As debates about climate change — does it exist and how serious is it? – rage on, many scientists continue to uncover more and more evidence that atmospheric pollution is having negative effects on Earth, right here and now, climate change or not.

Scientists studying the chemistry of lakes reported in a study published this week that atmospheric nitrogen released from the burning of fossil fuels and the widespread use of fertilizers in agriculture is altering the makeup of even remote bodies of water.

Green Lake 5 in Colorado (Photo: James Elser/ASU)

The study,  published in Science, found elevated nitrogen levels in alpine and subalpine lakes in Colorado, Sweden and Norway.

The added nitrogen changes the food composition of the aquatic environment, first by feeding the phytoplankton, and then other organisms as it moves up the food chain. With the lake’s plant life getting a disproportionate amount of nitrogen relative to other necessary minerals, like phosphorus, the “fundamental ecology,” of the lake is changed, according to the researchers.

This result of this new balance of minerals means that the phytoplankton, in essence, are eating differently (rather like when we hominids don’t get all our vitamins). The excess nitrogen restricts how much phosphorus they can absorb, and they become, in scientific lingo, “phosphorus limited.” And that’s not a good thing.

“We know that phosphorus-limited phytoplankton are poor food – basically ‘junk food’ for animal plankton, which in turn are food for fish,” said James Elser, a limnologist (people who study fresh water environments) in the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University, who lead the study of collaborating US and Scandinavian scientists.

“Such a shift could potentially affect biodiversity,” Elser said. “However, we don’t really know, because, unlike in terrestrial systems, the impacts of nitrogen deposition on aquatic systems have not been widely studied.”

In other words, it’s possible that the lake life will adapt. Or not.

Elser’s collaborators include researchers Tom Andersen and Dag Hessen from the University of Oslo; Jill Baron of the United States Geological Survey and Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory at Colorado State University; Ann-Kristin Bergström and Mats Jansson with Umeå University, Sweden; and Koren Nydick of the Mountain Studies Institute in Colorado, in addition to members of his own group in ASU’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Marcia Kyle and Laura Steger

Elser and colleagues were supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Exxon-Mobil Corporation, the world’s largest publicly traded oil and gas company, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Denver to violating the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) in five states during the past five years, the Justice Department announced.

The company has agreed to pay fines and community service payments totaling $600,000 and will implement an environmental compliance plan over the next three years aimed at preventing bird deaths on the company’s facilities in the affected states. According to papers filed in court, the company has already spent over $2.5 million to begin implementation of the plan.

The charges stem from the deaths of approximately 85 protected birds, including waterfowl, hawks and owls, at Exxon-Mobil drilling and production facilities in Colorado, Wyoming, Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas between 2004 and 2009. According to the charges and other information presented in court, most of the birds died after exposure to hydrocarbons in uncovered natural gas well reserve pits and waste water storage facilities at Exxon-Mobil sites in Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas.

The company has entered into a plea agreement with the government, calling for guilty pleas to the five charges and a sentence of $400,000 in fines and $200,000 in community service payments. The fines will be deposited into the federally administered North American Wetlands Conservation Fund. The community service payments will be made to a non-profit waterfowl rehabilitation foundation in Colorado and the congressionally chartered National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, designated for waterfowl preservation work in each of the affected states. During a three-year probationary period, Exxon-Mobil also must implement an “environmental compliance plan” designed to keep birds from coming into contact with oily waters at its facilities in the five affected states.

“The environmental compliance plan that Exxon-Mobil has agreed to in this multi-district plea agreement is an important step in protecting migratory birds in these five states,” John C. Cruden, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, said in a statement.

The Migratory Bird Treaty Act, enacted in 1918, implements this country’s commitments under avian protection treaties with Great Britain (for Canada), Mexico, Japan and Russia. The Act creates a misdemeanor criminal sanction for the unpermitted taking of listed species by any means and in any manner regardless of fault. The maximum penalty for a corporate taking under the MBTA is $15,000, or twice the gross gain or loss resulting from the offense, and five years probation. The birds killed in the five cases include ducks, grebes, ibis, passerines, shorebirds, owls, martin and a hawk. None of these species is listed as endangered or threatened under federal law.

