RAINBOW VALLEY — With every new power line and freshly poured cul-de-sac, suburban sprawl closes in around one of Denton County’s 30-year-old experiments with sustainable living.

Residents of Rainbow Valley have confronted threats, both big and small, to their “green” way of life for many years, including a decade-long lawsuit that almost forced the sale of their land to developers before the conflict ended in 2002. But they wonder whether they can defend themselves against the latest incursion: Sanger’s new thoroughfare plan.

DRC/Barron Ludlum

Jerry Langley heads to Medicine Hill in the wildlife area in Rainbow Valley outside Sanger. "We're experienced at taking care of ourselves," says Langley, who's lived in the community for more than 20 years. "But we can't handle eminent domain."

Several residents became concerned after Sanger announced the roads that are the foundation for a new comprehensive master plan, and growth that could bring thousands of new homes and ten of thousands of cars to the area.

They are especially concerned about the southeastern section of roadways, which proposes to connect FM2153 all the way to Fifth Street in Sanger. The proposed four-lane highways, according to the current plans, would run through their 120-acre park and wildlife preserve — part of Rainbow Valley’s 220-acre cooperative.

“We’re experienced at taking care of ourselves,” longtime resident Jerry Langley said. “But we can’t handle eminent domain” — the government’s ability to take control and buy private land outright for projects deemed to be in the public good.

Rainbow Valley today isn’t quite the utopian vision of humans living in harmony with nature that the first residents had for it in the late 1970s. But the five families who live in the cooperative continue to meet internal challenges and adapt to outside stresses. They do their best to keep to the ideals, according to Langley, who’s lived there for more than 20 years.

Each New Year’s Day, residents walk to the top of Medicine Hill, the high point of the area where someone once saw foxglove growing, and rededicate themselves to the mission.

“We just sort of hold hands,” Langley said.

Although the group has no specific spiritual association, they are purposeful about building a green community. Langley said that’s very important to him.

His wife, Tammy, said she’s grown accustomed to doing chores, like the laundry or vacuuming, on solar power.

“It’s not that big of a deal,” she said. “But I must think about what I do. On cloudy days, I don’t want to run TV.”

Solar panels collect power, which is stored in eight golf-cart batteries. The family gets about 340 watts from those batteries, Jerry Langley said. Propane powers their refrigerator, stove and water heater. He estimated they pay about $1,000 per year for propane. A diesel generator also operates the pump on their water well. Five gallons of gas brings up 4,000 gallons of water.

In the winter, the family heats their home with a wood stove.

The couple said that their young son enjoys living in nature. Tammy’s teenage daughter enjoys nature, too, but does her own laundry at her dad’s house.

“I think sometimes she thinks it’s a pain” living off the grid, which means living without electricity provided by a major utility, Tammy Langley said. “But I feel better knowing I’m not contributing to the problems of the environment.”

The Langley family and another resident, visual artist Katy Ray, live in two of the first hand-built dome homes, made of ferro-cement — cement mixed with plaster — and tucked partially underground into the hillsides. A third dome is the community’s meeting house. Although there are several other energy-saving homes in other styles in the valley, the domes were part of the original vision for the community in the early 1970s. Based on ancient architectural principles, the domes bear the load of earth that insulates the homes.

But two more domes are in bad shape and wanting for occupants. Jerry Langley said he’s been talking with someone who is willing to contribute sweat equity renovating a home in order to live there.

Both he and Ray said they’d like to see a few more families living in Rainbow Valley, as it would help with some of the work that needs to be done. Residents must maintain five miles of gravel road, an agricultural water system and a nature preserve. Last week, they had to dig up invasive Chinese privet to protect some of the valuable native grasses in the nature preserve.

Rainbow Valley spun off from Whitehawk, Denton County’s other eco-friendly community on Bobcat Road, which started as a research station and continues today as a 16-family cooperative, according to Whitehawk resident Bill Craddock.

Craddock said that as the years went by and the community wrestled with the realities of green living, it was hard for some residents to reconcile their ideals. Some left, for example, after they voted to bring in electricity.

Ray said she’s been flirting with the idea of putting her underground home on the grid, now that electrical lines are less than a mile away.

She’s lived in her home off and on for 25 years, but as she gets older, it’s gotten harder to deal with the heat.

Built into the side of a hill, her house stays warm in winter, but with its southwestern exposure, the cement heats up on summer afternoons and doesn’t cool down readily after the sun goes down.

“You don’t want to be here in the summer,” Ray said.

She stays cool by running fans with solar-charged batteries.

Jerry Langley runs an air conditioner on a diesel generator on the worst days, and looks forward to the day that air conditioning technology becomes much more energy efficient.

But for now, only a gravel road and a half-dozen mailboxes at McReynolds Road connect the families living this experiment in sustainable living with the outside world.

The group recently negotiated a conservation easement — Denton County’s first and only such site — with the Austin-based Natural Area Preservation Association for more than 75 of the 120 acres in its park to better help defend the area, Jerry Langley said. All manner of birds and other wildlife have found sanctuary in the Blackland Prairie and bottomlands along Clear Creek.

“We started seeing deer for the first time about 10 years ago,” Jerry Langley said, attributing it to suburban sprawl and the loss of habitat around Ray Roberts Lake.

Sanger’s thoroughfare plan is conceptual, and the final alignment of the roads may not resemble the drawings released earlier this month, according to city administrator Jack Smith.

“We stay away from private property, if possible, and negotiate if it’s not possible,” Smith said.

Topography will likely dictate the extension of FM2153. Smith said he had a hard time imagining the road cutting through the heart of Rainbow Valley, with the bottomlands around Clear Creek and the area’s hills.

The engineering  “would be a major undertaking,” Smith said. 

Smith said the city respects Rainbow Valley residents’ privacy, as well as the community’s values.

“We, as a city, pave over land and fill it up, but they’re in tune with nature,” Smith said. “That’s wonderful.”

PEGGY HEINKEL-WOLFE can be reached at 940-566-6881. Her e-mail address is pheinkel-wolfe@dentonrc.com.