Escapist Reality: Article / Save the Bay and restore the coast

Save the Bay and restore the coast
by savage on Thursday 05 May 2005

An advanced news article I wrote for the ribbon cutting cermony of the new Save the Bay building. Currently this is unedited so not a print copy. It is what I brought to my final night of Advance News and Feature writing.

PROVIDENCE - The parking lot is still surrounded by large holes and the roof of the building seems to be covered in dirt. As people arrive for the ribbon cutting ceremonies of the new Save the Bay facility they will quite likely wonder what exactly they are celebrating.

What they are witnessing is a new, environmentally friendly building, built on what was once a landfill, with an amazing view of the bay. Those holes have a purposed and the dirt on the roof is brilliant. Save the Bay, an organization dedicated to cleaning and protecting the Narragansett Bay and its watershed, decided to use the construction of their new facility as a chance to demonstrate and encourage restoration of environmentally damaged areas known as brownfields.

Fields Point, the location for Save the Bay?s new education center and administrative building, used to be a former municipal dump. However, Long before it was a city dump, it was a beautiful, picturesque landscape of green rolling hills and beaches filled with thousands of visitors. According to a 1910 Metropolitan Park Commission report, as many as 15,000 visitors flocked to the various sites and attractions located on Fields Point.

As the years progressed, however, Fields Point became a landfill for construction debris, sewage sludge, dredge material, and junk. Gradually the landfill spread into the bay until it encompassed what once was a small island called Starve Goat Island.

This island, renamed Sunshine Island in the early 20th century when it was used as a children?s hospital, was all but removed from the map by the creeping doom of the Fields Point landfill. Only one small point of the original island still juts out into the bay. The area that had once been a beautiful green park was now a dirty, dangerous brownfield, a place of environmental industrial and commercial contamination.

Now, though, no longer a place for dumping, what was once Sunshine Island has become the new home of Save the Bay. And when Save the Bay chose the Fields Point brownfield to restore, there was a specific focus to make everything about the new building ?green?, that is, to make it environmentally friendly.

?The building is more than bricks and mortar: it is a monument to the concept that we can mitigate damage humans inflict on nature.? Save the Bay wrote in their 2004 Annual Report. ?It is a testament to environmentally sound planning and development.?

When constructing ?green? buildings, ?You need to conceive from the beginning.? Omay Elphick, ETB Campaign Implementation Coordinator, said. Elphick explained that every aspect must be considered from the beginning of the design phase in order to successfully implement the benefits of ?green? planning.

When first approaching the building, the most immediate example of this planning is apparent with the dirt covered roof. This ?green? roof is covered in four inches of dirt, comprised of 20% organic matter and 80% expanded shale which absorbs water during rain storms. This roof will literally be green when the mostly local seeds planted in the roof grow. These plants were selected specifically for their drought tolerances. In the dry season the roof will not need to be water.

The roof is part of the new facility?s storm water management system. ?During a rain storm,? Elphick said, ?the first inch of rain water will be trapped within the vegetation and soil on the roof. That water will slowly trickle down later, slowing down the flow of storm water during rain.?

After the first inch, storm water will then begin to fill the various ?swales?, or small ponds, which surround the parking lot. These swales collects runoff through a series of bioretention trenches, capturing storm water that would otherwise flood the parking area and mix with road salts and oil and other chemicals from cars and trucks. The bioretention trenches are lined to prevent the rain water from soaking through the ground into the layers of contaminated ground and then into the bay.

Storm water causes erosion and flushing of contaminants into tributaries and ultimately into the bay. By consciously including storm water management into their designs, the Fields Point facility will be an active participant in the Save the Bay goal of a cleaner, protected bay.

The ?green? roof will also provide better insulation for the building, keeping the structure cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter. The roof will also be protected from ultraviolet light, the main cause of damage for most roofs.

Designed by Croxton Collaborative Architects, P.C., the building?s two classrooms, public meeting places, field labs, and administration offices were planned to be lit primarily by natural day lighting. Each room will have light sensitive dimmers that monitor the room?s light. These sensors will automatically increase the artificial light as needed when the sunlight begins to dim.

In addition to using the sun as the primary source of the building?s light, the sun will also generate renewable solar energy with the help of the building?s 20 Kilowatt Photovoltaic System (solar cells/solar panels). The Photovoltaic (PV) process of converting light into energy will help to prevent the air pollution that comes with the burning of fossil fuels and will additionally provide Save the Bay with a source of revenue.

Elphick, while describing how the new $20,000 PV system will work, explained that Save the Bay is not planning on using the energy generated by this system directly. ?We?ll be selling [the energy generated from the PV system] to locale renewable energy office and buying from them wind energy.?

Save the Bay will be able to sell the energy they generate for $60 a megawatt per hour and will buy wind energy, another environmentally friendly, renewable resource, at $15 a megawatt per hour for a net gain of $45 a megawatt per hour. This revenue will be able to help support the Save the Bay?s educational programs and the building?s upkeep.

With energy conscious plans throughout the building, even the heating system was specifically chosen for its Earth-friendly potential.

?The building is heated and cooled with natural gas.? Elphick said. ?The heater/chiller system is efficient and clean burning and can easily be retrofitted.? Should more environmentally friendly systems of powering the building?s heating/cooling system, the system can easily be modified to utilize the newly available technology.

John Martin, director of marketing and communications for Save the Bay, said that Save the Bay did everything they could to make their new facility as environmentally friendly as they could. When they committed to building their Fields Point building as an example of brownfield restoration, they wanted to show not only that it can be done but to lead by example that it should be done. ?We?re Save the Bay,? Martin said. ?We can?t cut corners.?

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