MISSION
CERBAT is transforming our society into viable, thriving, self-sustaining communities with a regenerative environment and economy, by cultivating sustainable building practices and a thriving cooperative economy.
✌︎ Building Sustainable Communities ✌︎
WHAT WE’VE DONE and HOW WE’VE DONE IT
Through FIVE areas of interest, WorkerCooperatives assists communities in regaining their cultures and environment as well as the ability to produce, thereby being both economically and environmentally viable communities. WorkerCooperatives many branches help guide communities in the viable, thriving, self-sustaining cooperatives that will enhance the local economy while helping the environment.
1.
Environmental Sustainability
Redressing Environmental Racism
Pollution Reduction Gray water and Clean water
Efficient and renewable energy
Transportation
2.
Common green areas and food security
Gardens and food production
Permaculture and aquaponics
Art and creative spaces and play areas
3.
Sustainable Housing
Sustained through land trusts
Shared legal ownership
Sustainable development with integrated living and work spaces
Residential and commercial spaces
4.
Worker cooperatives
Work is controlled and owned by members
Locally owned economy
Sustained ownership within the community
5.
CERBAT envisions a holistic understanding of sustainability that acknowledges the integration of human activity in multiple sectors from housing to food to employment, which all contribute to a community being truly sustainable and viable. The systems we put in place that reduce our negative impact on the environment must address the economic, as well a environmental, issues in our communities in order to be viable solutions. If solutions to environmental sustainability can address the greatest challenges of our neighborhoods: poverty, homelessness, underemployment, income inequality and alienation, then our communities can become holistically sustainable.
Environmental sustainability does not exist in a bubble, isolated from other societal issues. If poverty and income inequality prevents a community from embracing environmental sustainability, our community planning needs to address those issues to be effective. Lack of ownership of housing and the economy puts environmental sustainability at risk. Therefore our strategic planning takes into account all levels of sustainability.
OUR JOURNEY
Founded in 1996 in Kingman Arizona by notable environmental activist and sustainable builder, Jack Ehrhardt, the C.E.R.B.A.T acronym was chosen because it is the mountain range that runs north to south up from the Hualapai Valley, a traditional home land of the Hualapai Tribal People. Fourteen clans lived in this mountain range at one time and it is rich in both Tribal traditional property and natural resources. It was also the home base of the non profits early efforts, which was a 80 acre educational site in those mountains.
The Earthship buildings were the foundation of the sustainable community that taught environmental education. The original project of CERBAT was to show examples of energy efficient building methods combined with natural resource efficiency usage in the human built community. A dozen youth camps were held there where the sun ship earth program was used to give fun examples of living energy efficient with sustainable methods. A strong connection with the Michael Reynolds Earthship construction and lifestyle of maximum sustainability was encouraged.
CERBAT went on to work with the USEPA , ADEQ, USARMY in varying capacities teaching green building and sustainable community planning. Two national television shows were filmed at CERBAT center: The Home and Garden Show and Fox Morning News. CERBAT also became involved in educational programs on renewable energy and giving fact based information in opposition to polluting energy project that depleted natural resource’s unnecessarily.
Building the physical structures is not all there is to building sustainable communities, so CERBAT continues its work today by broadening the scope of its programs to include all aspects of sustainable living, from solid waste recycling and sustainable food chains to building alternative business models and promoting the local economy.
TIMELINE
1996 In our first year we built the CERBAT youth camp on 80 acres in Kingman mountains. We also worked on educating the community about incineration plants and stopping the regional plan to have power plants in Mohave county. We presented at 4 grammar schools every Earth Day. CERBAT designed and built earthship projects under US EPA.
1997 We continued our program of youth camps, having a camp in summer using Sunship earth program. The local tribes were also involved and we hired teachers. We designed and managed a Pentagon funded US ARMY self sufficient building project on the Papago Park military base. Due to this work we were put in for military award. As “Under the shade of a thousand arrows” we taught Maricopa county inmates about sustainable community development.
1998 We received grant from Walmart to continue our summer sustainability youth camp program. Jack Ehrhard, founder, was interviewed at AZ State University and received attorney status 4 times to argue cases, including saving Big Sandy River from 650 megawatt power plant that would dry up the river. We won the case. We built 3 earthships and straw bale sustainable buildings.
1999 Jack Ehrhardt was lead plaintiff, with another board member, in the closure of 1500 megawatt coal plant called the Mohave generating power plant, in cooperation with the Sierra Club. We went to every public meeting and presented reports of incidents of hundreds on carbon emissions. We won the case and the largest coal plant in the west closed and was dismantled.
2000 CERBAT won a top award from the US EPA.
2001 Jack Ehrhardt accepted position to build a sustainable community at the Hualapai tribe.
Over the next decade
Working with the Hualapai Tribe as the Planning and Economic Development Director, transformed tribal center into sustainable community using funding from the Department of the Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Projects over this period included: a $4 million grant to build a 19,000 sq ft juvenile detention rehab center, then a $1 million project to do a land transfer for a road to their grand canyon tourism site.
Continued by garnering federal funding to do green building on:
A boys and girls club
A head start facility
A safe house -social services
A cultural center
An elderly assisted living facility
An adjudicated substance abuse center
A youth camp in their woods
A 10,000 sq ft health department with 60 solar tubes
1 mile of downtown sidewalks
A 6 million new airport facility at tourism site.
14 million for a water line to their economic development site.
Worked with all the other tribes in the area on economic development and renewable energy
was awarded the top award from D.O.E. Tribal Energy program for most progressive work in Indian country
Secured several hundred acres of traditional and sacred homeland for them.
and 30 or so other smaller projects
Undertook numerous trips to DC to advocate and save programs
2013 Open Nevada branch office in Las Vegas
2014 Superadobe Dome workshops in Las Vegas
2015 Farmer’s Market on UNLV Campus
2015 Jack Ehrhard was appointed by Department of Interior to be on RAC: Resource Advisory Council to work on Public Land Use Management opposing farming practices depleting water table and aquifer. We won an award.
2016 Open California Branch office in Los Angeles
2017 The Pew Charitable Trust is sending Jack Ehrhardt, CERBAT founder, to Washington DC to testify before Congress and Senate to save National Monuments and Antiquities Act as well as climate change initiatives.