The Wrack

Two years ahead of schedule, our goal to obtain all our electricity from the sun is within reach. We have been awarded two grants to launch the final phase of our initiative. With $86,898 from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and $10,000 from the Davis Conservation Foundation, we are poised to install another set o…

The following was published in the Biddeford-Saco?Journal Tribune Sunday edition, 7/20/2014.

If the Wells Reserve at Laudholm had an oil well and a refinery and a power plant on site, we could keep the lights on, fill up our heating oil tank, and top off my Volkswagen every day for cheap. But we dont. Thats just one of the drawbacks of fossil fuels: the infrastructure needs are enormous. Add the geopolitical strife, the pollution, and the finite supply of oil, coal, and natural gas, and its a wonder that our society uses the stuff as greedily as we do.

We cant live without energy. Fossil fuels power the global economic engine, and theyre immensely profitable to their producers. If only they didnt have those annoying consequences. If fossil fuels were as vast, inexhaustible, and reliable as the sun that rises daily over our heads, theyd be great.

At the start of 2012, the reserve embarked on a multi-year, ambitious energy conservation and conversion initiative.

Jennifer Hatch, Marketing Manager for ReVision Energy, provided an informative introduction to solar energy options for homeowners on Wednesday evening in Mather Auditorium. Over 40 people attended this Climate Stewards evening lecture, and one lucky winner, Mr. Jed Thomas, went home with the solar charger door prize (below)!

Just hours before the vernal equinox, installers from ReVision Energy were shoveling snow off the roof of our Maine Coastal Ecology Center to make way for the reserves first major solar array. By afternoon the roof was clear and dry, thanks to its southeast exposure, and the workers went about building an aluminum framework and running wires.

The Wells Reserve at Laudholm is special. Not a day passes that we dont think of this unique place as a gift to those of us who work here, to the wildlife that abounds here, to the coast of Maine and to the international community of estuaries, and of course to our members and to the public.

Because so much of our operating support comes from our members and donors, we believe it is in the best service to you and your gifts that we operate as efficiently and effectively as possible.