Workers in a Green Building Take Care of the White Forest

A few years ago, when it was time to design a new headquarters for the White Mountain National Forest, Supervisor Tom Wagner literally gave the program the green light.

“He pretty much gave us free rein to really go out and research and find a lot of these technologies and methods of being green.”

That’s Bill Dauer.

He is a U.S. Forest Service technical services expert.

His job was to make the new building a showcase of green technologies.

Now, the new headquarters is open.

It is one of the more environmentally friendly buildings in the state.

And, for its size it is a serious contender for being the greenest building in the U.S. Forest Service nationwide.

It has some unusual stuff.

ELEVATOR DING SOUND

Sounds just like a regular old elevator, doesn’t it?
But instead of conventional hydraulic fluid it’s running on canola oil.

“Research has found that either canola oil or regular vegetable oil does the same job and obviously is much greener because it is from a renewable source.”

Now, at the risk of a certain lack of delicacy, how about a look at the toilet in the ladies room?

Yes, the ladies’ room.

Turns out the men’s room, was, well occupied.

“You have to read the instructions before you go to the bathroom and you just press the button and that is the sound of the toilet bowl foaming. So, you foam before you use it and you foam after you use it.”

It is an almost-waterless system that turns you-know-what into compost.

These may seem like small things.

But there are some big things, too.

Heat is provided by wood pellets fed into a biomass gasification plant which also generates electricity.

That’s a more advanced and cleaner-burning form of the familiar biomass operation.

“The unit we see here is our one million BTU, 90 percent efficient pellet boiler.”

Dauer says in such a cold climate, biomass gasification turned out to make more sense than alternatives such as geothermal.

“It is German technology, actually, but it was manufactured with North American specifications in a brand-new plant in Ontario, Canada and so this is one of the first units to be produced at that plant and installed here in the United States.”

Just outside, the parking lot uses a permeable pavement that allows water to sink through rather than pool and run off.

Looking ahead, that parking lot already has electric charging stations.

“Our employees and visitors can come here and plug in and charge up their vehicle right here at the site.”

And, of course, the building has super-insulation.

Over the next year engineers will keep records on everything from water use to heat.

These records will go to the U.S. Green Building Council for a LEEDS environmental rating.

Dauer says he expects to get a “silver” rating.

That is the third best.

But he thinks a gold rating is possible.

Dauer says the project cost about $11 million.

He’s not sure what it would have cost for conventional construction.

“We didn’t even really cost it out to compare with conventional construction. We made the decision we wanted to be green.”

Just about next year at this time, we’ll have a good idea just how green it is.

For NHPR News this is Chris Jensen.