LAKE COUNTY — Lake County won another Green California Leadership Award, this time for creating sustainably built benches in the Lucerne Creek Community Park, the county learned last week.
Supervisor Denise Rushing helped start the project that with more than 60 volunteers created artistic adobe benches that, in part, serve as a barrier between parking and the park itself.
“At its heart, the project was intended to engage a segment of the community who might not otherwise consider sustainable building and spark their imagination while developing a new set of skills that can be applied to future sustainability initiatives and future local jobs,” Rushing said.
The project aimed to create something functional and beautiful, use low-cost, local and natural materials, get community participation and produce no waste or a carbon footprint. The county also wanted to teach the building techniques to volunteers so that they could use them in their own sustainable building projects.
“The project integrated the use of local inexpensive and waste materials into the planning and construction and designers worked with the community to create the project,” Rushing said.
Builders made the adobe from Lake County clay, straw and sand, according to the county.
“One positive unintended outcome was that this project was featured at the Natural Building Colloquium this year and Lake County clays were highlighted as an excellent natural building material, thus potentially initiating more interest by the skilled natural builders in future Lake County projects.”
In the county”s application for the award, it stated, “The community of Lucerne came together against all odds to make this happen ? this is an example of a low-income rural community initiating a turnaround. From this, other projects are already emerging including a community garden, a sustainability education initiative and other similar natural building projects targeted at engaging local youth, skill building, and the use of low cost or no-cost local materials for construction and beautification.”
Rushing said the county and volunteers developed the project to help the citizens of Lucerne.
“It also shows, once again, at the state level we”re getting some recognition in our sustainability efforts we have under way,” she said.
Contact Katy Sweeny at kdsweeny@gmail.com or call her directly at 263-5636, ext. 37.
