MORE Good Green Housing News

Green housing is preparing to boom.

See this article:


http://www.builderonline.com/green-building/green-housing-comeback-predicted.aspx?cid=BLDR101021002

Let us help you enter this upcoming booming market. Call or email me for details.

Home Sales Show Signs of Life - Reported by MSN.COM

Sales of U.S. existing homes rose in September, a sign cheaper borrowing costs are helping stabilize an industry that’s battling the headwinds of foreclosures and joblessness. Purchases increased 10% to a 4.53 million annual rate from 4.12 million in August, the National Association of Realtors said today. The month to month gain was the largest on record.

But September sales were still off 19.1% from a year ago. Economists had forecast sales would rise to a 4.3 million rate. The median price of a home was down 2.4% from a year ago to $171,700. That's also down 25.2% from its peak of $229,600 in August 2005. Prices were strongest in the Northeast, weakest in the West.

Distressed sales -- either of foreclosed homes or short sales -- were 35% of the market. At the current sales pace, it would take 10.7 months to sell those houses, compared with 12 months in August. Month’s supply would need to drop to eight to nine months in order to stabilize home prices, according to the NAR.

Lawsuit Against LEED

Henry Gifford has been a thorn in the side of the US Green Building Council for a couple of years, since he wrote an article claiming that LEED rated buildings used 29% more energy than conventional buildings. LEED has changed a lot since then, but not enough for Henry; He's launched a $100 million class action lawsuit against the USGBC, going after them for Sherman Act Monopolization through fraud, unfair competition, deceptive trade practices, false advertising, wire fraud and unjust enrichment.

See the article here:

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/10/100-million-class-action-against-leed.php

For more information on Green Building, contact Howard at LandmarkJCM.

FED Will Crack Down on Green Washing

The Federal Trade Commission has new guidelines out for comment on Green Claims in Advertising.

http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2010/10/greenguide.shtm

Builders can be sure they are safe in advertising Green Homes by getting those homes "Certified Green". The National Green Building Standard is the ONLY Green Building Standard in the country. This standard requires third party verification of all green claims and issues a certificate for each home to verify that it meets the requirements of the standard.

There are four levels of green recognized by the Standard (Bronze, Silver, Gold and Emerald), each with a higher level of energy efficiency, resource efficiency, indoor air quality and water conservation.

For more information, contact Howard Fortunato at LandmarkJCM.

EPA recommends VETO of EXISTING Corps of Engineers Permit

EPA administrator recommends veto of existing Corps of Engineers Mountaintop Mining Permit

EPA Regional Administrator Shawn Garvin has recommended that his boss, Administrator Lisa Jackson, veto a Clean Water Act permit for the proposed Spruce Mine No. 1 in West Virginia.

If allowed to go forward as currently envisioned, the Spruce Mine would be “one of the largest mountaintop mining projects ever authorized in West Virginia. If it is fully constructed, it will disturb approximately 2,278 acres and bury approximately 7.48 miles of streams,” the recommendation, dated Sept. 24 but released today, said.

The region had asked for public comment in April on a proposed determination “to prohibit,

restrict or deny” authorization for Mingo Logan Coal Company to discharge mining waste in the Seng Camp Creek watershed.

“Region III took this step because it believed, despite the regulatory review intended to protect the

environment, that discharges authorized by [the permit] could destroy wildlife habitat and cause significant degradation of downstream aquatic ecosystems and therefore could have unacceptable adverse effects on wildlife,” the region’s recommendation document said.

Link to article

Storm Water Permitting Changes

It seems like new regulations, policies, mandates and guidelines are coming at us from all sides.

Here is the latest in the line of:

1. Chesapeake Bay TMDL

2. State Watershed Implementation Plans

3. State Sediment and Storm Water Regulation Updates

4. Post Construction Storm Water Rulemaking

5. Effluent Limitation Guidelines and Numerical Standards for run-off

6. Zero Discharge, Zero Net Effective Impervious, Low Impact Development

http://nahbenews.com/nahbehs/issues/2010-10-01/3.html

Jim McCulley serves on the NAHB Environmental Issues Committee and is following all of these developments. Contact him for more information.

Maryland Brownfield Breakfast a Success

LandmarkJCM hosted a Brownfield Breakfast yesterday at the Vandiver Inn in Havre de Grace Maryland (just down the street from our office on Congress Street).

Speakers included Priscilla Carroll of Bowie and Jensen, Jim Carroll (no relation) from MDE, Doug Seavey and John Gonzalez from LandmarkJCM. The event was moderated by Mark Parker of LandmarkJCM.

All of the builders, developers and government officials in attendance learned a little more about the opportunities available through the development of brownfield properties.

For more information, please contact Mark Parker at LandmarkJCM.

Nutrient Trading is the Answer to Clean Up the Bay

Reposted:

Nutrient trading to clean up the bay

August 31, 2010, The Baltimore Sun

The "waterkeeper" and "riverkeeper" who argue against the use of nutrient trading are missing the point and misleading Baltimore Sun readers ("Cardin bill undermines Clean Water Act," Commentary, Aug. 25).

