1998 Annual Report - Section III. Environmental Initiatives of County Agencies
III. Environmental Initiatives of County Agencies
III. Environmental Initiatives of County Agencies
The King County Environmental Purchasing Program helps County agencies find ways to use
environmentally preferable products and processes in their work. Though environmental
responsibility has always been a part of the daily work of County agencies, recent
developments in the availability of environmentally preferable materials and processes
have provided new opportunities for agencies to improve the environmental impacts of their
work. This is a very new area of endeavor for us all, and no one yet knows what will prove
to be the most beneficial approaches. This section contains information about the results
of several initiatives by which County agencies are saving time, money, and resources.
The categories of work included in this year's report are:
- Waste Reduction & Recycling
- Energy Efficiency
- Green Building / Sustainable Design
Waste Reduction & Recycling
- Water-Reuse at Fort Dent Park
- In the spring of 1998, the King County Department of Natural Resources (DNR)
launched a pilot program to use reclaimed water for irrigation at Fort Dent Park, in
Tukwila. By using the reclaimed water to irrigate four softball-fields and one
soccer-field, as much as three million gallons of drinking water will be conserved during
this summer alone. The water used in this pilot project will be reclaimed at King County's
Wastewater Treatment Plant, in Renton. It meets the "Class A" standards for
reclaimed water set by the Washington departments of Health and Ecology, meaning it is not
intended for drinking, but is safe if accidentally swallowed or if it gets in a cut or
scrape.
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- Mulch-mowing
- Facilities Maintenance Division has successfully undertaken a mulch-mowing program under
which a maintenance contract requires the contractor to use mulching-mowers at the new
Regional Justice Center, in Kent. The Building Supervisor and the contractor are pleased
with the results. The contractor reports that overall the process costs less, because
there is no disposal costs and energy is saved. "It does take a little extra time to
ensure that clumps of mown grass do not remain on the lawn, but the extra time required is
more than offset by the avoided disposal costs." Though this may be coincidental, the
winning bid was about 15% lower than bids for conventional mowing methods.
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- DNR Joins Waste
Reduction Program
- The King County Department of Natural Resources, with 1,250 employees in 20
locations, recently joined the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) "Waste-Wi$e"
waste prevention program. This program helps its clients reduce disposal costs and
preserve resources by providing information about ways to save on such items as office
paper, corrugated containers, packaging, and wood pallets.
King County is one of 10
jurisdictions, nationwide, to be featured in case-study fact sheets, published by the EPA
in November. The DNR case-study highlights several elements of King County's in-house
waste prevention and recycling efforts, such as double-sided copying, extensive use of
e-mail and network postings, purchases of recycled paper and remanufactured toner
cartridges, and use of recycled asphalt, paint, recycled concrete aggregate, and recycled
glass aggregate.
- Avoided Disposal through donation
- After a large event at the Kingdome, several thousand plastic bags were left
behind by the tenants, to be disposed by Stadium personnel. A Stadium staff person called
a local charity to see if they could use these bags. The organization was "thrilled
and came right away to get them". A simple phone call, by a dedicated staff person,
assisted a local charity and avoided the disposal of useful materials.
Similar acts of
environmental-thinking have followed, avoiding disposal of 1,500 paper bags and a
truckload of topsoil, which King County Parks Division was able to use.
- Toxics Reduction at Transit Division
- The Transit Division of the Department of Transportation is responsible for the
operation and maintenance of the County's municipal bus fleet. The use of solvents to wash
bus parts has been standard practice for years, but four bases have reduced their use of
solvents by a combined 4,000 gallons per year, saving $22,000 per year and reducing the
use of hazardous materials in their operations. One base, South Maintenance, is completely
solvent free; its parts-cleaning system uses only soap and water.
The Division is also
reducing waste from coach-washing facilities, storm water treatment systems, and
industrial waste pretreatment systems. Transit produces tens of thousands of gallons of a
thick mixture of oils, sediment and wastewater each year from these operations. In the
past, all of this was disposed as a dangerous waste, at a price of $1.25 per gallon. In
1994, the Division developed an on-site dewatering treatment system, which reduced their
disposal of hazardous waste by 80% and saved $60,000 per year.
- Carpet-Reclamation
- The State of Washington maintains a contract for the installation of carpet, under which
the vendor recycles the old carpet when they install replacement carpet. This contract has
been used by County agencies and the contractor estimates it has recycled 13,000 pounds of
carpet for King County in the past year.
Increasing numbers of carpet manufacturers are
recovering old carpet and finding new uses for this material. Recycled carpet is used to
make carpet-backing, plastic lumber, car parts, and other items, as well as in new carpet.
Energy Efficiency
- Energy Recovery
- Cedar Hills Landfill implemented a system in 1998 to burn used oil to recover energy to
heat landfill facilities. This system is expected to save money by avoiding the purchase
of new fuel for heating.
