Encouraging Greater Use
of Sustainable Practices
Sustainability means being able to support, keep up, lengthen or extend, nourish, or take on. The Recreation and Conservation Funding Board is encouraging grant recipients to design and build projects to maximize the useful life of what they build and do the least amount of damage to the environment.
In 2011, the board revised the “project design” evaluation criterion in two grant programs - the Land and Water Conservation Fund and the Washington Wildlife and Recreation Program’s local park and state park categories. The new project design question rewards the use of sustainable design, practices, and elements. A well designed project, that uses sustainable design, elements, or practices, would receive the maximum points for this criterion.
Grant recipients already are implementing sustainable elements into projects by installing green roofs on buildings; using surfaces for parking lots, pathways, and trails that allow water to penetrate and be treated, installing rain gardens to treat storm water onsite; using automatic lighting controls to minimize use of electricity; and installing irrigation controls that don’t turn on when it’s raining.
For more information, please see these examples of real projects using sustainable elements as well as the resources below so that you can turn your project into a sustainable project.
Other Sustainability Resources
- National Park Service's Guidelines on Sustainable Principles of Sustainable Design
- Puget Sound Partnership's Information on Low Impact Development
- American Society of Landscape Architects (sustainable landscaping and more)
More Information
RCO can provide guidance on how to answer the revised project design question. Staff also can provide examples of sustainable practices and elements that go well with the intent of the grant program.Contact
Myra Barker(360) 902-2976
TDD (360) 902-1996<
