Mercury and Flyash

The regional content language doesn't have a mercury clause like the recycled content specific to fly ash does. Interestingly, there isn't anything related to not counting the fly ash itself as a regional material.

Susan and Keely, GBCI recently confirmed that projects that don't meet the flyash mercury requirement are completely ineligible for achieving any points under this credit (regardless of whether the products have recycled, regional, FSC content, etc.) -- this item is listed after an 'AND' in the credit requirements.

This seems unfortunate to me as it would require projects in the many parts of the country to import alternative cementitious material long distances, and it also reduces incentive for green materials if it is known from the beginning that the concrete will disqualify projects from this credit.

Seriously...can you provide web link for that? I completely disagree with that interpretation. The credit requirements say "the cost of any individual material or product." So how can GBCI say that if a particular product does not comply then there is no way for the project to achieve credit compliance? The whole credit is based on percentages!!!!

Also how can this credit be obtained if the associated adhesives and sealants do not comply with IEQc4? The hardest part of this documentation is the Group 1 requirements for Califormina Prop 65.

At this point unless there are absolutely no related adhesives or sealants and the no fly ash and without spending night and day searching for applicable products...there is no way to getany points for the MRc3 credit.

Am I interpreting this correctly?

I don't have a web link - it was an email from GBCI. You can contact them yourself with the same question if you need confirmation. However, GBCI was basically just confirming that projects must meet all of the different requirement components that are linked together by 'AND' (true for every credit). I posted this here because it seemed like that wasn't addressed in the above conversatoin.

The last MRc3 credit requirement is listed as:

AND
Supplemental cementitious materials derived...

You're right about the EQc4 items. However, products that don't comply with EQc4 are simply eliminated from the MRc3 calculation; you can still pursue MRc3 with other products. (This is different from the flyash mercury issue.)

Assuming your flyash is OK, then I would think that you can still get points under MRc3 without meeting EQc4.1 - e.g. steel, miscelaneous metals, FSC wood, aggregate, ceiling tile, flooring, etc. The way I read the credit language, you have to meet all four (five, really) EQc4 options -- just the relevant requirement for the material you'd like to include in MRc3.

Hmm, I've checked the addenda online this morning because I still haven't run across this new, phantom requirement. Mara, did this information come to you through a CIR for one of your projects? While I was surprised to not see this and not surprised that they will change this, I wonder how enforceable it is. All I have to do is read the phantom LEED review thread for an answer...

This is in my reference guide - p.178 - no addenda, nothing phantom. It's the 2011 edition.

"AND
Supplemental cementitious materials derived from coal fired power plant wastes shall not have mercury content >5.5ppb (0.0055 mg/L)."

(Just for the record, I don't like this or agree with it.)

Susan, you can also see this by clicking on the credit language page here - http://www.leeduser.com/credit/Healthcare-v2009/MRc3?page=0#lang-tab.

Yes, this was a complete derp moment for me.