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PRESORTED STANDARD U.S. POSTAGE PAID NEW MARKET PRESS/ DENTON PUBLICATIONS P.O. BOX 338 ELIZABETHTOWN, NY 12932 POSTAL CUSTOMER
April 21, 2010
A New Market Press Publication
Sports
Local Flavor
Home & Garden
CSC athletes are honored for their mentoring activities.
The Stafford Technical Center will unveil seven new summer programs.
Warmer weather is upon us and it’s time to go outside and get your hands dirty.
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College to open biomass power plant From Tribune Staff & News Reports POULTNEY—Green Mountain College’s new biomass plant officially goes online April 22. Vermont Gov. James Douglas will cut the ribbon on Earth Day, an event recognized by environmental activists, to mark the official opening of the plant at a 10:30 a.m. ceremony. Instead of burning fossil fuel oil, the new combined heat and power biomass plant will burn woodchips; it is claimed to provide 85 percent of the school’s heat and generate 20 percent of its electricity. Number six fuel oil will now be used mainly as a backup to heat campus buildings. GMC officials estimate it will burn about 4,000-5,000 tons of locally harvested woodchips each year as the primary fuel—despite recent reports of low inventories of the renewable resource in Vermont. College officials claim net greenhouse gas emissions from stationary sources on campus will be reduced from 2007 levels of 3,420 metric tons to 546 metric tons of CO 2 equivalent per year. Officials also claim the $5.8 million plant will pay for itself over 18 years through savings on fuel costs. Only a handful of colleges across the country have claimed complete “climate neutrality”, largely through purchasing of controversial carbon credits. Enthusiastic claims of carbon and climate neutrality are frequently cited as hyperbole by global-warming skeptics. It should be noted that increased fuel consumption by truck traffic carrying woodchips to the power plant will likely negate some of the claimed carbon offsets, as was the case with claims by Middlebury College officials about their new campus biomass plant. Green Mountain College officials also claim that their ’s will be the first higher education institution in the nation to be “climate neutral” by 2011 after having reduced its own emissions by over 50 percent.
By Lou Varricchio newmarketpress@denpubs.com Last week, Iceland’s giant erupting Eyjafjallajökull Volcano caused jet travel over some portions of northern and southern Europe to grind to halt. The World Health Organization issued a warning to Europeans last Friday to re-
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main indoors as ash from the volcano began settling out of the atmosphere as it continues this week. According to Dr. Manny Alvarez of Fox News, “The enormous dust cloud, hovering 20,000 feet over much of northern Europe, may contain large amounts of silica, a natural component of rock that
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comes with these types of volcanic explosions. Inhaling silica into your respiratory system can lead to a deadly, chronic lung disease and lung cancer.” In addition to these health problems, the current volcanic eruption has the potential of chilling the world’s climate. The unfolding eruption of
the highly explosive Eyjafjallajökull Volcano is eerily similar in pattern to the catastrophic eruption that created “volcano weather” here in New England during the period 1815-16. At that time, an Indonesian volcano created hardship that was endured especially by Vermont residents
See VOLCANO, page 13
Eyjafjallajökull Volcano erupting March 27. This week’s unfolding eruption has shades of Mt. Tambora in 1815 which caused Vermont’s “Year Without a Summer”. Image courtesy of Fimmvorduhals
Star in your own T.V. cooking show
DAR AWARD Brittany Mack of Poultney has been chosen to represent Poultney High School as the D.A.R. Good Citizen for 200910. The award is sponsored by Ann Story Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution. MAck was honored at a reception at South Station Restaurant where she presented a short autobiographical speech.
R. Brown & Sons
PEGTV, Rutland County’s public access television station, would like to invite the public to utilize their beautiful, fully functioning cooking studio. Completion of a free, one-hour training seminar is all that is needed to reserve space and begin your show. Interested parties are welcome to visit the kitchen studio at 1 Scale Ave. in the Howe Center for a walk through. Cooking shows could vary from local chefs highlighting one of their in-house specialties to a grandmother ’s secret recipe for chocolate chip cookies. Once a show is completed, the episode will air on Channel 15 with subsequent availability on PEGTV’s video on demand portal on the web. Why not share your favorite recipes with the Rutland region (and the world) by filming your own cooking show? You can even bring a live studio audience. It’s fun, easy and free to any resident of Rutland County. PEGTV is comprised of Channels 15, 20 and 21 and is available to all cable subscribers throughout Rutland County. Streaming programming, video on demand services and hyperlocal weather forecasts are also available online at www.pegtv.com.
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