The National Park Service (NPS) Midwest Regional Office (MRO)’s new LEED Gold certified building exemplifies sustainable design and green building accomplishments
The sustainable design highlights of the building include: landscaping, water and energy savings, recycling, and waste avoidance. The site includes a variety of native plants, which require little, if any, water, fertilizer, pesticides, or herbicides. They are arranged to help clean sediment and chemicals from storm-water before they infiltrate into the ground.
Water-efficient plumbing fixtures are used in the restrooms, and together with the water-efficient landscaping, ensure high water savings. The new facility uses 45 percent less water than the previous MRO facility, and saves $500 per year on water costs. Energy savings are 30 percent more efficient than they were in the former building, and yield additional cost savings of $3,000 less per year for electricity and gas.
When moving offices, the MRO staff worked hard to ensure proper recycling of all the generated waste, and launched an extensive recycling program. The new building has a space for separating recyclables, and MRO worked with the janitorial staff to make sure that the space is used for recycling. Their recycling paid off with a total achieved collection of 1.7 tons of corrugated containers, 16.9 tons of office paper, and one half ton of phone directories, between January and November 2005. Additionally, MRO now collects batteries and cell phones.
MRO also has an effective EMS Committee to ensure that the new building continues to operate sustainably. The EMS and IT teams, for example worked to reduce waste paper generated from the shared printers.
MRO continues to promote its sustainability efforts through such outreach activities as developing rideshare programs to parks in the regions, building on their partnership with Keep Omaha Beautiful, and their participation in the Adopt-a-Trail Program, which prevents littering.
For more information, please contact Ruth Heikkinen at 402-661-1982.
