LVM's Environmental Action Blog

The purpose of this blog is to convey the importance that life choices and daily decisions have on the environment. I will, as a member of the kayaking community, effectively convey the importance and immediacy of environmental issues written in the paddling vernacular.

Thursday, June 23, 2005

good green fun at salida's fibark festival


photo by Mefford Williams
The Fibark Whitewater Festival that takes place annually in the beautiful Colorado mountain town of Salida is well known throughout the kayaking universe as a quality festival as well as rodeo, slalom, and wild water racing event.
You're welcome to scope out the details of the event, the festival, the results, the usual on another website as we here at lvmenvironmental are bringing you a different and quite inspiring spin on Fibark:
Two sponsors of the event New Belgium Brewing Company and Blue Sun BioDiesel have helped to bring not only environmental awareness to kayakers and other attendees of the event, but to put to practice some green initiatives in the usually wasteful festival atmosphere.
The generators used for cooling the beer and some other electrical needs for the weekend were run using Blue Sun's BioDiesel, a Colorado based company. BioDiesel as you may already know is a combustible fuel made from some type of vegetation (corn, soy beans, coconut, etc.) that can be run in diesel engines.
New Belgium and their flagship beer, Fat Tire Ale, brought their already environmentally minded beer producing practices to the table as well as biodegradable "plastic" beer cups made from cornstarch.
The brewery is 100% wind powered, uses half the industry average of water to produce their product (eight barrels of water for one barrel of beer), is a participant in the United States Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design for Existing Buildings (LEED-EB) pilot program. The company has their own in house Sustainability Coordinator, the "Sustainability Goddess."
lvmenvironmental would like to say 'cheers' to New Belgium for their environmental initiatives and interest in supporting the sport of kayaking.
Hopefully we will see like-minded sponsors popping-up in many future kayaking festivals.

photo by Mefford Williams