The DJC has adopted a portion of highway on Interstate 90, east of Issaquah. Here’s a picture of the handy sign to prove it:

Yay DJC!

This week, the DJC ran an excellent article from Arthur H. Rotstein with the Associated Press called “Commercial projects in Tucscon must start harvesting rainwater.” The article says that the Arizona city has enacted the nation’s first municipal rainwater harvesting ordinance for commercial projects. The ordinance requires developers building new business, corporate or commercial structures to supply half of the water needed for landscaping from harvested rainwater starting next year.

Apparently, landscaping accounts for about 40 percent of water use in commercial

Water

development and for 45 percent of household water consumption in Tucson. That. Is. Crazy.

The article also mentions that a half-dozen other communities in Arizona are looking at replicating the approach, and that rural Santa Fe County in New Mexico has required harvesting using cisterns or similar structures for commercial and residential development since last year.

Which brings me to the next question: why isn’t this a requirement everywhere? Water is cheap, yes. But even though it is cheap, it still costs money. If Tucscon - which the article says gets 12 inches of rain a year - requires rainwater harvesting, why don’t we? (Other than little details like the state owning the rain that drops down from the sky….) 

Now I know Tucson and Seattle are very different. I know Tucson uses so much water on landscaping because the city is in a desert, which means for most anything to grow, it is going to need extra water. But the underlying principal is the same. Water is a free resource. When water falls on the ground, it flows along roadways, picking up dirty icky things like metals and nutrients, eventually ending up in a water body like the Puget Sound, where it

The new LOTT Alliance project in Olympia will be all about water treatment and water conservation. Lisa Dennis-Perez of LOTT said the more conservation there is, the more the organization can delay the need to build additional water treatment plants.

does real damage or at a treatment plant, where it goes through an extensive process to get clean. So why don’t we, as a country, require that at least some of that water is captured and used for something productive?

It just seems like a really wasted resource.

Where am I wrong here? Please tell me why this would not work.

By the way, water is going to become an even greater issue of importance as more people move to the Pacific Northwest. I wrote this article a couple weeks ago that discusses the challenges between the desire to get off the water grid and traditional infrastructure.

In that story, a number of experts from our region discussed where we are going with water treatment and the difficulties that lie ahead. It covers a range of opinions but all speakers could agree on one thing: water needs to be more expensive for change to happen.

Kurt Unger of the Department of Ecology pretty much spoke for the crowd when he said “Water is too damn cheap… We need to assess a fee on water to enable so many more things to happen.”

Ah, June. The sun comes out. It starts to feel like summer….. and there happen to be a lot of green building conferences.

Here’s some of what’s going down:

On May 28 - 29, the University of Washington will host a conference on the intersection of climate change and human rights. The lineup looks interesting with speakers including Mary Robinson, the first woman president of Ireland. Looks like it costs $115 for general admission, $30 for students and $265 for attorneys (ouch, comparatively).

On June 2, the fourth annual Construction Solutions Conference will be held at the Washington State Convention & Trade Center. The conference overview is titled “making green buildings healthy buildings” (wait, aren’t they healthy anyway? Hmm, maybe not….) It’s got some interesting looking sessions like one asking what have we learned from the first generation of green buildings? Costs $325.

On July 3, the Partnership for Water Conservation Workshop will host an event on setting water rates to promote conservation. It’s at the Carco Theater in Renton and costs $65 for members and $80 for non-members.

On Thursday, June 4, the AIA will host a water forum that looks at becoming “water independent.” I’ve been told this is the “water event of the year” and the lineup certainly makes it look that way. Speakers include Jason McLennan of the Cascadia Region Green Building Council, Paul Fleming of Seattle Public Utilities and Jon Gray of Interface Engineering. Prices are $175 for members of AIA and government, $30 for students and $255 for non-members.

Also on June 4, Cascadia will host its pre-art walk green building meet up. This is the place to be if you want to meet fellow greenies in a comfortable, building-related environment. The event runs from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. and features wine and cheese.

