Six communities get 'green' credentials

By Ty Tagami

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Six metro Atlanta communities will collect environmental stamps of approval from the Atlanta Regional Commission Wednesday.

The two counties and four cities were selected from among seven that competed for the distinction, in the first year of what the ARC is billing as the first regional "green" certification program in the country. They will each be given a "Green Communities" designation because they took steps to shrink their "environmental footprint," such as reducing energy and water consumption, cutting the amount of trash and air pollution produced or investing in solar panels and other means of producing "renewable" energy.

"It's a way for us to set an example for the region and the nation," said Maia Davis, who manages the initiative for the ARC. The agency is the regional planning and intergovernmental coordinator for the 10 core counties in metro Atlanta.

DeKalb and Douglas counties and the cities of Atlanta, Roswell, Fairburn and Suwanee – join Cobb County and the cities of Decatur and Alpharetta on the ARC green list. The latter three were selected in the summer. All of them competed for points based on 61 criteria. Last time, Cobb scored silver; this time Roswell won that honor. The rest got bronze. None has received a gold rating yet – not even Decatur, with its eco-chic reputation and its use of rain water to wash sanitation trucks and to water landscaping.

Roswell topped the list with a host of innovations, including solar-powered lighting in a dog park, a no-idle policy for city vehicles and a mandate that all new municipal buildings over 5,000 square feet be certified by the U.S. Green Building Council for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, a conservation rating system commonly known as "LEED."

These measures cost money but they also reduce spending. DeKalb, which has a LEED-certified juvenile courthouse, a "lights out" policy after hours and energy-sipping LED light bulbs   in nearly a third of its traffic signals, estimates an average annual savings on building energy bills of $1.5 million. The county also makes money by selling methane waste from landfills to be used as an energy source.

There is a "moral and ethical expectation" for local governments to demonstrate resource conservation for later generations, said Kathie Gannon, a county commissioner who has advocated for DeKalb green programs. "The county needs to lead by example," she said.

Davis, the ARC program manager, said one of her favorite projects was in DeKalb, where the jail uses ozone in its laundering facility. That reduces reliance on detergents, a leading cause of toxic "brownfields," she said. "This ozone system has so many environmental benefits, and on top of that they say the prisoners like their clothes better because they feel softer."