Activities
Green Roofs in Georgia
A few years ago, Tim Carter left his job as a carpenter building upscale homes to become a doctoral student in ecology at the University of Georgia, where he has designed an innovative vegetated roof project.
Carter is monitoring how well vegetated roofs retain stormwater runoff, filter air pollutants, and conserve energy as a natural air conditioner to remediate urban heat. Carter’s interest in green building design was sparked by a co-worker who had a passion for cob and straw bale houses.
By the time he entered the University of Georgia’s Institute of Ecology to pursue studies in environmental policy, Carter’s interests had evolved from designing fringe houses for counter culture aficionados to the broader societal benefits that green buildings could provide.
Seeing European designs for vegetated roofs quickly dispelled Carter’s quaint images of grass and sod-roofed Hobbit houses. “That’s probably the biggest misnomer. It’s not grass and sod. It’s actually plants selected for their drought tolerance because they have to survive extreme temperatures of heat and cold and survive heavy rainfall. Once they start growing, they have to be self-sustaining,” he explains.
The university built the vegetated roof at eye level between two campus buildings with a glass atrium overlook that provides passers-by with a complete view of the project. The three-year project was launched in October 2003 and funded with grants from environmental and industry organizations, Atlanta nurseries and soil companies, and other area businesses.
Green roofs are typically designed as environmental management tools rather than for human use and aesthetic enjoyment. There are two kinds of vegetated roofs: extensive with thin three-inch layer systems, and intensive with greater than six inches of growth. The University of Georgia project is an extensive vegetated roof designed as a best management practice for stormwater retention. “What we wanted to do was establish a roof that could be replicable for anyone who wants to do a generic extensive greenery,” Carter explains.
The university has proved an opportune laboratory for studying stormwater runoff problems. The campus is located in Athens in the Georgia Piedmont along the Tanyard branch, a tributary of the Oconne River, which flows into the Altamaha basin and then into the Atlantic ocean. The Tanyard branch is listed as an impaired stream under Section 303D of the Clean Water Act because of non-point source pollution from stormwater runoff.
“The stream system is in a highly urbanized area,” Carter explains. “There’s no industry and other point sources discharging green sludge. It’s all runoff – nonpoint source pollution causing water quality impairment.”
The biggest problem with urban runoff is from impervious surfaces of all types – not just roads but also rooftops, which collect dust and air pollution. Without an effective stormwater retention system, rainwater and pollutants run off roads and roofs into streams, he explains.
By contrast, in a natural watershed, rainwater flows more slowly into streams, feeding shallow groundwater and recharging aquifers deeper down. Natural soils and organisms also clean stormwater by the time it enters a stream.
Vegetated roofs function as a stormwater filtration and retention system, slowing down runoff and containing airborne pollutants. Moreover, unlike metal roofs, green roofs don’t contribute additional pollutants to a watershed.
“It doesn’t have the pollutant removal efficiency of wetlands, which funnel really nasty stuff off of roads -- hydrocarbons and heavy metals from vehicles. It just filters deposition from the air,” Carter says.
Carter and his colleagues at the University of Georgia are studying the potential tradeoffs between vegetated roofs and other best management practices of containing stormwater runoff with porous pavements and constructed wetlands. He acknowledged that green rooftops may cause more nutrient loading of nitrogen and phosphorous than gravel roofs.
Carter and two engineering graduate studies are conducting real-time monitoring to analyze how much stormwater pollutant removal per square foot the vegetated roof provides. At the roof scale, they are analyzing how well the vegetated roof performs compared to other roofs with respect to stormwater retention, urban heat island, and water quality. At the watershed scale, they are studying the potential effects of widespread deployment of green roofs on urban watersheds.
The next step will be to create incentives that promote installation of vegetated roofs as a best management practice in watershed management by both public policy makers and private businesses, Carter said.
Leaving a Footprint
Students at the University of Southern Maine (USM) are challenging each other and their communities to live more sustainably in USM FootPrint, a green-living column published weekly in the campus newspaper Free Press. The popular column was launched two years ago as part of USM’s Environmental Literacy program and features student perspectives on diverse issues from biodiesel buses to bottled water to honoring Rachel Carson, Maine’s most celebrated environmental writer.
