Sustainability Videos & Lecture Series

Q. What influenced your community’s focus on sustainability?

Joseph Manuel: Well, at the core of our belief as Native American Indians, we are concerned about the environment, and we want to be able to save resources.

Casey Turgeon: As Lieutenant says, it’s always been part of native culture, but above all it’s the right thing to do. As he said, when we run out of natural resources, we’re out.

Q. What is your most recent sustainable design project?

Joseph Manuel: This fire station is the latest project that we’ve done. As dollars are tight, and this economy is tight, they've brought down the cost – the total cost of the facility.

Casey Turgeon: Over the past two years, we’ve had small projects that stand alone – solar projects – and we’ve grown really rapidly over the two years. This fire station we’re just finishing, it’s one of my larger projects, and this is the end of the evolution so everything we’ve learned, we can put into this one project. Our plants we used are all native to this community – mesquites and palo verdes. We’ve placed them in the bottom of retention areas to help perk out the water so we have less standing water, less problem with mosquitoes, but it also waters the plants.

The solar lights in the parking lot, we have 11 poles off the top of my head and about 12 fixtures. They’re all stand-alone solar, off grid, run on a deep cell 12 volt marine battery, and they are dusk-to-dawn applications. They will run on that battery power for up to four days with little to no sunlight. Moving into the building, we have polished concrete floors throughout. They don’t have volatile organic compound off-gassing. The smells you smell – your new home smell when you walk in – that’s volatile organic compounds. That off-gassing is all noxious and toxic stuff. You spec out those, and it makes it healthier for the people who live in the building and the people who visit the buildings.

We also have natural daylighting. They are passive solar daylighting. They’re an actual 14-inch tube, and there’s a small dome on the roof. It harvests natural sunlight, tunnels it in, and a diffuser disperses it. Again, the entire building was thought for low maintenance, low operational costs and longevity, and that all fits into sustainability.

Q. How are you deploying solar lighting?

Joseph Manuel: The Turnkey Subdivision lighting is solar.

Casey Turgeon: We knew we needed street lights because the community had zero street lights, and there was a safety concern. People could not exercise in the evening. It provided many things for the community. It was designed as a full electrical system, and we looked into solar and that was one of second projects we did solar. That project actually had an up-front savings of $30,000 because we cut out all the trenching and everything.

Joseph Manuel: I was concerned that they would be somehow messed with or destroyed somehow, but that hasn’t been. It’s working real well at night, it’s lit up, and we know that it’s not a cost.

Q. How will your projects make a difference?

Joseph Manuel: We’re going to save in terms of operating costs for utilities and so forth.

Casey Turgeon: For the community, I think we tried to take everything into account. The fixtures are full cut-off fixtures so we keep with the dark sky ordinances out here. As the community, they can enjoy the stars forever. The materials we put into the buildings will definitely help the community members and employees stay healthier, longer, but overall, as a community, it will help reduce operational maintenance and reduction in costs, and that’s a huge help to any community in these times right now. Globally, I think everybody has to do the little part that they can, and we’re just trying to do our part here.

Q. How does the Sustainable Cities Network make a difference?

Casey Turgeon: For me, I found Sustainable Cities Network about the time really tuning in and keying into the sustainability movement. For me, it was a huge help. Networking with peers, other communities; see what they’re doing, share what we’re doing. Like I shared at the last Sustainability Cities meeting, all of my best ideas are borrowed ideas, and I think everybody should borrow from each other.

Q. What is the sustainability challenge that concerns you most?

Casey Turgeon: Mine is energy consumption; those numbers just baffle me – buildings using 70 percent of the world’s energy consumption, and we’re building commercial buildings. So taking that into account, I personally really focus on the energy savings.

Joseph Manuel: We live next to a metro area, and we know there’s a lot of pollution. We didn’t make it, but it’s here and we have to deal with it too. And we’re doing that as best we can.

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The above transcript provided by Landmark Associates.