Awards honor environmental trailblazers

As part of local Earth Day festivities in April, local organizations and individuals were honored for their efforts to improve the environment during the seventh annual Choose Environmental Excellence awards luncheon.

Choose Environmental Excellence is a voluntary program that focuses on education and singles out projects and individuals to honor each year.

The event shed light on a growing number of practical and environmentally friendly practices being adopted by local businesses and environmental advocates.

Loring Bullard, executive director of the Watershed Committee of the Ozarks, presented his group’s Developer of the Year Award to the team behind Matt O’Reilly’s Green Circle development. Located on Republic Road, Green Circle is a $3 million, 18,000-square-foot retail center with an environmentally friendly design. Developer O’Reilly is aiming for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Certification, a move that Bullard said “just makes sense.”

Bullard added, “The reason we give awards to people like Matt O’Reilly is that folks on the leading edge of this have to really want to do it. The deck is, in a sense, stacked a little against them because this is new and anything that is new is hard. When we get the strategies worked out and have a palette of options, it will be much easier to follow.”

The Discovery Center received the Choose Environmental Excellence Award from the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce. Discovery Center was the first building in Springfield to receive LEED gold certification, and has since spurred more interest in green building, according to Emily Fox, executive director of the Discovery Center.

“A number of people are considering it for renovations or in a new home,” Fox said. “In fact, one of my employees is building a green home now.”

A few awards spoke to other issues such as post-ice-storm cleanup or public education, but overall, a pattern of cost-effective environmental innovation emerged.

The Watershed Committee of the Ozarks also recognized Jerome Rader with the Landowner of the Year Award for water quality improvement efforts on his farm.

Rader hosts a demonstration project in water quality improvement that shields the creek on his property from his livestock. A fence and tree line put in place are aimed at keeping cleaner water and more wildlife on his farm.

The project cost him about six acres of land, but he measures the benefits in minnows, quail, ducks and tadpoles that have returned to the property and talks of long-term benefits, including a lumber harvest in 40 years or so.

“It’s not just clarity of water and saying the water is cleaner now than it was before,” Rader said. “That’s a true statement, but there are some other benefits too. I’ve got quail sitting around and calling.”

Bullard sees Rader’s way of thinking as important – and inevitable.

“He’s thinking of the water that leaves his property and goes down to supply his neighbors,” Bullard said. “He’s thinking about his profits. He’s thinking about how he maintains his grazing lands in a healthy condition. He’s thinking about ways that he won’t lose topsoil through erosion. If you want to have a farm there a hundred years from now, if he wants his great grandchildren to be able to farm that land, he has got to maintain that land in a healthy condition.”

The name of the game, Bullard and Fox agreed, is to get more people to think long-term when it comes to the environment.

“Let’s build and design structures that are going to last longer than 15 years,” Bullard said. “Let’s look at longer time frames. Let’s build more efficient, high-performance buildings.”

And the Honorees Are ...

These individuals and entities were recognized April 20 during the seventh annual Springfield/Greene County Choose Environmental Excellence awards luncheon.

• The city of Springfield was recognized by the Environmental Protection Agency as a Blue Skyways Community.

• City Utilities was recognized by EPA as a Blue Skyways Partner.

• Joe Payne, operations supervisor of Public Works for the city of Springfield, and Alan Moore, urban forester, were recognized by the Tree City USA Citizens Advisory Committee for their work during and after the January ice storm.

• The Storm Tree Team – Noel Boyer of A&A Tree Service, Kevin Harrell of ArborCare of the Ozarks and Tim Crews of Ryan’s Lawn and Tree Services – received the 2007 Environmental Excellence Award from Ozark Greenways Inc. for their ice storm cleanup efforts.

• The Discovery Center received the Choose Environmental Excellence in Business Award from the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce for its efforts as a model of environmental stewardship for business and industry.

• Jerome Rader’s family farm received the Landowner of the Year Award from Watershed Committee of the Ozarks in recognition of efforts to improve and protect water quality.

• Matt O’Reilly’s Green Circle development team received Developer of the Year honors from Watershed Committee of the Ozarks.

• Elizabeth Aull, recycling coordinator for Nestlé Purina PetCare Co., received the Environmental Service Award from the Solid Waste Management District O Board of Directors. Ault was honored for her efforts to provide safe, reliable and cost-effective waste reduction services, particularly for mixed-paper recycling.

• St. John’s Regional Health Center was recognized by the Springfield/Greene County Environmental Advisory Board for the creation of a comprehensive energy efficiency and conservation strategy and the formation of its Energy Conservation Task Force.

• Jay Barber, conservation education consultant with the Missouri Department of Conservation, was recognized by the Choose Environmental Excellence committee and Public Works for his ongoing dedication to formal and informal educators.

Source: City of Springfield[[In-content Ad]]