Water Conservation by Aggies and City of Fort Worth

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOLf2RbxmzE

Water Conservation is a Must!!!

I have made the executive decision to combine two blogs into one: Steve Chaney, Horticulturalist with Texas AgriLife Research and Extension and the Water Conservation Advisory Committee meeting for the City of Fort Worth.
The information is very closely related and mirror each other.


I was appointed to the City of Fort Worth's water conservation committee after voicing my concerns to the Director of Water and Assistant City Manager that we as citizens were not doing enough to conserve water, especially during a long lasting drought. 


As the newest member of the committee, I absorbed a lot of information at that meeting as well as the briefing I received the day before from the Tarrant Regional Water District. 

Water conservation is a long term plan and a drought plan is more immediate.

Lake Benbrook

Tarrant Regional Water District

Tarrant Regional Water District oversees the four water reservoirs and is responsible to provide additional water resources to a 16 county region. Fort Worth treats the water and then sells it to 30 wholesale customers (other municipalities). Tarrant Regional Water District has enforced Stage 1 water restrictions in August 2011. Those restrictions mainly pertain to irrigation watering only twice a week. Fort Worth already had restrictions on no watering between the hours of 10 am and 6 pm. City staff was asking the committee's recommendation on whether we should stay in Stage 1 restrictions even if we come out from a water level requirement. I stated that we should stay in Stage 1 because everyone will be use to the restrictions. It will confuse everyone if we go out and then have to go back in after this Summer coming up.

City of Fort Worth's list of programs for water conservation are:

high efficiency toilets

high efficiency clothes washer incentives

ICI (institution, commercial, industry) customer water audits

Cooling tower incentives

irrigation system evaluations

rainwater harvesting incentives

golf course conservation

etc.

I don't believe neighborhoods are aware of the programs that the city offers,let alone the education on water conservation, other than the lawn whisperer. 

Steve Chaney made recommendations for conserving water that is NOT reaching the populace but should be marketed by the city.

Rain gardens are a great example that doesn't take a lot of land but important for run off when it rains. It allows the soil to soak the water instead of impacting the storm water and flooding the sewers. Examples below.

The other important element to a water conservation plan is installing native plants. The City of Fort Worth does not require nor encourage as far as I can tell. They encourage native trees but that is all. There are no incentives. In fact, code enforcement was called when my mother had wild flowers growing in her front yard. The ordinance stated that you couldn't have anything growing over 12 inches. She won that battle because of the wildflowers being encouraged in other cities in Texas. But in a single family neighborhood, people like to see monotony, sameness. Native plants use much less water and maintenance.

Steve stated a good rule of thumb for a resident's yard is: 1/3 turf, 1/3 planting beds, and 1/3 permeable hardscape.

Texans use between 8 and 9 billion gallons of water per day. The aquifers are recharged at a rate of 4 to 5 billion gallons per day.


Conservation is the easiest and cheapest.


We take available clean water for granted and I don't want to appreciate it when its gone. We need to appreciate and conserve it now.


The city staff actually stated that there needs to be a balance because they make money by selling water so if everyone uses less, then they make less money. They are concerned about raising rates especially for Tier 1 customers. People who use very little water and may be on a fixed income.
I believe the city should raise the rates because if they don't then people definitely will not think about the amount of water they use. There should be incentives if you use less. That would fill the gap of what money the city would lose from water conservation.

The Birds and the Bees

Landfill becomes Bird's Paradise

www.trinityriveraudubon.org

Trinity River Audubon Center opened in 2008. It took citizens fighting for the air they breath to be the catalyst of a great resource being created.

The area was a landfill that the City of Dallas closed in the 70s. In 1998, tires caught on fire and the City of Dallas made the decision to let them smolder. The citizens filed a class action suit and the judge told the City of Dallas to clean it up. There was 1.5 million tons of waste. It was 6000 contiguous acres. The largest urban bottomland hardwood forest in the U.S. It was a great land use being that close to the Trinity River. The city spent $10.8 million to clean up the landfill and $5.7 million of that was spent constructing the Trinity River Audubon Center. 

Insulation

They installed a vegetative roof which supplies great insulation and food for critters. The flooring is bamboo farmed in East Texas. The ceiling is recycled cotton. The insulation is from recycled jeans. Almost all the windows are slanted to a 90 degree angle to prevent bird strikes. It is curious why not all windows are constructed that way. They have lost many birds on the straight windows and are putting circles of soap on the windows. That is an architectural flaw for an Audubon center. Everything else was impressive.

Lots of natural lighting. 

