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2008 Award Winners

Governor's Award winners are Minnesota leaders. They have discovered, through persistence, ingenuity, and resourcefulness, that preventing waste and pollution makes sense. They set an example for other organizations, businesses, and agencies to follow, and their efforts benefit not only our environment, but also our state's economy.

Eight winning projects were selected in three categories: Business/Nonprofit, Government, and Partnership. Ten projects received honorable mention.

• Carver County: Innovative Approach to Collecting and Composting Organics
• Children's Dental Services
• Dakota County Farmland and Natural Areas Program
• Great River Energy
• Lubrication Technologies, Inc.
• Project Green Fleet
• Southeast Como Improvement Association
• United States Postal Service, Duluth Vehicle Maintenance Facility

Children's Dental Services

Children’s Dental Services (CDS) is a private, non-profit corporation that has provided dental care to low-income children since 1919. When they expanded their primary clinic, they used many best management practices to reduce the environmental footprint of the building: raingardens, energy star appliances, high-efficiency heating and air conditioning, high-efficiency lighting, natural lighting, photovoltaic solar panels, hot water solar panels, and recycled materials. CDS only purchases non-toxic cleaners and disinfectants, and they voluntarily use amalgam separators and silver recovery units which are not required for non-profits.

Annual reductions total 1,000 gallons of water, 1200 kWh of energy, 25 pounds of hazardous waste, and 1,000 pounds of solid waste, for a total cost savings of approximately $7,000. Payback for the project will be approximately 6 years. 

Lubrication Technologies

Lubrication Technologies, Inc. has over 30 years of experience in lubricants and has developed oils and fluids for many applications. Ford Sludge Remover (FSR) is a product they custom-developed for Ford that reduced emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOC) from cleaning paint booths. The solution has proven to be effective far beyond Ford’s original objective, improving cleaning efficiency and reducing VOC emissions by 87% and costs by 80%. 

Annually, FSR has reduced hazardous wastes by 72,000 pounds and VOC emissions by 173,000 pounds, for a total cost savings of approximately $200,000.

Carver County: Innovation in Organics Composting

The Carver County organics project has given residents in select areas of Carver and Hennepin Counties an opportunity to divert their organics from the waste stream. It has been an innovator, and serves as a model to others in the public and private sectors.

• Carver County was the first public entity in Minnesota, not using an organized hauling system, to propose implementing a program that would improve collection costs by combining residential source-separated organics with yard waste in the same container. 
• It was also the first public entity in Minnesota to propose creating a separate designation for composting facilities managing source-separated organics. This designation, while adding a few more environmental safeguards than what is typically seen at a yard waste compost site, would not be as highly engineered, restrictive, and expensive as a composting facility designed to process mixed municipal solid waste (MMSW).

In 2007, 124 tons of organic material was diverted from the landfill and the projection for 2008 is 350 tons. If all homes in the metro area were to implement organics collection, it would be possible to divert 65,000 to 100,000 tons of organics away from landfills.  Estimated cost savings from waste hauling total $37,000 per year. 

Dakota County Farmland and Natural Areas Program

The Dakota County Farmland and Natural Areas Program (FNAP) is a multi-year project addressing citizen concern over the loss of open space in a rapidly growing metropolitan county. The first program of its kind in Minnesota and the Upper Midwest, the FNAP protects farmland and natural areas through acquisition of permanent conservation easements or fee title from willing landowners. The program prohibits future development of the land, reduces non-point source pollution to water bodies, and improves overall environmental stewardship.

Based on program guidelines, the county board has approved 56 land-protection projects totaling 6,000 acres and protected 36.6 miles of shore land along lakes, ponds, rivers, and creeks. The county's investment of $16 million has leveraged an additional $57 million of non-county funding and landowner donation. Permanent land protection has direct and indirect pollution prevention benefits. FNAP serves as a model around the region for achieving comparable goals.

United States Postal Service: Duluth Vehicle Maintenance Facility

The Duluth Auxiliary Vehicle Maintenance Facility is a small vehicle maintenance shop. Through the efforts of the VMF crew, they eliminated generation of all hazardous wastes, eliminated some waste streams outright, and maximized recycling. Solid waste generation has gone from approximately a cubic yard per day to less than half a cubic yard per week; cost of chemicals has been reduced through purchasing in bulk.

The Duluth effort is a model, and their experience is being shared with other postal facilities in the region. Their efforts have eliminated hazards, reduced costs of trash service, and generated revenue from recycling. That’s a good combination for the Postal Service and the environment.

Great River Energy: Green Building and Corporate Recycling

Great River Energy worked with Tegra Group, McGough Construction, Dunham Engineering, and Perkins & Will Architects to construct three projects which are all pursuing Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification.  Great River Energy recently completed their new world headquarters which is projected to be certified platinum LEED. 

Great River Energy has an aggressive recycling program that includes beverage containers, paper products, fluorescent lamps, mercury-containing equipment, batteries, scrap metal, wood, concrete, sheetrock, and electronics.  Their total annual savings include converving 1.6 million gallons of water, reducing energy consumption by 50%, and eliminating 74 million pounds of solid waste—an annual savings of $89,000, and an estimated payback period of 7 years. 

Project Green Fleet

Minnesota Environmental Initiative, Minnesota Chamber of Commerce, and Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy partnered to reduce diesel emissions and children’s exposure to diesel exhaust by installing EPA-verified pollution control equipment on school buses throughout Minnesota. In addition to the control equipment, Project Green Fleet provides anti-idling education to the school districts that receive the equipment. This is the first statewide voluntary, non-profit-driven program in the nation to address this type of problem.

As of December 2007, 500 school buses had received the equipment in Duluth, Bemidji, Rochester, the Twin Cities, and Head Start buses in Ramsey County. It is estimated that these 500 retrofits have reduced emission exposure to 30,000 school children. For every 100 buses retrofitted with these controls, carbon monoxide is reduced by 860 pounds, fine particulate matter by 120 pounds, and volatile organic compounds by 620 pounds. The total annual emission reduction for the 500 buses is 8,000 pounds. The retrofit costs approximately $2,000 per bus; estimates of total health-related cost savings are between $3 and $16 million.

SECIA’s Air Pollution Reduction Project

Southeast Como Improvement Association (SECIA) collaborated with Ritrama, Inc., Waldorf Corporation (Rock-Tenn), and Greatbatch to reduce air pollution in their neighborhood. SECIA entered into "good neighbor agreements" with all three partners.

• Ritrama, Inc. installed thermo-oxidizers to control their hazardous emissions such as toluene. This change has reduced their hazardous air emissions by 92%.
• Rock-Tenn pledged to reduce 670 tons of volatile organic compounds (VOC) emissions, but have actually reduced 1200 tons of VOC emissions. The key change for this reduction involved process changes with their use of mineral spirits for equipment cleaning. Rock-Tenn has also been working to reduce energy use and has saved up to $170,000 per year from insulation of their steam and condensate lines.
• Greatbatch focused on reducing their trichloroethylene (TCE) emissions by reducing their use of solvent, redirection of air conditioning, and purchasing new chillers that condense solvents as they evaporate off equipment and pull TCE out of the air for reuse. Once Greatbatch completes all of these projects, they will realize approximately 90% reduction.

Cumulatively this project has reduced hazardous air emissions by 1,399 tons, a 90% reduction by the three industries. Rock-Tenn is saving $170,000 per year as a result of this effort. Ritrama and Greatbatch have not calculated their savings at this time.