A season of change and opportunity
As summer fades into fall the changes of the season are
evident as is the transformation underway in state government.
All state agencies and institutions are continuing to deal with
the effects of the current recession. Budget cuts are prompting
deeper looks at how public services are provided. General
Administration is working with a variety of other agencies on a
couple of key efforts: consolidation of state vehicle fleets and
enhanced management of leased and owned properties throughout
the state. Plans are due this fall, but much work has already
been done through analyses and discussions among the
organizations involved.
With the current crisis come opportunities. Our challenge now
is to determine what opportunities exist to make changes to help
strengthen communities across the state. This is no easy task,
but it is one that must be done as we continue on with our other
work.
General Administration is stepping up its work on
sustainability, which is receiving a boost from the federal
Recovery funds that will help finance various
energy-conservation projects. These highlights and more are
included below.
SUSTAINABILITY
Composting keeps 70 tons of waste from landfills
 Give
people the opportunity to help protect the environment and
they will do it. A good example is composting on the Capitol
Campus. Last December, General Administration launched a
compost project at the Natural Resources Building (NRB).
Tenants were asked to dispose of food waste, paper towels,
pizza boxes and other organic waste in special receptacles.
The collected organic waste went to Silver Springs Organic,
a commercial composting facility, instead of a landfill. The
company turns the organic material into a beneficial
landscape product.
After just one month, NRB tenants kept 12 tons of organic
waste out of the landfill. Word of the pilot project got out
and soon other campus tenants asked General Administration
for the same service in their buildings. Composting is
offered in the Cherberg, Highways-Licenses, Transportation,
Employment Security buildings and Office Building 2.
Our staff recently tabulated the campus compost totals and
the results are impressive. Since composting began at the
start of this year, more than 70 tons of compostable waste
have been collected and diverted from landfills.
In addition to saving money on landfill costs, composting
helps reduce the state’s impact on the environment by
cutting the amount of organic waste rotting in landfills.
Decaying organic matter produces methane, a “greenhouse” gas
that contributes to climate change.
Our goal is to make composting available in every campus
building by the end of 2009.
Federal recovery money fuels energy-improvement projects
General Administration’s Energy Program is starting work
on new conservation projects paid for with recently
released federal stimulus money.
The cities of Bellingham, Kirkland, Longview, Vancouver and
Seattle, plus Skagit and King counties have started work with
our Energy Program on about $6 million of conservation projects,
using energy-savings performance contracting.
This is a process in which an energy services company
pre-qualified by General Administration conducts an energy audit
to identify a cost-effective project. The company then designs,
installs and, most of the time, finances the project. The energy
services company guarantees the maximum project cost and the
projected energy savings. General Administration energy
engineers provide long-term monitoring of project savings.
The Energy Program is also working with the Office of
Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) on a grant program
offered to school districts for energy-conservation projects.
The 2009 Legislature appropriated nearly $17 million for the
Energy Efficiency Improvement Grants. School districts can apply
to OSPI for grants of up to $500,000 for qualified projects. So
far, nearly 30 districts have applied. The legislation
encourages school districts to partner with the GA Energy
Program because of our group’s expertise in project management.
For more information:
http://www.ga.wa.gov/energy/index.html
Water-conservation project overflows with success
General Administration’s water conservation project for
the Capitol Campus is just about complete. Remaining work
includes the installation of water-saving fixtures in the
Pritchard and Archives buildings. All work has been finished
in both Office Building 2 and the Employment Security
building.
Installation of new fixtures in the Legislative Building
should be completed in early September. Monitors to better
regulate irrigation on campus grounds have also been installed.
Altogether, the changes are expected to cut water use by about
11 million gallons annually and save $71,000 a year in utility
costs. This is equal to the annual water use of about 1,500
Northwest homes or about enough water to fill roughly 275,000
bathtubs. Water consumption on the campus totaled 44 million
gallons in 2008.
September gathering looks at ways to boost use of biodiesel
 Ideas
for improving the production and use of biodiesel will be the
focus of a roundtable meeting General Administration is hosting
on September 10.
Fuel producers, distributors, buyers and policymakers will
attend to brainstorm possible solutions to the obstacles
preventing the wider production and use of biodiesel.
The 2006 Legislature passed a bill requiring state agencies to
use a 20 percent biodiesel blend in vehicles and equipment by
June 1, 2009. The goal is to reduce the state’s dependence on
foreign oil and to stimulate the local production and use of
biodiesel.
Although there was progress, the state fell short of reaching
the June 1 goal. Limited availability of the product and budget
constraints were among the chief reasons. The 2006 legislation
directs agencies to report biodiesel use to General
Administration. In turn, we must report to the Legislature twice
yearly on the overall progress. GA created a bulk fuel contract
in 2006 that promotes the use of biodiesel by establishing
product specifications and pricing.
The most recent report on state agency biodiesel use is
available at:
http://www.ga.wa.gov/News/BiodieselReport.pdf
COMMUNITY
New video tour offers insider look at capitol dome in
Olympia
If you have ever wondered what the inside of the dome atop
the Legislative Building looks like and what view it offers from
outside you can now discover them without leaving home. General
Administration worked with legislative staff to produce a new
5-minute video that offers an inside look of the dome of the
Legislative Building. Included are details about the weight of
the cupola (500,000 pounds) and the surprisingly small steel bar
that holds up the chandelier above the rotunda.
