The D.C. Council is debating whether to require every public school undergoing renovation to meet strict environmental standards, a move that could significantly increase the up-front costs of repairing the city’s crumbling educational facilities. With $2.3 billion to spend over 10 years, the District is in the midst of a “landmark period of school modernization,” Ward 3 Council Member Mary Cheh said last week. And every school, she said, should be held to the highest standards of energy and water efficiency.
The District’s existing “green” building law requires all new schools, and those undergoing “substantial renovations,” to meet Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification, better known as LEED. A “substantial” renovation is defined as at least 50 percent of the school’s value.
“The majority of District schools will not meet this threshold,” Cheh said. “I’m thinking of schools that have their boilers replaced, their roofs repaired, their bathrooms repainted, but do not undergo top-to-bottom repairs.”
Her bill would require that every new boiler be the “most efficient model” and every new roof be green – that DCPS ensure that the improvements “meet high performance site and building standards and use environmentally preferable appliances.”
“The decisions we make today we’ll have to live with in the next 50 plus years, multi generations,” said Ward 6 Council Member Tommy Wells, one of four members who introduced the bill. “We might as well get it right now.”
Upgrading schools’ energy and water efficiency won’t come cheap, at least up front. The standard roof, for example, costs about $1.50 per square foot, while green roofs often cost up to $8.50 per square foot. An energy-efficient, oxide- and nitrogen-reducing boiler might cost a third more than a standard system, said Glenn Maples, co-founder of the Auburn-Ala.-based Boiler Efficiency Institute.
Tony Robinson, spokesman for Schools Facilities Chief Allen Lew, said the first step will be putting together a “quick financial impact to see if [the bill] is going to impact the work we’re doing.” Lew’s office, he said, was just getting the legislation Friday.
