November 16, 2004
Environmental Watch: Envirometrics wins two awards
Ruby
|
They were recognized for best technical presentation after a talk on how to use fluid mechanics to study wind flow around buildings, one way to help site meteorological towers.
Bazin joins Hart Crowser
Bazin
|
Bazin received a master's in environmental engineering from Stanford University, where one of her focuses was acid drainage from abandoned mines.
Environmental engineering and geotechnical firm Hart Crowser is headquartered in Seattle and has offices in Edmonds, Portland, Anchorage, Denver and Cherry Hill, N.J.
EcoBuilding Guild workshop Nov. 18
SPOKANE — The Northwest EcoBuilding Guild will host a workshop in Spokane on alternative green building materials on Thursday at Argonne Public Library, 4322 N. Argonne Rd. from 6 to 9 p.m.
Don Stephens leads "Beyond Basic Straw Bale: Innovative Building Materials." Stephens builds with rice hulls and tire bales, the kinds of green building products he says aren't often marketed but are economical and perform well. Rice-hulls, for example, give good insulation, repel moisture and are fire-resistant. Stephens is looking at ways to use tightly packed bags of them to build load-bearing walls.
The EcoBuilding Guild is also taking new memberships for listing in its 2005 Green Pages, a directory of regional sustainable building professionals. Contact Carol O'Dahl at (425) 670-1342 or greenpages@ecobuilding.org or see http://www.ecobuilding.org.
Workshops look at pesticide options
PUYALLUP — Western Washington farmers can find out about alternatives to pesticides at two workshops next week.
They will be held on Nov. 23 at WSU Extension in Snohomish County, at 600 128th St. S.E. in Everett, and on Dec. 9 at WSU Puyallup Research & Extension Center, Allmendinger Center, 7612 Pioneer Way E. in Puyallup. Both will be from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.
For more information, call Don Stuart, Northwest field director for American Farmland Trust, at (253) 446-9384 or e-mail dstuart@farmland.org.
The organizers are the American Farmland Trust and WSU's Small Farms Program. They say common agricultural pesticides will be restricted as a result of a recent federal court ruling calling for pesticide buffers near salmon streams and the Federal Food Quality Protection Act, set for 2006.
Expert: LEED buildings on the rise
PORTLAND — Green building expert Jerry Yudelson says there will be five times as many LEED-registered buildings in the next five years as there are now.
In his book "The Insider's Guide to Marketing Green Buildings," Yudelson predicts the number of LEED-registered products will jump from 1,760 at the end of this year to nearly 10,000 at the end of 2009.
Future growth of the green building industry is hindered by upfront costs, he said. Surveys show building industry professionals are sensitive to first costs.
Yudelson chaired a steering committee for the council's Greenbuild conference last week in Portland. He has 25 years of experience in marketing green building, renewable energy systems, and environmental remediation products and services. For information see http://www.yudelson.net or e-mail jerry.yudelson@comcast.net.
A mitigation bank for Lakewood?
SEATTLE — The Pierce Conservation District picked Habitat Bank to do a study of wetlands at Flett Creek in the city of Lakewood. Habitat has teamed with environmental engineering firm Parametrix to plan restoration of the 150-acre site.
Habitat will also look at ways to pay for building and maintaining the restoration, and one way could be to create a mitigation bank. Developers would be able to buy credits here to compensate for impacts to wetlands in other places.
Habitat is also proposing a mitigation bank project in Clark County. Such a bank would allow compensatory credits for wetlands in Mill Creek, Salmon Creek, Lackamas, Gee Creek and Curtin Creek drainages, as well as the East Fork of the Lewis and Columbia Rivers.
Study says Portland is curbing sprawl
SEATTLE — If greater Portland had sprawled like Charlotte, N.C., in the last decade, Portland would have lost an area twice its size, according to a Northwest Environment Watch study comparing the way 15 U.S. cities curbed sprawl and protected farmland in the last 10 years.
Portland ranked first at limiting low-density sprawl. Every other city except Sacramento, Calif., saw a rise in low-density sprawl. Portland also ranked first at saving open space among eight cities.
But greater Portland is less compact than many cities of similar size, and in average density it ranked behind Las Vegas, Denver, Phoenix, Sacramento and Salt Lake City. Only one quarter of greater Portland's residents live in compact neighborhoods, while half of residents of greater Las Vegas do.
Dick Cooley, Portland real estate investor and former chair of the Portland Planning Commission, said Oregon land use laws encourage reinvestment in existing neighborhoods and property.
Northwest Environment Watch is a Seattle-based nonprofit that publishes Cascadia Scorecard, which tracks census data and growth patterns in cities with comparable features.