We are building on a previously developed site where there are many existing Redwood trees that will not be uprooted for the project. Our site has reclaimed water purple pipe connection that will be used to irrigate a majority of the site, but cannot be used for the existing Redwoods because they need to be watered with potable water.
Is there a way to exclude these sensitive species from the WEc1 calcs since they are existing and still achieve 100% non-potable water use?
Thank you.
William Weaver
LEED Fellow, WELL APJLL
181 thumbs up
March 5, 2018 - 5:00 pm
If you're not going to irrigate the redwoods, you can simply provide a narrative indicating that a portion of the site contains existing redwoods and is being left natural / unaltered, and identify the square footage of that area. You would then just exclude that area from your irrigated area in the calculation. You still need to make sure that the total area in your baseline and design case match, though.
As an example, the following is a caption from a narrative I wrote for a recently certified project:
The project site consists of 1,458,275 square feet of vegetative landscape. Of that area, 298,382 square feet has been preserved as a natural prairie with no maintenance or irrigation. The remaining 1,159,893 square feet of vegetative landscape is irrigated, and consists of...
I then went on to use 1,159,893 square feet as the total area for my baseline and design cases.
Angela Fiorenza
LEED AP BD+C, LEED Project Reviewer, Senior LEED Specialist5 thumbs up
March 5, 2018 - 5:05 pm
There is no publicly available guidance to allow for the exclusion described above, that I am aware of. You may want to submit a CIR regarding this project-specific circumstance to see if there is any way that you can earn all four points for WEc1 while using potable water to irrigate the trees. Or, just project 2 points for this credit. It does have some merit, you may have a shot via a CIR. Good luck!
Brightworks Sustainability
Brightworks Sustainability LLC47 thumbs up
March 5, 2018 - 5:28 pm
William - we are irrigating the redwoods with potable water so I'm not sure if your approach will work.
Angela - thanks we will try!
William Weaver
LEED Fellow, WELL APJLL
181 thumbs up
March 5, 2018 - 5:34 pm
The key to the exclusion I noted is that the redwoods cannot be irrigated. They would have to be left natural / undisturbed. If, however, the redwoods are irrigated with potable water, then they cannot be excluded.
Leilanie - If the redwoods are existing and well established, do they need to be irrigated?
Brightworks Sustainability
Brightworks Sustainability LLC47 thumbs up
March 21, 2018 - 6:51 pm
Yes they still need irrigation with potable water. Thanks