The walkway on the outside was made with 60% concrete and 40% fly ash which comes from coal plants. They etched the concrete and stained it to look like wood planks. They have 9 ponds that are either natural or natural/enhanced, a 33,000 gallon cistern underground for their butterfly garden, not irrigation. They leave everything to its natural native habitat. No maintenance outside. The outside deck is made out of recycled milk jugs - TREX. (I may look at using that for my deck and outside porch).

They have two wet labs to teach kids. Their furniture is cradle to cradle, meaning that it comes from recycled material and can be recycled again. The counter is made from recycled paper. 

The Center holds the LEED Platinum certification. They have a large septic system with a filtering system. The whole project was very impressive.

Photos provided by: Amari Roskelly unless otherwise noted.

LIVE Green and be educated about it in Plano

LIVE Green in Plano

What a great motto and tagline for a city in North Texas.

In keeping with that motto, the City of Plano funded $1.7 million to create a environmental education center through their Sustainability department (formally the Environmental Waste department). They started construction April 2010 and opened October 2011. A 2600 square feet facility with two cisterns. One 2000 gallon cistern in front was beautifully decorated with mosaic tile donated by a local company. The water is used for irrigation and toilets. Plano is currently in Stage 4 water restrictions but they hope to install native landscaping from the Texas Smartscape.

The center has 54 solar panels and a 60 foot wind turbine that was provided with an EPA grant. The solar panels and wind turbine create all the electricity they need. The center also has a living roof. They have one solar panel that is specific for heating water. 32,000 kWh has been created since the opening and only 27,650 kWh used.

ICF

The floor is concrete mixed with fly ash. Fly ash is the biproduct from coal mines. Tables and chairs are made with recycled material. Lights are on motion sensers and the low e windows face south and east. SIP panel roof (R49) and SIP like walls with concrete ICF (R55) that creates a tight air building. Energy Recovery System was installed when there is too much Co2.

Lights have motion detecters. They are able to open the windows to create a cross breeze when its nice.

Demonstrates the energy efficiencies for heating/cooling of a house

The center is installing a Discovery Garden to educate kids, a butterfly garden and a tunnel to crawl through like a worm. The City of Plano is serious about educating all citizens about sustainability. When they have events at the center, they require zero waste. All food product goes to the City of Plano's compost. Did I mention the City of Plano has a compost?? Central Market in Fort Worth wants to do a compost and the City of Fort Worth won't let them.....yet. 

Photos provided by: Amari Roskelly

Texas Instruments saves money by being efficient.

Paul Westbrook

The new fabrication plant in Richardson was opened in January 2010. Paul Westbrook is a mechanical engineer and has worked at TI for 29 years and became their Sustainability Development Manager. The $30 million facility is on 92 acres and has the capacity for 1000 employees at 1.1 million square feet and cleanroom 284,000 square feet, it currently has 300 employees.

They fabricate very small chips (nano chips) on large silicon wafers and manufacture 450 wafers/day. 








In 2003, strategy teams began designing the fab plant and they added a sustainble team. They partnered with Rocky Mountain Institute to integrate the design of the fab plant. In measuring sustainability, they looked at:


Energy - evaluated energy use per chip and units produced
CO2 Emissions - Transit sharing (listed below)
Water - 40% water use reduction
Materials - 95% recycling rate, hazardous and nonhazardous
Waste - great reductions including food waste goes to Plano's compost

They created a retention pond that harvests rainwater and use it for what little irrigation they use. TI installed native prairie grasses that need minimal care and maintenance. They encourage car pooling, pay for DART (Dallas Transit) passes, covered parking for bicycles, and provide van pools to encourage less independent car use.


Mr. Westbrook stated that business should look at the more resource efficiencies you have it saves money and increases profit. When you look at TIs mission statement that was created by its founders, it encourages sustainability. "Make the world smarter, healthier, safer, greener and more fun." 


When working towards the LEED certification, the COO set a goal of reducing Fab costs by 30% from other Fab plants. They exceeded that percentage, in fact, they saved at least $1 million in operating costs and recovered the costs for LEED certification in the first year.


The quote that we all, as students of Sustainability, need to remember and have as our mantra is "Be relentless and passionate about sustainability". That really resonated with me because I some times get tired of fighting the fight.


www.ti.com

Reduce Landfills and Recycle - Its Revolutionary

My favorite tour for sure.