Migratory birds often land on open wastewater ponds at oil and gas facilities and become coated with, or ingest, fatal amounts of hydrocarbons discharged into the water during drilling or production operations. Such killings can be prevented by scrubbing the water of contaminants before discharge, removing the ponds, placing an obstruction such as netting or plastic “bird balls” over the water to prevent contact, or installing commercially-manufactured electronic hazing devices which detect incoming flights of migratory birds and deploy noise and lights to scare them away from the area. Exxon-Mobil’s environmental compliance plan will employ these techniques, tailored to each facility, to prevent future mortality.

The cases were investigated by Special Agents of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and are being prosecuted by Senior Trial Attorney Robert S. Anderson of the Justice Department’s Environmental Crimes Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Carey of the District of Colorado.

Green-minded visitors to northern Colorado should consider a tour of the New Belgium Brewing Company in Fort Collins. New Belgium, best known for its Fat Tire Amber Ale brand, is one of the most environmentally progressive breweries in the world. The brewery has used wind-powered electricity since 1999, and green-design methods have been incorporated throughout the company. I visited the headquarters on a recent trip and discovered that many aspects of company life are dedicated to sustainability.

New Belgium sponsors a charity bike-and-music event called “Tour de Fat” in eleven cities in the United States, including Austin, Chicago, Minneapolis and Portland, that encourages people to trade their car for a bike, at least for a day. At Tour de Fat events, beer is served in compostable cups, and  performers take to a solar-powered stage. (A Tour de Fat schedule is online.)

Cycling has long been part of New Belgium’s corporate culture. Before he founded the company, Jeff Lebesch went on a tour of Belgian breweries, traveling through Europe in 1989 on a mountain bike, a rarity at the time. Many people commented on the “fat tires” he used, which inspired the name of Fat Tire Amber Ale. Today, employees of New Belgium each receive a mountain bike on the one-year anniversary of their hire date. They are encouraged to use the bikes to commute to work, thus reducing their carbon footprints. Outside the headquarters, dozens of bikes are lined up, looking well-used.

Tours of the brewery are free, and they are offered several days per week. One of the first things visitors notice is the beautiful pine wood used throughout the building, on ceilings, walls and floors. The wood has a bluish tint, meaning it’s “beetlekill” wood. Throughout Colorado, thousands of acres of lodgepole pines have been lost to a pine bark beetle infestation. The beetle injects a fungus into the trees, which tints the wood blue. Using the wood is a way to utilize these dead trees, the tour guide explained.

The most impressive sight on the tour is the gigantic “Merlin” brewing kettle, the size of a school bus. Traditional brew kettles heat the wort (unfermented beer, the liquid that comes from mashing grains) in a giant kettle that heats from the bottom, similar to how you heat a pan of water on the kitchen stove.

The Merlin, made by the Germany company Steinecker, has a huge cone-shaped heating element standing inside the vast cylindrical kettle. The liquid heats more quickly than in a traditional kettle because the heating surface is much larger, and the wort heats from the center out. Since the wort heats faster, the brew kettle uses less energy than traditional methods.

Every brewery produces a large amount of wastewater as a result of the brewing process. New Belgium built its own water-treatment plant, which includes anaerobic digestion. The company also uses the methane produced by the plant to generate electricity and heat. As it continues to work on new ways to save energy, New Belgium plans to install a solar photovoltaic array.

Best of all for visitors, each brewery guest 21 and up can sample four types of beer for free, in the first-floor bar called the “Liquid Center.” Most visitors start with the Fat Tire, and then move on to try other flavors, like Sunshine Wheat, Skinny Dip and Blue Paddle.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

By John DeFore
Green Right Now

The old-fashioned American road trip — packing the kids up and driving from one motor lodge to the next — may seem less than 100% wholesome these days, what with eco-conscious drivers becoming as sensitive to the amount of CO2 they’re generating as they are to cries of “are we there yet?” from the back seat.

But getting out into the natural world remains one of the best ways to introduce children — and city-dwelling adults, for that matter — to the environment we all want to preserve. And a well planned road trip can provide vacationers with an array of views and experiences that’s stunning enough to make a phrase like “ecosystem diversity” suddenly sound like a tangible good worth fighting for instead of a dry academic concern.

With its wealth of park lands, varied terrain, and caravan-friendly roads, Colorado presents excellent opportunities for this kind of eco-exposure road trip. I loaded up the car recently to see how much I could squeeze into a week or so of vacation time, and was surprised at the result.

