After months of intensive planning, Greensburg GreenTown will launch its Eco-Homes Project with Thursday’s groundbreaking for the first in the series of green demonstration homes. The event will be held Thursday, December 11 at 3:30 p.m. at the GreenTown lot located at 402 South Sycamore in Greensburg.

This home, dubbed the Silo Eco-Home, will be built using the same method and materials typically used to construct a silo. Florida-based Armour Homes has designed and will build this structure. They bring a wealth of experience and a great deal of enthusiasm for helping Greensburg come back strong.

Some of the green features of this home include passive ventilation, a green roof with a vegetable garden, a cistern for water catchment, photovoltaic cells for solar-powered electricity, natural daylighting, dual-flush toilets and other water-saving features, native species in the landscape. Additionally, the home is designed to sustain winds of 200 m.p.h., so it will be a safe home as well as a sustainable one. Once completed, the home will serve two functions: a “living science museum” by day, whereby residents and visitors can tour and learn about the various cutting-edge technologies contained within the building; it will provide lodging by night. People will be able spend the night and experience what it feels like to live in such a strong, green building, packed full of green living products, furniture, and appliances.

This home will be the first of as many as a dozen in GreenTown’s plans for fostering eco-tourism in Greensburg. It is projected to be finished by the second anniversary of the tornado in May. Eco-tourism is an important component of Greenburg’s comeback as a model green community. The Eco-Homes Project will feature a wide array of building techniques that will highlight energy efficiency and sustainability. Other homes in the project include one of straw bale construction, one designed by Greensburg native Robert McLaughlin, and the winner of the 2005 Solar Decathlon built by the University of Colorado which is being donated to the GreenTown project. It is anticipated that people from throughout the world will visit these unique homes in this most unique town.

Armour Homes is the Core Sponsor of the Silo Eco-Home. Anchor Sponsors for the overall Chain of Eco-Homes Project are: AT&T, Ogden Publications (publisher of Mother Earth News, Natural Home and eight other magazines), Evolve Showerheads, Caroma (manufacturer of innovative bathroom products, including dual-flush toilets), and Viega (manufacturer of plumbing-related products and systems).

Greensburg GreenTown is the nonprofit organization that was formed after the May 4, 2007 tornado destroyed 95% of the community. Its mission is to help spearhead the Green Initiative by providing resources and information to local residents and businesses who are rebuilding green.

Robert Redford really knows his stuff when it comes to the environmental movement. He advocates for a green economy revolution in America, and he has recently explained one great way for Americans to help make this dream a reality. Make sure you read this article carefully as there are a lot of really subtle yet powerful ideas presented in Mr. Redford’s article.

“Right now, we have the scientific knowledge and cutting-edge technologies we need to cut global warming pollution and build a cleaner, greener energy future. But technology isn’t quite enough—we also need to have a strong, pro-environment Congress.

That’s why I’ve decided to get behind LCV Action Fund this year. Their top-notch election campaign WILL ensure that some of the worst environmental enemies—like Senators Ted Stevens, Elizabeth Dole, and Jim Inhofe—don’t make it back for another term. But they can’t do it without our help.

Will you give today to help LCV Action Fund make sure the Dirty Dozen don’t see another term in office?

Recently, I read a piece by Thomas Friedman in the New York Times wher e he said, “The greenest thing you can do is this: Choose the right leaders. It is so much more important to change your leaders than change your light bulbs.”

And I thought to myself, that’s exactly it. I’ve been appalled by the direction dirty politicians have been leading our country when it comes to the environment. They have been sitting comfortably in the pocket of Big Oil and Dirty Coal for far too long. They are the ones who are preventing us from passing laws to protect the environment. They are the ones who have made it possible for the polluting interests to profit while American families struggle with rising gas prices.

I know you are just as frustrated as I am. And that is why I am urging you to support LCV Action Fund. They know how to defeat the Dirty Dozen who have polluted the halls of Congress for years with their shameful environmental records. But they need our help before September 30.