This 'taking the bull by the horns' and doing something about waste. Eddie Lott, founded Recycle Revolution (RR) after traveling for 4 years, living the good life, hang ing out etc. Then September 11 happened and he had an epithamy. "What am I going to do to make the world a better place?" He came to his home, his community in Dallas and knew he wanted to start his own business. With his family's support and blessing, he started Recycle Revolution in 2008. They moved to their larger facility 10 months ago because of the growth.

www.recyclerevolutiondallas.com

His mission to find an alternative to everything that has been created by Man. They collect paper, aluminum, glass, electronics, toilets, lamps, food waste and styrofoam. They provide education, audit reports and its all interwoven in the culture. They collect from 30 different bars, primarily in Deep Ellum who pay RR.  

Everything gets weighed and sorted. There are 8 different grades of paper.
Lowest to highest grade. Cereal boxes are the lowest and hard white (no print) is the highest. It is the "truffle" of waste. Hard white sells for $400/ton versus newspaper at $80/ton.

Eddie is working to create a community whereas his company reduces landfills and finds a user for just about everything they collect. He is forward thinking and as he talks, he becomes even more dynamic because of his passion and delivery. I want to hook him up with several large users here in Fort Worth. RR provides recycling collection at apartment complexes which is wonderful. When I lived in an apartment, any person that lived in a house that came to visit, left with bags of my recyclables. Really pushed the 'friend' envelope. 

I want to help Eddie expand into Fort Worth. LOVE LOVE LOVE him and his mission.

BRIT is IT!

Botanical Research Institute (1st Platinum LEED building in Tarrant County)

brit.org

Botanical Research Institute walks the walk and talks the talk about sustainability. Their brochure is ALL about how to be sustainable and how they are demonstrating it. They are taking this opportunity to teach people about "being sustainable." The new BRIT building at 70,000 square feet was ready for "move in" February 2011. It is a public organization but privately funded. BRIT was founded in 1987 after SMU Library was going to disperse their collection after financial difficulty. A group of leaders acquired the collection and started BRIT and it went public in 1991. They collect plants from all over the world and trade with other BRITs like kids trade baseball cards. They have a rare book room with the oldest book dated 1549. Thats old.

This guy LOVES his job!

This is the Herbarium.They have over 135,000 plants collected and kept in these climate controlled files at 65 degrees and under 30% humidity. (all photos by Amari Roskelly unless other wise listed)

brit.org

This building breathes: with the bamboo ceiling (a rapid renewable resource) carpet is wool or floor in children's library is made from recycled rubber and tennis shoes, linen wall paper, sunken cypress trees for lumber in the foyer etc. To top it off (no pun intended), is the living roof, not green roof because many of the plants go dormant during the winter months. They placed 5700 square coconut fiber baskets on the roof with 40 different species of plants.

brit.org

First Platinum building in Tarrant County and second in DFW area. They list the following categories in their brochure: Green to the Core.

• Water Efficiency
• Indoor Environmental Quality
• Materials and Resources - on site recycling
• Wood finish materials - recovered cypress
• Wool carpet and bamboo ceilings
• Recycled-content materials
• Indoor air quality
• Lighting

Those are INSIDE the building.
Then they have a whole list for outside to really make it a "sustainable site."

• Rain Garden
• Low-emissions vehicle parking
• Restored prairie habitat
• Living roof (pitched at 19 degrees)
• LEDs
• Indigenous plant material
• Retention pond
• Cistern that collects runoff from living roof
• Geothermal well (166 wells) has cut energy in half
• Solar panels (cylinders) produces 65,000 kWh a year

BRIT was definitely one of my favorites. You got to see first hand how when you look at the whole footprint and site holistically, how important it is to have all the pieces in place. I'm also excited about their educational feature. Takes some of the pressure of me and my fellow classmates. :) I'm thrilled it is in Fort Worth and hope to see many more.


My real question is do the plants tell the scientists a story by where they ended up and where they were originally? Does global warming or climate change affect these plants as they have adapted to increased temperatures?

Rahr Rahr for Beer (stolen from Amy Harris)

Rahr Brewing is probably not the most sustainable tour we took during this course but they do recycle where they can....which is important and they encourage their patrons to do the same. (Right, Audrey?)

Rahr has a beer six-pack carrier incentive that if you bring 20 of them back to the brewery (thats 120 beers), then you receive 5 Rahrbucks to be used in the gift shop or admission to one of their tastings.

After each brew day, a farmer named Jack with the Texas Hereford Association brings a trailer to the brewery and hauls away left over spent grain from the brewing process. Cattle apparently LOVE the grain, hmmm makes you wonder. 
www.rahrbrewing.com. Artisan Baking Company use the used grain from the Ugly Pug beer to make Ugly Pug Jalapeño Bread. Very interesting and sounds yummy.

