By Vicki Pellar Price

According to Gene Dietz, Eden Prairie’s director of public works, for the city to set an example for the business sector by greening the Community Center, it would require leadership.

City Manager Scott Neal, Jay Lotthammer, director of parks and recreation, and Council members Sherry Butcher and Kathy Nelson agreed: Greening the city is a position they made a commitment to and it would seem that direction has more pluses than minuses.

The other three voting members of Eden Prairie’s City Council, Mayor Phil Young, Council members Brad Aho and Jon Duckstad, don’t agree. Brad Aho asked how long it would take for a green roof to pay for itself.

The EPA (http://www.epa.gov/heatisland/strategies/greenroofs.html) says the upfront cost of an extensive green roof in the U.S. costs about $8 per square foot, while a traditional roof costs $1.25.

Though upfront costs are higher, green roofs realize savings in heating and cooling costs. In energy cost-savings alone, green roofs pay for themselves in six or seven years. Green roofs last much longer than asphalt roofs; depending on the vegetation used, they require minimal maintenance. But green roofs do even more: they reduce airborne pollution; moderate temperatures for the building itself as well as those around it; reduce noise; increase roof durability and longevity, storm water management and energy efficiency.

Some examples of green roofs:

The world’s largest green roof is at the Ford Rouge truck plant in Michigan; its 10.4 acres of living roof has a drought resistant perennial groundcover that needs very little maintenance.

Kestrel Design Group, the company that collaborated with me on the Interpretive Signage project, worked with Cesar Pelli, the world-renowned architect who designed the new downtown Minneapolis Central Library. Kestrel was chosen to design the library’s green roof.

In February of this year, Home Depot established a $300,000 grant for three cities, Minneapolis, Atlanta and Los Angeles, to advance the green roof industry. Evidently these cities demonstrated leadership in embracing green roof infrastructure.

From all indications, it would seem the dissenting council majority is horribly out-of-step with the times; the mayor’s new Budget Advisory Commission has recommended no increase in parks or open spaces, while the rest of the nation is calling for the green factor, from new green developments in neighborhood business districts to encouraging more vegetation in living and working areas, larger trees and green roofs.

The most compelling argument for greening is the 50 percent increase in worldwide population growth by 2050. If you extrapolate that growth in terms of manufacturing needs alone, more land, more natural resources [being used] equates to more emissions and waste in the environment.

Businesses can’t continue to be successful without sustainable, socially responsible business practices. The resistance of neighborhoods to industry and its effects – air, noise and water pollution – is reason enough to become as familiar with the risk-benefit as the cost-benefit.

Mayor Phil Young, Brad Aho and John Duckstad could have quantified green roof benefits themselves by going to Green Roofs for Healthy Cities at www.greenroofs.org, which offers a GreenSave calculator that provides a “life-cycle cost-benefit tool which enables industry professionals and building owners to better understand the benefits of green roofs over the long term.”

At the very least our elected officials need to demonstrate that they’re not behind the times.

Eden Prairie resident Vicki Pellar Price is director of Writers Rising Up to Defend Place, Natural Habitat, Wetlands.