Mike Miller, Butte College director of
facilities planning and management. |
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Greening
a Rural Campus:
Sustainability at Butte Community College
by Racquel Palmese
Butte Community College sits perched amidst rolling hills and streams on a
thousand-acre wildlife refuge near Oroville, Chico and, quite literally,
Paradise, California. Mike Miller is director of Facilities Planning and
Management for the
Butte campuses, which serve some 20,000
students a year.
On the main campus, the buildings, roads and service areas occupy about
250 acres. Another 80 acres are used for farming, and the rest is
wilderness, some of which is used for grazing. The woods, streams, farmed
fields and trails are learning tools for students who are studying a range
of agriculture and science-related topics. They are also enjoyed by the
communities surrounding the college.
Miller describes Butte College as its own self-contained city, the fourth
largest in Butte County. It has a fire department, sewage system and
water treatment plant. And like other rural campuses, it is challenged by
a unique set of environmental and sustainability issues. Among these is a
decision to use part of the riparian wilderness for grazing, which is
something Miller says helped stave off the devastating effects of an
enormous wildfire that blasted through the area recently.
"The grazing program that works with our Ag classes also helps in fire
prevention," he explains, "which was proved out in the last couple of
months when we had the Humboldt fire. It started in Chico and travelled to
the very edge of the campus. It burned quite a bit of the open areas of
the campus, but because of firebreaks and grazing, the damage was minimal.
We didn't lose any structures or outbuildings." That means over 100
structures were saved, including 25 major buildings, a total of about
450,000 assignable square feet. Also saved were about 80 acres of
landscape, 30 acres of playfields, a football stadium and baseball
stadium. "It's an extensive campus, no doubt about it," he says.
Another issue facing rural campuses, and rural communities in general, is
transportation. Butte is one of the few colleges to provide bus
transportation for students. In fact, it's the largest transportation
system of any community college in California. The Butte system
transports 1,200 students a day. "That's basically 1,200 cars that are not
on the road every day, which is a good thing," says Miller. The college
also provides preferential parking for carpools and is planning to add
hybrids to the list of vehicles allowed into the preferred parking areas.
A Rural Tradition Come of Age
Green building and energy efficiency have always been part of the mindset
at Butte College. In 2002, a local bond measure of $85 million was
leveraged for state funds of about $40 million. This allowed the college
to institute its first new building program in many years. The Allied
Health building was completed, a three-story learning resource center, the
two-story Chico Center building and a three-story library remodel have all
been completed. "Now I've got two new buildings going," Miller says, "the
new Instructional Arts building and the Student General Services building
– over 140,000 square feet total."
In 2002, long before greenhouse gas and climate change were common terms,
the college set a minimum energy efficiency standard for its buildings of
15 percent under the mandates of
Title 24, the energy efficiency building
code in California. The Chico building came in at 19 percent under, and
the Learning Resource Center and library remodel both achieved 29 percent
under the statute's standard.
Now the college is using
LEED (the U.S. Green Building Council's
rating system) metrics in their building projects. With a goal to achieve
the minimum certification, LEED Certified, Miller says the arts building,
now under construction, looks like it will actually achieve a Silver
(third highest) rating, and the student building might achieve a high Gold
(second highest) rating.
"Things can change over time," he says, "but we have been building very
energy efficient buildings and very healthy buildings. We'll certify these
buildings and then go back and try for LEED EB (existing buildings rating)
and recertify our existing buildings." There's also discussion about a new
LEED Campus rating.
Miller and his staff at Butte have so much experience with green building
that they have become a knowledge base for other schools and colleges.
They now hold an annual sustainability
conference at which schools from K-12
through university levels come to learn about building green. "We found
out we have pretty good methodology in putting up green buildings and
putting standards to them," he explains. Next year, Miller hopes to expand
the conference to include community members, local renewable energy
businesses and students.
Solarizing
Besides green building and transportation programs, Butte is also "solarizing."
Currently they have a one-megawatt solar field operating, and there are
two more phases to come. Solar panels will also be added to new
buildings. The goal
is to be climate neutral by 2015. "That may sound ambitious,"
says Miller, "but you have to set a high mark to get anywhere. I think
we're on the way.
"We have a one megawatt plant now and we want to add another two
megawatts. We'll also put covered parking in with solar roofs." Right now,
the solar plant provides more than 25 percent of the campus'
electricity. Next year, Miller hopes to replace 50 percent of the campus'
electricity needs with solar power. Over 30 years, he says the college
will save about $25 million in avoided costs.
Putting the "Community" into a Community College
A green campus is a model for the community it serves in many ways. On any
day, biology students from Butte College will be taking measurements in
the stream bed in the wildlife refuge. Grade school students and local
businesspeople will arrive for tours of the solar field. It's a place
where you can get your hands on new technology, see how it works. "We're
no ivory tower here," says Miller.
Community colleges are the least funded of all levels of education in
California, and Miller says they must be frugal, while at the same time be
a proving ground for new technologies. "When a technology is out there
that is so efficient that community colleges can make it work, we need to
go for it," he says. "When I drop solar panels in a field or on a
building, I've got to show a payback. I can't solarize just for the sake
of using solar, but if I can make it work, it means that any college can
make it work."
In California, community colleges educate upwards of 2.3 million students
– together they form the largest school district in the world. Miller
says the fact that colleges put students through every two years means
that every two years 20,000 new students will look at what's going on at
Butte and can see the value of these new technologies and sustainable
programs.
"They are the ones who will benefit," he says, "and they will take it out
into their careers and their lives."
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