Starting in Colorado Springs, my trip began with sights that have been part of summer-vacation itineraries for so many decades that simply showing up might make the most unconventional family feel like the Cleavers. Cave of the Winds, for instance, one of the state’s many natural caverns open to visitors, seemingly encourages its guides to toss around corny banter almost as crusty as the stalagmites on display.

But one seemingly hokey affectation can have a transporting effect: In addition to regular tours, the cave’s operators offer a lantern tour that uses no lighting other than the kind of oil-burning lamps available to the spelunkers who explored the caves in the late 1800s. Paradoxically, limiting visitors’ ability to see makes the tour more involving, attaching a sense of discovery to geological formations that might be taken for granted on the standard tour.

Other well-exploited points of interest in Colorado Springs include Seven Falls and Pike’s Peak, a mountain that isn’t as high as other summits you’ll scale on a thorough Colorado trip (it’s not even in the top 20), but is the site of a scenic cog railway.

The town’s most impressive asset is the Garden of the Gods, a collection of above-ground rock formations whose starkness is reminiscent of iconic landscapes, like Utah’s Monument Valley, generally found farther west. Its craggy red rocks are particularly stunning in the morning sunlight, and the park’s relatively small size makes it perfect for a pre-breakfast hike. (It’s clearly a favorite jogging spot for locals.)

From Colorado Springs I drove north, through the granola-friendly community of Boulder, to Estes Park, a verdant little spot that, with its creekside inns and unpretentious businesses, makes the perfect spot to gather your strength for an expedition into the Rocky Mountain National Park.

The rock star of Colorado’s natural attractions, the RMNP is big and rich enough that whole books tackle it without covering everything one might see and do within. Outdoor enthusiasts could spend weeks here without getting bored, but those wanting to integrate the park into a larger trip can get a sense of it on a scenic drive like the one along Trail Ridge Road, which winds its way up through forest to a treeless tundra offering breathtaking views in all directions. The cold winds whipping around up here (it’s usually 20 to 30 degrees cooler here than in Estes Park) are just the thing to cool you off after a hike through one of the many trails found lower down the mountain range.

Rocky Mountain National Park is an excellent place to pause and consider global climate change. The park’s tundra ecosystem, high on the continental divide, faces imminent and multiple threats from warming temperatures, according to a 2007 report, Climate Change in Rocky Mountain National Park.

Odwalla is continuing its successful plant-a-tree program by donating $100,000 worth of trees to be planted in state parks in California, New York, Florida, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Utah, Ohio, Texas, Maryland, Michigan and Virginia.

Visitors to www.parkvisitor.com/odwalla can choose their preferred state to receive a tree — no contribution or registration is required. The trees will be used to support important reforestation and planting initiatives across the country.

Since debuting in 2008, the Odwalla Plant a Tree program has provided more than 60,000 trees to state parks across the country. Trees donated through the 2008 program were planted through volunteer and other events at local parks.

The Odwalla Plant a Tree program runs from May 27, 2009 through December 31, 2009. The species of trees donated will vary by region and will be planted in fall 2009 and early 2010.

What I do:

I work for Metro Solar, a solar thermal and photovoltaic installation and service company. We specialize in solar thermal heating and high efficiency boiler systems, but also install PV (photovoltaics). Since we are one of the few companies that service old systems, the majority of the work I do is in this area. There were many solar thermal systems installed in the Denver area back in the ‘80s and Metro Solar has stayed in business maintaining these systems during the last three decades. Now that there is a renewed interested in solar we are starting to install new systems.

How It helps the environment:

When speaking of solar most people think “solar electric” or photovoltaics – what we call the “sexy solar.” However, there are other forms of solar, such as passive solar (gaining heat directly from the sun) and solar thermal (heating water with the sun). These forms of obtaining energy from the sun can be much more effective and cost efficient for the consumer. While passive solar can be as simple as placing a window on the south side of your home, at just the right height to allow the sun to heat a room in the winter, but not in the summer, solar thermal is much more complex. A basic solar thermal system can be just a single collector, or solar panel, used to heat the domestic water needed in a residence. A more complex system can involve multiple collectors and can be used to heat the entire residence year round. All solar applications are beneficial to the consumer and the environment by reducing energy consumption and therefore reducing the amount of money spent on fossil fuels.

