(note...the following is a compiled and accumulating text dealing with conceptual aspects of the EILS Program ... some parts are unedited, continuity may vary. Intent is to provide insight into the philosophy and observations spurring the project development and to provide text for quotation or publication.)

Smart Shelter is assembling a long-range program to address environmental deterioration of public (and private) lands in Western Colorado, establishment of safe "Chemical-Free" recreation areas for those with Environmental Illness (as well as the informed public who insist on avoiding herbicides and pesticides), the use of the E.I. community itself as a workforce for non-toxic control of invasive species (tamarisk, Russian olive, knappweed, etc), provide a watchful "productive" presence as deterrent to abuse and illegal activities ...along with research and development of "value-added" products using invasive species woods as a resource bolstering local economies and providing a realistic incentive to stem the infestations of Siberian elm, tamarisk and Russian olive.

The Land Steward Program is also piloting use of permaculture and native landscaping technologies in the repair of damaged lands to halt erosion, increase wildlife forage and restore native vegetation, besides creating "forest gardens" (where appropriate). Pilot studies are in progress on 23 (46 in fall 2005) regional private and public lands sites. The E.I. Land Steward Program takes natural building and surrounding environmental landscaping into the full spectrum of the other 87% of western Colorado...our public lands themselves....the epicenter of native lifestyle and natural building.

We have two epidemics on our hands: the first is the long-predicted mass collapse of human and wildlife immune systems due to accumulated overexposure to synthetic chemicals (pesticides, herbicides, fragrances, cleaning solvents) (called EI...or Environmental Illness...Chronic Wasting and Mad Cow Disease in animals)....and the second is the wholesale deterioration of our Public Lands due to trash, invasive species, off road vehicle abuse and urban sprawl.

Public Lands Managers and staff are grappling hard with limited (and we think outdated) tools given the growth and impacts. Smart Shelter's E.I. Land Steward Program seeks to identify the most beautiful of our public lands worth saving, the most competent and progressive of our land managers to work with and couple them with the dawning resources of the next generation of our culture ....those whose immune systems now demand that we find and build a new world to overcome the consequences of "better living through chemistry". These people are the E.I.s (those with environmental illness), people with advanced chemical allergies, the "canaries", the harbingers of technologies and solutions that will carry us into a new age and beyond the inefficiencies, waste and pollution of current life today.

The chemical damages to human, wildlife and flora reproductive, genetic and immune systems escalates as the "chemical soup" we live in thickens... fueled by chemical industry propaganda convincing the public that herbicides, lawn chemicals, toxic laundry detergents, hair dye and fragrances are safe (their favorite ploy is to tell you they're "natural"...as are rattlesnake venom, crude oil, arsenic and molten lava). The damages created by epidemic synthetic chemistry are now giving us a whole new phenomenon...infants born with chemical sensitivities having had no prior exposure...fueled probably by genetic mutation or in-vetro poisoning passed on through the mother.

At the same time, the herbicide manufacturing corporations have undertaken multimillion dollar propaganda and sales campaigns from the federal level down to identify a several hundred year old process dealing with plant species typically brought over with our ancestors from the old world (tamarisk from Egypt, Russian olive from you-know-where) as a crisis to be irradicated quickly...exactly simultaneous with their brand new products (Garlon 4, Pioneer, Arsenal, Curtail, Round-Up) that just happen to fill the bill to do the job (and all dressed cutely in the lambs clothes of soothing names) disguising the toxicity of their ingredients...such as Dioxin...the most toxic substance man has ever created...which we used as Agent Orange in defoliation of Vietnam, where the soil contamination is now creating genetic defects and illness parallel to a tidal wave and estimated (by the U.N.) to remain in the soils at dangerous levels for the next 400 years...chemicals we are now helicopter spraying on the Gunnison River banks.

Smart Shelter, in conjunction with other "EI", environmental, government and public lands entities, is taking proactive initiative to create "safe havens" on both public and private lands, parks and recreation areas where the nontoxic solutions to problems such as invasive species and property damages replace the chemical herbicides, highly toxic and fragranced restroom facility cleaners and fresheners, etc. which render these public facilities dangerous, unhealthy or obnoxious to those of us with chemically damaged or impaired immune systems already, as well as the more informed and discriminating public...now rapidly getting wiser and increasingly intolerant of contracting these "Environmental allergies" and being poisoned by unbreathable air found on unwalkable parks, public lands and facilities. (BLM will herbicide 1 million acres this year)(Colorado Division of Wildlife is using extensive chemical treatment of river corridor tamarisk and knappweed...as is the Nature Conservancy on the San Miguel River).

