By JIM GENARO

BLACK MOUNTAIN — An educational initiative between the Town of Black Mountain and the WNC Green Building Council was not entirely successful, Assistant Town Manager Bo Ferguson told the town Board of Aldermen on Oct. 8.

The program, which was paid for by a grant the building council received last year, offered resources for developers who wanted to learn about environmentally friendly building techniques.

“I would like to say that the grant was an unqualified success, but I’m not sure we achieved it,” Ferguson told the aldermen.

As part of the program, the town set up a green-building resource center that provided educational materials within its building-inspections department.

These materials taught “how to incorporate environmentally sustainable techniques into their building projects,” Ferguson said.

The program also offered trainings for developers and a tour of green buildings.

However, not many developers chose to participate in the program, Ferguson said.

“We never quite connected with a strong element of the development community that was interested in this effort,” he told the board.

Ferguson acknowleged that the town “cannot do more than encourage them under the existing zoning laws.”
Planning Director Elizabeth Teague echoed this sentiment, noting that “local municipalities simply enforce the state building codes ... We’re effectively agents of the state.”

In a phone interview with the Daily Planet last Wednesday, Teague said that the program did accomplish some positive changes, including making information accessible and showing some builders that green buildings can be functional and attractive by taking them on a tour of such structures.

“It was important for us ... to show that we’re not doing these adobe earth houses alone,” Teague said. “Green building has come so far.”

In other action, the board heard an update from Alderman C. Michael Sobol on the Metropolitan Sewerage District.
Sobol said that when MSD was founded in 1990, it “took over a system that was basically dilapidated.”

At its peak, MSD employed 172 workers. Now, he says, it has only 153 employees, but it treats a far greater volume of water, and has more customers and more pipes.

“It’s just a testament to what efficiency can do,” Sobol said.

He also noted that “75 percent of Americans believe that clean water is a right, not a privilege. I myself agree, and so do most of the members of this board.”