Washington State Dept. of Ecology to Award Spokane School District

Spokane, Wash., School District will tonight receive the state's highest environmental honor for its commitment to construction practices that minimize harm to the environment.

René-Marc Mangin, who manages the Department of Ecology's (Ecology) Spokane office, will present the district with an Environmental Excellence Award at tonight's school board meeting.

The district has factored in "green" building principles while making plans to renovate and rebuild Rogers, Shadle and Ferris high schools and three elementary schools in the district.

"The school district has shown political courage, foresight and environmental stewardship in committing to environmentally friendly construction in a community where this approach to design and construction is relatively new," Mangin says.

"Green buildings are made for people to use in comfort without putting an undue burden on the environment," Ecology's Jim Wavada, who specializes in sustainable building practices, says. "The design and construction of green buildings may incorporate alternatives, such as geothermal or passive solar energy."

Green buildings often incorporate non-traditional wall systems such as insulated concrete forms, structural insulated panels or even straw, Wavada says. He adds that building designers carefully select non-toxic, durable building materials that often are recycled and recyclable. Examples would be less-toxic paints, recycled lumber and recycled carpet tiles.

As evidence of the school district's dedication to environmentally sustainable building, Superintendent Brian Benzel, and Mark Anderson, associate superintendent of school support services, organized a community workshop to develop design standards for the six schools in the district's $200 million renovation and new construction program.

Community groups were formed to operate throughout the design and construction cycle The District also hired an experienced capital projects director, Greg Brown, to oversee the projects and temporarily reassigned North Central's principal, Michael McGuire, to work with the groups full-time while the new and renovated schools are designed and constructed.

Anderson and his team also committed to work this year with the Spokane Alliance and Ecology to train their design team in building, commissioning and green-specifications processes.