How I got here:

My interest in working in the solar industry came from having a desire to make a real difference in the world on a micro level. While working with the Texas Campaign for the Environment I was exposed to many different aspects of the “green” industries. My prior experience as a plumber and tradesman and my enjoyment of working with my hands led me to seek a career in solar. With little opportunity for employment or education in this field offered in the Dallas area, I relocated to Denver. Here I was fortunate enough to find work in the field and I am making plans to attend classes on solar thermal design and installation at the local community college.

Where I’m going:

With the education I can receive I could go on to design and engineer solar systems. Because solar has become so “sexy” in recent years, everyone expects the job to be glamorous. However, at times it can be very difficult both mentally and physically. All you really need to get involved is a willingness to do the work, no fear of heights; and have a good head on your shoulders.

How I’m doing:

Since I just started work and have related but no direct experience in solar, I am earning $15 an hour. I have the potential of making up to $30/hour as an installer/service technician. Training classes and college course can help to boost one’s knowledge of the systems. However, hands-on experience is the best way to see what really goes on. I believe the industry should set up an apprenticeship program similar to that in the plumbing and electrical fields.

Advice:

To anyone seeking a career as a solar installer, I would say don’t be afraid of hard work – there is plenty of it. Also, look for courses you can take while you work. There are online courses and workshops (Solar Energy International) and some community colleges offer night classes (like Red Rock Community College). And don’t forget to enjoy the view. A majority of the work done is on rooftops and you are almost always working on the sunny side of the house.

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A softening economy and a milder-than-usual winter contributed to a decline in carbon dioxide emissions from U.S. power plants in 2008, according to a new report from the Environmental Integrity Project.

EIP officials noted that the decrease is a departure from the recent trends, with power plant carbon dioxide emissions having risen 0.9 percent since 2003, and 4.5 percent since 1998, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Even with the national improvement in CO2 emissions, six states had increases in power plant emissions of 1 million tons or more from 2007 to 2008:

• Oklahoma (3.1 million)
• Iowa (1.8 million)
• Texas (1.7 million)
• Nebraska (1.3 million)
• Illinois (1.1 million)
• Washington (1.1 million)

“Unfortunately, one year of improved data does not mean that we are on the right path for carbon dioxide reduction from U.S. power plants. We clearly cannot afford a wave of conventional fossil-fired power plants that would only add tens of millions of tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere every year over the lifetimes of these new plants,” EIP Senior Attorney Ilan Levin said in a statement. “If the United States is serious about curbing greenhouse gas pollution and meeting the goals that the scientific community says are needed, then many of the nation’s dirtiest power plants will either need to be cleaned up or retired. We have no time to lose.”

The 10 states that emitted the most CO2 in 2008, measured in total tons, are: Texas, Ohio, Indiana, Florida, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Kentucky, Georgia, Alabama, and West Virginia.

The 10 states with the largest CO2 increases over the past 10 years (from 1998 to 2008) are:

• Texas (26.9 million tons)
• Arizona (22.6 million)
• California (18.8 million)
• Georgia (17.7 million)
• Illinois (17.7 million)
• Oklahoma (16.6 million)
• Alabama (8.9 million)
• South Carolina (7.5 million)
• Colorado (6.7 million)
• Iowa (6 million)

Drill, baby, drill may be what’s on the minds of gas companies, but if you’re a landowner of a potential gas site, you probably have a lot of questions.

Thanks to a new software application that’s being test marketed by MIT, landowners may now extract data to see if the gas companies’ proposals to drill are fair and safe. The software tool, called the Landman Report Card (LRC), will help landowners in any state navigate the government and corporate databases, as well as get feedback from other landowners who’ve been in similar situations. And they can do all this before agreeing to a drilling contract.

The term “land man” refers to an oil company representative who often times shows up on the doorstep of unsuspecting property owners who’ve been targeted as having prospective drill sites.

“People often will sign the day the land man shows up at the door,” says MIT professor Chris Csikszentmihalyi. “There are lots of negotiations that people can do, that they often don’t know they can.”

Csikszentmihalyi , co-director of MIT’s Center for Future Civic Media, and Sara Wylie, a grad student in the Science , Technology and Society Program, are the directors of the Landman Report Card project, which is coming to fruition as natural gas exploration in America gains traction as an energy source that doesn’t rely on foreign oil — affecting land and homeowners from New York to Texas to the Rocky Mountains states.

Wylie says that the feedback from the first tests in Ohio were “pretty positive…We will make some tweaks, but for the most part the software tool technically went great.”

