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| Great Blue Heron poses at Thornton Creek Park #6 |
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| Old Fashioned Rose at Shoreline Historical Museum Garden |
So what’s in the tax compromise for clean energy? Well, one clean energy proponent says there’s some good things to come — but there could have been more.Kateri Callahan, president of the Alliance to Save Energy, said in a statement that she’s happy some new tax incentives are in the package but adds, “We’re sorely disappointed that Congress did not see fit to make the incentives more generous. That would have increased their use by consumers, to the benefit of our economy, energy security and environment.”
This is just one of the latest in a series of lukewarm endorsements of the tax plan, which probably proves that the compromise was fair but certainly not perfect — no matter how you define perfect.
Here's a list of four of the green energy provisions buried in H.R. 4853, otherwise known as the Middle Class Tax Relief Act of 2010.
1. Extension of the new homes tax credit for homebuilders
This simple rule extends existing tax credits for any new home that's built to use 50 percent or less energy for heating and cooling purposes. Of course, you have to prove this to be eligible, but the credit system remains in place and is more attractive than just a deduction.
2. A return to pre-stimulus incentives for improving existing homes
The federal government has agreed to keep a federal tax credit capped at $500 to any homeowner who makes approved energy-efficiency improvements. But there's a catch. The types of improvements are categorized and capped within the overall $500 cap. For instance, there is a limit on “building envelope” improvements like insulation, better roofs or better windows. You can deduct 10 percent of the cost of all of these improvements, but the credit cap for these dedications is $200, which can be exceeded pretty darned quickly.
3. Efficient heating systems of all kinds can be tax deductions
H.R. 4853 has something for everyone when it comes to upgrades for home heating and water systems. A $150 credit can be obtained for installing pre-approved natural gas and oil furnaces. The same can be said for propane and hot water boilers.
4. Energy-efficient building properties
A $300 credit is available for a category called the “energy efficient building property.” Of course the devil is the details in terms of why systems qualify and all that jazz, but the skinny is that the credit comes for homes that are heated by approved electric heating pumps, natural gas systems, propane systems, oil systems, central air systems and biomass heating and water heating systems. To find what systems fit into this category, I suggest you begin your research with a tax specialist before you charge a $20,000 biomass heating system on your MasterCard.
So, that's the scoop on how the new tax deal can help you make your home more efficient. It’s easy to see that more could have been done, but this how deal played out. As for taking advantage of the extended credits, the form for doing that can be found here, but remember: do your research before you buy.
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| Paramount Park "Upper Pond" in November Snow Photo credit - Janet Way |
Top 10 Reasons for Holiday Cheer forOur Environment at End of 2010
• 1 - Good News on Climate and Clean Air from Environmental Defense Fund
• 2 - US Senate Approves START Treaty
• 3 - WA State Regulates Copper Brake Pads - Good News for Salmon and Streams
• 4 - Food Safety Bill Passes Congress
• 5 - Electric Cars Are on the Market and Cities are Creating Electric Plug in Networks
• 6 - Bureau of Land (BLM) Management Announces New 'Wild Lands' policy protects BLM potential wilderness!
• 7 - Safe Baby Bottle Act Signed by Governor Gregoire - Bisphenol A banned in WA State!
• 8 - Shoreline Begins Installation of Largest "Silva Cell" Tree Project in State on Aurora Phase II Project
• 9 - Shoreline's Backyard Wildlife Project Achieves SUCCESS!
• 10 - City of Shoreline Requires Mitigation on Aurora Rents project to include signage to commemorate Shoreline Pioneer Judge JT Ronald and meaning of Ronald Place!
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| Entry Path to Paramount Park at 12th NE, November 2010 photo creek - Janet Way Good News on Climate and Clean Air from Environmental Defense Fund - Environmental Protection Agencyended years of delay and announced it would commit to a schedule for establishing legal limits on global warming pollution from new and existing coal-fired and other fossil fuel power plants. |
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| Polar Bears on Ice Flow - photo credit- EDF |
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| US Senate Speech from Sen Robert Byrd a few years ago |
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| Adopt-A-Stream Logo |
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| Lake City Farmers Market - Billy's Produce Stand photo credit-Janet Way |
In a press conference yesterday, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced a new federal policy that requires the Bureau of Land Management to take a fresh look at lands with wilderness characteristics, and set them aside as 'Wild Lands' to protect those characteristics. The Biodiversity Conservation Alliance works on public lands protection issues in the Wyoming area and their efforts have been beneficial to wilderness protection advocates nationwide. |
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Surrounded by supporters, Gov. Chris Gregoire returned home Monday to sign key legislation into law. Robert Whale/Reporter Buy Photo Reprints Governor Signs Bill To Ban BPA In Children's Dishware and Sports Bottles |
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| Silva Cell elements installed on Shoreline's Aurora Phase II to provide part of the "natural drainage systems" required by project as approved by City Council in 2007 |
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| Shoreline's Ronald Place (Red Brick Road) eligible for listing by National Trust for Historic Places |
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| Moon in the early morning photo credit-Janet Way |
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Steve Schneider, Ridgecrest resident and professional photographer captured this image of the elusive eclipse last night |
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| Total Lunar Eclipse as seen on Aol News. site Heribert Proepper, AP The moon appears totally covered by shadow as the Earth passes between the moon and the sun during a lunar eclipse in January 2001. |
Unlike a solar eclipse, eclipses of the moon can usually be observed anywhere in the hemisphere where the moon is above the horizon.
This particular lunar eclipse also may be seen in totality from northern and western Europe, some of northeast Asia, Hawaii and New Zealand, according to Space.com. In total, some 1.5 billion people may have a chance to see the full eclipse, the website reported.
