National Park Service Releases Our Green Parks Successes

One year after releasing a strategic plan—and a shared vision—for sustainable operations within our nation’s parks, the National Park Service is going even greener. In the year since the Green Parks Plan, released on Earth Day 2012, focused the bureau on sustainable management of national parks and key environmental issues ranging from reducing energy and water consumption to adopting greener transportation methods to lowering emissions of greenhouse gases, parks have achieved notable successes.

Based on reporting over the past year, the National Park Service has:

• Decreased emissions from on-site fossil fuel combustion and electricity consumption from the grid by 13% from the baseline measurement in 2008. Decreased greenhouse gas emissions from indirect emission sources such as commuter travel and off-site wastewater treatment by 7%.
• Decreased potable water use intensity by 22% from the 2007 baseline measurement.
• Diverted 92% of construction and demolition waste.

The past year saw specific sustainability success stories in parks around the country:

• Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks partnered with the City of Visalia, Calif. to provide hybrid-electric shuttle-bus services to its visitors.
• Denali National Park partnered with a recycling company in Fairbanks, Alaska to break down glass from the park’s recycling stream to make glass tile and to liquefy plastics for energy recovery.
• Through a partnership with the Department of Energy Clean Cities Program, 13 parks have received grants to exchange conventional vehicles for alternative technologies, installed electric charging stations and implemented other fuel reduction opportunities.
• Zion National Park, in coordination with the Zion Natural History Assn. and Xanterra Concessions, now provides free “Zion Spring Water.” 
• Lake Mead National Recreational Area has completed construction of the first ever LEED-certified floating building.
• Thomas Edison National Historical Park partnered with the West Orange Energy Commission to spread awareness about energy conservation.
• New River Gorge National River has created a volunteer program with local universities to engage students in prepping park areas for prescribed burns.

Moving forward, the National Park Service will continue to work to reduce fleet fuel consumption, to increase the amount of municipal waste diverted from landfills through recycling, composting, and reuse, to reduce energy consumption—in particular through simple conservation and efficiency measures, and to take personal responsibility for incorporating small changes in workplaces.

For more about the National Park Service Green Parks Plan, please visit www.nps.gov/greenparksplan.

Source: National Park Service