Maple Grove is miniscule piece to a very large puzzle. From a global perspective, the approximate 36 square miles and 60,500 people in the city are a tiny pinpoint. But that doesn’t mean the local city officials, policy makers, businesses and residents don’t think big. In fact, Maple Grove has taken several steps in recent years to improve energy efficiency and sustainability in order to save the earth and its resources. “We’ve been proactive in energy efficiency before ‘green’ became the buzz word,” says Al Madsen, city administrator. “I’ve always taken energy efficiency very seriously. It’s something we all need to do.”
Recycling for Dummies
Maple Grove’s recycling provider Allied Waste started a single-sort program in February 2009, distributing new recycling containers (32, 68 & 95 gallons) to all residents who are no longer burdened with having to sort paper, glass, cans and plastics.
According to Ken Ashfeld, Maple Grove’s director of public works/city engineer, there has been a 20 percent increase in tonnage with the new program. “We do have a very high participation,” he says.
Maple Grove was also the second city in the state to provide an incentive program, which awards points to residents who hit certain recycling goals. The points can then be redeemed for voucher coupons to local businesses such as Cub Foods and Target. (All residents who recycle can sign up for this rewards program through RecycleBank by calling 1-888-727-2978).
Ponds to Pumps
Maple Grove City Hall, Maple Grove Library and Great River Energy all use geothermal pumps that are connected to neighboring manmade ponds. The pumps use the constant temperature at the bottom of the ponds to control its heating and cooling.
City Hall started using this method in 2001. “With the City Hall, we made up for the extra cost of installing that in savings in three to four years,” says Peter Vickerman, assistant city planner. “It was a really quick payback, and we’re operating more efficiently.”
H2O Purified and Preserved
The water treatment plant started using a lamella water recovery system in 2007 to treat water. The system cleans the contaminants from the backwash instead of discharging that water directly into the sanitary sewer system.
The city used to pump anywhere from 10-15 million gallons of water per year down the sewer, according to Ashfeld. With this new filter system, only about 10 percent of that water goes down the sewer system. “It’s been an excellent system for us,” he says. “We preserve that natural resource, for one, which is what going green is all about. But we also save a considerable amount of money on treatment costs.”
The Shoppes Don’t Waste
The Shoppes at Arbor Lakes launched a new energy-saving waste management program throughout the entire property last summer. They replaced their old, open-top dumpsters with six solar-powered trash compactors. The Shoppes became the first local retail mall to add six single-stream, solar-powered recycling units, which store up to four times the volume of the old dumpsters, reducing the amount of pick-up times from five times a week to twice a week. The mall also added a BigBelly solar compactor, which has a larger capacity for waste and also cuts down on emissions of gases and pollutants.
Raise the (Green) Roof
The new Maple Grove Library, built in 2010, is the most recent local example of a building constructed to include energy efficient features. The most noticeable of which can best be seen from a bird’s eye view—its green roof, covered in low maintenance vegetation to prevent massive amounts of water from going into the storm water system. The roof helps insulate the building and also helps reduce infrastructure costs because large pipes aren’t needed to account for extreme water flow after major rainfalls.
Great River Energy LEEDs
The wind turbine marks the spot of one of the most energy-efficient buildings in Minnesota. There’s no larger or perhaps more recognizable landmark in Maple Grove since the Great River Energy headquarters erected this 160-foot, 225-kilowatt renewable energy source in 2007.
Renewable energy from the turbine and rooftop solar photovoltaic panels provides up to 15 percent of energy at the Great River building, which is a big reason it was LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Platinum certified by the U.S. Green Building Council. LEED Platinum is the highest designation available to buildings that demonstrate energy efficiency and sustainability, and the Great River Energy headquarters was the first building in the state to achieve this certification.
Get Well, Go Green, Go Home
The Maple Grove Hospital was designed and built according to the Green Guide to Healthcare (GGHC), a reference and self-certification that has very similar criteria to LEED, according to Executive Director of Patient Services Eric Nelson, but is altered to fit the unique requirements of health care facilities. It’s also a cheaper option than LEED, Nelson adds, so the hospital executives decided to use those certification savings on other sustainable practices, purchasing over 12,000 pieces of medical equipment through environmentally preferred vendors.
For example, the exterior paneling of the hospital is made from a high efficiency glazed metal, which was the first exterior envelope product to earn Cradle to Cradle certification—a multi-attribute eco-label that assesses a product’s safety to humans and the environment and design for future lifecycles. High efficiency equipment such as boilers, air conditioners and HVAC systems were installed, and the design of the building uses the utmost natural light.
Going Green, Saving Green
Maple Grove residents are bringing a whole new meaning to the term “greenhouse.” Mark and Alison McPhail of Maple Grove had a geothermal heating and cooling system installed by Comfort Matters Heating & Cooling, Inc of Osseo in January. The estimated cost of the system was $39,000 (before rebates). That may seem pricy, but considering they were using propane, and are able to take advantage of Wright Hennepin Electric’s off-peak program that cuts their electric rate in half, their monthly bill shrunk dramatically from $600 to $90 a month. A federal tax credit will also allow them to receive 30 percent of the total installation cost back. “In this case, going geothermal was more of an economic decision,” admits Mark, “But as a side benefit, it’s environmentally friendly, and we really appreciate that side of it.”
