MGPC Sustainability Blog

With all the discussion about the impact of the giant Columbia Town Center development project in Columbia, MD, you would think that residents would be outraged at the negative effects on traffic and resources that the over 5,000 additional residential and commercial units would cause.

Worst of all, are Howard County residents being asked to foot the bill to help subsidize General Growth Properties profit-driven project? Specifically, the development has a very good chance of pushing the wastewater system beyond its limits, with the consequences being ecologically damaging raw sewage spills into the Little Patuxent River, and its adverse effects on our quality of life, safety and comfort.

Alternatively, Howard County can use our tax dollars to expand the existing sewer lines, clear-cutting paths through park areas and leaving unsightly construction equipment, holes and mud-pits near our jogging trails, tot lots, and picnic areas.

But why should we taxpayers bear this increased tax burden at a time when we are already paying higher fuel and food costs, not to mention subsidizing our government’s bail-out of the financial system, and over $ 300 billion farm bill subsidy which only further increases food prices by handing over money to large corporate farms.
If General Growth Properties is going to benefit from construction of a mega-development project, then they should be responsible for the cost of the wastewater solution. While asking GGP to pay for or build the sewer line expansion might not be practical or entirely fair, General Growth Properties could examine more sustainable, environmentally-friendly solutions such as gray water recycling.

We at Maryland Green Power Co. are proposed a plumbing system where wash water (known as gray water) from dishwashers,showers and clothes washing machines gets pumped back to the toilets to be used for flushing. This would save over 30% in water usage and disposal. Why should clean drinking water be used to flush toilets anyway? Someday in the future, our descendants will look back on our wasteful times with dismay; after all, over 1 billion people on Earth do not have adequate access to clean drinking water, and that number will grow, and might soon include drought-ridden areas of our own country!

Yet, we have become apathetic, as the professor played by Robert Redford in the film “Lambs for Lions” tries to communicate to his gifted, but lazily comfortable student. The question is, will you write to your local, State and National politicians, or will you acquiesce to pay the ever-increasing bills you are receiving and believe the politicians when they tell you they have an “Energy Plan,” “Healthcare Plan,” etc.? The fate of our Nation depends on you. When your grandchildren ask you, “what did you do to help?” hopefully you can answer that you did more than just watch the evening news.

This summer, the U.S. Congress left Washington without addressing the energy crisis, gas prices or solutions to the climate crisis. Why did they miss that opportunity? Because YOU did not contact them before their vacation. Now our Congress is playing the fiddle while Rome burns.

You must contact your politicians today. As we have seen, tomorrow can be too late.

While you are at it, write a letter to your local and regional papers using the tools on the We Can Solve It website.

In the final analysis, General Growth Properties should be commended for their commitment to sustainability and environmental stewardship. If you haven’t seen it yet, the plan for Columbia’s Town Center is remarkable, and improves on an already environmentally-friendly planned community. If there were only more towns like Columbia, Maryland, the world would be in better shape.

It would be interesting to know whether most readers believe that enough is being done for the environment by our government, corporations and individuals?

Although in previous posts I have criticized government interference in commerce with the perceived intention of helping the environment, e.g. the inefficient production of “green energy” ethanol which mostly benefits large agricultural concerns, nevertheless I still believe that government must do its part through responsible stewardship of the resources it does consume.

For example, while playing with my daughter in her school’s playground on a chilly early April day after school, I heard noise emanating from the roof of the building. I noticed that the chiller was left running after-hours. (It was a containerized air-handling system, so I can’t be sure, but it sounded like a compressor running leading me to believe that the chiller was on.)

In any case, many parents and pupil complain that the air temperature from classroom to classroom varies so widely, that sometimes children in one classroom have to wear thick sweaters on a hot, late-Spring day, while others in a different wing are perspiring from the heat and humidity.

Not only is this wasteful, but it is unhealthy for the children!

Teachers try to solve the problem by running space heaters in one classroom while the entire school is being air conditioned. Nothing can be done locally about this, because I learned that the thermostats are remote-controlled from the Howard County Board of Education building in the next town.

Another example was on a warm Sunday when I decided to practice my tennis ground strokes against the large gymnasium wall on the outside of the same school. Although there were a few children in the playground playing basketball not far from me, all of the school parking spaces were entirely empty, as to be expected on a Sunday afternoon.

So why was the air conditioner running, keeping the school cooled at the taxpayers’ expense for nobody at all?

Again, this is a waste of energy and taxpayer money.

Who is keeping track of this and who is responsible? Unfortunately, as anyone who has contacted their local school about such issues knows, it is difficult to corner the responsible party. Nobody local has the authority, and the distant authorities are eternally “not aware” of the problem, are constantly “looking into it” or are “hearing about this for this first time from you.”

How does one get people motivated to fix the gaping money sinkholes at our schools? Another Howard County school (names will be left out of this blog in order to protect the guilty) had maintenance problems and even rodent infestations which were not being handled until the issue reached the newspapers.

It’s no surprise that voter turn-out is low when we feel so powerless to affect change in our democracy. Yet, we have to pay the taxes for these less than acceptable services. Sometimes it feels like “taxation without representation.”

Luckily, the USA has the best method of creating a revolution - peacefully at the ballot box, and I think the current Howard County administration has been working hard to improve things.

Most impressive is how Howard County Executive Kenneth Ulman has created an “Office of Sustainability” under Director Joshua Feldmark, which is being replicated in other Maryland counties. I was fortunate to be able to observe one of their meetings as a guest, fascinated by the amount of issues on a wide range of topics they were endeavoring to tackle, as the meeting continued until almost 10:00 P.M. (You can stop complaining that government doesn’t work for you - they called to continue the meeting at 7:00 AM over coffee.)

While they are working on matters such as Baltimore Gas & Electric’s unilateral decision to clear-cut trees through public land in Columbia’s Owen Brown Village, or the impending insufficiency of the sewer system to handle the expected growth in Columbia, they informed me that they have very little influence over the school system. Matters like that have to be taken to the Board of Education.

Here is a short list of items we should be bringing up at the Board of Education meetings, not only here in Howard County, but wherever you happen to be reading this blog:

1) The heating and cooling systems should be optimized and shut down when unused,
2) Lights do not have to burn at 100% intensity at night: some should be switched off while others dimmed;
3) Unused computers in the computer labs should be hibernating when not used: $ 75 Saving per Computer!
4) Plus many other smaller items like, hibernating vending machines at night, using motion-sensing lighting in lesser-used auxiliary classrooms, etc.

These are inexpensive fixes which offer the quickest payback time. The schools do not need to implement expensive projects like solar energy, etc.

I have confidence that there are those in government who can still turn things around. Let’s support them in their efforts - get involved with your local governments, observe, write to the newspapers, write to the politicians, attend a meeting, organize an advocacy group, and complain when you see problems!

Democracy’s worst enemy is indifference.

As a sidenote, which also pertains to schools, read this blog about how Daylight Savings Time waste more energy than it saves:

…Having the entire state switch to daylight-saving time each year, rather than stay on standard time, costs Indiana households an additional $8.6 million in electricity bills. They conclude that the reduced cost of lighting in afternoons during daylight-saving time is more than offset by the higher air-conditioning costs on hot afternoons and increased heating costs on cool mornings…