On Monday, June 21, Iowa’s first LEED™ Platinum-certified home will be awarded a certification plaque by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). Located at 33 Pecan Street in Cypress Villages, Robert Smistik’s new home was over a year in the making. Constructed entirely by local contractors, the two bedroom home had to meet a rigorous checklist of requirements to attain LEED™ Platinum certification.

“The residential sector contributes greatly to climate change and is responsible for 21% of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions,” said Nate Kredich, Vice President, Residential Market Development, U.S. Green Building Council. “Green homes like 33 Pecan Street are an immediate and measurable way individuals can make a difference for the environment, and this project will serve as an example to the community of the benefits of building green.”

LEED™ (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) is an internationally recognized, point-based green building certification system developed by the USGBC. LEED™ measures how well a green home performs in the following categories: energy savings, water efficiency, C02 emissions reduction, improved indoor environmental quality, stewardship of resources, and sensitivity to their impacts. LEED™ Platinum is the highest designation of all.

The home marks the first of many future LEED™-certified buildings planned at Cypress Villages, a 144-acre eco-neighborhood being built north of Fairfield. “Every building and home at Cypress Villages will be built according LEED™ Silver or Platinum,” says Martha Norbeck, the community’s Project Designer and Sustainability Specialist. “Our goals are to live as a model of sustainability for ourselves and others, and to celebrate and protect the valuable natural resources of our planet.”

33 Pecan Street features low-e argon windows, high efficiency lighting fixtures, compact fluorescent bulbs and high insulation values. Other energy efficiency upgrades include a ground source heat pump for heating and cooling, a high efficiency water heater, a programmable thermostat, an energy recovery ventilator and solar electric panels. Low VOC (volatile organic compounds) paint, bamboo flooring, and regionally produced windows, gypsum board, wood trim and tile have been used throughout the house. With a monthly average utility bill of $82, the Smistik home is performing 40% more efficiently than a comparable code compliant home and has achieved the highest Energy Star rating which is five stars plus.

“At Cypress Villages, we’re about as green as you get,” says Norbeck. “We’re striving to build a self-sufficient neighborhood of LEED™-certified homes that go above and beyond most standards of sustainability. This home is just the first step.”

While they are “on the grid,” the community aims to be Net-Zero. This means their solar and wind-generated utilities will produce enough renewable energy each year to match or exceed what they consume from outside energy utilities, with no natural gas, fuel oil or liquid petroleum required. Cypress Villages also has 120 acres of certified organic farmland, is converting to permaculture food production and is partnering with a local entrepreneur to develop an eco-mall.

The entire community is invited to attend the open house and award ceremony that will take place at 2pm on June 21st at the Smistik home. Developer Dan Walker and designer Martha Norbeck will speak on the challenges and rewards of building green as well as Iowa’s sustainable future. State and local leaders will be present for the ceremony and refreshments will be provided. 33 Pecan St is located off of 177th St. North Highway 1 in Fairfield. For more information, visit www.CypressVillages.com.

Yesterday the walls went up on MUM’s new Sustainable Living Center. This building will be completely off the grid with respect to electricity, heating and cooling, water, and waste.

MUM's new zero-energy, off-the-grid campus building

The Sustainable Living Center has been designed to meet the Living Building Challenge, the highest standard for sustainable design and green building in the world. It will be one of the first three to achieve this.

“There’s no other building like this going up in the nation, or in the world for that matter, that we know of,” said nationally known green building expert Mike Nicklas, who co-designed the building, and whose company Innovative Design has designed over 4,000 buildings that use renewable energy solutions.

Whole Tree Post and Beam Construction

Construction will proceed quickly because the structure uses whole tree post and beam techniques. The walls will be tilted up and roof trusses placed on them. The entire shell of the building should be completed within about a week, and the building is expected to be ready for occupation in late fall.

A Building That Teaches

The Sustainable Living Center will serve students in the university’s Sustainable Living major. It will have classrooms, workshop, meeting room, greenhouse, kitchen, research lab, recycling center, and offices, as well as east and west covered verandas and a porch on the north.

It has been designed as a building that teaches. In addition to embodying sustainability, it will allow students to monitor performance and energy efficiency and make adjustments.

“The Sustainable Living Center will be a living, evolving building,” said David Fisher, head of the MUM Sustainable Living Department, who helped plan the building. “The building itself is an educational tool, not just a passive one like most classroom buildings. It will provide participatory education where students will be continually adding to, or altering, the building and grounds as well as systematically checking its effectiveness.”

Off the Grid

The Sustainable Living Center will be completely off of the energy and utility grid. Every feature will exemplify healthy and sustainable green building and will be geared to teaching those principles.

