Officials hear eco-friendly message
Lake Saint Louis resident urges cities to go green
Truthfully, said Gish, a four-year resident of Lake Saint Louis, "going green" has been on her mind for as long as she can remember.
A meeting she organized at Holiday Inn in Wentzville on Tuesday might help her spread the word.Gish's goal is for officials throughout St. Charles County to learn about, promote and possibly require green building in their cities. About 10 city officials and community leaders from across the county attended that evening to hear "green" presentations by representatives from the U.S. Green Building Council and the Sierra Club. Hopefully, the evening would encourage audience members to start the trend themselves, Gish said.
"If you take the first step - for instance, if Wentzville when building a new City Hall decides to make green improvements - all the residents that come into that building will say, 'This isn't some strange thing. Aesthetically, it looks like any other building,'" Gish later said. "It's so much more efficient and you're saving so much money. Once people see that, it will really snowball and people will start demanding that and wanting it to be the standard instead of the unusual circumstance."
Yet, as more and more people become environmentally conscience, the idea of "green living" isn't completely unusual. It's happening on many levels across St. Charles County.
Solar energy panels were installed in October at Adolphus Busch IV's Belleau Farm on Highway 79.
Ray Burger's Pineapple Hospitality in St. Peters sells eco-friendly products ranging from amenities to cleaning supplies.
Tom Ochsner, of St. Peters, helps homeowners conserve energy and money by using a thermal camera to indicate poorly insulated walls.
Novus International, which recently broke ground for a 38,000-square-foot building in the Missouri Research Park in Weldon Spring, has applied for a platinum-level accreditation from the Green Building Council - a rating that is part of the organization's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) initiative.
And, as populations continue to rise, cities are expanding, too, Gish said; Dardenne Prairie and Wentzville want bigger city hall buildings. Wentzville, O'Fallon and Cottleville are revitalizing their downtown. Lake Saint Louis soon will have a new shopping center, public works facility and lakefront development district.
"It makes a lot of sense," she said, calling her audience to set the "green" bar. "It makes sense to save resources. It makes sense to save energy. It makes sense to save money in our cities."
Often standing in the way is the public perception that a green building has no running water or electricity. But the reality is, they are high performance, comfortable and incredibly energy- and resource-efficient, which is why the focus first should be on buildings, said Pat Justis, chairman of the Green Building Council's St. Louis Chapter.
Justis' numbers support his claim. According to the chairman, also an engineer at the Missouri Department of Natural Resources' energy center, United States building accounts for 65 percent of waste output, 71 percent of electricity consumption, 39 percent of carbon dioxide emissions and 12 percent of all water use. In fact, U.S. buildings lead the nation in energy consumption at 39 percent, followed by industrial work and transportation, he said.
But people are catching on. Take the Green Building Council, Justis said. The nonprofit organization is composed of more than 13,500 organizations and has 70 chapters nationwide. The St. Louis chapter now has more than 550 people, 200 of which joined in the past year.
Plus, Justis said, more and more companies are seeking LEED accreditation. Each level of certification - certified, silver, gold and platinum - provides standards for environmentally sustainable construction. Attaining such certification will decrease operating costs and increase productivity, he said.
City officials can help in more than one way, said Justis and Henry Robertson, chairman of the energy committee of the Missouri Chapter of the Sierra Club, an environmental advocacy organization.
With the Green Building Council's help, they can develop local and county ordinances that require builders to follow specific green building design and construction standards. They also can arrange tours of green buildings, or form green action plan committees and task forces, Justis said.
Robertson asked the audience to encourage their mayors to sign the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, a document urging state and federal governments to reduce global warming pollution levels.
Examples of ways municipalities can individually make a difference include increasing recycling, purchasing hybrid vehicles for city use, adopting "no idling" ordinances and switching to LED traffic signals, he said.
Many who attended the meeting said they planned to support such proposals. Lake Saint Louis Alderman John Pellerito, Ward 3, said he hoped his city could offer support on a regional level, and Wentzville Aldermen Bill Schuette and Peggy Meyer, both Ward 2, already have requested a work session to discuss the possibility of a task force in their community.
Gathering support likely will take time - especially if the focus is on statistics rather than fostering excitement, said Kevin O'Meara and Joe Kieba, both of the construction business. People should be aware of the issues, they said, but environmental leaders should expect a learning curve.
Still, said Meyer, a former earth science teacher, what it all boils down to is this: "If we don't take care of the Earth, it won't take care of us."
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Visit www.usgbc.org or www.missouri.sierraclub.org for more information on the U.S. Green Building Council and Sierra Club.
