The Green Bike Tour 2004
www.greenbike.org www.windonwheels.org
Iowa Contact: Mike Owen, Iowa Policy Project, (319)
643-3628, ipp@Lcom.net
Minnesota Contact: Cathy Kennedy (952) 944-6559,
cathy@cathrynkennedy.com
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 15, 2004
Day 3: Lessons in Wind Power
ESTHERVILLE, Iowa (Sept. 15, 2004) -
Wind-power pioneers in education held the attention Wednesday of renewable
energy advocates touring four Midwestern states on bicycles.
The Wednesday leg of the six-day Green Bike Tour 2004 opened at Iowa Lakes
Community College, where riders met with 15 students from Iowa and other
states who are in a program for wind-machine maintenance.
"This may be the only college in the nation doing this type of program,"
said David Osterberg, executive director of the Iowa Policy Project, which
is sponsoring the Green Bike Tour with the Minnesota-based League of Rural
Voters. The riders toured the Iowa Lakes facility, where a new turbine is
going up.
"The community college will be producing wind power and selling it back to
the city, an example of how you can put everything together in a
moderate-sized town," Osterberg said. "It's local economic development.
It's value-added. It's what we want to see happen."
The tour began Monday in South Dakota and Minnesota, moving to Iowa on
Tuesday with stops in both Iowa and Minnesota on Wednesday. By Saturday,
the riders wind up in Wisconsin, having seen several more examples of
renewable-energy development in the Midwest. As part of their effort to
show off sustainable energy technologies, three riders use bicycles that
carry solar panels to produce electricity.
Elected officials, energy producers, energy policy activists and media are
joining the ride at various points for events and visits. A member of the
Iowa Utilities Board, Mark Lambert, was scheduled to ride with the group
Wednesday.
After visiting the wind turbine site near Estherville, the bicyclists went
on to Fairmount, Minnesota, and returned to Iowa in late afternoon, to a
stop at Lake Mills and on to the Top of Iowa wind farm near Joice which
a similar group visited in 2002 in a northern Iowa tour.
The public can keep track of the Green Bikers during the tour
through stories and photos that will be updated daily on a website,
www.greenbike.org <http://www.greenbike.org>.
Scheduled riders:
Wednesday: David Osterberg and Tom
Cook from the University of Iowa; environmental entrepreneur Ed Woolsey of
Martinsdale, Iowa; environmental educator Gail Barels of Linn County,
Iowa; policy analyst Elaine Ditsler of Iowa City, Iowa; Mike Kelly,
manager of Top of Iowa windfarm in Joice, Iowa; photographer Tom Langdon;
Mark Lambert, an Iowa Utilities Board commissioner, and John Friedrich,
campaign manager for congressional candidate Paul Johnson.
Thursday: Bruce Anderson of St. Olaf University in Northfield,
Minn., and Christopher Childs of the Sierra Club in St. Paul.
Friday: Guy Wolf and others from Wisconsin.
# # # # #
Editors, News Directors Note: The itinerary
and rider list is likely to change. We will provide updates on the web at
http://www.greenbike.org. |
