A quick post this week to let you know something happening locally. Just down the road from me on Sauerkraut Lane a new school is being built in my district (East Penn). Nothing exceedingly special about this, but I just read in my local paper that the school has achieved LEED certification for environmentally friendly design and building practices. I went out there a couple days ago to document the construction project, and did notice well placed erosion and runoff barriers staked into the ground. Unfortunately I wiped my camera card before actually importing the pictures to my computer so, sorry, no pictures.

 

This trend moving towards lower-impact building practices heartens me, because I've seen firsthand in the creek behind my house the effects that large scale operations can have on local ecosystems. Every time we have a large rainstorm now, the creek rises quickly and instantly becomes laden with sediments runoff from improperly secured building sites. These sediments deposit themselves on bends in the river.

 

In kind of related news, I heard recently that the Sears Tower in Chicago was undergoing a $350M renovation to obtain this LEED certification. That's all for now.