Environmental consultant Lisa Sumi, who has worked with Earthwork’s Oil and Gas Accountability Project (OGAP), says the Landman Report Card is needed “because there is a huge power imbalance between the oil and gas industry and the people affected by it. When the oil company comes in, they already have the technology information and legal background. But the landowner, who may never had to deal with them before, is at disadvantage.” OGAP, founded in 1999, works with communities to prevent and reduce environmental degradation caused by oil and gas development.

“The report card,” she says, “provides landowners with a place they can go to make sure they are not being taken for a ride.” The LRC provides leasing rates and comparable deals.

Mark Scoville is one of the affected landowners who participated in the recent test marketing of the LRC. Scoville, an electrical engineer, lives with his young family in northeastern Ohio, the site of much drilling due to its location in the relatively newly discovered Marcellus Shale region. Most of Ohio’s oil and gas is located in this eastern third of the state. Scoville believes the LRC is a wonderful tool. (See Scoville’s photo, left, of an oil well near a playground.)

“I’m interested in the tactics that landmen are using. The reviews by people who have dealt with them are like a Consumer Reports for the landowner. The oil and gas industry seems to be exempt from just about everything. Drilling is going bonkers here in the northeastern Ohio suburbs. Residents moved here because it’s zoned for residential use, yet the state has taken over responsibility for all oil drilling, thanks to House Bill 278,” he said.

House Bill 278, which went into effect in 2004, states if a gas company is looking for a tract of contiguous land, and a homeowner doesn’t want to be involved, the state of Ohio can force the homeowner to accept the deal.

In the official wording by Ohio’s Division of Mineral Resources Management in the Department of Natural Resources, the state “has exclusive authority to regulate the permitting, location, and spacing of oil and gas wells in the state, and to revise the laws governing the drilling of oil and gas.”

If skiing or snowboarding is your brood’s idea of the perfect family vacation, then ask yourself: What could make it even ”more” perfect?

Powdery white slopes and alpine valleys? Maybe a white Christmas? Chances are when you think of skiing, you think of things white, not green. But the green-ski movement, prompted by U.S. groups like the Ski Area Citizens Coalition (SACC), an outgrowth of nonprofit Colorado Wild, and National Ski Areas Association (NSAA) “Sustainable Slopes” program, is changing that – little by little.

A fairly young endeavor (SACC started in 1999; Sustainable Slopes in 2000), the movement’s emergence reminds us that as healthy and nature-loving as this sport might be, it hasn’t been known for its environmental sensitivity.

Big-development resorts often gobble up entire mountains, says SACC’s ski-area coordinator Hunter Sykes – carving roads out of virgin wooded areas, replacing dense aspens and birch with Green, Blue and Black ski runs. And most large lodges, hotels and condo complexes have anything but a small carbon footprint.

But there’s a way to figure out who’s green and white, and who’s just plain white before booking your ski holiday this year. Every November, SACC posts a list of the 10 Best Ski Areas and the 10 Worst in the Western United States, based on skier scorecards that grade everything from the resort or ski operator’s impact on local and regional water sources, old growth forests and wildlife, to how the resort or operator deals with environmental policies. Does it recycle? Does it use biodiesel for its vehicles? Does it tap into alternative energy?

Other good sources for assessing how green your favorite snowy, white retreat is are the Ski Green Guide and the NSAA’s Green Room.

The SACC’s top ten for 2007-2008, with their rankings on a 100-point scale:

1. Aspen Mountain Ski Resort, Colorado – 88.9 % (pictured above)
2. Buttermilk Mountain Ski Resort, Colorado – 88 %
3. Park City Mountain Ski Resort, Utah – 81.3 %
4. Sundance Resort, Utah – 79.1 %
5. Aspen Highlands Ski Resort – 76.4 %
6. Mount Bachelor Ski Area, Oregon – 74.7 %
7. Alpine Meadows Ski Area, Californian – 73.8 %
8. Telluride Ski Resort, Colorado – 73.3 %
9. Bogus Basin Mountain Resort, Idaho – 73.3 %
10. Alta Ski Resort, Utah – 72.2 %

For those who’ve never heard of it, SACC is composed of nonprofits from three Western states: Colorado Wild, the Crystal Conservation Coalition (Washington), Friends of the Inyo (California) and the Sierra Nevada Alliance (California). Last year, the group added Canadian ski areas to its Skier Area Environmental Scorecards rating program, through the research group Under the Sleeping Buffalo based in Banff, Alberta. Its 225-point scoring criteria is extremely detailed and is broken down into two parts.  As the SACC reports on its site, the scorecard “strives to differentiate between those ski areas that engage in environmentally sound practices on the ground versus those that merely claim to do so.”

