into his restaurant’s popular Valentine’s Day menu. Through one of the restaurant’s distributors, Spinney was put in touch with Misty Meadows Farm, located on the Canadian border in the St. John’s Valley, in Grand Isle, Maine.

“The farm is beautiful,” said Spinney, formerly the Head Chef at Robert’s. “It looks right over the St. John’s River, right into Canada, and it was just a beautiful farm.”

When Spinney purchased his first sample of the organic German Butterball potatoes, he paid a little over a dollar a pound – pretty pricey, even for high quality organic spuds.

And then he ate one. “They were absolutely delicious,” Spinney recalls, his voice beaming. “They were literally to die for. The best part is, we could roast them, mash them, steam them – they were very versatile.”... check out the full story in our blog by clicking here!

Join the GA and save 10% on all food and drink (excluding alcohol) at Robert's Maine Grill! Click here to learn more!


Minutemen Painters' new branding campaign emphasizes green

In keeping with their Revolutionary namesake, Minutemen Painters have long held steadfast to their unmistakable red, white and blue branding motif. Indeed, all three still mark the company’s official logo.

But a recent campaign by the Portsmouth-based Minutemen aims to shed light on – and put to paper – a different aspect of their image: green.

Featuring the tagline “The Seacoast’s Green Paint Company”, Minutemen’s new brochures constitute the next step in the company’s growing commitment to sustainable business practices.

Truth be told, all of it – the low or no-VOC paint options, long-term health and durability benefits of their products, etc. – have been pillars of the company since its founding. But while co-owner Sean Sturk and his crew were always quick to highlight Minutemen’s unique green approach, lately they’ve sought to make it a more well-defined aspect of their growing business.

“The sustainability aspect has become a fundamental part of our brand, so that’s where the flyers come in,” says Sturk, who has also rolled out a new line of tee shirts which similarly tout the company’s environmentally conscious initiatives. “Even in a tight economy, it’s been that message that’s allowed us to grow, because we’re offering something above and beyond what the average painter is offering.”.... check out the full story in our blog by clicking here!

 Save 5% on all exterior and interior painting services with Minutemen when you join the Green Alliance! Click here to learn more!
 

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Taking out the trash has long been a weekly American ritual. Albeit not a particularly enjoyable one. Never a favorite chore – particularly for teenagers – efforts by certain cities in recent years to begin charging residents for trash bags have made gathering household refuse even less enjoyable.

Here on the Seacoast, one grassroots company is taking a stab at transforming a traditionally maligned task into one about which residents can feel good – and green.

Starting this past spring, EcoMovement Consulting &Hauling launched an innovative new residential compost hauling program. For just over five dollars a week, owners and renters alike can have their food waste – as well as items incapable of effectively breaking down in backyard garden piles, like compostable plates, cutlery, napkins, and to-go containers – picked up from their front curb weekly.

While EcoMovement currently only provides curbside service to Portsmouth, Kittery, Eliot, and New Castle, owner Rian Bedard hopes to soon expand further into the Seacoast region.

“Right now we’re looking for a critical mass in different areas before we commit to driving around,” explains Bedard, who has even taken to offsetting his truck’s emissions with carbon credits. “But the idea is to go wherever there’s demand for what we’re providing.”... Read more by clicking here!

By now, you’d be hard pressed to find anyone left unscathed by the country’s long-lingering economic recession.

On the surface, New Hampshire’s solar energy industry would seem the latest victim: In late July, the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) announced that funds for the federal portion of the state’s Solar Water Heating Rebate Program had expired.

In reality, New Hampshire has simply been a victim of its own success.

“Because it was from a federally funded grant with a fixed value, it was suppose to run out of funds,” notes Fred Greenhalgh, New Hampshire Sales Representative for ReVision Energy, a regional company specializing in solar technology. “And because the grant monies were used up, the state, being so impressed with how popular with the program is, has really stepped up.”

While the federal grant’s expiration will mean less cash back per system, the program’s remaining state funds have been recalibrated to actually increase the average rebate from $900 to $1500, in the process covering at least a portion of the losses incurred by the loss of federal monies...Read more here!

When the newly-expanded co-generation plant at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, Massachusetts is finally put on line, chances are much of the attention will be diverted to the brand new, 7.5 megawatt gas-fired turbine and heat recovery generator (HRSG).

And rightly so: the new addition is expected to dramatically curb pollutants from the massive system, in the process further reducing the campus’ overall carbon footprint.

Behind the scenes, however, exists an equally crucial – though much smaller – energy-efficiency component. It’s called a Balance of Plant Control System (BOP), a computerized energy-management control and monitoring system that helps link all of the various components together, in the process helping them all operate more efficiently.

Built by Portsmouth-based TVC Systems, the new BOP control system – developed in conjunction with the project team – might appear to be operating in the shadows, so to speak. But one peek behind the curtain reveals the wizard behind it all.

“Basically what our system does, is it takes separate entities and brings them together so they can be better controlled and monitored,” says Linda Tyring, President of TVC Systems. “You can almost liken it to a car. A car has a battery, an engine, and a radiator, all of these different/separately operating parts – and then you turn the key, and everything works together providing power, heating and cooling.”... Read more in our blog by clicking here!

Did you know TVC Systems President Linda Tyring recently became the first GA Benefactor? Learn more about the program -- and about how you can help promote and expand the Green Alliance cause -- by clicking here!



Local shelter goes green with ReVision Energy
 

With solar hot water, solar electricity, and a super efficient wood gasification boiler for heat, Vinton Hall just might become the first carbon neutral shelter in America.

Through a combination of government grants and low interest loans from Kennebunk Savings Bank, the York County Shelter Program – which owns and operates Vinton Hall – was able to transform the building into a model of sustainability.

In 2009, Green Alliance Business Partner ReVision Energy was contacted by YCSP to help design and install renewable energy systems for Vinton. The goal was to use as little fossil fuel energy as possible, while staying within the YCSP’s construction budget.

The result? A near carbon neutral building that burns locally harvested wood for net zero heating, while taking advantage of Maine’s ample sunlight to help with both electricity as well as hot water production... Read more in our blog by clicking here!

Your Green Card gets you 10% off all items at York County Shelter Programs affiliates Shaker Hill Kitchens and Bakery at Notre Dame! Learn more here!