You may have picked up valuable information at Addison Arbor Foundation’s February seminar on Square Foot Gardening, but now you can have that kind of knowledge certified. By signing up for Addison Arbor University, residents can earn a “degree” from the university-style program while learning more about gardening and protecting their environment.
Classes are held quarterly. (Next up: Irrigation Alternatives for Conserving Water, April 24.)
To be an Addison Arbor University graduate, participants must do the following:
Take enough classes to earn eight credits.
Complete these classes within a three-year period.
Four of the eight classes are mandatory:
Composting
Effective use of irrigation
Recycling
Addison’s plans for the “urban environment”: Overview of the parks department and current and future projects.
Elective credit will be given for attending any quarterly Arbor Foundation education session, not including mandatory classes.
A student’s start date will be the first class taken after enrollment. The Arbor Foundation will keep track of attendance but advises residents to keep records, too.
Upon completion of the program, students will receive a certificate and acknowledgement on the Addison Arbor Foundation Web site.
The Addison Arbor Foundation enjoyed its biggest turnout for a program ever as Dallas County Master Gardener Billy Clark gave a talk on Square Foot Gardening on Saturday, Feb. 20. About 100 people registered at the Addison Athletic Club to hear Clark offer tips about making the most of your efforts, even when space is a limitation.
Billy Clark, Dallas County Master Gardener. (Photo: AddisonGreen.info)
Clark, who has worked for years with the kind of small footprint gardens more common in urban and suburban settings, provided ideas on how to create boxes, prepare soil, match compatible plants, and more. He referenced his own considerable experience while paying homage to Mel Bartholomew, who pioneered the square foot technique about 30 years ago in a Public Broadcasting System series and an accompanying book.
Essentially, square foot gardening is a system of laying out an attractive and productive garden based on a grid of squares, with single seeds or plants arranged in carefully managed spacings. The system helps conserve water and labor required to produce a maximum crop. A square foot garden takes up about 20 percent of the space and requires about 20 percent of the work of a conventional single-row garden.
The event kicked off the Foundation’s 2010 quarterly series of horticultural seminars, which will correspond with the seasonal calendar. For more information, visit the Foundation’s Web site.
U-Haul's Addison location has added a re-use center. (Photo: U-Haul International)
U-Haul today announced the addition of a self-storage re-use center for customers at the Addison U-Haul Center, 2735 Beltline Rd. The U-Haul Re-use Program, one of the company’s sustainability initiatives, was developed to provide a redistribution network for unwanted, gently used household goods, furniture, sporting equipment, bikes and clothing that formerly were destined for landfills.
“At U-Haul, we are committed to sustainable development through environmental protection, social responsibility and economic efficiency,” said Melanie Ray, general manager of Addison UHaul Center. “This program gives U-Haul another opportunity to provide a service which will enhance the self-storage industry by improving the environment for generations to come.”
Items placed in the area are available for re-use, not resale, by the U-Haul community, including U-Haul Team members. U-Haul also continues to support humanitarian, community-based organizations such as the Salvation Army, Goodwill and similar organizations by placing clothing-donation bins in close proximity to the designated re-use area so that customers may donate directly to these groups.
Addison residents got an update on plans for the Town’s new elementary school at a Jan. 21 meeting at the Addison Athletic Club. Jeff Miller of WRA Architects, designer of the facility, gave an overview of the George Herbert Walker Bush Elementary School, with a special emphasis on its cutting-edge sustainability features.
The school, being built in cooperation with the Dallas Independent School District, will be home to students from pre-K to Grade 5. It is scheduled to open in time for the 2011-12 school year.
Residents took in a slide show touting the new school's progressive features. (Photo: AddisonGreen.Info)
“There are lots of definitions of sustainability,” Miller told the group. “The one that’s used the most: ‘Meeting present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.’
“We’re just trying to build responsible buildings. The District is trying to build responsible buildings.”
Located next to Greenhill School on Spring Valley at Brookhaven Club Drive, the school will accommodate 800 students. The $22.5 million building will be incorporated into the Town’s hike/bike trail system, allowing students in the Les Lacs and Midway Meadows neighborhoods to walk or ride bicycles to campus.
“We’re encouraging bicycle transportation,” Miller said. “Being right there near the bike trail, we’re able to put a couple more bike racks on the site.
“It’s really going to be pedestrian and bike-friendly. Having that option as we move through the future is really going to be valuable.”
The two-story design is also environmentally-friendly in reducing the overall footprint and allowing for more landscaping.
Dr. Edwin Flores, District 1 representative to the DISD Board of Trustees, also addressed the gathering. (Photo: AddisonGreen.Info)
While there are numerous ways to measure sustainability, the District has chosen to follow the guidelines set by the Collaborative for High Performance Schools, which offers standards that are more school-specific.
“The first time we saw the site, we knew were going to get a lot of sustainability points, because it’s eight acres of asphalt parking lot,” Miller said, drawing chuckles from the crowd. “We’re giving over half of that back to landscaping. That’s a lot of water that doesn’t run off the site, that gets absorbed in the site, and much better for the environment.”
Other “green” features of the school, with the architect’s comments:
Heat management: “Our roof is highly reflective. We’ll reflect as much heat as we possibly can with the roof. That’s going to help with the energy loads. As much landscaping as we have on the site really contributes to that as well.”
Water management: “We’ve got multiple water meters for large systems. The irrigation system will have its meters. Other things in the building will have their own meters. That falls into the category of ‘What gets measured gets managed.’”
Materials: “We try to use very durable and low-maintenance materials. We stepped that up a little bit on this one.”