Construction uses all non-toxic materials from local sources (as defined by the Living Building Challenge requirements). All energy will be provided from solar panels on the building and from an outside wind turbine. Rainwater catchment will be the complete source of the building’s water, with purification of drinking water via ultraviolet technology. Wastewater will be treated onsite using a constructed wetland. Natural daylighting will illuminate the entire interior. Geothermal technology will assist with heating and cooling.

An Embodiment of Sustainability That’s Feasible and Practical

This achievement is noteworthy because none of the systems in the building are new or experimental, according to construction manager Dal Loiselle. “The Sustainable Living Center is being constructed using ‘state-of-the-shelf’ technologies,” he said. “This building proves that we can meet our environmental goals for our built environment with the materials, technologies, and green building protocols we already possess.”

Sustainability has become a major focus at Maharishi University of Management. The University has filed a climate action plan to be 100% carbon neutral by 2020 as part of the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment.

This is a busy week in sustainability, we have an exciting lineup for our Backyard Conservation series as well as fantastic visitors from Dubuque; we hope you will consider coming to our workshops and presentations.

This Thursday and Friday Candace Eudaley – the Regional Economic Development and Sustainability Coordinator for the East Central Intergovernmental Association (ECIA) – will be visiting Fairfield to meet with members of the community at Greendrinks on Thursday, noon at Revelations; and addressing the Green Business Council on Friday, noon at the Extension Office. Candace oversees the Petal Project and Buyer/Supplier based in Dubuque. The Petal Project is a green business certification project for Eastern Iowa that is growing quickly. Buyer/Supplier is an innovative program that links local and regional businesses to help keep businesses purchasing and providing services locally. Both programs have grown over 100% in the last year, and have proven to be potential partners for our sustainable efforts in Fairfield.

Friday and Saturday have first-class workshops going on, all free to the public. Friday morning, at 10am, members from COSC will be delivering a workshop on Green Roof Design – followed up with a free lunch and an afternoon workshop on Stormwater Runoff Management (1-4pm). These workshops are in the Extension Activities building on the Fairgrounds. Registration is necessary, the workshops are FREE. To Register, contact Leslie Berckes at at (515) 707-2787 or Leslie@icosc.com . At 7pm, in the same location, Wayne Petersen will be presenting a fabulous workshop on Building your own Rain Garden. This extensive and informative workshop will have a hands-on follow up on Saturday morning at 9am as we install a rain garden at John Revolinski’s home located at 705 North Court Street.

It looks to be a gorgeous week and weekend, we hope to see you at the Extension office, Revelations, and John’s home! Contact Scott Timm at stimm@iastate.edu for more details.

Fourteen organizations are working together in Fairfield during the months of March, April and May to provide free, quality programming and resources for backyard projects in sustainability. “These workshops and organized sales focus on sustainable efforts that community members can incorporate into their everyday lives and techniques they can utilize to improve their backyard landscapes,” says Scott Timm, Sustainability Coordinator for the City of Fairfield.

Gardening workshops, given by local residents on how to attract birds and create habitat, develop edible landscapes and incorporate permaculture techniques, increase and identify pollinators, and strategies for composting will help residents get out of their homes and hands dirty this spring. The City of Fairfield and ISU Extension are also hosting a one day sale of high-quality, City-approved, Earth Machine composters for an amazing price of only $46 (first come, first served, April 24th); and the second annual Edible Cityscape sale by the Sustainable Living Coalition will expand its sale this year to berry bushes and a larger variety of fruit trees at extremely low prices. ($5-$15, May). In addition, the Jefferson County Conservation Board has scheduled a prairie burn, weather permitting, for next week.

Groups and speakers will be visiting from out of town presenting on sustainable topics as well. Russ Tell, from the DNR, will hold a workshop on how to identify wells and cisterns on your property – and either utilize them for gardening or safely deal with them. The team from COSC will be running workshops on green roof design and storm water runoff. Wayne Peterson and members from IDALS will present a workshop on rain garden design – followed by a hands-on workshop and an actual install in Fairfield with the help Mr. Peterson and the Master Gardener’s of Extension.

Backyard Abundance will visit Fairfield this Friday evening to kick off the workshop and lecture series with a presentation on creating bountiful backyard landscapes and resilient communities. For more information on events, the schedule, locations and workshop descriptions can be found on the City’s website, and you can also contact Scott Timm at the Extension office at stimm@iastate.edu.

For a a complete listing of workshops please download this printable brochure.

The Fairfield City Council Property Committee met yesterday to discuss a proposal to end the City’s annual trash pick ups. Committee members John Revolinski (Chairperson) and Myron Gookin, discussed a plan that would end the Spring and Fall bulk trash pick ups and save the City tens of thousands of dollars (committee member Susan Silvers was not in attendance).

