Another view of the eco-barge
The odd odyssey of the S.S. Heliark began 34 years ago when the Army
built her to go to war.
At present, although clouds of civic hostility spasmotically swarm about
her, the Heliark drifts peacefully at anchor in the middle of Lake
Washington, her windmill and tomato plants bobbing freely, very freely,
in the breeze.
The craft is 195-long, 45-feet wide, painted bright blue. She is anchored
in 70 feet of water midway between the manicured slopes of Juanita and the
smoke stacks of Kenmore, between the snarl of Sammamish Slough float planes.
It's a lovely spot.
For three months the Heliark, her windmill spinning like a giant propeller
beanie at her bow, has been going nowhere in considerable style.
"Mr. Eric Lindahl," droned the King County Police Department's Marine Division,
"is the registered owner. It is a World War II surplus barge registered as a
private pleasure boat under registry 809CY.
"Lindahl represents the vessel as the research craft, Heliark, for an organization
known as the Mico-Environment Research Group."
All of that - it turns out - is true. But little or none of it explains the
welling emotions that the Heliark has engendered, either with her venerable
timbers, the halls of government or on the shorelines whose costly horizons she
bobs across.
"There appears to be three types of complaints," said Bjorn Lunde, local coordinator
for Micro-Environment Research. "The first is a concerned call to the sheriff to
ask what is going on out on THE Lake.
"That's the emphasis. What's happening to THE Lake. The second category is more
agitated: 'How long is that barge going to be on OUR lake?'
"The third category is represented by: 'Get that ----ing thing of MY lake, now!"
Lunde is a personable, articulate man in his early 30s, an architect by education
and a visionary by choice. How does he respond, I asked him, to complaints by those
who feel their $500,000 lakeside vistas are being altered (if not sabotaged) by his
whirly-gig research vessel of bright blue?
"It ridiculous," he hooted. "What do you say to someone who calls the police to
complain that he spent a half million for his fine house and now, 'There's a strange
man walking down my block,' or 'My neighbor has just painted his house PINK. No, not
THAT pink one, the other pink one. The light pink one is OK'
"There is no accounting for aesthetic tastes," he said. "Some people have stopped
by in their pleasure boats and said they thought the barge was beautiful."
Beauty, of course, is in the eye of the beholder, and for whatever cosmetic gloss
the Heliark can claim, it is largely beholden to a small group of environmental
activists who rescued her four years ago from the industrial sludge of the Duamish.
"A few years ago, the current topic of attention wasn't tennis or jogging," Lunde
said. "It was the state of the environment. To some of us, that was not merely
interesting, but meaningful. We began investigating ecological theories, the
relationships between life and energy systems.
"And we talked about putting our ideas into practice in a model unit.
He eased his home-made ski boat up to the stern of the Heliark and led the way up
a ladder lashed to her aft rail.
A German Sheperd named Lazarus greeted him upon the poop with a nuzzle. The owner,
Lindahl, a tall, boney man in full beard and mane, tinkered in the corner of a rear-deck
cabin with a dismantled computer whose problem at the moment was to reveal how fast
the windmill was whirring.
"It's a rat's nest," said Lindahl adjusting an alligator clip, "but that's the way I work."
The cabin, itself, was not, however. It was a neat - if rustic - structure fashioned
from used lumber and heated by a 55-gallon drum made into an effective stove. A stiff
south wind nudged the barge on her anchor chain; a light mist blew across her grey
hand-pegged decks, tea was served.
Kuhn's "Structure of Scientific Revolutions" reposed on the table alongside "The
Complete Runner."
"A few years ago, we were looking for something to put our ideas into practice," said
Lunde. "There were thoughts like an old warehouse, or, yeah, a small farm. "But we kept
thinking of something mobile, something we could move around."
They found the barge, bought her cheaply and spent most of the next four years caulking,
scraping and painting. The vessel was moored for three years at Poulsbo.
"There were some problems," said Poulsbo Mayor Clyde Caldart, "but they were superficial.
A minor problem with lights was called to their attention and corrected. A slight sinking
condition when their pumps broke down, but that was fixed.
"And there were the inevitable rumors that occur when something that doesn't look like
you shows up. But we invited the people to make a presentation before our City Council,
which they did. They made a good impression with the Council.
"They were intelligent, articulate and highly idealistic."
The pleasure craft that have cruised past the Heliark since her arrival on the lake in
April often comment on the greenery that flourishes on her deck.
"Hey! Look how their marijuana grows!" is a frequent observation said Kathy Allan, a
designer who is part of the founding group. "But how disappointed they'd be if I told
them it was merely a Jeruselem artichoke."
Several complaints phoned into the King County Police have expressed concern that the
barge and its experimental eco-systems were discharging sewage into the lake.
"But we're not," said Lunde.
"What we are working towards is a complete inter-relationship between various systems,"
Lindahl said. "So thtat the waste product of one system becomes the input for the next system."
That led, naturally enough, to the Heliark's toilet, which at the present stage of its
development, plugged through an outhouse into a 55-gallon drum.
"We are saving every bit of our waste," said Lunde, pointing to three gaily painted,
sealed drums standing nearby. "We will need it when we begin work on the methane generators.
Brown gold."
Contrary to speculation that the barge is a massive floating party, none of the group lives
aboard, although each stands watches. The amount of actual, working energy-producing systems
are meagre: the propeller and a disconnected solar disc.
According to Sgt. Larry Zimnisky of the Marine Division, the Heliark is violating no
existing laws, regardless of the rumors and ire it has raised: "The present County marine
code isn't specific enough to require them to move," he said.
"It's amazing how many governmental bodies claim some kind of jurisdiction or influence
over this lake," he laughted.
"The Coast Guard, the Corps of Engineers, the Environmental Protection Agency, the
Department of Natural Resources, the Department of Fisheries and Game and one better-unnamed
congressman. But the minute something like this happens, they all write ME a letter."
Sergent Zimnisky has no particular quarrel with the Micro-Environmental Research Group, its
endeavors or its dog, Lazarus.
He is just afraid of two things: (1) It will sink and he will have to go get it. (2) If
this research group can anchor in the middle of the lake for nothing in order to research
ecology, what is to prevent an ark of quite another color from showing up and researching
hallucinogens and open-air genetics.
"No reflection on this particular group of people," he said. "But it's kind of spooky. What
would happen if a bunch of hippies or a commune got their own barge and decided to start a
mini-city right in the middle of the lake?"
Ahoy, Cleopatra!" |