Going Green Means Saving The White Fluffy Stuff

A couple of major factors are fueling the need for a ski-green movement, says Sykes of SACC and Colorado Wild: Fewer people are skiing these days, so big developments are constantly pushing to expand their acreage into pristine alpine areas – which has environmentalists, and pro-green ski operators, on the offensive. And a greater number of people have become eco-conscious and are trying to lessen their impact on wilderness areas.

“It’s not that you shouldn’t be skiing,” Sykes explains, “but that you should be choosing the places where you ski more carefully.

An overwhelming 86 percent of Colorado residents want to limit subsidies for oil shale production and halt new coal-fired power plants, according to a newly released poll.

The survey of 600 Colorado adults conducted by Opinion Research Corporation also found support for
federal and state investment in wind and solar energy, enhanced energy efficiency, and highly fuel-efficient vehicles. The study was conducted for TheCLEAN.org and the Civil Society Institute, and was released by Western Colorado Congress, a community action alliance focused on protecting and enhancing the quality of life in western Colorado.

Key findings of the poll include:

• A halt to construction of new coal-fired power plants is supported by most Colorado adults. Just over three out of four respondents in Colorado (76 percent) and 73 percent of Americans would support a five-year moratorium on new coal-fired power plants in the United States if there were stepped-up investment in clean, safe renewable energy — such as wind and solar — and improved home energy-efficiency standards.
• Only 9 percent of Colorado residents favor subsidies for unregulated oil shale production. Nearly two out of five state residents (38 percent) favor no subsidies at all for oil shale; roughly half (48 percent) believe that subsidies for oil shale should only exist with “strict environmental controls.” Taken together, the latter two data points mean that nearly nine out of 10 Colorado residents favor eliminating or placing strong conditions on oil shale subsidies.
• Nearly nine out of 10 Colorado residents (87 percent) believe that “natural gas companies should have to provide information to nearby communities and residents about hazardous chemicals used and produced in natural gas production.” Only about one in 10 (11 percent disagree on the grounds that “disclosure of hazardous chemicals would give information to competitors and harm the gas company.”

“Colorado residents deserve credit for understanding that more investment by the state and federal governments in coal and nuclear power is essentially the same thing as investing in subprime mortgages,” Civil Society Institute President and Founder Pam Solo said in a statement.

“If Colorado taxpayers are going to directly or indirectly underwrite energy development and energy-intensive industries — such as the auto industry — we need to insist that state officials in Denver and the next Congress and president make good, solid investments that make sense for the long-term of our country. The only energy investments that rise above the ’subprime’ level today are wind, solar and other clean renewable energy in concert with enhanced energy efficiency.”

By Tom Kessler

Colorado developers have announced what they say is the country’s largest net-zero energy, master-planned community in Arvada, Colo., a suburb of Denver. Geos Neighborhood, which will begin infrastructure construction this fall, will feature 250 residences and can generate enough renewable energy to supply 100 percent of the annual energy needs of the entire community, the developers say.

The community will rely mainly on on-site solar and geothermal systems designed to supply its energy needs. Geos also will employ a “groundbreaking checkerboard placement pattern” of the homes that maximizes solar efficiency, as well as advanced storm water recycling, rain permeable surfaces to mitigate run off and heat recovery ventilators.

Geos Neighborhood ’s developers say they expect to offer sustainable living at accessible price points — homes will begin in the $200,000s, ranging up to around $500,000 for the biggest models replete with options. The homes will range from 860 square feet to 3,683 square feet and include single-family homes, townhomes, paired homes, row homes, multi-level condos and co-housing.

“It’s great that there are multimillion dollar homes out there with every eco bell and whistle imaginable,” said project developer Norbert Klebl in a news release. “Our goal with the Geos Neighborhood is to deliver these same opportunities to more than just the select few by designing a lifestyle community that is financially accessible to many more people.”

Groundbreaking is slated for this fall. More information about Geos Neighborhood and its features are available online.