Posted on 07/16/2015 5:39:23 PM PDT by markomalley
This year, the architects of the rebuilt Dunbar High School announced that the building was one of the greenest new schools in the world, equipped with a geothermal heating and cooling system aided by wells extending 460 feet below the athletic fields and enough solar panels to power all classroom lights for eight hours on a sunny day.
The D.C. public high school, after a $122 million reconstruction project, was awarded Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) platinum certification, the highest distinction awarded by the U.S. Green Building Council, which reviews building energy efficiency.
As District schools have been modernized, many of them are getting greener. But as the overall cost and fiscal management of the school district’s modernization program has come under scrutiny, so too are its environmental features.
The D.C. auditor this month recommended that the city analyze the costs and benefits associated with its LEED certification. The recommendation came as part of a report that was highly critical of the city’s oversight of the school building program and the growing costs of the program.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Green contractors are making a hell of a lot of money off of these fads.
See table 11. http://www2.census.gov/govs/school/13f33pub.pdf
DC public schools in 2013 had per pupil revenues of $29,427. The figure you cite is “current spending,” which is not comprehensive.
LOL...Your headline made me think, “it’s more like Rapping, Screwing and Meth.”
LEED schools have failed to meet their silly promises all over. From Washington Policy Center:
USA Today Report Echoes WPC Finding on ‘Green’ Schools
December 11, 2012
A report in the USA Today found that “green” schools in other states don’t actually perform as promised. The report, “Green Schools: Long on promise, short on delivery,” gave this example from the Houston Independent School District:
The nation’s seventh-largest school district added features such as automated light sensors and a heat-reflecting roof, in hopes of minimizing energy use. But the schools are not operating as promised. Thompson Elementary ranked 205th out of 239 Houston schools in a report last year for the district that showed each school’s energy cost per student. Walnut Bend Elementary ranked 155th. A third “green” school, built in 2010, ranked 46th in the report, which a local utility did for the district to find ways of cutting energy costs.
The reporter even mentions one school from Washington state:
...Washington Middle School in Olympia, Wash., [was] projected to use 28% less energy. The school consumed 19% more energy than a conventional school in its first two years, and 65% more than planned, a state report shows.
Of course, this is exactly what we found in our ongoing analysis of the state’s “green” buildings requirements. Schools cost more to build and then end up using more energy, not less, in most cases. The state itself confirmed those findings in its audit completed last year.
How much are these requirements costing taxpayers? According to a new study from the Superintendent of Public Instruction, the total cost of meeting the state’s mandates for “green” school consruction cost an additional $11.4 million for 13 new schools built in the last two years.
As the USA Today article notes, the real winners with green building standards aren’t students or the environment. They are the architects and engineers who charge more to design these buildings, and the politicians who tout support for “green” standards in public campaigns, even if the schools are short on delivering real benefits.
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