The trash accumulation and out-of-control roading and tracking of our public domain are epidemic and obvious to anyone who cares about our lands. Remediation of public lands damage and misuse is stirred into Smart Shelter's Land Steward Program as a key problem to be solved simultaneous to the "chemical soup disposal challenge" and the often desperate plights for safe housing and environment for those of us with already collapsed immune systems...scratching for employability, living funds and clean air to breathe. This program holds for the potential to accomplish the apparently impossible...turning all those problems into solutions by putting them in the same pot, adding ingenuity, legwork and communication...a process with guaranteed success if taken to limits Buckminster Fuller called "Synergetic Resonance".

The Legacy Lands Issue stems from the current trend toward privatization and "development" of camping facilities on our public land. Land managers term the "legacy" use of our heritage which has provided mankind with solace, spiritual connection, oneness with nature, understanding of the complexity of our biosphere, health, native resources, silence, foods, and social cohesion as ..."disbersed camping". There is a decided tendancy along those lines to increasingly develope and give away contained facilities "herding" the camping citizens into paid corrals repleate with noisy generators, bloated RV's, squalling children, fume belching atv's, deafening racket (part of the Urban Psychosis), alcoholic innebriation and choking campfire smoke. Those of us who have found deeper values in these lands for the past 30,000 years are not served by these facilities, but are definatively deprived of native and historical rights by being selectively excluded from camping everywhere else ...the obvious ploy of the land management "recreation planners" (we will plan our own recreation, thank you) assuring profitability for the privatized facility managers by blanketing the competing historic disbersed camping areas with signs depriving us of these rights, giving a market monopoly to the local camp hosts.

The most graphic case of this tendancy is the Little Park BLM ground above Grand Junction, an obvious prehistoric, native American and contemporary American free camp area which the BLM fenced off, banned from camping because of "fire rings" and turned over to the motorized recreation crowd and is now decimated with tracking and smells like down town L.A.

Just as our historic buildings are now rapidly being protected and rennovated through Historic District Legislation and funding, this right to the Legacy use of our public lands, which far outweighs the historic, cultural and health issues of corporate profits and motorheads is in dire need of protection.

Smart Shelter recognizes the need for public responsibility and care in terms of garbage, waste and impact control. For that reason, we target, select and maintain many such sites through the Land Steward Program. In the long run we see that the outcome may become a program in which designated areas are accessable to trained Stewards (on a national liscensing basis) who donate specific time each year to maintenance and are consequently awarded the rights of use to Legacy Sites.

The Americans With Disabilities Act (signed into law by then Pres. George Bush Senior in the 1990's) guarantees all Americans... specifically those with disabilities.... equal access to all spaces public and most private businesses open to the public...which means that government and business cannot create or harbor conditions on publicly accessible premises that render them unusable or inaccessible (or health-threatening) to those of us with challenges such as chemical allergic immune damages. To create conditions which bar us from healthy access is legally deemed discriminatory and enforced by the courts.

Chemical allergies, Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, Environmental Illness (what ever you want to call it) has long been recognized and compensated as a disability by entities such as the Social Security Administration, the Veterans Administration and the AMA. It is a primary focus and criterion for development of healthy living spaces by Smart Shelter as obvious extensions to the Natural Building and Native Lifestyle focuses of this network. Public lands health is an immediate concern and in direct relation and extension to native landscaping and permaculture we use on our private premises.

The solutions we generate on public lands affect the environmental health of us all...and especially our waterways. (for instance...what are the long term health effects of massive herbicide use in the riparian corridor of the Uncompahgre, Gunnison and Colorado Rivers on the allergic incidence triggered through chemical residues in the drinking water supply of Montrose, Delta and Grand Junction?)(How about Las Vegas, Phoenix and L.A.?)(Is anybody monitoring herbicides in those waterways???)(We are).