Both the science and economics of cleaning the Chesapeake Bay make it clear that using nutrient trading programs will be necessary to prioritize pollution reduction measures that match high environmental benefits and lower costs of compliance.

The U. S. Environmental Protection Agency is in the final months of setting binding caps on the amount of nitrogen, phosphorous and sediment that can enter the Chesapeake Bay. In the years to come, Maryland and the other bay states will be required to identify and implement all manner of actions that will permanently reduce these pollutants and improve bay water quality.

In May, Maryland implemented the next generation of storm water management regulations on new land developments that require the permanent post-development storm water runoff to have the same characteristics as the runoff from a healthy forest. This means that new development will always maintain existing conditions or, when building on grassland, agriculture or existing urbanized lands, new developments will permanently improve the existing environmental conditions.

How the rest of the mandated pollutant reductions will be achieved is a difficult problem that is being worked out now in Annapolis and other state capitals. It is easy to write that "polluters" should be accountable, but we all are polluters. When we drive our cars, flush our toilets, wash clothes, buy local sweet corn, or fertilize our lawns, we all contribute to bay pollution. Most Marylanders live in a county or town that must make changes that further reduce storm water and wastewater pollutants as dictated by EPA.

The science of bay pollution argues strongly that nutrient trading programs be part of the clean-up strategy. Take nitrogen as an example. One pound of nitrogen that runs off your yard does not always stay in your local creek or river, it migrates downstream until it reaches the main stem of the Chesapeake Bay where it is concentrated with nitrogen from as far away as Cooperstown, N.Y., creating the oxygen-starved "dead zone" that has come to symbolize the decline of the bay.

What most people find surprising is that a pound of nutrients from, say, the Susquehanna, Potomac or James Rivers, the three largest sources of bay pollutants, impacts the bay differently. For example, every pound of nitrogen that leaves the Susquehanna has three times the impact on deep water oxygen concentrations in the middle bay than does a pound of nitrogen originating from many parts of central Maryland located much closer to the bay. Because of differences in geographic impact, it makes sense to concentrate pollution control efforts in areas of Maryland's Eastern Shore, as well as northeast and southern Pennsylvania, where controls will have the greatest effect and achieve the most rapid improvement to bay water quality. One of best ways to do this is through nutrient trading programs.

Economics also argues for nutrient trading. In the 2003 report, "The Cost of a Clean Bay: Assessing Funding Needs Throughout the Watershed," the Chesapeake Bay Commission (CBC) projected that meeting the less rigorous 2000 Chesapeake Bay Agreement goals would cost governments $18.7 billion across the three Bay Commission states (Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania). But much of bay cleanup will be achieved by pollution control regulations that impart enforceable obligations on private interests. The costs of these measures are not borne by government but by individuals and entities in the watershed, making the total cost to the public many billions more than the CBC's $18.7 billion estimate of direct government costs.

The CBC encourages the application of strategic spending in order to reduce bay pollution in the most cost-effective manner. The five most cost-effective ways to reduce nitrogen pollution are agricultural practices that range in cost from $1.57 to $4.41 per pound of nitrogen removed. In contrast, the six most commonly applied urban nitrogen reduction practices carry a direct cost of $280 to $2,698 per pound of nitrogen removed.

Nutrient trading does not allow more pollution than the EPA limits, but it does present the potential for cities, counties, individuals and wastewater treatment plants to be matched with low cost water quality improvements in other locations and do their part for bay clean-up by providing more environmentally beneficial mitigation at far lower cost. Without nutrient trading, most Marylanders will have only the most prohibitively expensive options available when deciding how to comply with EPA's bay cleanup mandates.

Tom Ballentine

The writer is vice president for policy and government relations at the National Association of Industrial and Office Properties in Baltimore.

Tour of the NAHB Research Center

Friday the Home Builder’s Green Building Council was treated to a tour of the NAHB Research Center in Maryland. Nearly 30 members - builders, associates, and Kent County inspectors attended the tour. The first part, conducted by President Mike Luzier and Green Director Michelle Desiderio was to learn about the numerous services the Research Center provides besides green home certifications, including state of the art market research and focus groups for housing and housing product clients. We learned that the Research Center’s independence from NAHB and non-biased results are without dispute as they hold many accreditations from independent national testing certification bodies.

Then Bob Hill, Director of Laboratory Services, hosted our tour of the 45,000 square foot, 4-story indoor testing facility which can evaluate all parts of housing product components - weatherization of walls, materials, and insulation, osb strength, thermal characteristics, plumbing fixtures, etc.

The Research Center congratulated our HBADE with implementing the Green for Green homebuyer rebate program which rewards new home buyers of certified green homes with cash rebates. Mike cited it as an example of a win-win partnership in Delaware between the State DNREC and SEU and HBADE. He commented that other States are looking to implement the program nationally.