ECO-COUPLE GO PRIME TIME.

Byline: Susan Palmer The Register-Guard

Rob Bolman and Melanie Rios are willing to risk a little public humiliation to get out a message about sustainable living.

OK, make that a lot of public humiliation. The Eugene couple - he's a builder specializing in green construction, she's a musician who teaches workshops on climate change - will be featured next week on "Wife Swap," a reality TV show that airs Mondays on ABC. The program creates drama when two women from families of diametrically opposed values trade places for almost two weeks.

Bolman and Rios seem unlikely candidates for the current wave of programs that feature ordinary people in unusual circumstances. The two rarely turn on their television. Until they began considering doing the show, they'd never actually seen an episode.

They live at Maitreya EcoVillage, a complex in west Eugene that includes a triplex and a two-story house, as well as cob-and-hay-bale structures, all designed and built by Bolman. The 30 people who live there grow much of their own food and try to live as sustainably as possible, riding bikes, letting their clothes air dry and otherwise lowering carbon emissions that contribute to climate change.

Even for green-friendly Eugene, the couple might seem extreme. Rather than use toilet paper, they've installed a bidet in their bathroom. And when their compost pile gets a little dry in the summer, they moisten it with their own urine.

The couple learned about the TV program through an e-mail from a friend, who said producers were looking for people living in an eco-village, Rios said.

It occurred to them that TV could be a great way to get out a message to millions of people around the country about using less and recycling more.

"It was an opportunity to sing to a different choir," Rios said.

And then there was the $20,000 that participants receive. Although Rios and Bolman say the money wasn't the main thing, it didn't hurt.

Program producers liked what they saw on several visits to Eugene and paired the couple and Rios' teenage son with a family of three from North Carolina who own five SUVs.

The encounter was challenging for both families, Rios and Bolman said. The North Carolina wife - Sheila Rush, who normally spent most of her time caring for her family's six dogs - didn't like riding a bike in Eugene, eating garden-grown vegetables or using the bidet, Bolman said.

And Rios wasn't too crazy about cleaning up after the six dogs that were always kept indoors and were trained to relieve themselves on mats that had to be regularly cleaned.

Rush thought Rios' son, Skye, had a little too much freedom. Rios thought the North Carolina teen needed to learn to express his emotions and take up guitar, even if it displeased his mom.

When she had the opportunity to change the rules, Rush bought vegetables at the store and drove Bolman and Skye around town in a Hummer. Back in North Carolina, Rios let the dogs outside and got a compost pile started.

Reality shows have been gaining ground in recent years because they're cheap to produce and they attract viewers, said Sharon Sherman, a University of Oregon English professor who specializes in folklore and documentary filmmaking, and who has written about "Survivor," one of TV's first reality shows.

That program pits teams of people against each other and nature. It appeals to viewers who can easily imagine themselves competing and like to think about how they'd do under similar circumstances, Sherman said.

"Wife Swap" attracts viewers for a different reason: the curiosity that motivates us to glance in the neighbors' lighted windows when we're driving down the street at night.

"We're vicariously looking into the lives of other people," Sherman said. "Wife Swap" allows us a more penetrating view, she said.

Whether the Eugene couple's message promoting a more ecologically friendly lifestyle will come through depends almost entirely on the show's editors.

"Unless you're in control of a production, the message could easily be lost," Sherman said.

Worse, the program could be edited in such a way that it turns people away from the message instead of drawing them in, she said.

"Wife Swap" Executive Producer Stef Wagstaffe said the show tries to be fair to both families throughout the production process, including the editing stage.

Still, Bolman worries that he and Rios could come across looking like extremists, or just plain ridiculous.

Will the editors make time for Bolman's explanation of how manure is a common part of garden compost, that it provides essential nitrogen to plants, and that a little human urine in compost is a whole lot less harmful to the planet than the natural-gas-fired plants using energy to create the fertilizers commonly used in agriculture?

Bolman doesn't know. But here's how he figures it: If producers leave in just 10 percent of the couple's environmental message and that message reaches just 1 percent of the viewers, then it was worth it. If they look silly to the rest of the country, so be it, he said. "Our friends know us. And they've been very supportive."

The show airs at 8 p.m. Monday on ABC. For those who miss it, the couple will offer a screening and answer questions about it on Sept. 27 at Cozmic Pizza just before a production of Rios' play: "The Sustainability Ship Meets the Titanium."

"It was an opportunity to sing to a different choir."

- MELANIE RIOS

Thomas Boyd / The Register-Guard