County a leader in ‘Green'; Administration building cited for conservation

Special to the Journal

KINGMAN - Even children know it's not easy being green, but Mohave County has proven it can be done.

The Mohave County Board of Supervisors was joined by staff and a representative from Opus West, the company that designed and built the County Administration Building, in celebrating the designation of that facility as a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Certified Green Building on April 21.

As reported in a county news release in the summer of 2005, during the construction of the Administration Building, Opus West Construction Corp. Senior Project Manager Michael Herman discussed the energy savings designs, materials, systems and landscaping to “save money while fulfilling the standards needed for the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED certification as a ‘Green Building.'”

In that release, County Manager Ron Walker said, “The biggest building cost in the long term ends up being operation and maintenance. It is a matter of efficiency to design for a wise conservation of energy.”

Now, close to three years later, that planning and a consistent environmental approach to all facility construction and improvements has paid off not only with a LEED designation of the County Administration Building as a Green Building, but also with a designation as an Energy Star Building from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In fact, five other Mohave County structures have also been awarded Energy Stars within the last month.

During the April 21 meeting of the Mohave County Board of Supervisors, Herman presented the LEED award to the Board.

“This award would not have been possible without the Board's great leadership to drive Mohave County to become pioneers in sustainability,” Herman said. “By doing so, through a team effort between Mohave County, Opus West, Pinnacle One, DMJM and many others, we were able to design, develop and construct this beautiful facilityŠ.(which is) an awesome example of sustainability and an inspiration to other cities, counties and all public and private organizations.”

Herman pointed out that the Administration Building is designed “to be 21 percent more energy efficient than the already stringent code; during construction, over 90 percent of construction waste was recycled rather than going to the landfill; over 19 percent of the building materials used in construction Š were manufactured using recycled materials; the building uses over 30 percent less water than a similar building design; and all landscaping located throughout the site is watered by recycled bleed water from the cooling towers.”

LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Green Building designation comes from the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), a non-profit organization that is “dedicated to expanding green building practices and education,” according to the USGBC website. “The LEED Green Building Rating System is a voluntary consensus-based national rating system for developing high-performance, sustainable buildingsŠ.addresses all building types and emphasizes state-of-the-art strategies in five areas: sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials and resources selection and indoor environmental quality.”

“It does take a long time to get” a LEED Green Building designation, Mohave County Finance Director John Timko said. “We started the process when we began the RFP (Request for Proposals) process for this building back in 2003 indicating our desire for the proposers to include in their estimates those things necessary to have us LEED certified as a Green Building. Through the selection process, Opus was selected. They provided us with the project checklist of the various things one can do during a construction process to get a LEED Green Building certification, and which areas they thought we could get points in and which areas they thought were out of reach.

“There are several categories for which the USGBC awards points,” Timko said, “such as how we deal with the site we build on and how water efficient we are in designing and operating the building. There are points given for energy consumption and air quality. There are also points given during construction for the materials and resources used. Using materials with high recycled content is beneficial and how we handle the construction waste product is a big part of a project. There are significant points available for the indoor environmental quality. That is where significant amounts of money get spent in the design and construction process because it requires certain monitoring equipment to monitor things like carbon dioxide and air freshness to make sure we have a safe environment in which to work. There are also some innovative design areas in which to gain some points.

“To become certified, you have to have at least 26 points,” he said. “We have 28. There aren't very many LEED Green Buildings in rural Arizona and our Administration Building is the only one in Mohave County. This process requires commitment. It was important for us to set an example.”

Timko said one of the reasons the process takes so long is “there is a tremendous amount of record keeping. Things like the recycled content of materials and construction waste management need to be recorded” and LEED committees need to review all records.

“Opus designed and built this facility and they deserve credit for their quality work,” Walker said. “Good planning and doing things right the first time always pays off in the long run.”

County Office of Management and Budget Manager Gene Hepler explained the Energy Star designation.

“About two years ago,” Hepler said, “NACo (National Association of Counties) started an energy conservation push for courthouses. We joined in on that and part of it meant we became an Energy Star partner.”

Hepler explained that with Energy Star, the EPA looks at buildings the way other energy rating organizations look at appliances. They look for energy efficiency.

“There is a software involved that compares buildings nationwide for energy efficiency,” he said. “We worked with NACo and the EPA and put 39 of our buildings into this system. It takes a lot of information such as square footage, natural gas usage, how many people use a building, number of computers, kilowatt usage and parking information. That information is compared with similar buildings across the country and a score is issued.

“We got a 90 percent score for the County Administration Building as compared to other buil-