The new video and the virtual tour of the capitol can be
found at: Video tour – inside the Capitol
The video complements our other online offering, a virtual
tour of the Legislative Building. This is replete with many
historical facts about the creation of Washington state
government and other details. It can be found at:
http://www.ga.wa.gov/visitor/virtualtour/main.html
You can also see the view from the capitol dome: Panoramic
view from the Cupola:
http://www.ga.wa.gov/visitor/virtualtour/DomePanorama.wmv
Opportunity knocks with reopening of campus Visitor Center
Budget cuts prompted General Administration to close the
Visitor Center along Capitol Way. But that closure represented
an opportunity for the Thurston County Visitor and Convention
Bureau (VCB), which will re-open the facility on September 9.
There will be a grand re-opening ceremony that day from 11 a.m.
to 3 p.m., with a ribbon-cutting at 12:30 p.m.
VCB signed a lease with us to take over the space. Executive
Director Mike Dexter said the Visitor Center is the ideal
location for his organization to promote Thurston County to
visitors. He expects 50,000 people to walk through the doors
annually, compared to just 2,000 at the bureau’s former quarters
in downtown Olympia.
Although General Administration will not take part in running
the Visitor Center, we will still maintain our Visitor Services
office in the Capitol Building. Nearly 300,000 visitors come to
the building annually, many of them schoolchildren taking one of
our many guided tours.
How to visit the capitol:
http://www.ga.wa.gov/Visitor/index.html
Hearing set
September 22 on rules regarding displays
General Administration has put an interim policy in place to
govern displays and exhibits on the Capitol Campus until new
rules are established.
The interim policy does not permit the public to place
exhibits and displays inside Capitol Campus buildings.
General Administration adopted the interim policy because of
the uncertainty of the date that the new rule would become
effective, and to provide clarity and consistency to the
permitting process pending final adoption of the rule.
The public comment period on the draft rules began September
2. A formal public hearing is scheduled for 4 p.m. September 22
in the lobby of the GA Building at 210 11th Ave. SW in Olympia.
More information about the interim policy and rule-making
process is available at:
http://www.ga.wa.gov/Rules/rules_proposed.htm
Effort begins to reduce lease costs for agencies
At the request of our agency customers, General
Administration’s Real Estate Services program is taking a
proactive approach to help agencies through a rent-reduction
effort. The goal is to reduce leasehold costs while maintaining
quality space necessary to continue state services to Washington
residents.
We recently asked private lessors to work with the state to
substantially reduce leasehold obligations during tough economic
times. General Administration will work with responding lessors
individually and will not negotiate without first discussing it
with agencies.
Former GA program joins Washington State University
General Administration’s Plant Operations Support Consortium
has moved. Plant Operations became part of the Washington State
University (WSU) Extension Energy Program in Olympia on
September 1.
For more than a decade, Plant Operations has grown into a
program that has helped thousands of public organizations
throughout the state manage their facilities, including finding
second uses for equipment and machinery that otherwise would
have gone to landfills. The group is supported by membership
fees. For about a year, Plant Operations has worked closely with
WSU. The time is right for the program to fully join the
Extension Energy Program, another self-supporting organization
that works on various projects, including renewable energy.
We are grateful to Plant Operations for its many
contributions over the years and are certain it will make even
more as it joins WSU.
For more details:
http://www.energy.wsu.edu/
Committee recommends an estuary, but no final decision made
The majority members on the Capitol Lake Adaptive Management
Plan Steering Committee recommend turning Capitol Lake into an
estuary. The committee made the recommendation in August.
Five of the nine members – the Squaxin Island Tribe, Thurston
County and the state departments of Ecology, Natural Resources
and Fish and Wildlife – favor estuary restoration. The City of
Olympia still has questions and concerns about either option.
The Port of Olympia and City of Tumwater generally favors
keeping the lake, but also have remaining unanswered questions
about the future options.
I am still reviewing the information from the many scientific
studies the committee undertook. I plan on sharing my thoughts
on the matter with the State Capitol Committee later this year.
Either option – dredging the lake or turning it into an
estuary – will be difficult to achieve in the near future
because of the continuing challenges with the state economy and
budget.
I truly appreciate the tireless work of the committee and
staff over the many years to reach a decision on this difficult
subject. I will keep you updated as this process moves along.
Additional information about the lake and plans for the
future can be found at:
http://www.ga.wa.gov/CapitolLake/index.html
For more information:
http://www.ga.wa.gov/CapitolLake/
Seed-sized weevils chew their way through Eurasian milfoil
 They
are no larger than a sesame seed, but they offer the potential
to contain the dreaded Eurasian milfoil weed that has proved
troublesome in portions of Capitol Lake. General Administration
has teamed up with student scientists from Concordia College in
Moorhead, Minnesota, and EnviroScience, Inc., of Ohio on a
three-year test project in a mitigation pond near the
Interpretive Center at the southern section of Capitol Lake.
The weevils offer potential as a natural control against
milfoil. They are native to the United States and feed on the
invasive weed. They are big enough that you can easily see them,
but small enough to be inconspicuous and not get picked off by a
hungry fish.
The key goals of the project are to reduce the threat of milfoil
spreading to other parts of the lake and to improve overall
understanding of alternative control techniques. We have
employed the use of an herbicide and hand-pulling by divers to
remove milfoil. We also regularly monitor the lake to guard
against the spread of this ugly water weed.
 |