Smart Shelter is undertaking negotiations with the Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Forest Service, Colorado State Department of Parks, Colorado Division of Wildlife and some County and Municipal administrations regionally (as well as private land owners, ranchers, agriculturalists, etc.)... to designate pilot project sites in which chemicals are banned and invasives are controlled with nontoxic methods...providing safe camping, hiking, hunting, pet and recreation areas for those of us already chemically impaired as well as the more informed parts of the public who know better than to expose themselves to these immune and reproduction-damaging substances...preventing their own thresholding into the debilitating and costly disease from which 15-27% of our population now suffers (according to EPA and the World Health Organization).

By developing a holistic E.I. Land Steward Program, it is our hope that the needs for chemicals can be reduced, safe recreation areas developed, and in the process, damages and irresponsible land uses can be discouraged and curtailed....by using the elevated sensitivities, need for clean living spaces and human labor power of the E.I. community itself....in other words...putting enough problems into the soup until they all start to solve each other. Far fetched??? We think not. Neither did Buckminster Fuller.

The seemingly inevitable litigation which has proved necessary in other areas regarding accommodation of the EI community....along with its endless costs and court battles..... can be avoided by proactive communication, program development and pilot projects...by working together...creating solutions.... we can ramp up the solutions with much less turmoil and cost. Focus of our current pilot program is to create systems of high safety at little or no cost to the government...potentially helping to solve several other problems by tapping the energy, time and motivation of the EI community itself.

The mobile"Micro-Habitat" is a miniaturized traveling living environment, safe for the chemically impaired, converted to total "off-grid" independence and serves as an on-site base of operations and toxic-free living environment for the Land Steward as well as providing a public educational tool for not only some of these projects but as a demonstration module for off-grid and sustainable living technologies as well.

The "Micro" gathers its electrical power not from solar panels, but from the excess, wasted energy of automobiles...is heated with the now-developing prototype multi-fuel, Helena Madrigal Nautilus Stove, collects rainwater for domestic use from its roof, composts not only its own waste, but that of others for soil enrichment, reuses gray water and is passive solar designed (producing 10 hours per day of its own heating energy from the sun in January with no fuel). It can be moved quickly wherever needed...usually necessitated by changes in the local pollution or spraying and is a primary functional ingredient in our public lands solution.... as well as a piece of disability-necessitated equipment

Denial and resistance to positive solutions are invariable in launching projects such as this. Land Owners/ Land Managers and public officials are often blinded to levels and issues of public concern.... often compromised by private and public sector profits from herbicide, pesticide and off-road-vehicle sales.

A wise man once defined insanity as continued repeating of the same action expecting different results. Thankfully many other public lands managers (BLM,Colorado Division of Wildlife and Colorado State Parks, so far) and some elected public officials are more insightful, concerned and open to developing alternatives that leave our public lands accessible to all....these are the people Smart Shelter enlists and supports to help launch its E.I. Land Steward Program. We also strongly suspect that these are the people who in a few years we will see elevated to public office and lands management hierarchy...as the "quick fix" "invasive species panic" and its toxic chemical profits solution hit the inevitable brick wall, unfortunately, by that time, having poisoned several thousand (or hundred thousand) more of us...ironically including the land management employees and applicators themselves....a prediction we are already witnessing as they contact environmental illness resources realizing they now have the symptoms we describe.

If there was ever a quagmire of problems that illustrated most convincingly the inadvisability of shortfall consumerism and industry-generated quick fixes...this batch would certainly qualify. We are under no delusion at all regarding the immensity and demands of what we propose here or the time frame and dedication the Land Steward Program will certainly entail (20-30 years).

But no formula less comprehensive, no timeframe that can't see 5 years, 10 years, 50 years beyond the horizon, and certainly no design solution short of the ingenious stands a chance with this one. Longterm success is only achievable with longterm programing.

For many of us, the question is already answered. The controversy regarding the dangers and health destruction of herbicides, fragrances, solvents, cleaning products, etc is easily avoided in our creation and administration of public recreation, business and meeting spaces. The more relevant question is one of choice. For those of us already suffering from damaged immune systems traceable to malathion, round-up, formaldehyde, etc...there is no question and the debate is tiring and fruitless...that is until the listener contracts Multiple Chemical Sensitivity themselves.

To those already informed enough from reliable sources...the dangers of chemical damage are real and they, despite not already having succumbed to Alpha One or Alpha Two E.I. (environmental illness) know that the diligence and insistence of non-exposure are the only safeguards they have from E.I. and its myriad forms (fibro-myalgia, chronic fatigue, attention deficit disorder, asthma/respiratory impairment, short term memory laspe...etc.) is avoidance. They are becoming increasingly determined to be protected in their homes, work spaces and recreation sites....including public lands and facilities.

There are law enforcement aspects to the EILS program as well. Seemingly unrelated, but in fact, parallel problems of off road vehicle abuses, poaching, illegal dumping and crime on public lands (especially drug...crystal meth labs and rape) and a widening gap between abuses and available, effective law enforcement...through this program...turn the E.I. and Productive Occupancies into a cost effective and much needed deterrent and reporting system. Funding is generated for the program through rewards for poacher identification, etc. Proactive negotiation to bring similar reward systems to empower and encourage the responsible public in prosecution of off road vehicle offenders and dumpers is part of the Smart Shelter E.I. Land Steward Program initiatives.

The need for pest and invasive species control, especially on public lands is real and land managers...like the rest of us...are challenged with budget and limitations of alternatives, all too often resulting in opting for the quick fixes (are they really fixing anything?) of herbicides and pesticides. These 'chemical' fixalls are also not cheaper, if you figure in a $30,000 chemotherapy treatment in their long-range costs...even if "bald" is increasingly more socially acceptable.

Of primary focus in Smart Shelter's work is to develop value added products to be made from the cedar (of "salt cedar" or tamarisk) and russian olive (which has a chocolate brown heartwood rivaling any cabinet or furniture wood such as oak or ash). Reasoning is that small, regional businesses making products for sale from invasive species will produce a long term motivating force, which if properly supervised, can turn the tide in irradicating these species which siphon water from our streams and ditches and crowd out the native riparian species such as narrow leaf cottonwood and willow. Successes are already coming in for hand irradication (Flaming Gorge Park System)(thanks to a very progressive and exceptionally talented park manager there) and value added viability (pencils manufactured from tamarisk on the big Island of Hawaii). We need that here.

Of primary challenge to the public lands administrators advanced and talented enough to foresee the disasters imminent with chemical irradication of invasives (as well as private land owners) is a source of labor making non-chemical irradication possible. Smart Shelter posits (and this pilot project is designed to test) the possibility that EI's (those with chemically damaged immune systems already) may very well provide such a force. Since we cannot live most places, short or medium term "Productive Occupancies" of public lands (or private) which have been withdrawn from chemical treatment could provide the safe havens we need...given a portable, clean and grid-independent living environment can be provided (Such as the "Micro's" discussed above and below)..using the roving EI's as a productive and motivated labor source....allowing relocation with season and need and providing a cost effective trade off of labor for "Short and Medium Term Productive Occupancy of Public Sites"...a win-win situation for government (which would receive invasives programs at little or no cost) and the EI's (who are invariably impaired for employment and strapped for income generating needs)

Smart Shelter has acquired limited funding to support pilot projects on public and private lands ...bringing to the table a very low risk, no cost opportunity to test fly such concepts quietly and at a scale avoiding the train wrecks so common to good ideas too hastily launched.

Long-range fundability of these projects are more than feasible...especially in the light of rapidly diminishing public acceptability of chemical intrusion and mechanical detriment to terrain from existing, less technologically sound, projects escalates. We need a demonstrable test-run track record ...and that is now well underway.

At the same time, key regional areas of prime visual, archaeological, biological and wildlife significance are being identified, mapped and considered as pilot study areas.

Cost efficiency of this systemic approach becomes more visible and viable as the current economic picture weakens for conventional sources.

The legislative and campaign issue viability of this approach is obvious and as the project development unfolds, those avenues are being introduced to politicians, administrators and lawmakers in recognition of a future which will of necessity (if not by deletion) incorporate methodologies which reach far beyond the currently conventional to implement advanced technological developments such as permaculture based biology and value added resource refocus and development.

It may very well come to pass that the products, resource development, remediation technology and labor source augmentation based on approaches used by the Smart Shelter EILS Program will become our basic operating systemology.