On June 25, Guy Battle, director of Battle McCarthy will speak as part of the Transformational Lecture Series. The topic of the talk is low energy buildings and sustainable communities: designing for the net zero economy. It runs from 5 to 7 p.m. at Seattle Central Library. I’ve been told I “can’t miss it” so I would suggest you don’t either.

This is by no means an exhaustive list so good luck ferreting out the green stuff that’s worthwhile!

This is a guest post by Dave Bennink, owner of Re-Use Consulting. 

I was born in Bellingham and have always lived in Washington. Yes, that means I’m allergic to sunlight and spend 11.23 months a year with extremely pale skin, and the other .77 months with extremely red skin. For me, there is a positive to all that rainfall and that’s river and stream kayaking. Recently, I was able to pay penance for all of that praying for rain. I helped

Items donated to flood victims, photo courtesy Dave Bennink

organize a flood relief effort in Western Washington where materials from buildings that we were deconstructing and salvaging were donated to families around the Pacific Northwest.

The January floods damaged hundreds of buildings around the area and many of the homeowners didn’t have sufficient insurance to cover the repairs. A typical home may have had to replace sheetrock, insulation, wiring, wood flooring, doors, sliding glass doors, cabinets, appliances and more. My clients couldn’t help with the sheetrock and wiring by they donated almost 100 doors, over 40 cabinets and many other expensive items including a large amount of lumber and plywood. The value of these donations was in excess of $75,000!

What was I most impressed with? It was either because they donated them anonymously or

Wood donated to flood victims, photo courtesy Dave Bennink

because they did it in these tough economic times. This project was a real pleasure to be involved in and I met a number of good people that help people in need in all sorts of ways. I would like to publicly thank all of our donors for their generosity and pray that we don’t need to do this again next fall or witner. I do hope it keeps raining though, sorry about that!

Hello Green Building Blog readers! Sorry I haven’t been able to update the blog since Living Future but things have been buzzing around the DJC. I’m off on vacation for the rest of this week and will return Monday with great green posts! Until then, good greening!

Starting tomorrow, I’ll be in Portland at Cascadia’s Living Future Conference and whenever I have a chance, I’ll be live blogging it! Stay tuned…..

It’s called the Quick Guide to Green Tenant Improvement series, and is a guide that shows users how to do sustainable commercial improvements in a variety of ten topics. The guides are a product of Seattle’s Department of Planning and Development’s City Green Building team.

The guides are available online here, though I haven’t had time to study them yet. They are

The guides come in many handy flavors

meant to help project managers, owners, interior designers and architects apply sustainable building practices to commercial remodel projects, though a press release says the guide works equally well for interior construction or renovation. Each guide includes an overview of a topic, key benefits and strategies, quick facts, a case study, a checklist, additional resources and potential LEED-CI credits. Helpful? Only you can be the judge.

If you want a hard copy of the series, contact Rebecca Baker at (206) 615-1171.

According to the press release, the guides come in the following fun flavors:

01 Green Lease — A green lease can enhance recruitment, lower healthcare expenses, yield productivity gains and lower operating costs.

02 Connecting with Nature — Interiors with natural elements foster positive connections between people and enhance physical and mental well being.

03 Adaptable Design — “Future-proof” office space by providing for the integration and adaptability of various building systems.

04 Office Equipment — Using energy efficient office equipment reduces energy costs, ambient noise, air-conditioning loads, electromagnetic fields and greenhouse gas emissions while extending equipment life.

05 HVAC: Heating, Ventilation & Air Conditioning — Energy efficient HVAC equipment can reduce energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions and utility costs while increasing thermal comfort and improving indoor air quality.

06 Lighting — Energy efficient lighting systems can reduce a significant amount of electrical energy costs while enhancing aesthetic design inside and out.

