by Angela Crone

We’ve been talking a lot lately about the adaptive reuse and green new construction on the American Public University System (APUS) campus in Charles Town, WV. So, yes, we know that many of the buildings are green retrofits, that solar installations are estimated to offset 350 tons of carbon each year, that the appliances are Energy Star certified, and that the faucets and toilets conserve water.  But, did you know that both the recently constructed Academics Center and the under-construction Finance Center are built on what has been designated a “brownfields site?” 

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) defines brownfields as “real property, the expansion, redevelopment, or reuse of which may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant.” Basically, this means the property has been blighted by past uses—such as, in APUS’s case, a junkyard—and requires special care and investment to make it suitable for use. The EPA estimates that over 450,000 of these properties exist in the United States and has since leveraged more than $14.0 billion in funding for cleanup and revitalization projects.

The City of Ranson and the City of Charles Town, West Virginia, where APUS has one of its campuses, has teamed up and applied for a piece of the funding pie. In 2010, the Ranson-Charles Town partnership represented one of 23 communities selected for the EPA’s  Brownfields Area-Wide Planning Program. The community has been awarded a grant to aid in the area-wide Commerce Corridor brownfields revitalization plan, which is currently underway. The Commerce Corridor plan is a 1.5 mile long corridor where a total of 15 brownfield sites have been identified. Included in these 15 properties are a 100+ year old brass foundry, abandoned chemical fertilizer and pesticide facilities, residences, and shopping areas. 

Read the rest of this entry »

by Wesley Holmes, LEED Green Associate, Environmental Policy Analyst and Sustainability Consultant

Wesley Holmes earned his Masters of Science degree in Environmental Policy and Management from APU in February 2010, graduating with honors.  For his final project, Wesley began researching the green elements associated with APUS’ new Academic Center which is anticipated to receive LEED Gold certification later this year. As part of that project, Wesley created the APUS Green Building Blog which he maintains on a regular basis.  The blog is full of information related to the APUS Academic Center, green building in general, and Brownfields sites in particular.  Earlier this month Wesley attended the National Brownfields Conference in Philadelphia and submitted the following article for publication on the APUS Sustainability Blog.  

Thickness map of Marcellus Shale. Image from Geology.com, http://geology.com/articles/marcellus-shale.shtml.

Over the course of the three day event, the National Brownfields Conference offers dozens of educational events, round tables, town halls and training sessions. Learning opportunities range from the State of Sustainability in Local Governments to Leveraging Tax Incentives for Sustainable Revitalization to Utilizing Social Media in Brownfield Development. Days before the event I was looking over the schedule trying to pick which sessions I wanted to sit in on. The Marcellus Shale presentation immediately caught my eye. The Marcellus Shale Formation is a rock formation found deep within the Appalachian Basin that contains large pockets of natural gas formed by the decaying organic matter embedded within this ancient formation. As the organic matter has broken down over millions of years it has produced pockets of natural gas. There is currently great excitement about the potential yield of natural gas contained within the Marcellus Formation.

A few facts about the Marcellus Shale Formation
• 390 Million Years Old
• Covers 95,000 sq miles over 7 states
• Contains estimates as high as 500 Trillion Cubic Ft of Natural Gas

Natural gas operations are growing rapidly in the United States, with increasing exploitation of natural gas reserves being a cornerstone of both Democratic and Republican energy proposals. Natural gas burns cleaner than traditional fossil fuels such as oil and coal, presently it is easier to get to, it’s cheaper, and perhaps most importantly, the U.S. has a lot of it. But could this rush to development of a cleaner, cheaper fuel source result in creating as many problems as it helps to address? Adjoining the rapid growth of natural gas projects, there is increasing concern and debate about the safety of the practices used to harvest this fossil fuel of the future. Daily reports of environmental impacts are emerging near natural gas development sites in the form of harmful air emissions, watershed impairment and even earthquakes. In response to these reports, legal challenges are being brought forth by environmental advocacy groups and landowners alike. How appropriate that this year’s National Brownfields Conference, sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), should also be held in Philadelphia, home to both the second largest natural gas deposit known in the world, the Marcellus Shale Formation, and the largest emerging market of natural gas production industry and its associated controversies.

Read the rest of this entry »

by Beth Gray

Photo taken from Discovery Magazine article: http://discovermagazine.com/2009/jan/055

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) explains that “the Arctic is global warming’s canary in the coal mine.”    This environmentally sensitive area of the globe has been in danger for decades but recent images provide visual proof of just how dire the situation is.  The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado provides a daily update on the declining volume and size of Arctic sea ice.  The daily images show where the sea ice boundary currently is with an orange line showing where it was in 1979.  The NSIDC reports that as of August 16, “Arctic ice extent was 5.95 million square kilometers.”  This may seem like a massive amount of ice but as NSIDC notes, this represents a decrease of some 1.68 million square kilometers below the 1979 to 2000 average for the season. 

Though Arctic sea ice does melt during the Arctic summer (a time when the region experiences 24 hours of sunshine), this season’s melt has been dramatic.  A recent Washington Post article explains that “After going into the melt season with more ice over a larger area than recent years, sea ice extent plummeted by a daily rate of 26,000 square miles per day during May, which was the highest rate of loss ever observed for the month since satellite records of sea ice began in 1979.”  On his blog, Nick Sundt, Director of Communications, Climate Change Program at the World Wildlife Fund, put this figure into perspective writing, “That is an area roughly half the size of the entire United States (including Alaska)…”  As if the analyses from satellite images was not startling enough, however, researchers studying the region are finding that the situation is worse than even the satellite images are showing.  In a Time Magazine article earlier this year, David Barber, an Arctic climatologist at the University of Manitoba, describes his experience in visiting the area:  “Some of what satellites identified as thick, melt-resistant multiyear ice turned out to be…’full of holes, like Swiss cheese.  We haven’t seen this sort of thing before.’”

Read the rest of this entry »