I love this picture because Rahr Brewery and Fort Worth South encourage bike riding. Drinking and then driving or drinking and then riding your bike. You be the judge. Lowers the carbon footprint.


Rahr has done a nice job being available in just about every bar in the city. Nice job for reaching out to a local business. That too cuts down on carbon footprint by making many of your profits from the local market.


I will do my part in supporting this local business.

Green Beans are the Sustainable Magic Beans

Jackson Murphy owns his own consulting firm called Green Bean Analysis. He is on the Dallas Chapter of USGBC that administers LEED. He talked about the huge investor network of $1.2 trillion that is interested in ESG. Environment, social and governance.

Green Globes is a certification process that started in Canada and moving into the United States. Some companies are participating in the Green Globes instead of LEED. The IGBC, International Green Building Code is coming out in the spring. I will be interested to see if Fort Worth will implement any of the "green codes" before every other large city does.

I'm interested in any information that Jackson has on the appraisal data. I think that data will help sell sustainable development because the data will show the increase in value.

I was not going to become a LEED AP or any other level but it would probably help me have a better understanding of what others are talking about.

My favorite thing that Jackson said is that he wouldn't want tax exempt public properties to be LEED certified but still want them to meet the certification rating points. Public entities shouldn't spend the money. I liked and appreciated it more since he is involved in USGBC that administers LEED.

Real Estate by Homeland Security

Jerry Burbridge is with Homeland Security, Customs Border Patrol. He spoke before the speaker from DFW Airport.The main things I picked up from Jerry was 1) a LEED building can lose its certification if is managed poorly or wrong. The building has to be managed correctly, and 2) every building has 6 sides. 4 walls, the ceiling/roof, and the floor.

You learn more at the Bedford Library

(pictures provided by Amari Roskelly)

Bedford is what we call a "bedroom community". Tends to be predominately families and a large elderly and conservative population. Watching over the "taxpayers money" is a common theme in the mid cities.

Maria, the library director set out to repurpose the old Food Lion Grocery store and double the size of the current library all while staying within the $8.5 million budget. The foundation was in great shape to handle the load of the books but the plumbing had all been stripped and needed to be replaced. Her operating budget was $200,000 with 75% of it being for books. Nothing was to touch her book money.

When the city did a survey of its citizens about what they wanted from their new library, the number one thing they wanted was a drive up book drop off but the second thing was natural lighting. Very interesting. 

Maria had the opportunity to attend a "green design" conference for libraries. What she learned was that she could save money by going "green" which would allow her to save money, especially for her book line item.

She chose not to have the building LEED certified because she didn't feel it was good use of tax payers money and didn't want to spend $40,000 on LEED when she could put it towards her bottom line. There is about a 10% increase in costs to a project by going LEED, mainly because of tracking materials.

Maria identified grant opportunities through the Obama Administration and their Department of Energy initiatives. The DOE gave the library an energy efficient formula grant. They installed a reflective white roof which provided a $20,000 reduction in energy usage.

State Energy Conservation Office (SECO) gave a $2 million grant and they put all their money in solar panels for the roof from Sun Power. 453 khW per day were produced from the the solar panels.

The library installed 150 geothermal wells that does the heating and cooling. They won't have to replace for 50 years. I'm very interested in geothermal mainly because I don't know enough about the system. They have very little glass facing west. This is a picture of the field where the geothermal wells are located. Building is prohibited on the wells but ideas of developing a park or community garden is attractive.

This is the monitor for the solar panels. She can see how many khW are being generated each day, each hour etc. Very impressive. We made our visit on a cloudy day so it was much less than on a sunny day.

Place Making Helps with Sustainability

Jim Johnson, Director of Development, at Downtown Fort Worth, Inc. spoke to our class. I have known Jim for years as do most of us that live in Fort Worth involved with development.

Jim talked about a sustainable street and the importance of zoning and development standards. Those standards set the feel for the street and how people respond to it. The placement of the building, the width of the street, width of sidewalks, street trees etc. He talked about the importance of policy and how each plan such as the thoroughfare plan, parking regulations etc dictates how a city builds and creates the feeling of development. There is a term called "Place Making". 


I think that Jim talked a little over everyone's heads when defining a Tax Increment Financing district. I should have explained it in simpler terms. It can be very confusing.


Downtown Fort Worth, Inc. was the first Public Improvement District created in the state. The group of property owners downtown, mainly the Bass family, got together and created legislation in Austin that would allow PIDs in municipalities. They can be a great tool as demonstrated by Downtown Fort Worth.