While the essays explore the myriad challenges of treading more lightly on the planet, some student writers also weave humor and satire into their columns. "Running naked through the woods," "The search for free parking," and "Are bicyclists sexier, or do they just have more sex?" are several of the more creative topics featured in recent FootPrint columns, some of which are penned by students in an environmental writing course. Other FootPrint columns have come from papers assigned by professors in some of the 100 environmental courses offered at USM.
"The goal of the column is to market sustainability on campus," explains Dudley Greeley, coordinator of the Environmental and Economic Sustainability program for USM, a public university with four campuses in Portland, Augusta, Lewiston-Auburn, and Gorham, Maine. "It helps the entire campus community make connections between what we all do every day and our quality of life and the health of the biosphere. That’s a very challenging thing to do."
For example, one column made a link between buying bottled water and threatening the health of Lake Sebato in southern Maine. Another column, "The way air should be," a play on Maine’s state motto "The way life should be," reported on a major conference on climate change last year at Harvard College. Other columns explored the global dilemma "Can we feed ourselves without consuming the planet?" and instructed readers "How to drink water on any budget."
"The best aspect of FootPrint is that it engages students in the challenging task of communicating with fellow students about these issues," Greeley says. "The criteria asks them to do this in a constructive and hopefully a funny and hopeful fashion: don’t tell people what to do. Tell them a story about what people have done."
"This is not a green tips column," he stresses. "The column is used to promote and recognize activities that are already happening. Ideally it links something going on on campus to the principle of sustainability."
Three FootPrint columns debated the USM Biodiesel Partnership Initiative, a student campaign to convert USM buses to biodiesel fuel. After USM students voted overwhelmingly to increase student fees by $1 a year to pay for the biodiesel fuel university officials reluctantly agreed to a trial test but balked at implementing the full biodiesel initiative.
Other FootPrint columns deal with broader more philosophical aspects of sustainability, such as the State of Maine adopting the nation’s first extended producer responsibility law holding manufacturers responsible for the end of life of their products through recycling, recapture, and reuse.
While Maine has no shortage of environmental problems to tackle air quality and global warming are at the top of USM student‚s concerns, Greeley says. Though a seaside city, Portland is listed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as a non-attainment area for ozone under the Clean Air Act and is among the worst ten percent of American cities for ozone and nitrous oxide emissions. Maine has the highest reported childhood asthma rates and the second highest reported rates for adult asthma.
Maine’s shipbuilding and concrete industries spew toxins into the air and hordes of vacationers bring gridlock and smog to the Maine coast. But most of the state’s air pollution comes from coal-fired power plants in Rust Belt states in the Midwest. "We’re at the end of the nation’s tailpipes. The prevailing winds are from the west," Greeley says.
Maine and other New England states are suing the EPA and owners of aging coal-fired power plants over the Bush administration’s easing last year of new source review standards under the Clean Air Act, which has enabled Midwest power plants to spew more toxins into the air.
Global warming is another major concern in a coastal state with climate-dependent industries such as fishing, tourism, maple sugaring, and skiing. "Those communities are likely to be critically affected by global warming in the next 50 years," Greeley said. "If we have a higher sea level rise in Maine, most of Maine’s beaches will disappear."
Greeley hopes FootPrint will inspire more campus newspapers to launch similar columns and for universities and colleges to integrate environmental issues in their curriculum. "The point is to get students engaged," he said. "FootPrint challenges students and the campus community to bring better writing skills to bear on the topic of ‘environmental literacy.’ I define ‘environmental literacy’ as having a working understanding of how to lead a more environmentally sustainable life."
FootPrint columns are archived online at the USM Free Press Web site at: www.usmfreepress.org Click on "Archives" and then "Perspectives," or simply click on any of the back issues and search for FootPrint.
Calling All Ecojocks
Remember when college residence halls were hubs of competitive sports like keg stands and foosball? Fortunately—for the environment at least—co-ed competitions are evolving. At Washington, DC's Duke University, the Eco-Olympics are a popular way to promote energy reduction, water conservation, and less waste among the freshman residents of East Campus.