The new plan being proposed might look like this:

• Once a year, each household would be allowed to haul one pick up truck worth of eligible garbage to the waste management facility for free deposit.
• For a small fee, Waste Management would pick up large items from residents.
• 2010 would be the last year residents would receive the existing Spring and Fall bulk trash pick up service.
• Before transitioning to the new plan, the City would implement a program to educate residents the changes in order to prepare everyone for 2011.

A resident in attendance at the Property Committee meeting asked about residents who did not own the means to haul their own trash (did not own a pickup truck for instance), or were not physically able to load and unload trash. Council member John Revolinski suggested that the new program would attract small businesses that would provide trash hauling as a service to those not able to haul their own trash.

The tone of the meeting was positive, with committee members excited about a plan that will save City funds, as well as encourage residents to reuse-reduce-recycle. A discussion from last Fall on the Fairfield Voice was cited as useful feedback for the committee.

The elimination of the City’s annual trash pick up program, along with the proposed replacement plan are on the right track.  I believe that while the cost savings are a plus, the most benefit comes in the reduction of lazy waste.

Having said that I would like to see a plan that is more in line with what I believe are the goals of the City’s Go-Green Strategic Plan, which includes objectives to “Establish Fairfield as a model Waste to Energy community / Waste to Resource community” (a fancy way of saying they want to minimize waste).  To that end I would suggest the following plan:

• Eliminate the City’s annual bulk trash pick up.
• Hold a summer long initiative to encourage residents to drop off toxic household waste at the Waste Management facility. Including information in the water bill about the types and dangers of household toxic waste.
• Maintain fees for waste drop off. Don’t encourage residents to take truck loads of trash to the dump. The fees are only $5-$8 as it stands.
• Promote the Fairfield Freecycle Facebook Page, local thrift stores, and community initiatives to help residents give away unwanted used items.
• Introduce a “lean and green” trash service. Households can opt into a free trash pick up service, in which they get a trash bin that is 40% the size of the normal can. The bin would be green and branded in a way so that the owner can show it with pride on their curb.  Encourage families to throw out less on a daily and weekly bases and involve students in similar programs at school.

I’m interested to hear your ideas for how Fairfield can get closer to reaching the goals laid out in our Go-Green plan with regards to reduction of waste.  Please post your ideas or entire plans if you have them.

Ronnie Cummins, founder and director of the Organic Consumers Association, will be giving a free public lecture entitled “Climate Catastrophe: How Organic Agriculture and Green Technology Can Help Us Survive the 21st Century” on Wednesday, March 10, 7:30pm at the Fairfield Public Library.

The Organic Consumers Association (OCA) is a non-profit, U.S. based network of 850,000 consumers, dedicated to safeguarding organic standards and promoting a healthy, just, and sustainable system of agriculture and commerce. The OCA’s primary strategy is to work on national and global campaigns promoting health, justice, and sustainability that integrate public education, marketplace pressure, media work, litigation, and grassroots lobbying.

In his article The Organic Revolution: How We Can Stop Global Warming Cummins writes, “Beyond the gloom and doom of the climate crisis, there lies a powerful and regenerative grassroots solution: organic food, farming, and ranching.”

“Millions of organic farmers, ranchers, conservationists, and backyard gardeners (supported by millions of organic consumers) are demonstrating that we can build a healthy alternative to industrial agriculture and Food Inc. Our growing organic movement is proving that we can not only feed the world with healthy food, but also reverse global warming, by capturing and sequestering billions of tons of climate-destabilizing greenhouse gases in the soil, through plant photosynthesis, composting, cover crops, rotational grazing, wetlands preservation, and reforestation.”

Cummins is the editor of OCA’s website, organicconsumers.org, Organic Bytes newsletters, and Organic View. He also serves on the steering committee of OCA’s Mexico affiliate, Via Organica.

Cummins has been active as a writer and activist since the 1960s, with extensive experience in human rights, anti-war, anti-nuclear, labor, consumer, environmental, and sustainable agriculture campaigns. Over the past decades he has served as director of US and international efforts such as the Pure Food Campaign and the Global Days of Action Against GMOs. From 1992-98 Cummins served as a campaign director for the Foundation on Economic Trends in Washington, D.C. In 1998, Cummins organized the SOS (Save Organic Standards) Campaign, spearheading the largest consumer grassroots backlash against the US Department of Agriculture in recent history. He is also a frequent lecturer, both in the US and abroad.

Cummins’ visit to Fairfield is sponsored by Sustainability Research Institute, the not-for-profit research arm of The Sky Factory, LC.