The Banks Blog

This weekend we attended the Managing Your Carbon Footprint regional workshop presented by Green Energy Ohio. The event took place at the new LEED-NC silver certified Harold C. Schott Education Center. Presenting one of the sessions was Todd Portune, Hamilton County Commissioner, and we are excited by some of the things he mentioned about the Riverfront projects in Cincinnati.

Mr. Portune commented that any project in the County that includes county funding needs to meet certain requirements in the design, construction and purchasing of goods and services.

The Banks will include the following:

• LEED certification
• Environmentally preferable products in purchasing
• Green-friendly design including green roofs and permeable surfaces
• Recycled storm water from the buildings to landscape the adjoining riverfront park

If you aren’t aware of why these things are necessary for the city, you may want to understand that these requirements aren’t just to lower the carbon footprint of the project, but in many cases will save money for the city and county.

As anyone who pays for water in Hamilton county realizes, the Federal government has mandated that Hamilton County must repair it’s sewer systems. The cost will be passed to consumers through a 12% increase in water costs each year over the next few years. Ingeniously, Hamilton County has found a way to reduce the cost by $1 billion dollars (yes, $1 billion) by proposing using green methods to keep runoff and storm water out of the sewer system in the first place.

Methods to do this include more wetlands, promoting rain barrels for gardening in residential neighborhoods, gray water recycling for buildings, and green roofs.

If you haven’t had a chance to hear Mr Portune speak about where Hamilton county is going in the future, you really need to. His enthusiasm about the region is contagious. As a non-Cincinnati native, I was encouraged by the commitment he has for moving the area into the future.