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LCV Action Fund has a sophisticated political targeting pr ogram that carefully identifies, persuades, and mobilizes undecided voters in the Dirty Dozen’s states and districts. It’s a time-honored program—and I’ve seen it work. Being named to the Dirty Dozen is as close to a political death knell as it gets—LCV Action Fund has defeated 41 of them over the last 12 years! That is an amazing record considering 96% of incumbents have won re-election since 1996.

Elections matter. Who controls Congress matters. Change is possible. I saw it when I lobbied for the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act more than three decades ago. And today, all that is standing in the way of our clean energy future is the selfish, negligent politics of the Dirty Dozen.

Don’t let them block progress to a clean future for our environment any more, joyce. Click here [www.lcv.org] to help make this term their last.

Thank you so much.

Sincerely,

Robert Redford”

P .S. LCV Action Fund is leading the charge to turn our environmental values into national priorities. Give today and help them in this fight by defeating the Dirty Dozen this fall.

TALLAHASSEE, Florida, March 21, 2008 (ENS) – The Florida Department of Environmental Protection has awarded $85,496 in grant funding to the Ochlockonee River Soil and Water Conservation District to help control stormwater runoff.

The project will capture and clean urban runoff before entering the Lake Lafayette watershed in Tallahassee, as well as provide stormwater education and outreach opportunities in the community.

“Upgrading stormwater systems to provide treatment to remove pollutants in urban neighborhoods built before the state required stormwater treatment is one of the best ways to restore Florida’s rivers, lakes and streams,” said DEP Division of Environmental Assessment and Restoration Director Jerry Brooks.

“DEP’s grants promote innovative solutions, including cutting edge technologies, which will help prevent pollution in the future,” he said.

The project involves the construction of a small stormwater treatment facility at Lincoln High School in Tallahassee and will serve as a “live” stormwater lab, used to educate students and the community about best management practices for urban stormwater runoff.

Retention and detention ponds will be constructed, along with several rain gardens, for the treatment of incoming pollutants.

The facility will be maintained and monitored by the faculty and students of the school, serving as a teaching and learning tool.

Lake Lafayette receives runoff from the
city of Tallahassee. (Photo courtesy
Leon County)

Lake Lafayette is a prairie lake located in the coastal lowland in eastern Tallahassee. The Lake Lafayette basin is the most intensively developed of the larger lake basins in Leon County.

This basin contains most of central and northern Tallahassee. It is the most modified major lake basin in North Florida and no longer functions naturally due to human occupation and altering of the lakes.

Lake Lafayette functioned as one hydrological unit until 1948 when the owners of Piney Z Plantation constructed two earthen dikes in the middle of the lake and turned the central part of Lake Lafayette into a farm pond.

More dikes were constructed and the lake was further broken up creating three separated lake sections, beginning its transformation into a vegetated marsh.

Nonpoint source pollution is the largest single cause of impairment to Florida’s waters because it can originate from a variety of sources such as homes, yards, streets and farms. As rain falls on a watershed, it washes contaminants from the land, erodes sediments and unloads them into rivers, lakes, the underground water table, wetlands and coastal areas.

Each year DEP provides about $7 million in nonpoint source pollution grants, using funds provided by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from Section 319 of the federal Clean Water Act, to implement projects or programs that will help reduce nonpoint sources of pollution flowing to rivers, lakes and estuaries.

Funds are used to restore water bodies and make them safe for drinking, swimming, boating, fishing and shellfish consumption. All projects must include at least a 40 percent non-federal match and be cost effective in reducing pollutant loads.

Projects selected for funding are determined by a competitive selection process and may include: demonstration and evaluation of Best Management Practices, public education programs on nonpoint source management, nonpoint pollution reduction in priority watersheds, ground water protection from nonpoint sources, development of constructed wetlands, streambank restoration, improved management of onsite sewage systems, and monitoring to provide water quality data.

Since the approval of Section 319 of the Clean Water Act in 1987, the DEP has awarded more than $102 million to protect and restore Florida’s waters through this grant program.

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