Orange County Branch Newsletter

July 2015

Sustainability Committee

Thank you City of Santa Ana Public Works Agency | Bristol Street Greenroads Sustainability Seminar

By Nathan Chase, PE, ENV SP, LEED AP ND

On April 14, 2015, the Sustainability Committee for ASCE-OC held a lunchtime seminar on the Greenroads Bronze-Certified Bristol Street Improvements and Widening project completed by the City of Santa Ana’s Department of Public Works. Over 60 attendees gathered at the UCI Center Club to learn about this pioneering project, which is the first Greenroads project to demonstrate low impact development (LID) features in an arid climate.

We would like to thank the City’s presenters (Mindy Ly, PE and Ehab Elias, PE; pictured below) for sharing their experience applying the Greenroads system to a public sector project and their lessons learned along the way. Ms. Ly, who served as the Project Manager, provided insight on the project background and motivation, as well as its context in the City’s overall street improvements scheme. Mr. Elias described each of the hard-earned points achieved that led to the Bronze certification, as well as how the Greenroads-required submittals were tied to contractor pay items to ensure their completion. He also discussed upcoming Greenroads projects in Southern California.

The audience was very engaged and a substantive Q&A session followed. Feedback on the event was positive and one attendee remarked that it exceeded expectations. Sam Ali, PE presented the speakers with a commemorative gift as a token of appreciation on behalf of the Sustainability Committee and ASCE-OC, as shown in the image below.

As an introduction to the event, Nathan Chase, PE gave an overview of the Greenroads system, its history, its place amongst other voluntary sustainability rating systems, and what is next—including the v2 Rating System (now available!) and the new tiered Sustainable Transportation Professional (STP) accreditation process. More details and the latest developments can be found on the Greenroads Foundation website: https://www.greenroads.org/

A full version of the presentation slides is available on SlideShare: