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The Omega Institute for Holistic Studies, the venerable 140-acre New-Age Shangri-la that since 1977 has been a magnet for well-heeled seekers of spiritual sustenance and holistic solutions to life’s many problems, is not located on a physically higher plane, nor is it really in Rhinebeck. In fact, although the tony retreat has long cultivated a symbiotic relationship with its upscale, celebrity-infused neighbor, it actually resides in a rather boggy lowland section of the Town of Clinton – hence the nagging, long-term sewage problem that predicated the ingeniously holistic solution that had its celebrity-infused groundbreaking on Thursday, Oct. 11. The ceremony, which featured congratulatory speeches from New York’s first lady Silda Wall Spitzer and Scenic Hudson president Ned Sullivan; songs by the legendary singer and environmentalist Pete Seeger and a genuine Native American spiritual blessing, was the debut not only of an environmentally sound sewage treatment system, but of the new Omega Center for Sustainable Living that the holistic sewer plant inspired.
“This campus was originally a boys’ camp, and the septic system was as old as that,” said Carla Goldstein, the director of external affairs for Omega, where attendees can drop upwards of $800 (including food and lodging) for three days of yoga, meditation, massage and such educational fare as a “basic medianship, level 1” workshop with famous psychic James Van Praagh, whose qualifications for teaching people “how to become instruments to the heavenly worlds” includes creating and executive-producing CBS’s Ghost Whisperer (starring none other than Jennifer Love Hewitt).
Ghosts may not produce much excrement, but the living who crowd workshops like Van Praagh’s – or more the serious lectures of visiting heavyweights like Deepak Chopra, Jane Goodall and the Nobel-winning politician/hero Al Gore – most certainly do. By last year, things had reached a critical stage – and the folks at Omega, thinking outside the box as usual, came up with a suitably green and sustainable contrivance to replace their failing septic system. “We had been to this wonderful conference on water where John Todd had spoken about the capacity to use nature’s technology to clean water,” said Goldstein. “We decided we would try building an eco machine.”
Eco logic
John Todd, PhD of John Todd Ecological Design, is the creator of the eco machine, a system that uses natural processes and organisms to purify water. Plants, fish, snails, bacteria and fungi replace the chemical systems used in conventional treatment facilities.
The eco machine, contained in a 4,500-square-foot greenhouse, is the heart – if not the soul – of the new Center for Sustainable Living. Omega’s executive director, Robert “Skip” Backus spoke of the institute’s plans for the center, and explained how the concept morphed from a relatively modest water purification system into a full-blown environmental and educational center.
The eco machine, he said, will be housed in a building that will produce its own power and incorporate a maximum of recycled and natural materials as well as purify water.
“We wanted to demonstrate different technologies in wastewater purification,” said Backus, explaining that, in addition to the eco machine, the system includes a constructed wetland. The wetland, similar to systems used by many municipalities, is the first step in Omega’s treatment process. The water then goes into the aerated lagoons of the eco machine, where plants, shrimp, fish and snails purify it further.
The plans for the center include classrooms, and the purification processes will be visible so groups can see how they work. The relationships between processes and systems will be labeled so visitors can see how they interact. The building will be constructed to the rarely achieved Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) platinum standard, he added, and will feature solar and other cutting-edge green technology.
“The interesting thing about an eco machine is that it’s a community,” Backus said. “The organisms all have to work together to make this happen.”
The project is in the final stages of the permitting process with the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), Backus said. He hopes that construction will begin in mid-November and that the building will be substantially finished in May.
The construction process will be documented on the Omega Web site, www.eomega.org/omega/support/wastewater, as it progresses, Backus said.
A small dent for mankind …
“The Center for Sustainable Living is a monument to Omega’s commitment to teach and model a holistic lifestyle, one that complements rather than infringes on our natural environment,” said Spitzer, the wife of Gov. Eliot Spitzer. “Green building matters,” she said, adding that 39 percent of greenhouse gases are attributable to buildings.
Spitzer said she is working toward making the executive mansion in Albany an LEED “silver” (a more easily achievable notch or two below platinum) building by 2008. “I didn’t intend it to be an end in itself. Rather I hoped it would inspire others to make their homes green and sustainable.”
Spitzer quoted Winston Churchill’s comment that “‘We shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us.’ In that spirit, the executive mansion, Omega’s Center for Sustainable Living and each new green building will help shape our society in a positive way by allowing each of us to live more sustainably and affordably.
“I look forward to using the Omega Center for Sustainable Living as a model in my efforts to help New York become a green state,” she concluded.
New center a ‘crucible’
Todd, the developer of the eco machine, said the center will be “a crucible where one can see in a small, whole, single place, all the processes and all the ideas that we as a larger culture must embrace.” Omega “will help spread these ideas far and wide, and that gives me hope,” he said.
Scenic Hudson has been working since 1963 “to restore the Hudson and its magnificent landscape,” said Patricia Goodwin of the Omega Stewardship Council. Goodwin, who served as mistress of ceremonies for the groundbreaking, introduced Scenic Hudson president Sullivan in what has become the customary manner, but still moves those who have heard it many times: “By leading a 17-year fight to save Storm King Mountain from a destructive industrial project, Scenic Hudson helped launch the modern grassroots environmental movement.”
“For 30 years, Omega has helped people discover their potential, how to heal themselves, and how to find meaning in their lives,” said Sullivan, himself not one to shy away from chart-jumping rhetoric. “Now, Omega is committing itself to helping to heal the earth.”
With some 30,000 people a year attending events and conferences at Omega, he said, the institute “is turning that power to provide leadership and education and to demonstrate what can be done with creativity and imagination. Who could have thought that a wastewater treatment center could be so exciting?”
Sullivan praised Silda Spitzer’s husband for his environmental policies. “He has already established a climate change office in the Department of Environmental Conservation,” he said. “He is a force in the Hudson Valley and the state to demonstrate a new model of leadership, a collaborative one.”
Before launching into song, Seeger waxed poetically about the unintended consequences resulting from environmental victories and setbacks. For instance, he said, the creation of hundreds of community gardens in New York City was a force for good, but it caught the attention of developers who saw the gardens as potential building sites on which they could make a profit, which then led to the negative effect of many of the gardens being destroyed.
The cleanup of the Hudson River, surely a good thing, also drew developers to the region and led to rapid growth, Seeger said.
Seeger reminded attendees of the three-year effort to build the Clearwater, a replica of the hundreds of sloops that once plied the Hudson River. The fundraising that needs to be undertaken to maintain the historic craft is constant, he said, before succeeding in relating his remarks to the celebration of a sewer plant: “Creativity is great, but maintenance is the essential art of civilization.”
Hitting a ceremonial drum and wearing an Old Navy-style headset, Native American performance artist Kenneth Little Hawk blessed the groundbreaking. “May the honor and reverence for Mother Earth that takes place here today be carried round the world from this sacred spot,” he said. “Let Mother Earth embrace the spiritual and physical vision of Omega that all life is dependent on all life.”