07 Employee Well-Being — The quality of the indoor environment directly affects employee well-being and performance.

08 Healthy Building Materials — A healthy workplace is built, furnished and operated to minimize exposure to sub-stances harmful to human health.

09 Regional Resources — Purchasing locally supports our local economy and reduces transportation costs and emissions.

10 Construction Waste Management — Many construction, demolition and land-clearing waste materials have high value for salvage and reuse.

This week, I covered the giant new Thornton Place develoment next to Northgate in the DJC here.

The nine-building project is 109 condos, 278 apartments, 50,000-square-feet of retail and restaurant space and a 14-screen movie theatre with two IMAX theatres. There’s a 143-unit senior living center on the site called Aljoya, developed by Era Living, and a large portion of Thornton Creek that has been daylighted by Seattle Public Utilities.

It’s targeting LEED silver certification under LEED for Neighborhood Development. Its buildings are also shooting for separate LEED NC silver certification. Green features include easy access to transit, project walkability, water efficient and energy efficicient features, and extensive daylighting. For more info, see its Web site here.

The story got a lot of press - in the DJC, the Stranger, and the Seattle Condo Blog, for example - so if you want more info on it, you can read about it there. I’ll get straight to the photos.

A view of the piazza. Developers say they need to do something with this roof, though they aren\'t sure what!

An inside view of a condo unit.

The area where Thornton Creek will flow.

View of the park-and-ride from inside an apartment unit.

Era Living\'s Aljoya project

An inner pathway.

Yesterday, I was visiting members of architecture firm Weber Thompson in their headquarters when I decided to pull out my camera and snap some pics for those of you who have never been.

The nearly year-old building is LEED gold core and shell and is eagerly awaiting a LEED platinum certification for its interior. We’ve written about this building numerous times in the past year so I’m going to skip the description and go straight to the photos. For more on the building, read Shawna Gamache’s story on it here, read the building’s blog here, or click tag Weber Thompson below.

Here they are:

View of the inner staircase

View of the staircase through an opposing inner glass wall

Interior view of office space

View of the courtyard inside the building

Outside view of the building

vertical view of building sunshades

It’s looking like the next two weeks are going to be busy weeks for those who attend green building events. The problem is that with so many things going on, it can get really hard to keep track of them. So, for your convenience, here is a short rundown of what’s going on:

Feb. 24, Tuesday: Resilient Community Planning in the Global Context. 5 p.m. at Gould Court, University of Washington campus. More info here.

Feb. 25, Wednesday: The Cascadia Chapter of the Congress for the New Urbanism hosts its first event at Mithun’s offices. Andrew Schmid of Sound Transit will discuss the connection between public transportation and community development. It is free and begins at 6 p.m. For more information, go here or email info.cnucascadia@gmail.com.

February 26, Thursday: Jason McLennan, CEO of the Cascadia Region Green Building Council, will give a lecture in Tacoma on green building, the new economy and the future of the building industry. It’s at Tacoma Public Utilities. Free for Cascadia members, $10 for all others. More info here.

March 3, Tuesday: The Northwest Environmental Business Council is hosting a one-day conference on stormwater at the Hotel Murano in Tacoma. It costs $145 for NEBC members and $160 for non-members. More info at www.nebc.org.

March’s WSU Innovators luncheon, called ‘Recovery or Reinvention,’ looks at how business will repond to the recession. More info here.

March 4, Wednesday: The NEBC hosts its monthly lunch at McCormick & Schmick’s Harborside. This month’s topic is air quality and nonattainment areas. Dennis McLeran will speak.

Mark Johnson from Jones & Jones Architecture and Landscape Architects will speak at the Mercer Slough Environmental Education Center on sustainable design as part of Bellevue’s Living Green Series. Talk runs from 7-9 p.m. More info here.

March 6, Friday: Built Green, 2009 Conference. $135 for Built Green members, $180 for non-members. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is keynoting the conference. More info here.

And that, my friends, should tide you over!