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- Energy Efficiency Upgrades
- In 1997, one million dollars was appropriated to Department of Construction and
Facilities Management (DCFM) energy conservation efforts. This money, matched with a grant
from Seattle City Light, has funded several projects to improve energy-efficiency in
County facilities. These projects have an expected "pay-back" period of less
than ten years. Energy savings will be monitored by DCFM and results will be analyzed
periodically. So far, the improvement projects have resulted in energy-cost savings of
$18,000 per month.
Highlights of accomplishments:
- Installed new parabolic lenses in existing ceiling fixtures
- Installed efficient (T-8, 3500 Degree K) fluorescent tubes and electronic ballasts.
- Retrofitted all heating, ventilation, & air-conditioning (HVAC) "mixing
boxes" for better temperature control and energy savings and added new zone
thermostats for better temperature control.
- Installed new domestic hot water heaters and revised piping to correct operational and
code deficiencies.
- Installed new circulating pumps and valves for better reliability and efficiency for the
perimeter hot water temperature control
- For 1999, five-to-six million dollars in appropriations have been sought for additional
equipment upgrades, which are expected to produce even more dramatic energy savings.
- DCFM is also a member of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's ENERGY STAR Buildings () and Green Lights programs.
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- Equipment upgrades at
Renton wastewater treatment plant
- King County's wastewater treatment plant, in Renton, operated by the Wastewater
Treatment Division, in the Department of Natural Resources, is obtaining funds from a
program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, to help fund pilot-projects with a
new ("molten carbonate") "fuel cell" technology. These fuel cells are
more energy efficient, quieter, potentially more cost effective, and better for the
environment than the conventional combustion or steam turbine technologies. The treatment
plant expects to reduce its electrical power load by as much as 80 percent through the use
of these fuel cells.
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- The Renton Plant also obtained a $1.8 million conservation grant through Puget Power's
Commercial/Industrial Energy Conservation Program for energy-efficiency initiatives.
Energy-conservation measures installed as part of this program are expected to save about
13 million kilowatt-hours per year, or enough electricity to power about 1,000 residential
homes, and include:
- State-of-the-art aeration equipment
- New energy-efficient blowers
- New variable speed/adjustable pump motors
- Fluorescent light fixtures with electronic ballasts
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- Energy retrofits - Transit Division
- In 1997, as part of the Transit Division's 20-year plan to increase energy efficiency,
they completed three lighting retrofit projects at South Base, Atlantic Base and the
Auburn Park-and-Ride. This resulted in increased lighting-levels and lowered cost, with
cumulative energy savings that could power 10 electrically heated homes. In 1998, four
major lighting retrofits will be completed. The plan includes on-going scheduled
preventative maintenance, which provides maximum efficiency and lengthens the life-span of
the equipment.
- At five out of seven Transit Bases, the Division has replaced the Heating, Ventilating,
and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems with newer, more efficient models with energy-saving
controls. The remaining two systems will be upgraded within the next five years.
Green Building / Sustainable Design
- Sustainable Design - Vashon Transfer/Recycling Station
- Construction of a new Waste-Transfer/Recycling station on Vashon Island began in June,
1998 and will be completed in May, 1999. Sustainability was a primary focus during the
design of this Solid Waste Division facility. A subcontractor was hired to review
project specifications from a sustainability perspective and develop recommendations and
new specification language in selected material categories. This information will be made
available on the program web-site as it becomes available.
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- Sustainable Construction - King Street Building
- The Department of Construction and Facilities Management is overseeing a private
development project to construct a new facility in which the County Departments of
Transportation and Natural Resources will become tenants under a lease-to-own agreement.
The design calls for an eight-story, 300,000 square-foot building, to be situated on King
Street, in Pioneer Square. The Environmental Purchasing Program developed information
about recycled and environmentally preferable materials for evaluation by the architect,
developer, and their contractors. The Department of Natural Resources has asked the
developer to adhere to a number of environmentally-preferable building principles in this
project, including the use of recycled materials. The building will be completed in the
summer of 1999.
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- Current plans call for installation of a plumbing system which will allow rainwater
collected from roof-runoff (and, eventually, other recovered wastewater) to be stored in a
cistern for re-use in flushing toilets. The building will use natural light as much as
possible and occupancy sensors and task-lighting to increase lighting efficiency. Also
planned are an energy-efficient heating and air-conditioning system, job-site recycling,
and the use of recycled content products, such as tiles made from recycled glass.
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- Sustainable Design - 911 Center
- The Department of Construction and Facilities Management is planning a project to
build a new emergency response (911) center. Planners incorporated sustainable design
elements into the selection process for the design contractor and plans to require the
contractor to use environmentally preferable elements in the building.
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- Sustainability Library (DCFM)
- In 1997, the Department of Construction and Facilities Management created a
"sustainability library" to provide department project managers with access to
product samples and information about environmentally preferable materials for their
projects. Their goal is to expand this resource and make it available to other agencies.
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