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Happy March everyone! I'm Karis King back to bring you the latest news at the Department
of Natural Resources. On this month's Access DNR, we want to hear from you, and, we share
exciting LEED certification updates!
(INTRO)
Last month marked a milestone for sustainability in Maryland, when the U.S. Green Building
Council announced we rank second in the nation for LEED certification. Maryland continues
to pioneer in green design, construction, and operation to reduce the amount of energy,
water, and money we use. Take a look at recent upgrades to the Ravens, M&T Bank stadium,
which earned them LEED gold certification.
Today M&T Stadium becomes the first professional football stadium in the country to achieve
LEED's Gold certification. We received word at 4:50 on November 8th that
we received this certification and after two plus years, an individual known to be tough
sometimes, my knees actually buckled....... They buckled
Well we started with the biggest thing...uhh which is our electricity consumption. And
this was a building that consumed about 16 million kwh annually. It's 5 million kilowatt
hours later which is equivalent to about $500,000 a year on average.
Simple principals that anybody can apply at their house. It's making sure you don't have
lights on when you are not using them. Or um making sure equipment is turned off when
they are not in use. Or just making sure your windows are sealed.
It's important to me. I'm a preschool teacher and we do these things in my classroom and
it's great to see the things carried over here
Year-one we saved a hundred thousand dollars in steam. Payback in one year. Water conservation.
That started with an email from a fan who said 'why are you irrigating the grass while
it's pouring down rain?', so we put in a smart rain system.
We put in waterless urinals, saving us millions of gallons of water if you do the math.
Over the last couple of years we have slowly been trying to deal with some of our stormwater
here. We have installed some rain gardens. In our North lot we have installed a rain
harvesting tank that we actually collect water from the warehouse roof through the gutter
system and into this tank and pump it back to hose bibs that can be used for watering
plants. This is now a non-smoking facility as it should
be. So we are really aggressive in the approach
that we are taking to make sure the waste can be separated. In the next few years a
lot of good things are still to come and we're going to be at the forefront of the recycling
sustainability initiatives as far as the NFL goes.
When we started this process we recycled two tons a game, now we are at 16 tons a game.
We promote public transit obviously to the games. We also have a pretty good bicycle
contingency that come to the games. There are several bike racks around the complex.
We the Ravens made an investment of approximately 3 million dollars and we made that commitment
for environmental reasons and because we are part of this community. But it was also a
good business decision. The Ravens have done it, every business should
be able to do it and more and more citizens are realizing that they can take control of
their own destiny and reduce their energy consumption and that's really an important
goal. Our goal was never to get LEED certified;
our goal was to do the right thing.
And this month we have quite a few opportunities for public comment. From hunting regulations
to climate change plans and bay restoration efforts, we want to hear from you!
Your feedback helps us create the best, most comprehensive plans and guidelines for our
State. Check out the newsletter below for more details.
Want to stay up to date on everything here at the department? Then be sure to subscribe
to DNR on twitter, facebook and the original newsletter. And don't forget to give us thumbs
up. This is Karis king. see you next time!