GreenClips.51 07.03.96 PAINTS BETTER EPA'S VOC LIMITS Solvent-based paints and stains emit volatile organic compounds, or VOCs. VOCs contribute to smog when they react with other atmospheric chemicals, heat, and ultra-violet radiation. About 75 percent of currently available paints comply with proposed Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations on VOC content. Some paints' VOCs are even lower than the EPA requires. Pratt & Lambert's Accolade, the Ralph Lauren collection, and even Martin Senour's Super Tough Coat high-gloss acrylic all contain less than 250 grams per liter (g/l) of VOCs, the EPA standard for flat interior paints. Glidden Spred 2000 contains only 160 g/l, half the EPA limit for non-flat interior paint. Water-based copper, gold, bronze, and pewter coatings from Patinas and Metallic Coatings in San Diego contain 33 g/l VOC - the EPA proposes a 500g/l limit for metallics. Some Zolatone-like multicolor paints also have low VOCs. The EPA proposal allows unusually high VOC content for multicolors, 580 g/l. But the acrylic and aliphatic urethane formula of Chroma-Speck by Artistic Coatings has only 111 g/l VOC. And Aquafleck by California Products has 85 g/l VOC in its pattern coat and 130 g/l in its base coat. – Interior Design, June 1996, p. 42, by Judith Davidsen. G & O DESIGN WILL IMPROVE WATER QUALITY Greenhorne & O'Mara, Inc. creatively planned and engineered Hoyles Mill Village, a 569-home development in western Germantown, Maryland, to improve water quality and wildlife habitat. The Greenbelt, Maryland engineering and environmental consulting firm combined natural stream buffers and large underground sand filtration basins uphill from them to double filter stormwater runoff from the proposed community. The natural stream buffers will include trees and other vegetation planted to catch and filter pollutants as water runs toward the creek beds. Shade from the trees will reduce thermal effects on streams and wetlands and improve stormwater absorption. The community's roadways will not have curbs or gutters. Instead, roadside grass swales will help the sand filtration basins capture and clean the first pollutant-carrying inch of rainfall. G & O expects the design toimprove habitats for trout and other species on site and downstream. -Urban Land, June 1996, p. 15, by Julie D. Stern. A FACILITY MANAGER'S GREEN RENOVATION TIPS Maryan Vandenbelt, manager of facility services and environmental matters at National Trust in Toronto, offers environmentally conscious tips for managing interior renovations. She says that reducing construction waste and buying fewer new products are among the more effective ways to help the environment. Standardizing specifications, for example, makes building items like doors and hardware more interchangeable. Pre-finishing materials like doors and frames off site reduces off gassing in occupied spaces. Vandenbelt prefers demountable partitions over traditional drywall assemblies. Shop finished demountable partitions reduce airborne contaminants during construction and leave a clean job site. Demountable partitions are reusable and usually contain recycled materials. She also salvages demolition materials like recessed can lights, millwork, and wood doors through a local supplier of used building materials. - Facility Management Journal, May/June 1996, p. 43, by Maryan Vandenbelt. SUBURBS THREATEN CALIFORNIA'S CENTRAL VALLEY Expanding suburbs will overtake a million acres of California's Central Valley farmland by 2040, reports the American Farmland Trust. Agriculture experts say the 50- by 300-mile basin has the richest farmland in the US, perhaps the world. Developers are turning farmland into housing to meet demand from house seekers priced out of San Francisco and Los Angeles markets and from big families still common among Hispanic and Southeast Asianimmi grant populations in the Valley. Small farmers, not giant agribusinesses, are selling their few dozen acres to developers. Produce from the Central Valley fills supermarkets from New York to Anchorage. Yet urban planner Rudy Platzek predicts that by 2080, one lifetime from now, the Valley will not even be able to feed itself, let alone continue to harvest its current $13 billion in produce each year. Alliances among farmers, conservationists, and politicians to protect the farmland acknowledge inevitable growth and development in the Valley. They fight for smarter growth and coordinated zoning. But their task is daunting - Americans want the four-bedroom, half-acre suburban dream. The American Farmland Trust says it is making progress spreading its message - denser development is better, states need programs to conserve farmland, and sprawl means scarcer water and higher taxes because it saps municipal services. - The New York Times, June 20, 1996, p. A7, by Carey Goldberg. ENERGY EFFICIENT REFRIGERATION AT NEPTUNE FOODS Neptune Food Services, a frozen-food processing and packaging firm, found many energy saving opportunities at its recently completed 250,000 square-foot office and warehouse building on Anacis Island near Vancouver. But its frozen food refrigeration operation was one of the bigger sources of savings. Instead of [thermally] stabilizing the foundations beneath warehouse freezers using electric or gas heat, Neptune uses waste heat recovered from refrigeration. A heat exchanger transfers refrigeration heat output to glycol fluid that circulates through a polyethylene pipe network beneath warehouse freezers. Neptune's refrigeration units feature advanced computer controls, door systems, and insulation. Bifolding freezer doors that open and close at 2-second instead of 12-second intervals lose less cold air, reducing the freezer's cooling load, defrosting frequency, and the warehouse heat load. - Urban Land, June 1996, p. 50, by Mark Rodman Smith. NEW BOOK QUESTIONS ECONOMICS OF GROWTH Questioning growth is heresy to most Americans. Indeed many economists believe that growth is the answer to most of the world's problems. Herman Daly, a University of Maryland professor, challenges this assumption. Daly sharply criticizes economists who refuse to acknowledge that the decline of ecological systems won't inevitably lead to economic setbacks. To stave off economic calamity, he insists that we should not deplete nonrenewable resources faster than we create renewable substitutes. Daly has devised a new way of accounting for natural resources that makes it financially clear why their owners should conserve. "A country that cuts down its trees and sells them is supposed to be growing, but really it isn't," says Sala El Sarafy, an Egyptian economist influenced by Professor Daly. "It doesn't require any environmental knowledge to realize that it is a no-no to reduce your natural capital and count it as growth." But Paul Romer, an economic growth expert at the University of California-Berkeley, describes Daly's writings as "permeated with do-goodism and not enough hard science." MIT Press rejected Daly's forthcoming book "Beyond Growth: the Economics of Sustainable Development", even though they had commissioned it. Instead Beacon Press will release his book in August. - Wall Street Journal, June 25, 1996, p. B1, by G. Pascal Zachary. ANDERSENS DESIGN FOR ECOTOURISM Over the last five years The Andersen Group in Minneapolis, Minnesota have become internationally recognized experts on ecotourism architecture and planning. A philosophy that seeks to reduce human impact through responsible choices guides the husband-and-wife firm's designs. The Andersens designed the Visitors' Center and Korume Creek Lodge in the Kaieteur National Park, Republic of Guyana. Both adjoin Kaieteur Falls, the world's highest single-drop waterfall. David Andersen's beloved Volkswagen camper inspired the Sand Creek Retreat off the coast of Belize. Its tent structure offers living, sleeping, and toilet facilities for visiting shell divers. A mast-mounted turbine and solar panels that rotate to follow the wind and sun provide power. - Architecture, June 1996, p. 122, by Edward Keegan.