Sponsored in part by the campus Environmental Alliance and held for a month in the autumn, Eco-Olympics events education and impact reduction. For example, students can learn about sustainability though Eco-Trivia Night, the Eco-Film Series, and Duke Recycles information sessions.
Here's how the competion works: Students earn points for their dorm and are able to win prizes, including iPod accessories, bean bag chairs, and brunch at a campus restaurant when they participate in an event. The "greenest" dorm boasting the highest score at the end of the month win a Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream Party and organic cotton "Champions" T-shirts. The champions ultimately include the entire campus community; in October of 2003, in-dorm energy use was reduced by an average of 11.5%, a financial savings of $2,635 on Duke's electric bill.
Great Green Grins
Students in the Environmental Resident Program at Tennessee's University of the South (Sewanee) have the "greenest" teeth around; in the fall of 2003, they sold over 240 recycled toothbrushes to campus students, faculty, and staff.
Perhaps even more innovative than eco-toiletries, however, is the Environmental Resident Program itself. Part of the University's efforts to increase environmental awareness and activity among the campus community, it places an average of one student in each dorm who is trained in environmental issues.
These eco-leaders have three main responsibilities, including educating fellow students, encouraging sustainable living, and coordinating their building's recycling program.
In the spring of 2004, Environmental Residents helped convince the vice chancellor to sign the Talloires Declaration, an action and implementation plan committing signatory university administrators to environmental sustainability in higher education. It has been signed by over 300 University presidents in over 40 countries. Students also helped present a "Renewable Energy Resolution," which proposed transitioning to alternative energy sources beginning in 2005. The Resolution was approved by the Sewanee Student Assembly and the university has stated a commitment to the purchase of five percent renewable energy in 2005, ten percent the following year, and fifteen percent thereafter.
Green Games: Pointing Toward Sustainability
At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Sustainability Coalition is making conservation and recycling a way of life with Green Games, an environmental competition among residence halls. With incentives as high as $600 for the first-place winners, students are encouraged to increase their awareness of campus sustainability while actively decreasing their ecological footprint.
Similar to the Eco-Olympics at Duke, housing communities participate in the Green Games and earn points for each percentage point of reduction in energy and water use. They also gain points for each percentage point increase in recycling, as well as for battery recycling. Communities receive additional points when students attend Green Games-recognized events, such as Health and Safety Clean-Ups.
Perhaps most pro-active is the "program" component, in which students earn points for starting programs concerning the environment. The most points are given to tours or off-campus projects and service programs. Individual contests include essay and photo competitions, and groups can compete in categories such as recycled art and bumper sticker design.
A Showcase for the Stars
The US Environmental Protection Agency realizes that colleges and universities are not only institutions supported by thousands of buzzing electric appliances, but also provide the first home away from home for most students. It views campuses as a unique opportunity to promote their energy-efficient ENERGY STAR products, and to this end has created the ENERGY STAR Showcase Dorm Room.
The project's goals are to educate residents, demonstrate energy-savings to other dorm visitors, and provide an educational tool on energy conservation the entire academic year. The Showcase room illustrates how much the university could save, in energy and costs, if every dorm room on campus used ENERGY STAR products.
Tulane University hosted the first Showcase room in October 2001. It featured ENERGY STAR lighting, office equipment, and home electronics (other available products include refridgerators, ceiling fans, and dishwashers). The three sophomores living in the dorm estimated savings of about $130 over the course of the school year, and figured that if all 1,708 Tulane dorm rooms used these products, the University's annual savings would surpass $200,000.
Having a room-cum-educational-tool meshed well with the academic lives of the residents. Two ran the project as work-study positions, and though, in the end, they reported it had been more work than they had initially bargained for, they said the room was also a more powerful lesson to focus attention on energy conservation than they had envisioned. In all, the students gave over 100 tours of their ENERGY STAR tribute room. They even had their own web page.
The EPA Web site provides a complete "how-to" guide to create your own Showcase Dorm Room, detailing how to select a project coordinator, get administrative support, find participants, ENERGY STAR products, and the room, track the energy-savings, create a supporting campaign, and encourage other energy efficiency projects on campus. Step-by-step information can be found at energystar.gov.