Energy efficiency: “This is a big wild card. We’re estimating that this will be 19 to 25 percent less energy than an elementary school that was designed 10 years ago.
Geothermal elements: “Four hundred some-odd wells, 300 feet deep, will be drilled in the area that we showed as a field. That means no chillers. The water will basically go into the ground and come back up. It’ll go down at 70 degrees and come back up at 55 degrees. So all the energy we’d spend on chillers, we won’t be spending on this site. We’re still pumping the water, but that will save energy.”
“There’s a pump for every room, which really translates into a thermostat for every room. Every teacher has complete control of the environment, whether it’s hot or cold.”
Lighting: “We have a lot of natural light in this building. We have double-pane windows to save a lot of energy there. If you get the solar-orientation, all these other things pay more dividends percentage-wise.
“All the ceilings in the classrooms are 10-feet high. We have the indirect fluorescents that light the ceiling. It’s really good for the students, but combined with the natural lights, it’s a very efficient use of those lights.”
Windows: “Every class room has an operating window so we can get natural ventilation that’s within the complete control of the teacher. We’ve also designed a natural ventilation system into the HVAC to get the fresh air into the building.”
Slade Strickland, Addison Parks and Recreation Director, addressed the role of the expanded trail system in the project. A 10-foot wide concrete trail will connect with the existing path, effectively making the new campus part of the trail experience. Two new playgrounds and an outdoor learning garden should allow the Town to pick up about six acres of open park space.
“We have a really prime opportunity to design the trail and make the school outdoor campus an integral part of the trail system itself,” Strickland said.
Plans call for the additions to be completed by July, 2011, several months before the first students report to school.
Visitors to WaterTower Theatre productions at the Addison Theatre Centre see lots of set changes and costume changes. What they don’t see is another change that’s underway – the lighting system used to bathe the onstage action.
The Theatre Centre is in the process of transitioning from energy-intensive standard lighting fixtures to new automated fixtures that use far less electricity. The ATC’s older standard lighting fixtures use halogen lamps that typically use 1000 watts per fixture. The new system uses high intensity discharge (HID) lamps that run at 250 watts.
And while there are newer, more energy efficient standard models as well – about 25 percent of WaterTower Theatre’s standard inventory consists of 575 watt fixtures – the older fixtures can only serve a single purpose for the stage. This means they are focused on one area with one color and/or one template.
In contrast, the new automated fixtures bring a new world of flexibility and efficiency. They can pan, tilt, change color, color mix, strobe and refocus all from the control of the lighting console.
“These type fixtures 10 years ago were $10,000 a piece – now they are $2,000 and, quite frankly, are better. They can do more, they look better, they last longer,” said Scott Guenther, technical coordinator at the Addison Theatre Centre. “At the end of the day, they do the work of twice as many lights and they use significantly less electricity.”
The automated fixtures are significantly more valuable and more affective at providing a variety of looks while not requiring more lights to be hung. Moving lights still require some electrical power for panning, tilting and other changes, but this amount is very small compared to the demand of standard lamps.
Guenther said the system delivers savings in three ways:
Energy costs savings – There is a roughly 50 percent to 75 percent savings single fixture to single fixture
Energy savings multiplier – One automated fixture can do the work of 10 or more standard fixtures.
Labor savings – Since the automated lights can move, fewer standard fixtures are needed to be hung per show.
Guenther projects that with 20 automated fixtures replacing 200 standard fixtures during a seven-show season, the theater should save $7,875.00 in electrical demand over one year. And that figure does not include HVAC savings — much less heat is produced by the new lights — nor does it reflect the labor savings.
Addison stresses urban density to minimize its carbon footprint.
Earlier this month, the US Conference of Mayors’ Climate Protection Agreement hit a milestone with the announcement that the group has reached 1,000 signatures. Addison Mayor Joe Chow is among a group of mayors representing 85 million Americans who have signed the pledge to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions in US cities in line with Kyoto Protocol standards.
“I am pleased to announce that I have signed the agreement on behalf of the Town of Addison,” Mayor Chow said. “By becoming part of this movement, we have agreed to strive to:
Meet or beat the Kyoto Protocol (the international agreement to address climate disruption) through actions ranging from anti-sprawl land-use policies to urban forest restoration projects to public information campaigns
Urge our state and federal governments to enact policies and programs to meet or beat the greenhouse gas emission reduction target suggested for the United States in the Kyoto Protocol – a 7% reduction from 1990 levels by 2012
Urge the US Congress to pass the bipartisan greenhouse gas reduction legislation, which would establish a national emission trading system.
“Global warming is an extremely serious threat facing our planet. We need to work together as a community – and as a country – in order to reduce our nation’s greenhouse emissions. The US alone produces 25 percent of all greenhouse gasses. The Addison City Council is working closely with our city’s management team to do our part in protecting our environment. We hope all of our residents will join us in this critical fight.”
The Climate Protection Agreement was initially introduced in February of 2005 in response to federal inaction on the Kyoto Protocol. The Conference has since held summits on alternative vehicles (2006), green buildings (2006) and climate change (2007).
Current Conditions in Addison, TX Water Restrictions: None in Effect
Welcome to Addison Green
The Town of Addison City Council, City Manager and Town staff are committed to taking action to make Addison a leader in sustainable development and operations that protect and enhance the Town’s quality of life.
April 17 & 18
Wellness Expo -- Addison Conference Centre. Start living healthier at the Metroplex's best loved source of alternative health information. Featuring two dozen wellness lectures and more than 100 exhibit booths. Admission $7, ages 12-65; kids and seniors, free.