Total lunar eclipses during winter in the northern hemisphere are fairly common, NASA says. However, a lunar eclipse falling precisely on the date of the solstice is quite rare.
Geoff Chester of the U.S. Naval Observatory inspected a list of eclipses going back 2000 years for NASA.
"Since Year 1, I can only find one previous instance of an eclipse matching the same calendar date as the solstice, and that is 1638 DEC 21," Chester said, according to NASA. "Fortunately we won't have to wait 372 years for the next one ... that will be on 2094 DEC 21."
This year's event will take 3 hours and 38 minutes. The eclipse begins on Tuesday at 1:33 a.m. ET, when the Earth's dark-red shadow will turn up on the edge of the moon, according to NASA. It will take about an hour for the shadow to cover the entire moon. Totality begins at 2:41 a.m. and lasts for 72 minutes.
If you only have time for a quick look, NASA recommends that you take a peek 3:17 a.m. ET. That's when the moon will be fully covered in an amber light.
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| Brian Bodenbach Shares some photos he's taken at the event with Carrie MacArthur and son. Carrie now works as an environmental consultant so you might say that Steve's values were passed on to his descendants. |
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| Steve MacArthur's Grandchildren "helping" out with tree planting |
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| Steve's Memorial Plaque |
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| Thornton Creek at Park #2 |
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Interpretive Signage at Cromwell Park |
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Councilmembers meet with Congressman Jim McDermott at his Wash DC office, discussing projects including Solar applications, photo credit-Steve Schneider |
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Solar Array at City Hall created in partnership with Shoreline Solar Project Spring 2010 |
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Southwoods Park dedication plaque
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| 17th Ave NE is transformed into a "Green Street with pervious sidewalks and bioswales |
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| Shoreline's Backyard Wildlife Project Certified this year |
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North King County Green Business Conference 2008 sponsored by Shoreline Chamber and City of Shoreline at Shoreline Community College |
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Street Trees Were Removed on 15th NE this Spring Before Working with Neighborhood |
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Ronald School at risk now due to SSD Plans |
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| Two Wood Ducks and a Beaver Swims By photo credit-Don MacCall |
An oversight committee for Seattle's 2008 Parks and Green Spaces Levy has approved spending $500,000 to improve a seven-acre park along the creek east of the Northgate Mall. The work, which must still be approved by the mayor and City Council, will rechannel the creek and re-work the bank to create more fish-friendly habitat and reduce flooding and bank erosion."I'm really looking forward to this," said Ruth Williams, a Thornton Creek Alliance board member who spearheaded the effort to get the project. "It'll be a lovely thing for the neighborhood and the habitat."
The money will come from the six-year, $146 million Parks and Green Space Levy approved by voters two years ago. The Levy Citizens Oversight Committee approved the Thornton Creek project along with 14 others totaling nearly $7 million in costs. The work will probably begin next year, after City Council members consider approving the projects.
The creek has been the object of long-standing attempts to restore it after having been largely diverted into drainage pipes over the decades by Interstate 5 and other developments.
The area included in the new project lies east of Northgate Mall and Fifth Avenue Northeast and is known as Park Six. Unlike some parts of the creek it has remained "daylighted," flowing in its traditional streambed.
The new grant will complete new channel work between the Northeast 103rd Street/Fifth Avenue Northeast intersection and Northeast 107th Street at Roosevelt Way.
Williams said the channel will be altered in a couple of areas to eliminate sharp erosion-prone bends and pull back banks, adding woody debris to slow the current, create more fish-friendly space in the water and more readily retain flood water.
She said the project also will improve trails and public-access points into the park, and will remove "invasive" vegetation such as ivy and knotweed that crowd out native trees, and replace them with native plants.
She called the project "one more step, consistent with the city's goals, in restoring the natural functions of the creek."
In recent years beaver have begun moving upstream and are creating potentially fish-friendly ponds by building dams, though occasionally they have to be moved away from areas near homes that the ponds could flood, Williams said.
"Northgate really needs a natural area," said Williams, who lives nearby.. "It is so built up and so developed that it needs a counter-balance."
The oversight committee received 100 project applications, toured 33 of them and winnowed the final list to 14 receive money and be completed. The list can be viewed here.
Two-thirds of the proposals were for development projects like the one on Thornton Creek, the other third for land acquisitions, said Susanne Rockwell of city parks planning staff.
Rockwell said the new Thornton Creek project isn't the last to be done on the creek but "it's quite substantial." City Councilwoman Sally Bagshaw, chairwoman of the City Council's Parks & Seattle Center Committee, said she expects the council to consider the proposals during the first quarter of next year.
Projects paid for by the park and space levy are considered separately from the city general-fund budget, which the council approved for 2011 in late November. Bagshaw, through an aide, said she doesn't foresee a problem approving the list
because the oversight committee did "an incredible job of vetting these projects."
Thornton Creek advocates have worked for years to rescue the stream, a 15-mile-long, waterway whose main forks rise in Shoreline and near North Seattle Community College and converge near Meadowbrook Pond before flowing into Lake Washington at Matthews Beach.
Another major victory came after the city spent $9.5 million to create a new creek waterway channel through the 6-acre Thornton Place development, south of Northgate M mall., that included nearly 400 apartments and condominiums, retail space and a retirement community.
The creek, along its entire course, cuts through several hundred residential properties and drains a watershed where some 76,000 people lived, according to a 1998 estimate included in the city's watershed action plan for the creek.
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| Great Blue Heron Fishing at Park Six this spring; Photo Credit- Janet Way |
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| Beaver's handiwork and Great Blue Heron at Thornton Creek Park Six photo credit-Janet Way |
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