GreenClips.150 08.30.00 GOLF COURSE DEVELOPERS SHOOTING FOR HIGHER STANDARDS Although government agencies and environmental groups maintain strong oversight of every significant new golf course built in the US, in recent years developers of those courses increasingly and proactively have moved to adopt environmental standards. In 1995, a national task force called Golf and the Environment brought golf organizations together with environmental groups to establish voluntary principles of environmentally friendly golf course design and maintenance. The latest advances include methods of monitoring biodiversity; techniques to reduce the amounts of water, fertilizer, pesticides and fossil fuel needed to maintain courses; innovative construction of bridges and cart paths to reduce their impacts; and incorporation of native habitat areas into course layouts. The Crosby National Golf Course in northern San Diego County, California, sets aside areas for protecting sensitive plants, returns an abandoned strip mine site to its original state, and establishes wetland habitats for native species. Today a number of courses are helping to reclaim land deemed unusable. The Quarry Golf Club in San Antonio, Texas sits on ground once occupied by a cement company. Whistling Straits Golf Course in Haven, Wisconsin sits atop an abandoned military base. When a golf course is over a reclaimed landfill site, design elements serve dual purposes: water ponds function as stormwater retention ponds and supply irrigation water, indigenous prairie grass hide methane gas extraction pipes, and recover gas emissions for use by local energy providers. Urban Land, Aug 00, p 76, by Jack Skelley. [View Golf and the Environment principles: http://www.psr.org/golf_environment.htm.] NEW SCHOOL MAY BE GREENEST IN WASHINGTON STATE Partially powered by solar and windmill energy, and warmed with geothermal heat, Millennium Elementary in Kent, Washington, is the most environmentally friendly school in the state, Kent school officials say. Designed by CMB Architecture & Planning, the $12 million school opened on August 30. It may be the first Washington school to receive bids electronically, saving stacks of paper and nearly $25,000, since all blueprints were created on CD-ROM. Though costs for most of the building's environmental features were higher than for traditional systems, school officials expect savings in the long run. The geothermal heat pump, for example, cost almost $200,000 more than a gas or electric system. But with lower maintenance and energy costs, the difference is expected to be paid off in about 20 years, about a third of the building's expected life span, school officials say. The building's roof-mounted wind turbine and solar panels will be monitored to determine the effectiveness of solar and wind energy. If the system is cost-effective and successful, it will be used more widely in future projects, school officials say. Millennium also features a five-acre natural wetland, an underground stormwater collection and reuse system for irrigation, and waterless urinals expected to save about 144,000 gallons of water each year. Seattle Times, 30 Aug 00, by Lisa Pemberton-Butler. [For more information email cmb@cmbarch.com.] FREE RENEWABLE ENERGY SOFTWARE PROGRAMS Two organizations offer free software to help analyze the feasibility of renewable energy projects. RETScreen, which can be downloaded from http://retscreen.gc.ca, is a renewable energy project analysis program that helps identify and evaluate opportunities for implementing renewable energy technologies (RETs). The software allows users to prepare a preliminary feasibility analysis of the energy production, costs and financial viability of RET projects anywhere in the world. RETScreen can be used to evaluate wind, small hydro and photovoltaic projects for central-grid and isolated mini-grid electricity generation, and biomass heating and solar air heating projects for buildings. The software was developed by Natural Resources Canada's CANMET Energy Diversification Research Laboratory in collaboration with industry and government organizations. Also, BIPV Designer, a free shareware computer program available from Energy Ideas, can be used to estimate the electrical energy production and economic value of building integrated photovoltaics (BIPV). The program, which includes a database of PV modules, allows the user to customize inputs and to include up to 200 surfaces at any tilt or solar orientation. BIPV Designer can be downloaded from http://www.energyi.mccabe.net. Solar Today, Jul-Aug 00, p 19. IAN McHARG: PROFILE OF AN INFLUENTIAL DESIGNER These days Ian McHarg, now professor emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania, delivers stern environmental homilies in place of lectures. "It's very presumptuous to think that man can improve on nature," he says. "Why don't we just settle for maintaining that which is good?" Former chairman of Penn's department of landscape architecture, a national television personality, and a leader of the environmental movement, McHarg is perhaps best known as the author of Design with Nature, the 1969 volume that exhorted designers to conform to, rather than compete with, nature. In a career that spans five decades, McHarg participated in more than 150 landscape-design projects, many of them exemplary. Yet McHarg earned prominence for his method, rather than for any single project. The McHarg method dictates that a broad selection of environmental and human factors be charted on a series of overlay maps, and that attentive analysis of these interdependent systems will reveal whether a site is suitable for development, and what form that development should take. His method anticipated computer-based geographic information systems (GIS), perhaps the single most important tool in urban planning today. Looking back over his career, McHarg says, "...in my lifetime we have certainly gone from oblivion to awareness. Even obdurate architectural magazines are now talking about buildings being naturally lit, naturally cooled, naturally heated, producing some of their own energies. This is the very antithesis of modern architecture." Metropolis, Aug-Sep 00, p 86, by Ken Shulman. [Full text: http://www.metropolismag.com] INTERFACE LICENSES RIGHTS TO CORN-BASED POLYMER CARPET Interface Flooring has obtained sole licensing rights to make flooring products with NatureWorks, the new corn-based polylactide (PLA) polymer. Jointly developed by the Dow Chemical Company and Cargill Inc., NatureWorks is made using 30 to 40 percent less fossil fuel than required for conventional plastic production. John Wells, president of Interface Americas, predicts that plant-based material may account for 10 percent of Interface's production by 2003. Interface displayed a PLA carpet sample at NeoCon in June and announced plans to introduce NatureWorks fiber products by the end of this year. More: http://www.interfaceinc.com; http://www.cdpoly.com. Environmental Building News, Sep 00, p 12, by Rod Francis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . GreenClips is free of charge thanks to individual members and these sponsors: COLLINS & AIKMAN FLOORING We choose not to just make carpet but to also make a difference. http://www.powerbond.com ENERGY RESOURCE CENTER http://www.socalgas.com/erc Attend a combination lecture and hands-on workshop explaining how to comply with 1998 Residential Energy Standards using new compliance options. The presentation, Introduction to Title 24 and the New Compliance Options, will include examples and cost estimates. Trainers will show you how to perform duct tests that will measure system air leakage, and you will learn how to seal the system in ways that will comply with Title 24. This class also will describe the HERS verification process, and include a display of radiant barrier, UL181 products, high-performance windows and duct-testing equipment. This highly-detailed seminar will help you learn new compliance options, load calculations, duct system design, air balance, and more. Free training notebooks and materials will be provided. This workshop (seminar #4958) will be held from 9:30 a.m. to noon, Thursday, September 7. Cost is free. (Includes continental breakfast.) The ERC is located at 9240 E. Firestone Blvd., Downey, CA, 90241-5388. To register call 800 427 6584 and press option one, or dial direct to 562 803 7500. Be sure to mention the seminar number. EPA'S ENVIRONMENTALLY-PREFERABLE PURCHASING PROGRAM Greening the government, one purchase at a time. http://www.epa.gov/opptintr/epp INTERFACE, INC. More than a carpet company. Much more. http://www.interfaceinc.com SUSTAINABLE JOBS FUND http://www.sjfund.com Investing in high growth sustainable enterprises that create employment for low-income citizens in Eastern United States. WSU ENERGY PROGRAM http://www.energy.wsu.edu Providing objective research, information and solutions. Washington State University Cooperative Extension Energy Program in Olympia, Washington. 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