Permaculture Course Highlights
In May 2004, the RITES Project successfully coordinated and facilitated its first Permaculture Design Certification Course, Permaculture in Paradise, on Kau'ai, Hawai'i for 30 students. This past fall, the RITES Project organized several Winter Water Management/Water Run-off Solution courses in California. The topics covered were water harvesting, mycorestoration, rock and reed systems, erosion control, reforestation techniques, passive watering strategies, microbial bio-filters, watershed restoration, site assessment and Permaculture design.

The Pepperweed Project
The City of Sebastopol has about two acres of land within the Laguna de Santa Rosa Watershed that has an invasive plant known as pepperweed, Lepidium latifolium, growing on it. Because of community concerns about the use of toxics and the city's commitment not to use toxics on city land, Sebastopol chose to explore ways to manage these plants without the use of toxics. Beginning in 2005, the RITES Project has managed the volunteer effort and monitored the impacts of various non-toxic plant control methods. Current efforts are focused on cleaning up the industrial waste that is flowing into the Laguna, thus limiting the nutrient load that is fueling the invasive plants. Through these strategies, the RITES Project is working to improve the water quality of the Laguna, while advancing the community's knowledge about how to control invasives without the use of toxics.

Enviromentorship Program
The RITES Project has worked with over 200 students in our mentoring program. An example of our work, in 2005-06, the RITES Project worked closely with one student, Arielle Lemmons from Summerfield Waldorf High School, who proposed to use mycelium from the oyster mushroom, Pleurotus ostreatus, to clean up an oil spill. After five months of working weekly with her mentor from the RITES Project, Arielle presented her research to her school and educated the other students about 'green chemistry,' biomimicry and mycoremediation. Arielle demonstrated how these enzymes produced by the mycelium digested the wood debris and broke down petroleum hydrocarbons into benign molecules. Her field trial, endorsed by the city of Sebastopol, has illustrated the success of these methods, as determined by decreased Total Recoverable Petroleum Hydrocarbons per Analytical Sciences Laboratory in Petaluma, California. Now, Arielle and the RITES Project's research is being utilized by various government agencies, including the Napa County Department of Environmental Management.